Bilge Ebiri

As a work of feel-good advocacy, it checks pretty much all the boxes, making its way through the key cases of her career, while also offering a personal look at the woman herself. Yet it’s hard not to want more from RBG, precisely because its subject is so remarkable and her ideas so consequential.

It’s funny, fast, and charming.

Actress and director build a symphony out of Grandma Wong’s grimaces and her glares. There are emotions in there, but she’s not about to let us get to them, and to her, that easily. And so, we are transfixed.

Tate Taylor’s film cares less about narrative clarity and more about portraying a life lived between the extremes of sin and grace, between the abject and the sublime. It’s lively, stylized, and genuinely surprising.

So what makes The Brink so different from just another platform for this professional troll? Though Klayman sticks to a largely vérité approach of following her subject around and observing his various interactions, she also provides important context.

Sisu veers between the elemental and the ethereal. Once it’s over, it feels like you must have dreamed it.

About halfway through Resurrection, Rebecca Hall delivers a nearly eight-minute monologue about her character’s past that is so riveting, so mystifying and terrifying that you shouldn’t be surprised if it shows up in every acting class sometime in the near future.

There’s a lot of charm, thought, and feeling in this film version. It expands on the original without dishonoring it.

It is remarkable, however, that The Stanford Prison Experiment works as well as it does, and for as long as it does. Crudup and the young cast (particularly Angarano) deserve much of the credit.

Delectably ambiguous, the film always feels on the verge of some thematic breakthrough — a crystallized metaphor, a revealing flashback, a tell-tale fictional projection — but it admirably never gets there.

Maybe this frivolous little movie reflects our own world back to us in more ways than we might wish to admit.

Whenever it finally opens, we’ll probably all be too busy trying to cancel each other over this or that, in part because, despite the fact that he makes grandiose, overstuffed films, Audiard rarely holds our hand when it comes to telling us how to feel about his characters; he has a maximalist’s eye and a minimalist’s heart, which is a fascinating tension to bring into a musical.

As an action flick, Monkey Man is often quite entertaining, but it keeps distracting you with images of the film it’s trying, and often failing, to be.

It’s disjointed, and cluttered, but it’s also entertaining in spurts. Is that enough? Just about, and not quite. Ant-Man and the Wasp overloads and underachieves, but it also never entirely squanders the first film’s good will.

Mia Madre may be a delicate film, but don't be surprised if, in the end, the cumulative power of its humanity obliterates you.

What comes through are Vaniček’s expert orchestration of suspense, and the cast’s ability to make their characters’ fears feel genuine.

The surprises are mostly in the details. Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice is bursting with ideas that feel like clever marginalia on an otherwise familiar setup.

As further demonstration of the director’s already impressive ability to build stomach-gnawing suspense out of everyday interactions, the movie is well worth seeing. But it also represents a step back in some ways. Farhadi is one of the world’s great filmmakers, but the generosity of spirit that was so pivotal to his earlier work seems to be in retreat in his latest.

McKinley establishes just the right amount of physical and emotional stakes, and a cast led by Ethan Hawke infuses the drama with believable camaraderie, conflict, and tension. It’s the kind of atmospheric, exciting period drama we don’t really get much anymore.

Two representative moments define Andrei Zvyagintsev’s Loveless — and they are among the most devastating, harrowing things I’ve ever seen on a screen.

John Andreas Andersen’s The Quake, a sequel to the excellent 2015 Norwegian disaster film The Wave, should be required viewing for all of today’s Hollywood franchise jockeys. It shows you how to make one of these things without sacrificing your characters’ souls (or your own, for that matter).

Swift, entertaining documentary.

This fake Weird Al movie could have used some of the real Weird Al’s cleverness. Weird doesn’t feel like a parody; it feels like an impostor.

I watch The Old Guard and try to imagine a new world, one where other comic-book movies are this well made and breathtaking.

We know, of course, that none of this will end well, and Blichfeldt gives us every gnarly, disgusting consequence in agonizing detail, be it vomit, blood, severed body parts, or some combination thereof. Nevertheless, the film is beautiful in its own way, like a Scandinavian fairy-tale riff on Italian giallo, narratively disquieting but cinematically exhilarating.

As Berlin Syndrome proceeds, however, we start to feel like we’re drowning in atmosphere, and it gets harder and harder to stay interested in what happens next.

I found myself often enraptured by this sad little story. Its weird narrative of faith healing serves as an intriguing diversion from the real matter at hand — the notion that grace lies in the search for help, rather than the finding of it.

Viktor Kossakovsky’s mesmerizing documentary Gunda still serves as a bracing corrective to the way animals are usually portrayed on film. Its earthy radiance reminds us of what we’ve been missing in our need to see ourselves in these creatures, instead of seeing them as themselves.

The tale isn't new, nor are the characters, but director Joachim Trier's stylistic and narrative dexterity demands attention: He possesses that rare ability to deconstruct his material without denying us the simple beauties of a well-told story.

Mackenzie and his cast dance around and through this drama so elegantly and delicately that the twisty, generic ending feels like even more of a letdown than it might have in a more ordinary picture. The details are not worth getting into, but Relay is the rare movie where I might recommend leaving ten minutes before the end.

Mermaid is a very, very funny movie, but its caustic swipes at China’s nouveau riche, combined with its despairing look at the devastation of the country’s environment, suggest a filmmaker trying to find ways to reconcile his buoyant sense of fun with deeper, darker themes.

Faucon has built his story around very gentle, glancing blows. But this is not the focused austerity of a Robert Bresson; the director’s level distance and jaded eye lead more to lifelessness than a revealing simplicity of expression.

Maybe this is a mood more than a movie, but it is a haunting one.

All in all, this live-action adaptation works remarkably well — a rare feat.

The critic seems less interested in the scares and the suspense — a shame, since IT is filled with them — and more in the kids themselves.

General Magic is engaging, but there’s a tougher, tighter film in here struggling to get out.

What’s worse, the songs often distract from the far more interesting real drama occurring onscreen. Kids may find it engaging, but adults may get more restless than usual. Turn the sound down or play your own music over it, and Penguins may well be a near masterpiece.

The earnest enthusiasm with which Operation Avalanche begins, and the paranoia and fear toward which it proceeds, chart the course of an entire nation.

Your cousin could have written this movie. But maybe only Wenders could have directed it. He has the sensitivity to shoot the seesawing depths of Yakusho’s face. He has the eye to capture the elegant and diverse architecture of Tokyo’s public bathrooms.

The Dry is a beautiful thriller that leaves us not with explanations, but with overwhelming sadness.

The unknowability of life is beautiful, but so too is our desire to know. To be human, La Grazia seems to say, is to fight and lose against uncertainty, and then to fight and lose some more.

White Reindeer is a deliberately awkward little movie, and it’s a hard one to shake.

When it succeeds, it’s impressive. But it also can’t hold a candle to Wilson’s original, and it can’t reconcile the fundamental tension between theater and film.

The danger of movies based on conceptual wit is that they will lose steam as things proceed and the filmmakers run out of ideas. Thankfully, Maddin and the Johnsons effectively develop their story — goofy and absurd though it may be — so that these constant digs at our ineffectual leaders do coalesce into something meaningful and alarming.

The sequel, Planes: Fire and Rescue, is still a DisneyToon production, but it does aim higher, with a visual zip that was lacking from the first. It is, in almost all respects, a better movie. It’s still not particularly good, though.

The Trip films have a remarkable (and welcome) tonal consistency, and there’s plenty here of those lively, escapist elements that have made these movies so charming and irresistible (and such a comfort at this particularly bizarre moment in time).

Climax isn’t so much about the inevitability of chaos, but about the sadness of watching something beautiful fall apart. And it is never less than electrifying.

It's a beautiful, reflective film even as it is also a brutal, visceral one.

Trumbo is a film that at times can’t seem to decide what it wants to be. At its worst, it’s musty and awkward; at its best, it’s irreverent and funny. Unfortunately, it settles for the former more than the latter.

Abu-Assad has made his share of films about the cruel absurdity of life under Israeli occupation, but here he lets all sides have it

Far beyond the courage of its convictions, The Armor of Light also has the intelligence and grace to embrace its contradictions. It’s a beautiful, conflicted piece of work.

Welcome to Me might as well have been called The Kristen Wiig Show, for better or for worse. It makes a splendid showcase for the brilliant actress’s brand of mousy absurdism, and for her ability to modulate tone. The film dances between hilarity and disquiet, between goofiness and pathos. But I’m not even sure it can be called a movie; it feels like a setup and a character in search of a story.

The anecdotes are mostly on brand for the musicians.

The peculiar charm of Paralyzed by Hope: The Maria Bamford Story ... lies in the way it’s driven by genuine curiosity about its subject. ... Watching Paralyzed by Hope, we start to understand why other comedians, including Apatow himself, would be so fascinated and electrified by Bamford’s work.

With The Old Oak, Ken Loach goes out with one last, full-throated call for brotherhood and solidarity. It’s the most hopeful the old soldier’s been in years.

Purposefully aggravating yet still beautiful, The Mitchells vs. the Machines is both a takedown and a celebration of our dissonant, tech-obsessed world. It gets us.

Cutler’s onscreen interactions with Stewart, as well as occasional forays into the way she treats the people around her, turn the picture into something a lot slippier and the subject into someone more captivating.

[A] haunting, beautiful movie.

One of the pleasures of a film like this is the knowledge that a new fold is always coming. Seen in that light, occasional narrative implausibilities (of both the psychological and physical kind) recede into the distance. The Outfit is imperfect, but it works perfectly.

What’s ultimately so disappointing about Cha Cha Real Smooth is its shallow vision of growing up, which might explain why the protagonist does so little of it.

Transporting, well acted, and occasionally powerful. It’s also a rushed, maddening mess.

The Pink Cloud is so good at portraying our pandemic reality that it becomes harder to discern its other, subtler concerns. I was impressed, agitated, terrified, depressed by this movie — but I also couldn’t help feeling like I had maybe not ultimately seen the film its director wanted me to see.

The picture may not fully cohere, but it has an infectious energy all its own. The Harder They Fall is a mess, but it’s a fun mess.

Star Trek Beyond might be the Star Trekkiest film of the new, J.J. Abrams–ified Trek era. That is to say, it's the one that feels the most like a turbo-loaded episode of the original series, and has at least some of that classic spirit of exploration and derring-do.

[Berg] keeps things simple, tight and taut, and does right by the folks who were there for the real thing. He’s made them the heroes of a genuinely exciting action movie.

The First Purge actually pulls back somewhat on that sense of bloodthirsty anticipation. The violence here feels more tragic than ever, and it’s also some time coming; when Purge Night does start, the killing doesn’t begin immediately.

Smile has such a visually powerful concept that it might take a while before you realize the movie is blowing it.

Borat 2 may not hit quite as many shocking comic highs as the first Borat, but it probably coheres more as a film — ironic, given that it appears to have been written, produced, and edited in record time, during a global crisis — and it also manages to walk a fine line between offense and revelation.

Lapid’s thrilling use of the camera, the way his unbalanced frame and his imaginative staging work with the precision of his story, results in something new and genuinely unnerving.

For much of its running time, The Homesman doesn’t quite seem to know where it’s going. But once it actually gets there, it attains a hardscrabble nobility.

Unfortunately, the film doesn’t demonstrate any kind of interest in, or affection for, its characters. They’re cardboard cutouts, there to represent postures rather than evoke our sympathy or humanity or even curiosity.

Even though we can foretell just about everything that will happen in The Wedding Banquet — every plot twist, every screwball complication — we don’t much mind, because the comedy is so brisk and good-natured.

Hustle works, and it works beautifully, thanks to Sandler’s commitment.

The jokes might not be the funniest, the bits might not be the wittiest, but it’s all done with such verve and velocity that we might not notice.

John Wick is a violent, violent, violent film, but its artful splatter is miles away from the brutality of "Taken" or the gleeful gore of "The Equalizer." It’s a beautiful coffee-table action movie.

It feels like a rushed journey through a vital, many-pronged debate.

The story works largely on the level of metaphor, but it’s never overbearing or suffocating; there’s life here. A lot of credit should go to the actors, particularly the lead. As the film moves along, García’s face seems to change dramatically.

A comfort movie about comfort food, Chef won’t knock your socks off, but it believes in itself — and for Favreau, that’s all that matters.

Chow is at his best when juggling disparate elements – tragedy, slapstick, romance, melancholy, fantasy. Everything is big with him; he seems incapable of underplaying anything. The crazier his movies, the better. And Journey to the West might be the craziest thing he’s done yet. You may wonder, afterwards, if you dreamt it all.

Bonham-Carter is somehow both perfect for the part of Mother Holmes and, unfortunately, wasted. Perhaps we’re merely being set up for future adventures, in which these characters will presumably play greater parts.

There are only a couple of jump scares in Anthony Scott Burns’s Come True — mild ones at that — but the movie’s elusive sense of menace lingers for days, weeks, possibly forever. That’s quite an achievement for a film whose premise isn’t particularly novel.

Amid the grit and the attempted emotional catharses and the sturm-und-drang, there is an actual Bond movie in there. No Time to Die is fun, but only when it dares to be.

Deadpool & Wolverine isn’t a particularly good movie — I’m not even sure it is a movie — but it’s so determined to beat you down with its incessant irreverence that you might find yourself submitting to it.

Jordan has a great face for doubt and inner conflict. There’s a quizzical, nervous quality to him — which is also why when he does action movies, he’s so wonderfully unpredictable — and you can sense his devotion to justice clashing with his genuine fear.

We know these characters are going through a lot, even if we don’t always see it. And so, this short, ramshackle, shrinking movie manages to stick with you.

That very unknowability, which hampered so many Efron performances in the past, turns out to be his most humanizing trait, and Neighbors’ secret weapon.

In its broad strokes, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is a fairly by-the-numbers action comedy, one that sometimes wears Cage’s presence like a talisman against the bad juju of slipshod storytelling. But the talisman works because the film never loses sight of its touchingly nutty premise and because Cage remains a compelling actor.

The descent into a tepid thriller of sexual jealousy slowly negates the abstract, almost metaphorical quality of this film — and it ultimately undoes the spell cast by that mesmerizing first half.

Weiner is about as entertaining as a film about someone destroying a life and career can be. You can't turn away from the car wreck, and Weiner himself can't stop commenting on it.

All in all, one walks away from Rustin enchanted with Domingo’s performance, while feeling that a character as larger than life and momentous as Bayard Rustin surely deserves a film less dutiful and more inspired.