John Anderson

The compositions and palette are occasionally stunning (the cinematographer is Scott Siracusano), and while the story lacks a certain momentum, the intention, quite successful, is to keep a viewer curious.

There’s a scary amount of stuff going on in writer-director Christopher Landon’s horror movie/murder mystery/domestic drama/deep-state thriller/coming-of-age teenage romance. It may be based on the short story “Ernest” by Geoff Manaugh. But there’s nothing short about it. At the same time, it has its charms.

What may feel like Mr. Sfar's indulgences are sometimes just that, but one could hardly make an honest movie about Gainsbourg that wasn't as recklessly ambitious as this.

It is an inspiring story, no surprise, told with a great deal of warmth.

If you’re looking for the exhaustive movie bio on Reggie Jackson, look elsewhere: He’s in this thing for one reason only. Though if you want to watch him hit ninth-inning dingers out of Yankee Stadium, there’s a lot of that. And it is certainly fun.

Ms. Gadot is magnetic, will probably make a delicious Evil Queen in “Snow White,” and is spinning her wheels in the snow of the Alps, the dust of the African desert and the lava sands of Iceland in an effort to place the cornerstone, so to speak, in the construction of yet another kinetic movie series.

Given how early the illicit-insemination angle of Fortier’s history is revealed, viewers will suspect that even worse is to come, and they will be right. But that doesn’t mean those same viewers might not have other questions.

In several marvelously postmodern moments it recognizes its own glucose level. And the results are genuinely hilarious.

Directed by James Adolphus (“Soul of a Nation”), the HBO documentary is almost too balanced.

It's not that the movie is never funny. It's just that you don't feel very good when it is.

Like Seberg, too, Ms. Stewart is able to distinguish herself when encumbered by fairly feeble material. That said, Seberg is a bit much to ask of anyone.

American Made is one of the many children of “Goodfellas,” a true-crime story turned first-person narrative told by a charismatic ne’er-do-well surrounded by dubious characters and tantalizing subplots. None of these offspring, including American Made, have matched the chilling grandeur of Martin Scorsese’s 1990 masterpiece, with its multifaceted characters and visual fluidity.

Entertaining but highly conventional documentary.

For those more concerned with what “The Avengers” movies do best — outsize spectacle and wry comedy — Age of Ultron has to be declared a victory.

This one’s pretty entertaining, although increasingly noisy and ultimately ridiculous.

A kind of blues song in its own right, Sidemen: Long Road to Glory is an affectionate attempt to showcase three major figures in the development of Chicago blues, musicians who spent their entire lives eclipsed by the oversized stars they played with.

The Boy Behind the Door is an underwritten movie and an underpopulated one, though missing people are less of a handicap to the narrative than missing information.

Mr. Reynolds can do goofily perplexed as well as anyone and is quite charming as Guy, who doesn’t know what’s going on, except that as “Blue Shirt Guy” he’s rocked the worldview of online gamers everywhere.

Camp X-Ray isn’t anti-American, despite much of Ali’s rhetoric. It is about the evils of ignorance, wherever it rears its ugly head.

Mr. Bulger does a fine enough job defending his own legacy, being, at age 87, a still-charismatic figure and one who refuses to condemn his brother, or even concede that the family knew everything about its black sheep’s nefarious career.

Mr. Thayi doesn’t tell a straightforward version of the Hwang story, because he’s after more—the story of cloning itself, which will be enlightening for those of us on the fringes of science.

Mountainhead teeters on a precipice of dramatic irony and intentions.

Pellington bestows on the film a distracting, if occasionally effective, amount of video technique, and Wakefield’s story is rich and often truthful.

Although Born Romantic is sweetly intentioned and staunchly on the side of love, it meanders long to enough to alienate whatever affection it otherwise earns.

It is a very personal documentary, a designation that can connote the good, the not-so-bad and the distinctly uncomfortable. My Mom Jayne has it all, including a puzzle that Ms. Hargitay pursues throughout.

With a screenplay by Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee from his 1980 novel, Waiting for the Barbarians is a parable of depressingly timeless relevance, which means it’s faithful to its source material.

But as Isaac, Rifkin is simply transcendent, giving what is the most accomplished performance of the year. He does not, however, have a completely successful movie around him.

At two hours and 47 minutes, Andrew Dominik’s pseudo-biography is one long slog into sadness and more-than-predictable tragedy, despite a touching portrayal by Ana de Armas and the deliberately artful and often startling filmmaking of Mr. Dominik.