Brad Wheeler

A serene, existential experience from the Canadian filmmaker Alison McAlpine, who takes to Chile’s Atacama Desert to look both skyward and inward.

A satisfying adventure story with allegorical manifest-destiny allusions, The Hidden World reminds us that if butterflies were the size of horses, humans would surely ride them. And wouldn’t that be an awful thing? ​

It’s a long film, and the payoff might not be enough for some. But as a moody story about moral dilemmas and moving beyond the past, The Survivor outlasts its 129 minutes.

A home invasion story that is as artfully terrifying as "Home Alone" was entertainingly hilarious.

Sure, the film’s a bit of a hit job. But hey, as Bannon himself tells us, “There’s no bad media.” Sadly, he’s probably right.

Where’s My Roy Cohn? is brash and relentless, much like the man himself. We won’t need to wait for a sequel. Because of the ascension of Cohn’s most eagerly unscrupulous student, we’re watching Part II unfold as we speak.

The documentarian Victor Kanefsky paints a vivid picture of an entertaining rogue, one who finally gets his due with this film. Then again, Cenedella might refuse to accept the recognition. There’s no bastard like a principled bastard.

The audience is invited to celebrate the purified wonder of youth and the dazzle of life’s invisible indispensables.

The acting is uniformly strong and the camera work is winningly claustrophobic, but the film is one note.

Director Jeremy Sims probably uses a setting-sun metaphor more than necessary, but otherwise his decisions are immaculate and his film should hold audiences in thrall. On a journey of self-discovery, the metre keeps running. Might as well, Last Cab tells us, get your money’s worth.

Though it might initially look like a wacky foodie adventure show, Bugs has a conscience.

Jarecki picks up all sorts of celebrated people and thinkers – probably too many. I would have liked to hear more from Elvis’s Graceland cook and less from Alec Baldwin.

Nashef is a sombre Roberto Benigni in his role as a sincere bumbler, defusing situational bombs with hummus-based subterfuge and desperate diplomacy. This satire in Hebrew and Arabic is an answer in an allegorical and comical way, about a mad circumstance and a man in the middle of it. A tense and painful backdrop, sure, but there’s no stick up Zoabi’s butt, just an olive branch.

Director Andersen’s pacing is dynamic, allowing white-knuckled viewers to catch their breaths before he takes it away again. This isn’t a sequel, it’s an after-shock – and a doozy at that.

The film ends with the mention of Schrager’s full pardon in 2017 by President Obama. If the discotheque was non-judgmental, so is the film.

Why is she a problematic pop star? That’s the premise, but I’m not sure we get the answer here.

The heart of the needlessly lengthy 140-minute film is Eilish’s support system, which is to say her family – a screenwriter mother, a construction worker father and her older brother/producer/songwriting partner Finneas O’Connell. They’re all grounded, thoughtful and dedicated to the protection of a self-loathing teen who is coming of age in front of the world.

It is a rare song that deserves its own book, but Hallelujah is one of them. The story is a doozy.

It’s a fine yarn spiced up with moments of hip hop, animation and pop culture references, all packaged nicely in something like the hot-pink doughnut boxes that the cruller maestro Ngoy supposedly invented.

Some might find the characters written with heavy cynicism. I’d rather see their desperate pursuits as poignant and comically human, even if the film’s tone is dark. These are lonely people seeking love. It’s not that complicated.

First-time Australian director Garth Davis offers sweeping cinematic shots, with a soundtrack that is pleasingly epic, but the second act is a bit skimpy, script-wise.

Rocketman is Broadway razzle-dazzle of the best kind.

Unfortunately, because filmmaker Miele also places value in discretion, his snazzy documentary is celebrative – not investigative.

Educating young audiences as it entertains just about anyone, Penguins features the droll narration of Ed Helms and some great Antarctic cinematography.

Director Barbosa's love letter to his late friend is emotionally satisfying and cinematically splendid, with social commentary shoe-horned in for better or worse.

An excellent cast (including Michael Shannon and Hillary Swank) hit the right notes in an evenly wrought family drama that rings true.

The script is loose; the acting is natural and nuanced. Over the credits plays an acoustic song about lives in the how-did-we-get-here stage. If you do not leave this Netflix movie asking questions about your own paths, the failing is yours, not Duplass’s.

The music’s evolution and crisscrossing pollination is explained well – Mr. Tambourine Man inspired Rubber Soul which influenced Pet Sounds which begat Sgt. Pepper’s – but why are we watching the randomly selected couch full of Cat Power, Regina Spektor and a catatonic Beck sift through old LPs?

Fittingly, given that the film from Broomfield (who was also a former lover of Marianne’s) is nothing if not a love letter itself. So long, Marianne. So long, Leonard.

It’s a sitcom-y, Sarandon-wrapped Mother’s Day valentine.

Not once does anyone question the war or their involvement in it. We can't depend on big answers from filmmakers, but to not ask big questions seems like a dereliction of duty.

A delightful and polished stop-motion adventure-comedy and droll comment on colonialism.

This is a small, sentimental and straightforward film that offers little in the way of surprises. Instead, it wins on heart and a simple message about the value in fighting to keep one’s dreams alive.

Civilization has the wealth and the technology to start dealing with the threat, but does it have the wisdom?

An oddball charmer of a motion picture about nostalgia, the pursuit of artistic passion and a coming of age bizarrely delayed and uniquely fulfilled. The bear itself is but a bit player.

Open-hearted and sure to resonate with more than a few viewers, Juliet, Naked roms and coms in the most charmingly honest ways.

Jason Clarke is excellent as the complicated Kennedy, an unsure, insecure and not entirely decent man daunted by his brothers’ shadows and eager to earn a father’s respect that is not forthcoming. The supporting cast is top-notch, particularly Kate Mara, who portrays the doomed Kennedy loyalist Kopechne with a warm humanity.

[A] tender but untimid drama.

Owen Wilson cries, but audiences will more likely roll their eyeballs at writer-director Stephen Chbosky's outrageous emotional manipulations.

Over all, the food porn was played down, the series is getting a little road-weary and who knows what happens with these guys next. If they’re thinking about heading to France, a horny Frenchman has some good advice: Paris can wait.

To Dust’s humour is of the one-trick kind – an odd couple on an odd mission – but there is soul and small pleasures to its fly-by 92 minutes.

The film is a technical wonder, especially the sound design. There's also an excellent incongruity at work: Happy faces drawn in blood, viscous killers in playful masks and cheesy eighties music as the soundtrack to savagery.

Glassland is a small film with an emotional punch that wallops above its weight class.

Adults should get a kick out of Phantom Boy’s sly humour but the story and the action is for the kids.

The film is poetically structured and Lear is a spry, emotionally involved participant in a lively bio-doc that succeeds eulogistically and contextually.

Dad’s suspected infidelity is the tension in a film that hammers its nineties setting so relentlessly it could be called Sex, Lies and Videotape (and Floppy Disks and Payphones).

We learn a little about Jett’s activism, and hardly anything about her personal life.

The film is not significant, but it is principled and sweetly subversive. And, like high school, if you’re not careful, you might just learn something from it.

Unfortunately, the script is held together with something much less adhesive than, say, Amy Adams’s "American Hustle" blouse tape.

Though visually sumptuous and a bunch of fun early on, Edgar Wright’s take on sixties and seventies horror eventually devolves into unsatisfying spoof.

Eddie Mensore has not made a masterpiece of the genre, but there’s a poignancy to his gritty calamity tale that makes Mine 9 worth watching.

This is a prequel superior to its predecessor – we’re not bored with board-game ghoulishness yet.

A supernatural winner.

This half-throttle documentary might better be called The Fast and the Uneventful.

It’s quite a film Stephens has made.

The film’s calm brutality is effective. Plot-wise, some punches are telegraphed, while others are not. The satire is a spinning wheel kick I didn’t see coming. Black belts all around.

Like Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven," the underlying tension involves the protagonist's journey to regain his humanity. Hostiles, a hotbed of hostility.

It’s a fantastically bonkers story told excitedly in The Lovers and the Despot, a stranger-than-fiction yarn that would make a hell of an opera.

From the cult Oklahoma director Mickey Reece, the horror film Agnes is funny – both funny ha-ha (in sly ways) and funny-peculiar all around.

The Mumbai-set Photograph is a gentle romance cleverly told, and not without humour.

Spiritual questions and thoughts on the importance of flesh-and-blood relationships are raised, but the strength of the you-can-run-but-you-can’t-hide drama is the dewy charisma of the two young co-stars.

Budreau constructs with imagination and pleasing fluidity, painting a portrait with a soft, sympathetic focus while steering clear of worship.

A well-layered film makes a fascinating case for forgiveness and a sharp rebuke of Bible-taught eye-for-an-eye revenge.

The cast is solid; Everett’s acting in particular is deep, indelible and award-worthy. We smell Oscar, one might say.

That feelgood story of a long dormant musical dream finally realized was enough to earn major press attention, but is it enough for a feature-length film? Probably not, which is why writer-director Pohlad piled on the melodrama and leaned into clichés.

Show tunes meet "Shaun of the Dead" in the delightfully gruesome Scottish horror-musical Anna and the Apocalypse.

While Rhys Ifans chews scenery as a scruff-faced foreign correspondent, Knightley plays it taut and believable, and, as we know, nobody walks on cobblestones better than she. The end result is a professionally made film that is whistle-blowingly relevant, starring an excellent actress who successfully comes in from her Pride & Prejudice past.

What it is, is a delicious black-widow mystery, in which the deep-gazing actress Rachel Weisz rocks the veil.

The film is a level-headed look at artists who promoted joy but lost their own.

Entertaining but manipulative.

The result is a stylish, watchable film, but one with a slow pulse. Game, set and almost a great movie.

The problem with Shyamalan’s spin on dissociative identity disorder is that for all the dissociation, why are all 23 identities cool with locking terrified girls in a basement?

There’s something delightfully clever in a narrative that is easily transferable to modern times. Speaking of which, seeing Alpha on as big and splashy a screen as possible is advisable, preferably with children who can handle occasional scenes of intense peril.

Ultimately the film is as much about the mother and parenting as it is on the hot-plating Doogie Howser. It’s good food for thought, even if the film doesn’t quite come together.

The soundtrack is effective and overt – from the badass rock blare of Billy Squire, Bad Company and AC/DC to the atmosphere compositions of the indie musician Julia Holter to the riveting nu-blues of Willis Earl Beal. The camera work is slick, too; tricky sound-editing notions are pulled off with aplomb.

For fans of horror maestros John Carpenter and Stuart Gordon, nothing fills a void like good, old eighties-fashioned gore. Which is what we get from the writer-director team of Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski, unabashed fans of Reagan-era blood, slash and goo.

A post-tour lawsuit levelled against “motherly” Madonna by two dancers is barely dealt with; the Express Yourself singer herself isn’t interviewed. As a result, the affecting film is absent of the truth or dare it had the potential for.

Originally titled Eight for Silver, the film from British writer-director Sean Ellis is brooding, uneasy and fog-filled, with an apprehensive soundscape. Werewolf mythology mixes with biblical allusions and ideas on payments for the sins of elders.

We’re not sure what sister and brother ultimately learned about their much different sibling, and one is left with the feeling the trip was more in service of the film’s narrative than a dream-fulfilling jaunt for Tom.

Dalio’s script doesn’t always flow as smoothly as the camera work, but an air of calm authenticity should leave audiences touched, in a good way.

Cabot's meticulously and ambitiously designed Les Quatre Vents in bucolic Quebec is the star attraction, but Luc St. Pierre's score is magical and the interviewees are in their best chatty grooves.

Are the creators and lead actors of the quirky indie comedy Before You Know It all women? Three words: lighthearted menstruation humour.

The Robertson-authorized Once Were Brothers is an account of The Band’s rise and fall, as remembered by the titular guitarist, chief songwriter and excellent raconteur.

It’s the tortured artist trope, handled in unexpected ways.

Abominable has charms to soothe the savage child.

A lot of things are said; a lot is not. It was a dark and stormy night. An audience walks into a film – and stays for the whole 90 minutes, because it is worth it.

At times the film seems like a horrifying Nancy Drew story or a more sophisticated Scooby-Doo episode without the dog and with a face full of spiders.

A lively, dashing and amusing motion picture that smartly spoofs and slyly celebrates the James Bond spy-film franchise.

Tireless, ultra-talented and exceedingly charismatic, he emerges as a survivor in a film that spends too much time on his accolades and not enough on deciphering what makes this treasure of an octogenarian tick.

The ironic twist at the movie’s end is a nice touch. The Invisibles, about humans as living ghosts, needs to be seen, and believed.

Made for ironicists, Turbo Kid, in its endearingly goofy way, says good things about the power reserves of our childhood – an inner superhero we can call upon when needed.

Keating’s flattery is sincere, and so is his wish to stylishly freak you silly.

The performances are pitch perfect; the soundtrack is evocative; the photography is artful. Nothing is overdone, and nothing is really resolved.

The resolution of that conflict is dishonestly implausible, thus ruining a perfectly mediocre movie. The worst of it is that Fred the one-eyed cat was probably winking at us the whole time.

In a smartly written, evenly wrought drama, the newly discovered wunderkind Rod Paradot stunningly portrays a troubled youth who makes Eminem’s 8 Mile protagonist look like a boy scout in comparison.

It’s a working-class story, albeit one that doesn’t involve officially recognized "work,” which raises questions about police corruption and racially slanted drug policies. Speaking of questions, why is a white character being held up as a shining symbol of the black man’s plight? Something to consider. Otherwise, White Boy Rick has much to say yes to.

Will she give up? Or will she fight? Ah, who cares. Sharknado isn’t Shakespeare and The Shallows isn’t deep. School’s out, schlock’s in – no lessons here.