Kate Erbland

It’s the sort of witty, wise, and warm character study we seem to be running out of these days. And that’s just when it comes to its standout dog star, the Great Dane (emphasis on great) Bing.

Fine enough, really, but if the first film was the kind of thing that never goes out of style, “The Devil Wears Prada 2” will last a season. That’s all.

Lloyd’s feature strikes a fine balance between all of life’s ups and downs, illustrated by Sandra’s unfortunately relatable traumas and a series of stellar performances.

Test is a slow burn that builds to an impressive end, although the rest of film is in need of that same kind of forward-driving energy.

Aramayo’s sensitive portrayal of the man and Jones’ unflinching dedication to showing some of Davidson’s most painful moments, the ones that pushed him into action, add up to an insightful biopic that chronicles a very worthy subject.

Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe doesn’t fully capitalize on a wealth of possible plots, send-ups, and diversions, but it makes a case for the dynamically dumb duo to return for still more inane wackiness (hehehehe, “wack”).

Late Night smartly sends up not just the cloistered world of late night television, but a current cultural climate struggling to evolve in a changing world.

Despite the familiarity, The Old Guard manages to be both very grounded and very entertaining, a marriage of expectations and twists unlike little else the genre has inspired even during its most fruitful times.

Paragas’ film finds fresh ground to explore the price and the power of the American dream, bolstered by country crooning and heartbreaking (and very real) legal worries. It’s a concept that might sound played out, but deft directing and a number of strong performances recommend it, a down-home answer to the similarly charming 2018 drama “Wild Rose.”

Bolstered by a strong performance from Teresa Palmer (who only gets better with each role, and seems happy to mix things up when it comes time to pick them), Berlin Syndrome doesn’t break much new ground in the genre, but it’s certainly a worthy entry into it.

Cynical, sad, increasingly fucked up, and often gloriously mean, Song has turned the genre inside out to show us how shallow these stories can be.

Despite the apparent care and respect that went into Keough and Gammell’s film, “War Pony” also makes clear how very far there is still left to go when telling “authentic” stories.

You’ll have to wait a while before Tigerland introduces its eponymous stars, but like many elements of Ross Kauffman’s emotional, often harrowing new documentary, the eventual reveal will be worth it.

Swanberg’s most mature and satisfying film yet.

This is Aileen’s story and when “God’s Creatures” makes the odd choice to turn away from her just as things are reaching a fever pitch, it dilutes the power of both her performance and the film itself. She’s gone mad, but God’s Creatures isn’t willing to follow her there, perhaps the craziest choice of all.

No one needs a live-action remake, but ones this faithful and sweet are not the problem.

It’s charming enough, although flashes of flinty humor hint at something edgier underneath. Henry, capable of bringing deep emotion to even small parts (“If Beale Street Could Talk”), often finds unexpected grace notes.

A smart twist on the coming-of-age comedy.

I Am Greta is not always as disarmingly open as its star, however, and keeping its focus so narrowly on the past two years robs it of some nuance.

With Penguins, frequent Disneynature filmmaker Alastair Fothergill and franchise newbie Jeff Wilson are working in a more minor key than such essential entries as Chimpanzee and African Cats, but the artistry and relative magic of the series is still on full display.

At just 95 minutes, Cohen and West hit the bullet points of Child’s life, much of it told through her own archival interviews and personal letters and diary entries, but bigger questions linger. It’s a delicious meal, but it often feels a touch undercooked.

Anderson does add some style to the film, doing wonders with an indie-sized budget for a film that requires a specific period setting.

The film really hits hard when it leans more into the emotion of it all.

Without the influx of talking heads and other bits of opinion and information, the audience is forced to confront their own judgements. ... The effect is ingenious and chilling.

Trumbo works well enough as a general survey of Trumbo's life and career, a primer on a complicated man who endured a terrible injustice, but it fails to really engage with the material, to dig deep for significant themes and salient meanings

“Huda’s Salon” doesn’t waste a second in its crackling first 10 minutes ... but that rat-a-tat-tat opening eventually gives way to a drama that’s uneasy both due to its subject matter and its weak hold on it.

The film has enough charm and humor to keep it appealing to a wide audience, and dumbing things down doesn’t feel particularly smart or canny, and proves to be a minor distraction to an otherwise majorly entertaining feature.

DeBoer and Luebbe have further expanded their nutty vision of suburban ennui and the painful consequences of keeping up with the status quo into an unsettling and amusing send-up of human behavior.

Poe has built a rich world that’s equal parts “Rushmore,” “Heathers,” and “The Godfather,” with all the unpredictability that teenage behavior can possibly engender.

That Tortorici pulls this twist off is both perverse and pleasurable, and that he keeps it all feeling funny is even better.

The honesty with which Bamford approaches all of this (and, yes, surely you must be sick of reading the word “honesty,” but there is simply no better term for who Bamford is and how she lives) is, as her fellow comedians have told us, real and refreshing and actually unique.

While Gregg offers a cheeky sense of what it really means to gaslight someone, no one will feel as injured by the film’s final-act choices than its audience.

If nothing else, audience members will walk away from Martha with a far greater understanding of Stewart — of all the “good things,” in her parlance, and plenty of the bad — and equal admiration and unease of what that all adds up to.

In a documentary landscape rife with both star-fronted documentaries and other hagiographic entries, Howard leans into honesty. The film is so much better for it, even as it can’t quite capture the full magic and scope of Henson’s life and work. What could?

Though Gerbase has conceived of a fascinating, timely inciting incident for her film, much of “The Pink Cloud” eventually melts into all the beats of a standard relationship drama. (And, yes, we mean all the beats.)

Armed with her funniest material to date and a winning performance from Gillian Jacobs, the filmmaker finds new dimensions for both her work and the millennial ennui that has always inspired it.

The beats of Fighting With My Family are comfortingly familiar, and the soap opera pomp of the wrestling world is eye-popping to both fans and neophytes alike, but it’s Pugh that is always fresh, surprising, and wily. The film might not hit hard, but Pugh never stops doing just that.

There need to be more films like this, if only so the LGBTQ kids seeking them out will realize how normal their own experiences are.

The charm of The Meddler isn't the kind that benefits from big pushes forward in narrative or massive plot movements, but it revels in heart-warming humor, vibrant characters and what's clearly a deep affection for its story.

Despite that iffy start, Garver’s film blossoms into something more comprehensive than complimentary, a film that doesn’t balk at the trickier aspects of Kael’s career, even as it never fully engages with the tensions that informed her.

When Lindon isn’t at the mercy of her but-I’m-a-teenager ruse, Spring Blossom and its filmmaker get a chance to show off some real creative sparks, including a trio of musical numbers that offer cinematic style and emotional flair.

Evans, Hall, and Heathcote exhibit major chemistry (in every permutation) possible, but they also don’t wink at the storyline, playing a provocative story totally straight.

While Poser works up to a somewhat predictable ending, the details and ideas that get us there are fascinating and unique.

Morales and Duplass are both appealing enough that their charm shines through in even this seemingly limited format, and the result is an intimate feature that earns that closeness through every stilted video message and free-flowing video conference.

The Willoughbys is different — or, perhaps, just different enough to stand out, as it sends up the vast assortment of kiddie stories about missing, dead, or just plain bad parents, and finds something fresh and funny in the process.

Set in Gillan’s own hometown of Inverness, the film uses the tragic history of the Scottish Highlands (which has the highest suicide rate in the U.K.) to spin out an intimate coming of age tale, bolstered by Gillan’s dark sense of humor and a firm understanding of how to play with narrative conventions.

Enola Holmes doesn’t just use its heroine as a cute way to nod at progressive thinking; it fully embraces a story that is, at its heart, deeply feminist.

In just his second feature, Burns exhibits a real knack for world-building, mythology-making, and crafting real tension, but a series of stumbles in the film’s final act — the worst of which is run through with icky implications Burns seems terribly unaware of — end the film on a wearisome final point.

The filmmaker manages to bring much of his sensibility and overall texture to the series. Part of that is due to the nature of the prequel itself (go back to where it all began!), part of that is due to the relative freedom to build in new characters and stories, but much of it is thanks to Sarnoski’s ability to pull deep emotionality out of his stars and audience almost immediately.

The eventual twists might shock, but Horvat lands it all with a bruiser of an ending, as funny and scary as anything Hollywood itself has churned out in recent years. If this is do-it-yourself cinema, more filmmakers would benefit from being as laser-focused as Horvat is on making something that truly has something to say.

When White Fang focuses on its real stars — animals, Alaska, the spread of untamed country — it’s as visionary as any animated film. Placed alongside ham-fisted humans, it loses its power.

Although Doucouré steeps Cuties in emotion and experience, she abandons its grace to make crazier gestures.

Gabrielle is at the center of all things, but what about her center? Well, it’s not going to hold. And there’s no one better to portray that than Drucker, who has become one of our foremost portrayers of women on the edge.

Jason Clarke opts for a more low-key approach to Teddy Kennedy, eschewing a big accent or showy mannerisms, and fully disappears into the role. It’s his finest work yet, and proof of his ability to excel given the right material.

An impeccably produced look at a heinous crime, Popplewell’s documentary meticulously weaves together a wealth of information . . . that it almost feels too readymade for the film treatment. Almost.

Maybe the pictures should get small again; it might be the only way to save an MCU that seems dangerously close to getting too big to do anything but fail.

Despite the stars’ strong performances and the high level of craft, the film struggles in its final act.

It’s as wild and unhinged as the other films in its brethren (the MPAA does not typically rate original Netflix films, but “Ibiza” would absolutely be on the receiving end of an R). However, Ibiza subverts plenty of expectations in service to a story that’s both funny and sweet.

Freaky has enough snappy fun to keep it ticking along to the inevitable “shock” ending, forcing together two delightful powerhouses in a battle royale that seems primed to kickstart another new franchise for Landon.

While Souza and his life and work are more than interesting enough topics for a documentary, what The Way I See It is really about — what it really wants to be about — is not the man who took the photographs, but the man who was the subject of those photographs.

Garbus, who has long been motivated by stories about remarkable women and horrible crimes, makes a strong showing with Lost Girls, her first narrative feature in her decades-long career.

While Worth is most literally concerned with a stupefying question — what is a life worth? — it’s more precisely about the price of calculating such a wrenching ask.

Feig goes for the spaghetti method of storytelling: Throw a whole bunch of stuff at the wall and something has got to stick. Only some does, but the good stuff — the really campy, trashy, nutty stuff — is the kind of thing popcorn cinema hasn’t so happily embraced in years.

You’ll laugh, you’ll gasp, you’ll have, yes, a very good time. You’ll also marvel at the introduction of a newly-minted filmmaker with a crystal-clear vision of both what the world is and what it could be, at least if the women were in charge.

The only thing scarier than Prey at Night is the possibility that we might have to wait another decade for more of its very special mask-faced chills.

Capaldi doesn’t go for neat and tidy endings, so it’s a real shame that this too-glossy documentary does.

Mulan is perhaps the best example of how to marry the original with something fresh. The Ballad of Mulan has always been an epic-scale story about the power of being yourself in a world not ready to accept that, a tale that will likely always have resonance. In Niki Caro’s “Mulan,” that story elegantly and energetically moves forward, a timeless message made for right now.

The Last Showgirl is both the role of a lifetime for Anderson, one that can fully capture her incredible emotional intensity and vulnerability, and (we can only hope) the start of a brand new career for her.

Hollywood Stargirl, for all its charm, doesn’t quite hang together as a complete story. It feels like an episode, a vignette, a tiny slice of Stargirl’s remarkable life suddenly turned into a filmmaking parable she’d likely balk at.

There’s a tenderness here, not just between the Sasquatches (and even then, not always just tenderness!) but for nature itself.

Angelou’s life and work was rich, significant, influential and hugely varied, and yet “And Still I Rise” is hobbled by unimaginative delivery and direction. In short, it’s limited, and Angelou’s own history proves that limitations must be fought against at every turn.

As Riegel builds to a conclusion that feels both predictable and satisfying, Dandelion must decide how far she’s willing to go to bet on herself. More people should bet on Riegel and Layne, and fast.

In the hands of director Josephine Decker, a filmmaker uniquely suited to depicting personal expression on the big screen, the film version of The Sky Is Everywhere makes for a satisfying and special take on a particular sub-genre of YA story.

It makes for a creative, clever watch, though one that seems exclusively imagined to cater to the series’ older fans and otherwise mature audiences.

Leonard and Weixler’s lived-in chemistry and quirky writing (again, largely improvised) keep their characters feeling real even in the midst of their wilder adventures.

For a film built on the wild concept that bonafide action bad-ass Kate Beckinsale has to wear an electrode-laden vest meant to shock her into submission before she maims everyone around her, there’s only one response: How dare this film be so lethargic.

Mothering Sunday pushes toward cut-and-dried conclusions, sewing up certain storylines with a finality that doesn’t befit the early sense that nothing is really ever over for Jane or the wounded world she inhabits.

Part creature feature, part war-is-hell nightmare, and entirely dedicated to cutting down the misogynist jerks who populate it, there’s enough giddy fun to power Shadow in the Cloud through just about anything.