Katie Walsh

The entire film feels like an exercise in dashing expectations, for both our heroine and the audience.

It is indeed harrowing to watch — to bear witness — and while the film is inevitably heavy with existential dread, Pritz delivers an emotionally engaging story filled with heart, heroes, and a bit of hope to hold onto. There is no more urgent film that demands your attention this year.

Aselton has a light touch as a director, and she wisely trots out an all-star parade of comedy heavyweights to distract from the script issues.

In 95 minutes, Ford unfurls a gritty and suspenseful L.A. noir that also serves to examine the structural issues that uphold wealth inequality in this country. But Emily the Criminal isn’t trying to be preachy or political, it’s just authentic, and urgent, and Plaza’s performance keeps the emotional and physical honesty at the forefront.

A glib, slick and shallow slice of Japanophile action entertainment that offers a very bright, shiny surface but has absolutely no interest in revealing anything beyond that.

In Vengeance, Novak sets his sights on lampooning the big-city media types who go chasing stories in middle America and return with observations from the “flyover states” that are usually condescending, preachy, or inauthentic, and in doing so, he finds the humor, and something honest too.

While the plot following Krypto finding his pack and saving the day is exceedingly formulaic and slightly tiresome with its predictable turns, Stern and Whittington fill the space around the structure with a plethora of absurdist humor and sharply written jokes, as well as the teasing self-awareness.

Calamy delivers a beautifully open performance at the center of an utterly winning comedy about the most important journey a person can take: toward finding themselves.

The story is fantastical, predictable and utterly delightful, allowing the audience to engage in familiar generic pleasures that have been cut and trimmed to fit every curve neatly.

Though it is faithful, Where the Crawdads Sing is lacking the essential character and storytelling connective tissue that makes a story like this work — an adaptation such as this cannot survive on plot alone.

It’s a breezy, funny, highly self-referential flick steeped in movie history.

In remaining present, with the past and future swirling feverishly, the film is a deeply poignant and moving love letter to those that remain, who “rage, rage, against the dying of the light,” as Dylan Thomas once wrote. Someone’s got to make a stand for the last vestiges of the soul of New York City, and “Dreaming Walls” beautifully captures their fight and their dreams.

These references, and the relentless assault of ‘70s needle drops, are fun, to a point, but the movie itself is 87 minutes of pure chaos, a hallucinatory, cacophonous fever dream of nonsensical subplots and Minion gibberish.

Thames delivers a searingly authentic performance as the young Finney, and when he’s all alone in the basement with ghosts, “The Black Phone” is at its best: suspenseful, emotional and filled with jump scares.

While Grappe ultimately finds an ending that’s a bit pat, the power of the Ukrainian spirit comes through beautifully, underscoring the stakes of what is, and always will be, at hand for the country, now more than ever: identity, safety, and freedom.

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.