Dominick Suzanne-Mayer

It’s a feel-good story enlivened by the fact that there’s no overly sentimentalized hokum to be found.

Sunset is difficult filmmaking, the kind which almost seems impenetrable at times. But if you’re willing to meet Nemes on his level, the film’s rich textures will eventually prove themselves beguiling.

Perhaps the most satisfying thing about the film is what comes after, when you stop to realize how darkly comic and sickly fun the film was after you’re done reeling from all the impaling and dismemberment.

There’s no linear path to being “okay,” or to overcoming grief, and Band Aid is ultimately as much about how people have to do these things on their own as it is about a couple doing it together.

Support the Girls is the kind of film that sneaks up on you as it’s going along.

Given the sheer volume of jokes on hand, it’s impressive how often LEGO Batman successfully lands its punchlines.

Raiders!, as a documentary, is much like Zala and Strompolos’ film in that it’s rough around the edges at points, but so utterly sincere that it’s hard to deny after a while.

While the charm of Always Be My Maybe can and should be attributed to its performers, there’s a real sweetness in its reframing of the romantic comedy as the struggle of two people who already have fulfilling lives, attempting to add to them by rediscovering lost pieces of themselves in each other.

Dayveon’s muted, largely allusive storytelling takes a backseat to tone and place throughout, and Abbasi demonstrates an assured command of both.

Like its unstoppable heroine, Alita: Battle Angel is something strange and unique and special, built from the finest repurposed parts.

The Light Between Oceans is an effective melodrama, but the lingering sensation the film leaves after its end is that it might have been much more.

There’s a thoughtful, kid-friendly parable about the hazards of internet fame somewhere in Ralph Breaks the Internet, but its aim is so scattershot that it only emerges in fits and starts.

Where Imperial Dreams occasionally wavers is in its unsubtle storytelling, which often feels at odds with Vitthal’s appealing and naturalistic direction.

It’s a movie made of brief chuckles and obvious but well-meaning lessons, and if it lacks the grander ambition of some of the studio’s best and most memorable work, it’s still an enjoyable watch.

Lizzie isn’t exactly an exciting film, but it’s absolutely a compelling one. Much of that, again, emerges from Sevigny’s work, who finds the notes of delicacy that the film around her occasionally lacks.

At points the film simply observes the smaller, more innocuous moments of a coming-of-age story; much of it is framed in intimate medium shots and close-ups, and there’s a distinct kinship between the numerous wayward souls in its world that carries it along.

Roman J. Israel, Esq. is sometimes a compelling movie and often a difficult one to keep with, but it’s a flawed challenge that you’ll be grateful you gave a chance all the same.

The little beats throughout Cold Pursuit are distinctive enough to cover for this gory caper’s periodic misfires.

It’s a provocation, and for the most part, it’s an effective one. Yet for a film all about verbal and physical blows, Bodied seems to grow skittish when it comes to landing the nastiest ones, the ones that would call its own ideals into question. It’s just insightful enough to leave audiences wishing that it were more so.

As a fish-out-of-water comedy, it’s effectively funny more often than it isn’t, and as an ode to the unlikely communities that arise around black metal, it’s entirely sincere in its intentions.

While there are no chapter breaks or anything to formally guide the audience in that way, Into the Inferno feels unusually episodic by Herzog’s typically cohesive standards.

Voyeur leaves its viewers with more questions about what happened in the Manor House and what it meant than they’ll have coming in. If that’s hardly the note of finality that many will want or expect, it’s the aspect of the film that perhaps feels the most authentic and honest.

Creative Control ably captures the entitled narcissism of modern Brooklyn twentysomethings by way of a plausible near-future,

Where the narrative is sometimes slack, and the film’s larger purpose left to interpretation after a while, Landline’s great strength lies with its performances.

For a film designed to spawn ancilliary products and sequels, Pets is not entirely without its charms

It’s a sparse film, to be sure, but one authentic to the time in which it takes place, even if that authenticity reads in a significantly different light in our own time.

That world is so well-realized that the film is worth seeing, but it’s a mild letdown given the number of philosophical queries that it raises, only to leave ultimately unexplored.

Much of Kate Plays Christine is more of a form exercise than it is a documentary portrait, which works to both the film’s benefit and detriment.