A.O. Scott

This is a fundamentally — and I would say marvelously — old-fashioned entertainment, a sports drama that is also an appealing, socially alert story of perseverance and the up-by-the-bootstraps pursuit of excellence.

Shooting in the summer of 2020, Jude and his team were clearly constrained by the realities of Covid-19, but they also succeeded in turning a bad situation to creative advantage, facing the awfulness and absurdity of the present with wit, indignation and a saving touch of tenderness.

Stewart leverages her own star power to turn Diana into someone familiar. The intimacy and care the character craves is something the audience feels compelled to supply.

Samuel makes the most of his formidable cast. If anything, he may be overgenerous. The narrative sometimes flags so that everyone can get in a few volleys of the salty, pungent dialogue on the way to the next round of gunplay or fisticuffs.

It’s a swift-moving, detailed biography, recounting a life that was long, eventful and stippled with tragedy and regret.

Anderson expresses a fan’s zeal and a collector’s greed for both canonical works and weird odds and ends, a love for old modernisms that is undogmatic and unsentimental. Which is not to say unfeeling.

It’s a movie that isn’t quite sure whether it wants to be one, or which one it wants to be. Which makes it feel like more than just a movie.

As a documentary, it’s wonderfully informative. It’s also a jagged and powerful work of art in its own right, one that turns archaeology into prophecy.

For all its reckless style and velocity, Titane doesn’t seem to know where it wants to go.

The overall vibe — a look that is both opulent and generic; a tone that mixes brisk professionalism with maundering self-pity; an aggressive, exhausting fusion of grandiosity and fun — is more superhero saga than espionage caper.

The Bakkers were many things to many people: appalling, inspiring, laughable, sad. This movie succeeds in making them dull.

This one is something different — a deep cut for the die-hards, a hangout movie with nothing much to prove and just enough to say, with a pleasing score (by Mark Mancina) and some lovely desert scenery (shot by Ben Davis). If the old man’s driving, my advice is to get in and enjoy the ride.

The twists in the story are meant to raise the emotional stakes, but they have the opposite effect, undermining the credibility of the premise. The harder the movie leans into its own cleverness, the more it exposes itself as a diverting but ultimately unconvincing exercise.

With the director of photography (Annika Summerson) and the sound designer (Paul Davies), Tariq stitches domestic drama, satire and magical realism into a tissue of moods and meanings, held together by the shattering credibility of Ahmed’s performance.

Annette masters its own paradoxes. It’s a highly cerebral, formally complex film about unbridled emotion.

The Green Knight is always interesting — and occasionally baffling — but at the end it rises to a swirling, feverish pitch of feeling and philosophical earnestness.

More a self-portrait than a profile, Val tells the story of a Hollywood career with a candor that stops short of revelation. The tone is personal but not quite intimate, producing in the viewer a warm, slightly wary feeling of companionship.

The list of charges against this watery café au lait of a crime caper is extensive — wearisome ethnic stereotypes, cop-movie clichés, awkward pacing, a labored plot — but the chief transgression is that it wastes the time and talent of one of the supreme screen actors of our time.

The Woman Who Ran is a cinematic sketch, and also the work of a master.

The schematic for No Sudden Move remains perfectly intact, and the thing itself works pretty much according to the specifications. A consumer-rating agency would give it high marks for safety and efficiency, but it never leaves the showroom.

There is plenty of drama, and some hard feelings . . . but not a lot of intrigue or honest emotion. I guess if that’s what you’re after, it’s best to stick to Twitter.

The director Justin Lin, happily brandishing all the expensive digital tools at his disposal, makes “F9” feel scrappy and baroque at the same time. The identity of the brand rests on twin foundations of silliness and sincerity, both of which are honored here.

Despite Weitz’s sensitive direction and a superb cast — including Frankie R. Faison as Marian’s patient husband, DeWanda Wise as Matt’s patient love interest and Paul Reiser as his patient boss — Fatherhood can’t quite deliver.

It’s about the sometimes risky discovery of pleasure, and it’s a pleasure to discover.

It’s a piece of mainstream American entertainment in the best sense — an assertion of impatience and faith, a celebration of communal ties and individual gumption, a testimony to the power of art to turn struggles into the stuff of dreams.

In a manner that is patient — and sometimes even playful — rather than polemical, “All Light, Everywhere” contributes to debates about crime, policing, racism and accountability.

The story is both overwrought and underdeveloped, with potentially important plot details insufficiently explained or left out altogether.

The movie is an affecting group portrait and also a complex and subtle piece of literary criticism.