Barry Hertz

Every now and then, Jackman dips into Serious Acting exercises but seems so visibly uncomfortable placing himself in such situations that he feels a micro-second from jumping out of his own skin, when he should instead be sinking into someone else’s (see The Fountain, Prisoners, The Front Runner).

Like the stock market itself, there are peaks and valleys.

The film is rich in such positive messaging, and its subjects quickly endear themselves to the camera.

In terms of pure spectacle and shock-and-awe achievement, Villeneuve has produced an adaptation of mad glory and power.

While the split-POV conceit initially begs comparisons to Rashomon, Monster’s three perspectives are not so much in argument with one another as they are pieces of the same puzzle. And once they are locked together, the final portrait is staggeringly heartbreaking.

However Buster Scruggs came to be, it highlights the best of the Coens' mordant minds, but not without tripping over a few unintended obstacles. Which probably suits the pair, always in awe of things never going right, just fine.

Sallitt is grasping for something profound here – a portrait of friendship seen both up-close and from a distance. Fourteen may ultimately be just that – a grasp – but it is worth reaching out for all the same.

It’s a delightfully cruel work of high tension, perfect in just how quickly and easily it gets under your skin.

There are so many missteps that Hancock and screenwriter John Fusco make here, but to list a few briefly: The dialogue is 85-per-cent clumsy exposition, the heroes are given exactly one character trait each (Gault’s a drunk, Hamer’s a jerk) and the film’s politics read as MAGA-esque vigilante evangelicalism (the movie is perpetually on the verge of having Hamer say, directly to the camera, something along the lines of, “the only good criminal is a dead criminal”).

In Fences, every time a character opens their mouth is an opportunity to savour the playwright’s impeccable ear for language – for capturing the joys and frustrations that come when someone simply tries to say something – anything – about the daily struggle that is life. It’s as much workaday poetry as it is dialogue and Washington knows better than to dilute it or make it his own.

Soderbergh, once again acting as his own cinematographer and editor, pulls out nearly every cinematic trick he has to elevate Koepp’s material, but the film too often tip-toes when it should run: Every narrative and character beat feels muted, as if the tech-thriller is being apologetic for its own place within the genre.

Berger’s film is a sometimes zippy, frequently ridiculous drama.

Priscilla the movie is as complicated and beguiling as Priscilla the woman.

The Painter and the Thief might be the best documentary of the year, if it could be fairly called a documentary. Instead, director Benjamin Ree’s film is more a mesmerizing, and potentially transgressive, investigation into just how far the documentary form can be torn apart and put back together – and whether the audience should accept such a wild reconfiguration.

Lawrence Michael Levine’s film, though, is only sporadically clever enough to pull off its central trick. Mostly, we’re stuck with a group of rather unpleasant people doing rather unpleasant things. To what desired end, it is never quite clear.

It is beautiful, delirious, frustrating and so wedded to that film-critic notion of the unimpeachable “Kaufman-esque” sensibility that there is little point in arguing with its power, with its immeasurable impact. It works, even (especially?) when it’s not supposed to.

Kajillionaire is certainly not operating on a familiar wavelength, but it is also more than, say, Wes Anderson cosplay. In its quizzical, candy-coloured, sideways view of the world – one that normalizes apartments that regularly flood with pink sludge – the film is offering a challenge to its audience. Accept it, or move along.

Maison du bonheur is a thoughtful, affecting study of the space we choose to take up in this world, and what happens when we grow old enough to realize the truth and consequences of those decisions.

Maverick works its wonders thanks to the perfect match of star power, source material ripe for retrofitting, and a director who knows how to wring the best out of his leading man and, more importantly, when to get the heck out of his way.

BlackBerry is funny, fast and nerve-rattling. And it is always – always – intensely entertaining.

A wonderfully uncomfortable, deeply hilarious coming-of-age movie, the new film Didi plays like an extended and surprisingly welcome visit to the filmmaker’s childhood bedroom.

After Yang is a tightly controlled yet tremendously alive film, powered by the beating heart that is Farrell’s performance.

A giddy and fitfully amusing mashup of "Adventures in Babysitting," "Date Night," the Spy Kids franchise and, um, "Wet Hot American Summer," The Sleepover is the latest entry in Netflix’s experiment in catch-‘em-all entertainment.

Monos sinks you into its mud until the dirt stuffs your mouth. You won’t be able to breathe – but you’ll be thanking Landes for the cinematic suffocation all the same.

Clocking in at a severely bloated 165 minutes, Chapter 4 is both a thrill and a slog, an all-you-can-eat buffet that insists on stuffing your guts before it spills them.

The film is simply operating at a speed constantly one click ahead of expectations, never satisfied that any one viewer could know where it might all be heading.

The thrill Soderbergh and his co-conspirators are enjoying is contagious.

Slipping in references to everyone from Kubrick to Fellini, Gray creates a truly intoxicating experience, overwhelming in the best possible way. It is this close to being an all-time classic, if only Charlie Hunnam’s central performance as Fawcett didn’t slip out of Gray’s period trappings every now and then (you can’t help but wonder what Gray’s long-time collaborator, Joaquin Phoenix, would have done with the role).