Aurora Amidon

Good Grief is not a dramedy (even though it is marketed as one), but rather a somber film about the messiness of grief and its often unforgiving, even destructive, grip.

The issue with Night Swim isn’t that it’s ridiculous, it’s that it doesn’t understand quite how ridiculous it is.

It’s torture-forward, funny, preposterous, imaginative and puts into practice what the franchise should have learned a long, long time ago: There is no reason to reinvent the saw blade.

If you’re expecting a totally original horror flick, you’ll be disappointed. If you’re looking for a film that cohesively fits into and helps explain the Conjuring universe, you should know better by now. But if you’re looking for nothing more and nothing less than a film where a barbaric nun slaughters everyone in its sight, well, look no further. Everyone else will be nun too pleased.

It’s nearly impossible to talk about Alzheimer’s without forefronting misery, anger and despair. It is a cruel and callous disease that destroys lives piece by piece. Perhaps the greatest feat of the courageous The Eternal Memory, then, is Alberdi, Góngora and Urrutia’s ability to broach the subject with all of these emotions—but with an emphasis on life, not death.

Margaret’s journey of self-discovery is a fascinating and satisfying watch.

It’s a wholly relatable and surprisingly sharp tale of grandiose risk-taking and myth-making.

With its team assembled, Joy Ride descends into a fearless and unpredictable romp packed to the brim with absurd and unapologetically raunchy humor.

This fearless, authentic debut showcases immense command of a unique and inventive form of humor, while touching on a very real issue with heart and candor.

The beauty of National Anthem is that it effortlessly challenges all expectations and preconceived notions.

The first film to grace the beloved franchise in a decade, Evil Dead Rise is everything you could ask for from an Evil Dead flick: It’s disgusting enough to make you physically recoil, it’s funny as hell and, perhaps most importantly, it might just wield more blood than I’ve ever seen in a movie.

Tetris is repetitive, melodramatic and surprisingly uneventful.

With the help of Sennott, who co-wrote the script, Seligman squeezes every ounce of humor out of each of the film’s thoughtfully-crafted scenarios—for better or worse.

It’s not every day that you see a by-the-books rom-com squeezing in a semi-twist ending, and Franco does so in an admirably sneaky, cheeky, subtle way. Similarly, Somebody’s moments of genuine, heartfelt drama are bound to pull on your heartstrings.

As with any ensemble piece, The Drop’s success relies on its characters, and for the most part, they are largely ineffective—much of which has to do with the central friend group coming across as an ill-fitted hodgepodge of eccentrics with little to nothing in common.

M3GAN’s most impressive feat, at the end of the day, is that it gives us cinematic sickos exactly what we want without sacrificing greatness in the process. And yes, what we want is a breakdancing, murderous doll. Is that such a crime?

By the end of Light, Mendes has taken his message a little too literally.

At face value, Lady Chatterley’s Lover works well enough as a love story: It’s sweet, moderately sexy and sticks pretty religiously to Lawrence’s compelling story. But for a film based on a book that scandalized thousands, it will undoubtedly leave its viewer wanting more.

Paired with My Policeman’s agile writing and affecting direction, the undeniable chemistry between Styles and Dawson feels like a shining cherry on top.

A jolly romp filled with songs, jokes and clever twists on a well-known genre, it is plenty of fun—but only if you can forgive how frequently it repeats the same old joke, and, as a result, becomes guilty of overplaying its own gimmick.

White takes care to illustrate that this isn’t just a riveting mission, emphasizing that—cushioned between spellbinding footage of a rocket piercing the atmosphere—real, emotional stories effectively double the film’s stakes by turning a story filled with science and space into something distinctly human and relatable.

Once The Good Nurse establishes that something undeniably fishy is going on, it quickly cascades into a perfect amalgam of a tense detective thriller starring dubious officers Danny Baldwin (Nnamdi Asomugha) and Tim Braun (Noah Emmerich), a gut-wrenching psychological drama, and a staggering showcase for Chastain and Redmayne, who deliver two of the finest performances of the year.

Leslie’s journey is at once unflinchingly intimate, aching and melancholy—qualities accentuated by Larkin Seiple’s sublime cinematography, which resembles a somber travelogue.

When all is said and done, storytelling this glaringly flawed cannot be overlooked, and the wonderful elements of Amsterdam can only do so much to glue together this faltering house of cards.

If you’re looking for an engaging-enough rehashing of a riveting true story, by all means watch Thirteen Lives. Just don’t expect it to present you with anything that you haven’t seen in the long list of survival flicks already out there.

If Grashaw had simply trusted his instincts a little more and allowed Josiah to exist as a simple meditation on one family’s traumas, it would have easily joined the ranks of the great cinematic Southern Gothic horrors.

It’s a humble exploration of a fascinating and untapped community, reminiscent of great cinéma verité documentarians like Frederick Wiseman.

Despite its flaws, Alone Together turns out to be quite poignant, and gets around to conveying a truly optimistic message. It’s a film about following your heart and your dreams, and daring to be yourself no matter what people think of you.

Despite the documentary’s scattered approach, it’s not exactly a chore to take interest in the backstory of such an iconic moment in American cultural history.

Directed by Anthony Fabian and written by Fabian, Carroll Cartwright, Leigh Thompson and Olivia Hetreed, Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris masterfully achieves every note essential in a captivating underdog story.

While Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between boasts a solid premise (Who doesn’t want to see two charismatic teens embark on a breakup date?) there is no way in hell anyone could sit down and not predict how the thing is going to play out.

While a lot of this stuff is undeniably enjoyable, it also resembles a frenzied fever dream.

The audience is asked to watch a number of anticlimactic, inconsequential moments for just a little too long, which ends up dull.

Brian and Charles isn’t striving to be a technical achievement, and it works well as a thoughtful, sentimental, funny, uplifting buddy comedy. It’s quite a feat for a feature debut, and is guaranteed to leave you waiting for what Jim Archer will do next.

The epicenter of the film lies in its characters’ sexualities, from discussions about the unique struggle of gay Asian invisibility to refreshingly candid conversations regarding the minutiae of their sex lives.

The tone reflects the content, and while this undoubtedly makes Cyber Hell an uncomfortable watch, it certainly makes an impact, too.

While Dippé’s Marmaduke is a fun enough viewing experience, it doesn’t bring anything new to the table. Why can’t we just leave Marmaduke in the dog house for a little while?

In attempting to give The Survivor a more precise aim, Levinson falls into campy flashbacks and predictable dialogue. But for a story about humanity and the good and bad of people, the film is also satisfyingly character driven, which ends up being its saving grace; beautifully strange and nuanced performances give it the direction it needed from the start.

While space travel has always required idols, Return to Space would benefit from a more nuanced portrayal of the controversial figure accused of hoarding money and upsetting the stock markets with his tweets—even if said figure might eventually put us all on Mars.

It’s a stylish meditation on childhood that isn’t afraid to indulge in all the sentimentality that goes along with that. Almost 30 years after Dazed and Confused, Linklater is still reminding us exactly why childhood is a uniquely special thing.

On the whole, X proves that West is a master of craft. In The House of the Devil, he ingeniously drew out suspense through his slow, careful editing, and 13 years later he still hasn’t lost his touch.

When all is said and done, Bodies is everything it sets out to be. It’s a romp of a good time, stylized with big bold title cards and a soundtrack of club-hits like it’s The Bling Ring’s bloody cousin.

The Cow goes in a number of unexpected directions that, on paper, look like fodder for a perfect missing-persons mystery à la Gone Girl or Prisoners. The problem is, Horowitz doesn’t quite seem sure how to tell the story in a way that keeps the viewer engaged.

Despite its third act problems, it’s safe to say that Deadstream has done for YouTube/Twitch what Unfriended did for Skype, what Host did for Zoom and what Paranormal Activity did for home security footage.

The film pushes itself to extremes like a broad and black comedy would, but isn’t quite enough of one to come across as anything but cruel.

If you’re a Cage superfan, then you’re guaranteed to revel in the bounty of references to his filmography. But even if you’re not (though you will become one after this movie), this is an emotional, engaging, funny, riveting film.

It’s simply up to the viewer to relinquish control, strap into the rollercoaster seat and trust that the ride will take them somewhere transcendent. And it does.

Still, despite the fact that there is hardly anyone in the cast that hasn’t either been accused of being a cannibal or anti-vaxxer, or is lacking in charisma, or both, Branagh does a masterful job of keeping the film’s spirit alive.

In a world full of soulless, self-conscious CGI-rampant action flicks and superhero movies that seem like they were made by robots, Emmerich seems to really care about this movie. And that’s a trend I can get behind.

It’s not a stretch to expect that a film about the infamous Munich Conference to be a ripe bundle of nerves and apprehension. But the film ends up being as suspenseful as a 1990s rom-com.

It is not fair to assume that every film is going to stray from the beaten path; many are much better off if they don’t. What should be a standard, though, is that a film’s stakes be quantitative, and if it’s about giant mutant monsters engaging in a succession of epic, high-stakes brawls, it should be at least fun to watch.

Gyllenhaal’s extraordinary direction, paired with exceptional performances from The Lost Daughter’s lead actresses, culminate in a perfect storm that yields an astute portrait of the painful expectations of womanhood.

In its unapologetic leaning into tropes, stellar casting, idyllic locations and occasional venturing off of the beaten path, A Castle for Christmas does something totally underrated: It gives us exactly what we want this holiday season.

The nun horror subgenre is a particularly difficult one to master because it is so overdone, and it inherently engages with so many ambitious themes. If you’re brave enough to tackle it, you’d better be sure you’re bringing something special to the table and, with it, have something substantial to say.

Even with effective individual scenes, Silent Night fails to launch; it sets out to deceive its audience, but only really ends up deceiving itself.