Eric Kohn

It’s a smart and sturdy behind-the-scenes look at a high-profile #MeToo drama, and succeeds at scrutinizing the conundrum facing countless women still afraid of speaking out.

July’s style is at once cerebral and irreverent, but “Kajillionaire” doesn’t always find the most satisfying way to juggle those dueling tones. However, its spell lingers as July’s biggest concepts take root, and the movie turns from tragic to hopeful at an unlikely moment in tune with the artist’s previous works.

Oscillating from intimate father-daughter exchanges to surreal meta-fictional tangents, the movie lives within its riveting paradox, reflecting the queasy uncertainty surrounding its subject’s fate.

The 40-Year-Old Version doesn’t overcome all of its rough edges, but they’re so closely tied to the personality of the creator that it’s hard to shake the underlying appeal.

It makes up for a dry and sometimes stilted filmmaking approach through sheer clarity of purpose.

Crip Camp proves some success stories only grow more powerful with age, and their ability to inspire action is timeless.

Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets may not be the straight-faced documentary it looks like, but it’s a sober-eyed document of our times nonetheless.

Director Janicza Bravo’s zany road trip comedy about a pair of strippers on a rambunctious 48-hour Florida adventure embodies its ludicrous source while jazzing it up with relentless cinematic beats.

Bad Hair has plenty to say — about the plight of black women in particular and blackness in popular culture in general — but his movie can’t settle on laughing off the conflict or regarding it with dread. Instead, it settles on lingering in the knotted chaos, hoping that the message still burns.

Perry’s self-produced soap opera scribble is the kind of hilarious so-bad-it’s-good romp in which the man behind the curtain invites his viewers to roll their eyes.

It takes some ambitious swings and works on its own terms in fits and starts, all while not really working at all. Like the T.S. Eliot poems that inspired it, Cats is an elaborate lark.

With emerging rebel leader Rey (Daisy Ridley) providing a sturdy emotional foundation, and billions of Disney dollars fueling an obviously stunning array of special effects, Rise of Skywalker doesn’t squander every opportunity to dial up the thrilling nature of the epic at hand, but all that razzle-dazzle can’t obscure a hollow core.

Bombshell is a lurid, cartoonish romp, marred by rough and sometimes overbearing flourishes, but not without a tragicomic soul. That alone makes it a genuine movie of the moment.

As a cinematic achievement, “Bikram” is fairly tame; as a mass-media call to action, it’s an essential movie of the moment.

Matsoukas’ fast and furious filmmaking doesn’t always click, but it always crackles with purpose, refashioning the lovers-on-the-lam trope into an emotional black-lives-matter lament, and it deserves to be met on those terms.

As a platform for Bilot’s efforts and why they deserve a national profile, the movie has a sincere sense of purpose. It’s a 20-year-old drama that extends into the present, and as environmental concerns continue to escalate, it couldn’t feel more contemporary.

Doctor Sleep shows considerable effort to ingratiate itself to discerning cinephiles, from the moody Newton Brothers score to cinematographer Michael Fimognari’s dark blue nighttime palette; as a whole, the movie conjures an eerie and wondrous atmosphere that blends abject terror with a somber, mournful quality unique to Flanagan’s oeuvre. But his pandering to dueling source material results in a jagged puzzle beneath both of their standards.

An overlong blend of kid-friendly “Game of Thrones” warfare and standard-issue metaphors of intolerance, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil finds plenty of ways to build on the original premise, but few that resonate any better than the last flamboyant ride.

The Irishman is alive with Scorsese’s trademark style.

On the surface, Last Blood may be a mess of B-movie contrivances, but like its world-weary namesake, it’s also a timely window into the vanity of violent solutions, and why brutality is only viable when fighting for a lost cause.

The Kingmaker clarifies the harrowing situation facing the future of the Philippines, but more than that, it’s a warning sign for the entire world.

[A] mesmerizing debut ... Sound of Metal injects visceral, edgy circumstances with remarkable sensitivity.

Harriet doesn’t reinvent the biopic formula, but Erivo’s performance injects a palpable urgency to the material that makes up for missed time.

The movie hovers in a curious paradox, coming across as both operatic tribute and horrific condemnation, but it’s never less than a nasty crime drama with plenty of grimy characters to keep the stakes compelling throughout.

It’s a frantic, unnerving window into Syria’s collapse, and a nerve-wracking thriller that alternates between acts of courage and utter despair; through that paradox, it captures the struggles on the ground in intimate detail.

As directed by Marjane Satrapi, this discursive biopic struggles whenever it cuts away from her drama to explore the bigger picture — with peculiar flash-forwards to a nuclear future — but Pike helps fuse it together.

There’s much to be appreciated about the movie’s energetic pace, and the casting never fails to convince. But Iannucci’s restless scene transitions — rising curtains reveal new scenes, projected images provide in-scene flashbacks, and so on — confuse empty gimmicks for innovative narrative trickery.

Despite some pacing troubles and myriad undeveloped characters, Motherless Brooklyn functions well enough as a throwback to the intelligent, atmospheric studio private investigator dramas to which it tips a velvety fedora, and shows evidence that this dormant genre still has legs.