Katie Walsh

At the center of Baz Luhrmann’s sprawling pop epic Elvis, a film as opulent and outsize as the King’s talent and taste, Butler delivers a fully transformed, fully committed and star-making turn as Elvis Presley. The rumors are true: Elvis lives, in Austin Butler.

Jones’ debut is stuffed to the brim with the sharp dialogue and rich costumes that bring us back to the period romance genre again and again. Her direction is serviceable, and the pacing never lingers too long, keeping the laughs and romance coming.

The Lost Girls gets stuck somewhere in the middle of magical realism and a gritty psychological exploration of what it means to believe in Peter and still live in the real world.

It’s a war cry that’s simultaneously a galvanizing call to action, a message of hope and a reminder that a different world is possible.

Downton Abbey: A New Era is a chaste, mannered soap opera that feels like a relic of another time in more ways than one, but perhaps, that’s the entire appeal.

Block Party is a lightweight comedy that frustrates because there’s the potential for it to be great, to resonate beyond its blandly formulaic charms.

This beautifully crafted jewel of a throwback thriller signifies Okuno as a talent to watch, but furthermore, it pushes the viewer to question what, and who, we choose to believe and why.

The antics are wacky, the jokes are dense, and “The Bob’s Burgers Movie” is both nail-bitingly tense and genuinely moving. It’s a story that demonstrates the powerful force of family unity, and that small businesses are tantamount to preserving the fabric of a community. But most importantly, it’s hilarious, and it’s likely to make you crave a burger too.

Carpignano once again uses a tight, intimate character focus to take a wider look at larger political and cultural issues in this region. In the poetically, humanistically crafted A Chiara, he also manages to flip the Mafia movie on its head, and in doing so, challenges the mythology that keeps these shadowy systems in power.

Like a weaver on a loom, Hansen-Løve loops these moments together, threading small moments of thought-provoking social commentary throughout, revealing the larger picture only once the process is done, offering a snapshot of a moment in time, a profound and captivating portrait of love, lost, found, and ever-remaining.

The central relationship of “The Valet” is the weakest part of the film, and much of the comedy is a bit tiresome, though a few bits do pop.

This is a definitive statement of what Carmichael can do as a director, transcending the small scope of the film into something grander and more epic.

The film maintains a quiet dynamic even throughout the most horrific moments, and while you might expect, or even want, the film to climax more operatically, the understated tone is a radical choice.

Bourgeois-Tacquet’s script is loaded with witty bon mots and carefully-constructed insights.

Like many great monster movies, Hatching uses its creature as a metaphor for repressed emotion, and the one at the center of this film is one of the most uniquely grotesque creations seen on screen in a long time.

Memory has a decent director in Campbell (“Casino Royale,” “Vertical Limit”) and a great cast (yes, that’s Ray Stevenson as a corrupt cop), but a crippling case of a bad script that can’t manage to make us care about any of these characters.

Marvelous and the Black Hole proves to be a small marvel of an indie gem and an assured debut for Tsang.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent knows that what it has going for it is Nicolas Cage, and Nicolas Cage is what makes this otherwise forgettable comedy worth the watch. It’s not necessarily only for super fans, but super fans will be richly rewarded by this love letter to Cage, who, remember, never went away.

It feels like a bad parody, a shadow of what a film is, not an actual film itself. The color palette is a dreary mud puddle of grays and browns, and there’s no sense of space or geography. It has no weight, no heft, no texture, no color, no sense of magic or wonder in the least. The story itself has no sense of stakes or resonance, and the actors vary in affect from lifeless to dutiful to pained.

It’s a remarkable story, but “Father Stu” is a broad, somewhat brutish film.

What Arnold manages to make tangibly cinematic in Cow is the soulful spirituality of these animals, their beauty and their emotions. It is as moving as it is devastating, and although this film requires patience and fortitude, it rewards with a singular and perspective-shifting cinematic experience.

It is startling, and sometimes disturbing, but hits a place that is intensely human — bittersweet and bloody and beautiful at once, and unlike anything you’ve ever seen.

The Contractor is decidedly Pine’s film. His performance is as efficient as the script, which Saleh mirrors with a crisp, smooth aesthetic. There’s nothing particularly showy about the style, but it serves the story of this professional warrior working his way through an unfamiliar place.

This one rolls right over any doubters, powered by Bullock and Tatum, in a film that lets them play to their strengths.

It’s a profound love letter from daughter to mother, an expression of a desire to remain close to her, and in fact, a love letter to all mother-daughter relationships that persist in spite of and because of all the flaws, foibles, and fallibility that comes with being human.

They don’t often make them like this anymore, a story cut, folded and stitched together with care. So “The Outfit” is worth slipping into and savoring.

The first half is the more intriguing as older and younger tussle with each other and ask the tough questions, figuring out their mission together. But it all falls apart in a hackneyed third act.

In its uncompromising vision, it may not be for everyone, but it’s definitely the movie that Batman needed.