Johnny Oleksinski

Scorsese is at the top of his game here. His film is never boring, and it explores some unexpectedly deep themes for mafiosos.

You’re not dreaming. Billy Madison, Mr. Deeds, Happy Gilmore, Robbie Hart and the guy that sang “The Hanukkah Song” is doing the finest work of his career in Uncut Gems, a new crime comedy co-written and directed by Joshua and Benny Safdie. Pigs have flown, for Sandler is brilliant.

The match of larger-than-life actress to larger-than-life role is perfection.

Panahi is keenly aware of his limitations — both governmental and budgetary — and has crafted a taut, intimate and blood-pumping story around them. Talk about great art being born out of impossible circumstances.

“Heron” is not as perfect as some of Miyazaki’s past movies. The trippy story is dizzying by the end as too many characters are introduced too late and we navigate a thicket of hastily explained narrative elements. But it nonetheless leaves a powerful emotional effect if you let it wash over you.

Endlessly entertaining and frequently hysterical, “Anora” is one of the year’s best films and a formidable Oscar contender.

The performance everybody will be soon talking about is Olivia Colman’s royal turn in the entrancing new drama, The Favourite.

To say I was never bored wouldn’t be quite right. Rather, I was always transfixed.

It was always going to be an emotional experience watching the late Philip Seymour Hoffman’s son Cooper Hoffman make his acting debut. His father, an Oscar-winning genius, died in 2014...What we never could have imagined, though, is that Cooper’s freshman performance (he’s so green, his IMDB page doesn’t have a photo yet) would be one of the best of the year in what is easily the best film of 2021, Paul Thomas Anderson’s brilliant Licorice Pizza. This wonderful kid should be in the Oscar race, but we’re too predictably infatuated with big names. Let’s fix that.

Director Christopher Nolan’s seismic Oppenheimer is that rarest of things: a sophisticated and bracing movie that’s made for adults and makes nobody say, “I’ll wait till it’s on streaming.”

Good old reliable Marty pulls it off again, addictively unraveling a tale that’s almost too terrible to be true with panache, gusto and just the right amount of cultural respect.

It’s one of the year’s sweetest films.

It’s cinematic Mountain Dew. You’ll be wired for the entire 2½ hours.

The plot goes nowhere glacially. Underdeveloped side characters are so far to the side, they’re out of frame.

It’s a perfect flick for families, but also a jolly time for anyone with a pulse.

Most thrilling are the stage sequences. Cooper often films Ally’s thousands of screaming fans from her point of view — putting us in her lucky shoes for a minute...It’s that feeling of exhilaration that makes A Star Is Born the best film of the year so far.

Hamilton the film is just OK.

Keeping logical track of all the comings and goings is like trying to focus on a single bird in a flock. The details, names and faces blur a little more every time a character rounds a corner, just as they would for the ailing Anthony. With its narrative boldness, however, The Father never stirs or fully satiates.

This freaky fairy-tale world is really a playground for Stone, whose willingness to be foolish and risky is a breath of fresh air amid all the polite Oscar-bait turns we’re handed this time of year.

It’s too bad Scott could not deliver a brilliant character study of one of the world’s great military leaders — and instead settled for letting a self-indulgent Phoenix fly over the cuckoo’s nest.

Apollo 11 is foremost a tale of technology and humanity. It’s about a country that needed a figurative lift, and got it with a literal one.

Can You Ever Forgive Me?, based on Israel’s 2008 tell-all memoir, has a lot of laughs and a delicious setup, but it hits hardest as a drama about human desperation and survival.

[A] sublime drama, sprinkled with moments of lightness.

Writer and director Christopher McQuarrie borrows just the right amount of familiar spy tropes in his second “M:I” outing, and his film, while intelligent and witty, never becomes too self-serious or chatty. It’s the best night out at the movies so far this summer.

Watching Chadwick Boseman in his final movie, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, is pure heartbreak.

The film, directed by Chloé Zhao, is an awards-season favorite, and it doesn’t let you forget that for a second. Beneath the veneer of prestige, however, is a prescient and affecting story of a lost American class: van dwellers.

Banshees, reuniting Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell from “In Bruges,” is a scream from start to finish-erin.

The movie proves a New York teen superhero can do more than just excitedly swing around. He can move us, too. It’s the best stand-alone film to feature the iconic character so far. And it’s animated.