Eric Kohn

The movie’s lightweight plot yields a disposable comedy with a lot on its mind, but its modest ambition is just enough to let Maron push his onscreen appeal in a new direction.

A brilliant home-invasion thriller laced with cultural reference points stretching back to the late ’80s, and a smorgasbord of first-rate visceral cinematic scares. Think “Funny Games” collided with Cronenbergian body horror and Hitchockian suspense, and you’re maybe halfway there.

Triple Frontier lands a handful of thrilling sequences in a sea of familiar riffs on greed, masculinity, and the lingering traumas of war.

None of the pretty imagery or impassioned lovemaking can break free of a mopey old formula that sits on every scene with the same schematic quality that makes its weary setting so familiar from the start.

Light of My Life delivers a lush variation on familiar elements, and wends its way to a tense final showdown that makes the wandering trajectory worthwhile.

Sutton’s tricky balance of B-movie caricatures and gloomy expressionism doesn’t always match up, but that very discordance speaks to the potency of its themes.

The ideas don’t cut that deep, but like its psychic protagonist, this movie knows exactly what its audience wants.

Using a remarkable personal lens, the film examines the reverberations of propaganda on broken families across multiple generations. The cumulative effect creates the sense that its destructive effects continue to be felt well beyond China’s borders.

The movie never lacks for insights into the nature of the disconnect.

Aided by “Under the Skin” composer Micah Levi’s thunderous score, Landes delivers a suspenseful encapsulation of alienated youth enmeshed in pointless battles that can only lead to further destruction.

The filmmaker sticks close to the theatrical roots of the material, sometimes stumbling on wordy, overzealous monologues that might land better on the stage. But the cast goes to great lengths to sell the premise.

Even as Honey Boy settles into the tropes of a familiar coming-of-age saga, it’s an admirable variation — the earnest attempt by an elusive movie star to bring his mythology down to Earth.

The Lodge seems more content to hover in the disquieting mood than make anything substantial out of it. ... As it continues along an aimless trajectory, The Lodge proves that even horrible events can be a deadly bore.

The Tomorrow Man suggests "Take Shelter" by way of "It’s Complicated," an unseemly combination that never quite gels. But the actors work overtime to mine substance from the material, and Jones gives them plenty of room to rescue this curious movie from complete oblivion.

It’s a lot to take in, but Mikhanovsky doesn’t hesitate to keep barreling forward, and it’s an impressive gamble even when it runs out of gas.

The result is a watchable overview with few explosive details, but plenty of reasons to root for his downfall, and some modicum of payoff.

Building to the potential of a confrontation with the wedding climax, The Farewell threatens to melt into sentimentalism, but Wang dodges the obvious pathways to a tidy resolution.

No matter how much Mascaro reaches into the future, Divine Love retains an immediacy steeped in questions about the nature of faith, physical attraction, and the factors that can transform the personal into the political.

"Dick Long,” which stems from Billy Chew’s script, lacks the same abstract weirdness that made “Swiss Army Man” such an indelible cinematic delight. It has more intimate aims — humanizing a couple of brutish morons by mining substance from the silliness, and arriving at the conclusion that crass white-trash stereotypes have feelings, too.

Chukwu maintains an impressive command over her material, but Woodard herself becomes the movie’s central storyteller.

As coming-of-age stories about wayward teens go, writer-director Jason Orley’s debut is a sturdy, endearing portrait of youth in revolt that takes few surprising turns. But the two actors sell their dynamic well enough to inject the story with palpable authenticity despite the familiar premise.

There are flashes of subtle resentment to Williams’ performance that register as some of her best work in ages, so it’s unfortunate that the movie’s calculated assemblage of sentimental beats dominate the show.

Buoyed by a brilliant transformation by Christian Bale, it offers a smart and detailed overview of Cheney’s elaborate ruse to exploit the country’s highest authority, but undercuts its authority with crass and often clunky humor that overstates the nature of Cheney’s villainy. Lame jokes just get in the way when the bad guys are hiding in plain sight.

In a better world, Aquaman would excel at delivering an ecological message to the masses. But all the fish in the sea can’t salvage a movie that refuses to go more than surface deep.

This slick and involving sequel finds Adonis continuing to work through the weight of his father’s death in the ring, follows all the familiar motions revived with Creed. But in the context of this resilient franchise, the movie hits each beat with the calculated precision of its tireless fighter.

Amazing Grace is soulful ear candy. But Franklin’s sweaty, impassioned delivery, which galvanizes her audiences with an electric charge, extends her awe-inspiring musical convictions beyond religious euphoria. It’s a rousing portrait of creativity as a unifying force.

On the Basis of Sex plays like a sunny fantasy from a more optimistic age.

Stan & Ollie salutes an under-appreciated comedy duo while exploring the hardships of fading into the limelight; appropriately, the movie itself is rather forgettable even as the actors deliver brilliant performances in every scene.

Tyrel establishes its intentions within the opening minutes, and more or less follows a straightforward trajectory in its trenchant exploration of race relations.

Despite tackling our crazy times, The Oath somehow winds up not quite crazy enough to assess them.

By the time Apostle arrives at its big reveal, the movie has veered off on so many tangled pathways that the ending can’t resolve them all. Instead, it provides a single, ethereal image that hints at the more imaginative possibilities lurking somewhere inside this bloody mess.

As Hold the Dark sputters to an unsatisfying finale, Wright’s character promises to explain everything that came before. The movie’s great punchline is that he’ll never be able to sort it all out — and we’re right there with him, reeling from a disquieting saga that has no patience for anyone in need easy answers, but keen on leaving us gasping for breath.

As with all of Alverson’s movies, the hypnotic storytelling takes time to settle in and encourages viewers to ponder its enigmatic pathways, not all of which lead to satisfying places. Nevertheless, this somber and lyrical achievement is the warmest and most inviting work from a director who traffics in an acquired taste.

While Kelly’s faithful dramatization doesn’t offer a lot of fresh insights, and fizzles by the end, it remains an involving snapshot of two women grappling with their private and public personas until they collide.

It’s an obvious but enjoyable period piece — and a throwback to another era of Hollywood filmmaking, resurrected in the 21st century with two of the best actors working today, who elevate this didactic form of storytelling above the market standard for schmaltz.

A shocking misfire that nevertheless demonstrates the sheer confidence in his storytelling that Dolan has cultivated over a decade of movies. It’s the only possible explanation for this baffling ensemble piece, a campy (if at times inspired) burst of melodrama and ludicrous scenarios caving into each other in a spectacular mash of half-baked ideas.

It’s a remarkable educational experience for anyone eager to go back to the basics. In the process, it arrives at a deeper understanding of the underlying impulse, while delivering an emotionally resonant narrative with plenty of cute animals to spare.

Hill’s story suggests equal parts “Freaks and Geeks,” “Kids,” and the adolescent-focused narratives of British director Shane Meadows, but Hill cribs from these precedents with a confidence that injects this lively snapshot of skateboarding reprobates with fresh confidence.

More impressionistic than the searing intellectualism of his last work, Monrovia, Indiana at once demonstrates Wiseman’s formidable cinematic capabilities while posing a number of tantalizing questions about the community at its center.

Moore’s compassionate performance confirms the strength of the original and its beloved heroine’s universal appeal. More than that, Gloria Bell proves that the best stories can be told endlessly, so long as they’re told well.

If Beale Street Could Talk stalls about halfway through with less involving developments and stilted roles for supporting characters...but it always regains its footing with another entrancing observation.

As Sebastian Silva wrestles with several different kinds of movies, the child’s perspective fuses them together, and the movie becomes a startling representation of a society collapsing into chaos.

Ultimately, Widows works as well as it does due to the way McQueen juggles substance with entertainment value to such eager subversive ends. The movie engages with topics as complex as sexism, police brutality, and interracial marriage, but it still delivers on the car chases and gunplay.

Green has made a slavish, sharply executed bit of fan service elevated by Jamie Lee Curtis’ transformation into a badass grandmother back to finish the job.

It might not be his best filmmaking, but Fahrenheit 11/9 is fraught with a critical mindset that syncs with the zeitgeist. It’s a messy movie for messy times.

Chalamet, a heartthrob unafraid to tackle unglamorous material, so embodies the tragic struggles of a drug-addled young man it’s a wonder he made it through the production, while Carell’s melancholic eyes absorb every detail. It’s a haunting two-hander that allows their talent to tower over everything else.

American Dharma delivers a suspenseful and upsetting showdown between one man confident of his cause and another mortified by it.

In Yann Demange’s bland retelling, the kid’s downward spiral has been reduced to a series of crude, unremarkable encounters and the very thing this true story shouldn’t be: poverty porn. Nevertheless, Demange manages to stitch together a number of involving scenes that track Ricky’s harsh upbringing and the events that precipitated his downfall.

It’s an impressive illustration of a director in command of the medium, but more than that, points to the potential in whatever she does next.

It’s the stirring chemistry between Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly as committed siblings that transforms these lively, violent circumstances into a sweet and intimate journey designed to catch acolytes of the genre off-guard.

McCarthy elevates the material at every opportunity, and whenever the camera lingers on her expressions, she’s a study in contradictions — tough and tender all at once, unsure which side of that spectrum to unleash.

The movie takes its time to provide a satisfying rationale, occasionally suffering from a sluggish pace and sleepy atmosphere that lessens the underlying mystery surrounding Erin’s mission, but Kidman imbues the material with continuous bite.

So much of Welles’ history has been relegated to scholarly texts that it’s a thrill to see this final chapter laid out with such clarity and charm.

The Old Man & the Gun eschews pastiche for a sweet, affable character study that resurrects Redford’s original star power with a wet kiss. The entire picture amounts to a low-key cinematic resurrection.

"Buster Scruggs” is a singular illustration of what makes the Coen formula so appealing, and a reminder of so many better examples.

Fans of the director’s late-period work (particularly his last completed effort, the rapid-fire diary film “F for Fake”) will find it thrilling to return to those unpredictable, garrulous recesses, no matter the bumpy ride. Welles continues to contemplate storytelling, Hollywood, and his own troubled career by transforming these obsessions into a marathon of creativity.

Roma is by far the most experimental storytelling in a career filled with audacious (and frequently excessive) gimmicks. Here, he tables the showiness of “Children of Men” and “Gravity” in favor of ongoing restraint, creating a fresh kind of intimacy. Like a grand showman working overtime to tone things down, he lures viewers into an apparently straightforward scene, only to catch them off guard with new information.

Abrahamson seems so coy about the haunting of the Ayres’ house that he refuses to allow the movie’s strongest aspect to take center stage, and the perils of The Little Stranger hover aimlessly throughout the movie like a specter in search of some elusive white light.

Statham remains an appealing summer movie fixture, but sharks deserve better than this.

Less moment-to-moment funny than committed to a sustained pitch of devilish glee, Never Goin’ Back couches its silliness in a credible milieu of American malaise. The women may never understand how they might find a better place, but the movie makes the case that their unending commitment to getting there might be good enough.

It’s intermittently engaging as a B-movie, but so often strives for something more that it never finds a satisfying tone.

One of those late-summer releases that’s just good enough to make you wish it were better, The Spy Who Dumped Me aims to please every step of the way, but it never earns the nearly two-hour running time.

Combining first-rate skate video footage with a range of confessional moments, Minding the Gap is a warmhearted look at the difficulties of reckoning with the past while attempting to escape its clutches.

Even as the story drifts off, Night Eats the World derives its power from a beguiling, provocative implication: It’s hard to confront a hostile world, but gathering the courage to do so doesn’t make the job any easier.

Skyscraper plays out like a metaphor for diminishing returns — Johnson keeps climbing, higher and higher, until there’s nowhere left to go but down.

While Zagar doesn’t force the material into many surprising places, it’s a fully realized tapestry, owing much to the complex, layered score by Nick Zammuto that hums through nearly every scene, and frequent cutaways to hand-drawn animation based on the scrapbook that Jonah stores under his bed at night.

The First Purge is another absurd B-movie, uneven and ludicrous across the board, but altogether transfixing for the way it funnels Trump-era terror into an empowering crowdpleaser.

The essence of Ant-Man is inherently silly, and that’s where the strength of the new movie lies.

It’s a powerful look at the durability of parent-child bonds as well as a fascinating psychological thriller about what it takes to heal such a rift when it seems irreparable.

The Fallen Kingdom is at its worst when attempting topicality (the testosterone-fueled Wheatley refers to one of our heroes as a “nasty woman”) or when beefing up its crass plot.

Sorry Angel doesn’t strain from too much ambition; it’s a sharp snapshot of two men at pivotal moments in their lives, and ends on a note not too different from the one it starts on. But that cycle is central to its gentle intellectual flow.

Wanuri Kahiu’s sophomore feature is just good enough to give its modest intentions a historic purpose, bringing fresh context to an old formula while hitting the expected emotional beats.

Rise to the challenge, and payoff awaits on the other side: a formulaic story transformed into something more perceptive and profound. If only more family dramas took such care to get the details right.

The best thing about writer-director A.B. Shawky’s feature-length debu...is the way it burrows inside Beshay’s life without devolving into a pity party.

The unexpected love child of Wong Kar-wai and Andrei Tarkovsky, “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” transforms from a lush, slow-burn pastiche to an audacious filmmaking gamble while maintaining the pictorial sophistication of its earlier section. It’s both languorous and eye-popping at once.

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote sits alongside much of Gilliam’s late period work as a messy but singular achievement that strains to make its disparate parts fit together, but there’s a noble spirit of invention to its wackiness anyway.