John Anderson

It will prove a literally breathtaking adventure, depending on one’s phobias about heights, water and psychopaths. But it is an ordeal saga, a predator thriller with horror-film accents—and a considerable amount of violence and pain for the character played by the ageless Ms. Theron, who may be giving the most athletically demanding performance of her action-movie career.

The tale doesn’t need any artificial twists. They occur naturally. There’s character development. Foreshadowing.

“The Logo” is directed by “Black-ish” creator Kenya Barris, who is too much of a presence in his own movie. It’s his first documentary. It may be the first one he’s seen. Documentarians usually hide themselves unless they have something to add, which he doesn’t.

While Ms. Gillespie can’t solve the mystery of why exactly her subject did what he did, she has created a novel kind of crime film, one aided in no small way by what seems to be the complete flight recording from Russell’s mad act. And a group of loved ones willing to listen to it.

Ms. Zenovich possesses the interviewer’s most valuable skill, knowing when to shut up.

“1000 Women” is briskly entertaining and wildly informative as a clip show, insightful in its academic analysis, and the structure of the film enables a tidy organization of an often messy bunch of films.

While essentially a disaster film, the visually alarming and nerve-racking “Fukushima” is also a cross-cultural psychodrama, about an industry, and perhaps a society, having a meltdown all its own.

In a deliberately raggedy film, we find a raggedy man.

Like Sun Ra’s music, the motion picture is deliberately fractured, the virtues to be found in the departures from the expected, the familiar, the comfortable.

Director Rory Kennedy strives to make Ms. Polgár’s story—that of the greatest female player in the game—a validation of women in chess, without paying much attention to their continued under-representation, post-Polgár, in international competition. What she does come close to validating, however hesitantly, are the unorthodox educational theories of Judit’s father, László.

The Rip is a sturdily entertaining, hyper-kinetic avalanche of action propelled by equal parts bullets and f-bombs.

Influencers both dwells in and demolishes an online, text-happy, selfie-saturated world, one that thrives on misinformation and FOMO-mongering and drives CW more than a little crazy. Watching poseurs brought down is fun, though. So is Ms. Naud.

As naturally and insistently buoyant as Mr. Strassner is, Ms. Larsen is a marvel.

There is an implicit story within—about the ancients building with marble for eternity and us moderns building with concrete for a virtual moment. But it isn’t just beauty Mr. Kossakovsky is concerned with here. It is how humans view their world and, more importantly, themselves. And their place in the universe. And their disposable landscape.

“Reflection” is a highly playful exercise in its kaleidoscopic approach, though “kaleidoscopic” is about as useful as “surreal” in describing the film’s effect or philosophy.

The film acknowledges the bones of Johnson’s story—a very thin narrative in terms of things actually happening, though the things that happen are enormous. The execution is nevertheless lush, sometimes startlingly beautiful, and painterly and evocative of Johnson’s elegiac theme about a bygone America. The Old World is never old until it’s gone, but in Train Dreams one feels it passing.

Musically, the film is best viewed and heard as an artifact.

Is this movie better seen in a theater than at home on Netflix? Yes, no and what can one say? Watch it anyway.

Mr. Davenport, who makes films “about disability” according to his website, also makes them from the perspective of the disabled—he has cerebral palsy and often uses a wheelchair. Like many people who find themselves on the anti- side of the assisted-suicide issue, he takes the concept to what seem very logical conclusions—with an assist from Canada.

There is no reason to adapt an existing work without doing something new, and Ms. DaCosta does plenty, though much of the updating shows how truly groundbreaking Ibsen was. And how little ground is left to break.

The filmmakers may have refashioned the book to make it a vehicle for Mr. Murphy, and done so successfully. But they were right about the POV: Witnessing the turmoil of these very troubled youths through the frustrations of their teachers makes for more convincing drama than would a delinquent’s-eye view of the same situation.

All horror film is metaphorical. But to qualify for the genre itself—and satisfy the base demands of the base—a movie is required to both accelerate toward lunacy and entertain a certain amount of mayhem. “Bring Her Back” contains enough gore to swamp a blood bank. But it also features a performance by Sally Hawkins that may be the best of the year, or even her career.

The Vietnam echoes are everywhere. The vocabulary is mere embellishment

It’s difficult to describe the astonishing beauty of “Porcelain War” without trivializing everything and everyone involved.

Both the underlying story and the dramatic re-creations possess an urgency that eludes so much televised—and sensationalized—nonfiction.

Hell of a Summer, as written and directed by Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk, manages to mine some fresh mirth out of the mayhem while lampooning a format’s classic conceits.

It’s easy to smile at The Thursday Murder Club, with its veteran performers chewing the scenery and still having the teeth to do it. Does that sound ageist? It might, if the charms of this lighthearted, star-studded confection weren’t all about its main characters being advanced in years and still as sharp as an insulin injection.

There are a few speedbumps of illogic along the gnarled route of Night Always Comes, but they can’t negate the pace of the storytelling, Mr. García’s gymnastic shooting, or the sense of there being no bottom to the well of darkness explored by Mr. Caron.