David Sims

The film is just different enough to stick out amid the studio’s backwards-looking slate, and Burton, for the first time in years, shows he hasn’t lost his love for the idiosyncratic.

Despite the grand scale, like all of Jia’s works, Ash Is Purest White leaves questions of good and evil to the viewer—this isn’t a philosophical story, but a personal one.

Us is a thrill ride, a somber parable, and a potential first chapter in a vast, encyclopedic sci-fi story; talented as ever, Peele has found a way to cram all of that into a gleeful blast of a film.

The script, by Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse, conveys little beyond the fact that Stephen and Rachael are both sad, nice to each other, and very attractive.

Given its similarity to the original, Gloria Bell could have just been a curiosity—but the hilarious performances by Moore, Cera, and Turturro make Lelio’s return to his own material more than worth it.

The 21st entry in Marvel’s galactic film empire, and the first focused on a female superhero (played by Brie Larson), is a perfectly fun time at the movies that deftly lays out the stakes of its new character for many future appearances. But more often than not, it feels a little routine.

As it is, Greta is more of a Terminator movie, with everyone doing their best to get out of Huppert’s way for 98 enjoyable minutes—though that’s still worth a recommendation in my book.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind could’ve been a conventional narrative of despair and redemption; in Ejiofor’s hands, it builds realism and context into both sides of that story and manages to be a winning adaptation as a result.

Sheer force of personality is the main ingredient of any great sports movie, and Pugh has enough of it to pull the story along. But this is a star performance that deserved an equally dazzling script.

The narrative thrust of The Hidden World sputters any time humans are involved. Much of the plot exists only to stall the characters until the film winds its way to a touching conclusion.

It’s one thing to make fun of the repetitiveness of a second movie, but this one manages to do that while actually expanding its storytelling horizons.

True to its origins, Alita is a living cartoon of a film, which only makes its ridiculousness easier to absorb.

Soderbergh’s unorthodox film release and cheap, idiosyncratic shooting style are ideal fits for the director’s fascinating, speculative story about the future of the NBA.

The script has a wry sense of humor but is almost never laugh-out-loud funny, and the gory substance of the plot regularly overwhelms the delicate notes of parody.

This is a project that’s loaded with big ideas and worthy morals for its younger viewers, even if it has a little trouble streamlining them all into an easily digestible plot.

In the end, Velvet Buzzsaw is a pretty soulless piece of art about the soullessness of art; but that doesn’t mean it can’t have a little fun proving its point.

The film hums with energy anytime Merlin is on-screen, but even when it’s in the hands of its very sweet preteen ensemble, it’s a lively watch.

It’s one of those projects that initially seems hokey beyond repair but quickly evolves into something genuinely unique. Serenity may not make it onto many critics’ top-10 lists come the end of 2019. But it’s certain to be one of the more unforgettable viewing experiences of the year.

Fyre is primarily a journalistic exhumation of the Fyre Festival’s ridiculous excesses. But via interviews with both dissatisfied ticket-buyers and nervy ex-employees, the movie also scrapes away the sheen of the flamboyant “influencer” lifestyle that McFarland leveraged to sell tickets and hook investors.

It’s a film that sometimes plays more as a rambling TED Talk than as a straightforward thriller. But, in this case, I admired Shyamalan’s overreach, even as the auteur laid meta-textual twist atop twist in the movie’s giddily loopy ending.

This movie is as much a eulogy for a country that Eastwood sees as slowly crumbling as it is for the life Earl chose to lead.

Aquaman works because it isn’t laughing at itself—it’s both joyously whimsical and confident in its own seaworthiness.

If Beale Street Could Talk is an impressive, mature, and determined work that ably reaches the great heights it sets for itself.

Despite its period setting, The Favourite just might be Lanthimos’s most trenchant and relevant work yet.

For all the time Serkis has had to tinker with it, the film feels painfully incomplete, from its frequently told story to its weak visuals.

The final act of Shoplifters, like all of Kore-eda’s best work, is devastating. After seeing the director tease out every strange bond in this makeshift group, investing his audience fully in their future, one finds it that much harder to watch when things fall apart.

This movie is little more than a vibrant-looking tableau, a two-dimensional take on an intricate piece of history. It’s a tale that’s been told better before, and Willimon’s modern updates are less enlightened than they initially seem.

The world doesn’t really need another Spider-Man movie, which is exactly what makes Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse such an unexpected delight: Here’s the latest entry in a fully saturated genre that somehow, through sheer creative gumption, does something new.