Jake Coyle

What carries it through, above all, is the great command of Bigelow (“Zero Dark Thirty,” “Detroit” ), who knows perhaps better than any working filmmaker how to turn bracing real-life, or near-real-life crises into heart-pounding thrillers.

Despite its grainy, VHS aesthetics, “The Smashing Machine” is a surprisingly conventional and oddly untroubled movie, albeit one that gives Johnson an indie-film platform for one of his finest performances.

If the issue of some thrillers is that they have nothing to say, the problem with “Him” is that it has exactly one thing to say, which it does again and again and again. “Him” does have some style, though.

In Paul Thomas Anderson’s gloriously messy, madcap roller coaster ride through modern America, objects in the rear view may go out of sight, but they don’t disappear.

Baltimorons is one of those little movies you might stumble across and be surprised that it hooks you. It does so despite — or more likely because — of its complete lack of flashiness or any self-evident attempt to “hook you.” Instead, it manages that simply with low-key charm and a warm, unpretentious humanity.

It’s a little shaggy and you’ll occasionally yearn for a bit more humor along the way. But “Caught Stealing,” based on Charlie Huston’s 2004 novel, is a ride, foremost, in ‘90s nostalgia.

Though there are elaborately choreographed long takes that smack of contemporary moviemaking, “Splitsville” belongs more to a screwball tradition stretching back to the 1930s.

It would be easy to hail The Naked Gun as something better than it is, since it simply existing is cause for celebration. But like most reboots, particularly comedy ones, the best thing about the new “Naked Gun” is that it might send you back to the original.

What it certainly is, though, is a very solid comic book movie. It’s a little surface over substance, and the time capsule feeling is pervasive. This is an earnest-enough superhero movie where even the angry mob protesting the superheroes turns quiet and pensive.

Rihanna voices Smurfette and supplies a new song, giving a half-hearted injection of star power to an otherwise uninspired, modestly scaled, kiddo-friendly cartoon feature.

Not everything works in “Superman.” For those who like their Superman classically drawn, Gunn’s film will probably seem too irreverent and messy. But for anyone who found Zack Snyder’s previous administration painfully ponderous, this “Superman,” at least, has a pulse.

The vaguest hints of real-world intrigue only cast a pale light on the movie’s mostly lackluster comic chops and uninspired action sequences.

In this remarkably fully formed debut, the moments that matter are the funny and tender ones that persist amid crueler experiences.

This is an unusually soulful coming-of-age movie considering the number of spinal cords that get ripped right of bodies.

When “F1” does, finally, quiet down, for one blissful moment, the movie, almost literally, soars. It’s not quite enough to forget all the high-octane macho dramatics before it, but it’s enough to glimpse another road “F1” might have taken.

Mountainhead adheres to the tradition of the HBO movie; it’s lean, topical and a fine platform for its actors.

Jia Zhangke’s “Caught by the Tides” is less than two hours long and yet contains nearly a quarter-century of time’s relentless march forward. Few films course with history the way it does in the Chinese master’s latest, an epic collage that spans 21 years.

For a long, sun-addled stretch, Lorcan Finnegan’s beach-set “The Surfer” simmers as a deliciously punishing nightmare, driving Nicolas Cage into his most natural state: a boil.

All the assembled parts here, including an especially high-quality cast (even Wendell Pierce!) work together seamlessly in a way that Marvel hasn’t in some time. Most of all, Pugh commands every bit of the movie.

A prize-winner at last fall’s Venice Film Festival, “April” could be accused of leaning too much into an austere, art-film obliqueness. But Kulumbegashvili’s absolute control over the camera and the intensity of her calling make her film a grimly spellbinding and unforgettable experience.

For a movie about a detail obsessive, it’s curiously messy. But — and this might matter more — the film has a reasonably firm sense of just how serious and how knowingly silly a movie about an uber-talented accountant ought to be.

Drop, a silly but suspenseful new thriller, carries on the tradition of “When a Stranger Calls” and “Phone Booth” by situating its tension around mysterious, threatening phone messages.

In this forensic portrait of war, the only way to not get what’s happening on the ground is to be too far from it. François Truffaut famously said there’s no such thing as an anti-war film because movies inherently glamorize war. “Warfare,” though, is intent on challenging that old adage.

Presumably one of the reasons to bring actors into remakes of animated classics would be to add a warm-blooded pulse to these characters. Zegler manages that, but everyone else in “Snow White” — mortal or CGI — is as stiff as could be.

Black Bag follows a run of agilely directed thrillers by Soderbergh made with screenwriter David Koepp. They are both at the height of their almost-too-easy powers; the script, especially, is peppered with delectable dialogue.

To call this a field of dreams would be pushing it. But it’s a lovely way to pass some time.

The movie’s earnestness carries it through these less smooth moments. So does the cast. Any opportunity to see Freeman or Harris, still at the top of their games, is a chance to be treasured.