Matt Donato

It's a melting pot of experiences from comical to romantic to thrilling to richly ruminative. Everything flows together gracefully in step through a delicate and beautiful dance that speaks to the ever-changing beast that is New York City.

It’s an unexpected commentary on filmmaking that layers metatextual zingers into its unbelievable rom-com intentions, somehow delivering what the title promises and more. In terms of mainstream comedies, we’re not in Kansas anymore—and that’s a win for Wain’s collective.

Sisu: Road to Revenge offers a ludicrous and punishing take on the same fantastic action-forward indulgence as the original, resulting in a sublime outcome. Writer-director Jalmari Helander's brand of excitement is loud, resilient, and pushes breakneck intensity to the maximum.

At its best, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die is a laugh-filled yet incredibly dark and poignant fever dream that pleads for a safer AI tomorrow. Verbinski's command over utter chaos is nothing short of marvelous, even if the pacing slows while jumping between storylines that eventually all fit together.

Obsession should and will put Barker on the map as a horror filmmaker you need to watch. Thanks to fantastic turns by Michael Johnston and Inde Navarrette, you'll be addicted to this sour Valentine's Day counterprogramming.

Black Phone 2 is a template for how sequels can reach further and push for standalone appeal, bringing us as close to Freddy Krueger as we'll get until there's another A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Without that grandeur—that Hollywood-sheen take on storybook resilience—the film’s uneven application of sad-sack strife might extinguish McConaughey’s guiding performance. But Greengrass’ throwback disaster-movie efforts, plus a healthy fury induced by our harmful ecological footprint, keeps feeding this fire.

What The Bad Guys 2 has to say about turning over a new leaf isn’t profound, but it’s effective nonetheless, especially when accentuated by so many goofy laughs and sticky-fingered thrills.

It’s more than a creature feature, but never in a way that undercuts the main event: Some truly startling above-and-underwater sequences.

It Ends takes viewers for a terrifying ride in unexpected ways.

It’s a clever reinvention of commonly distraught themes, teaching an old dog new tricks with a dreadfully cosmic twist.

LifeHack is a captivating, exhilarating, and full-speed heist thriller that marks one hell of a feature debut.

The Thing with Feathers can be a rich and somewhat bizarre experience about processing trauma, accepting death, and moving on.

Sonic The Hedgehog 3 lets its animated heroes shine. There’s less “live” in this impressively blended live-action movie, which is not a detriment.

The Gutter demands that you’re on its wavelength, but once you’re there, it’s like continual machine gun fire the way jokes and sight gags fly off the screen.

It plays like a late-night serial killer special on a true crime channel. It's organic, unnerving, and proficiently grounded as a modern criminal nightmare.

Heavier Trip is another gift to metalheads that has me hungry for a third, hopefully with a return to the more renegade nature of their original kitchen-sink odyssey.

V/H/S/Beyond is the most cohesive, best arranged, and most creatively complementary V/H/S yet. Here’s hoping we get a bundle of found-footage mayhem like this one every Halloween for the foreseeable future.

Get Away is a deceptive blast that properly exploits vacationer stereotypes to conceal vastly more wicked intentions.

Better Man is in a category of successful biopic dramatizations all unto itself.

It’s artistic, ravenous, and boundless in a way that honors the spirits of the New French Extremity movement. MadS is the kind of horror experience that feels like you’re new to the genre again — and oh what a glorious feeling that is.

Harris and Dormer are the best of frenemies in this sneakily stupendous character study, as relentless as it is mysterious.

For better or worse, Kostanski's throwback creature feature wants older horror fans to feel like their childish selves again — as long as their childhoods were filled with Charles Band and Pee-Wee Herman.

Shelby Oaks is a promising debut from Chris Stuckmann that’s equal parts eerie and soulful despite some third act shakiness.

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is a standardized comeback that moderately succeeds in balancing tradition with reinvention. The film doesn’t kick your door down and challenge your Beverly Hills Cop fandom—Molloy knocks politely on your door and shows you what you want to see. It’s a humble nostalgia bomb à la Live Free or Die Hard, one afraid to upset the apple cart and detrimentally one-note. But Eddie Murphy’s still Eddie Murphy, and that’s like sneaking in a cheat code.

Kill is a near-perfect action thriller that's stuck in overdrive.

Writer/director Jang Jae-hyun’s Exhuma bobs and weaves in ways American exorcism stories couldn’t fathom.

I was ready for Kill Your Lover to be a better concept than execution, but that’s not true. Its flaws are apparent, from a forced feature duration to inevitable conclusions, but there’s nothing detrimental enough to ruin an otherwise impressive original horror creation.

Bad Boys: Ride or Die might explore too many plotlines or bolt between too many characters, but brains-free enjoyment reigns supreme.

Babes succeeds as a comedy with enough primetime laughs — that’s (typically) what happens when hilarious comedians join forces — but never fully jells into a balanced experience between prenatal jokes and dead-serious subplots.

Bornedal keeps his surprises out of sight and boredom out of mind, delivering shocking payoffs that supplement the dominant plotline about Martin’s everlasting demons.

Arachnophobes beware: Infested is the best spider-centric horror movie since Arachnophobia.

Blood for Dust is a satisfactory interpretation of American hardships and making ends meet, one that’s been done plenty better and worse elsewhere.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is a solid Guy Ritchie take on World War II that tells an incredible, sort-of-true story that’s plucky, punchy, and quite entertaining.

Bell and Allen employ big ambitions in a confined area, treating stranger-danger paranoias with an elevated supernatural presentation that’s frightening—maybe a bit overlong—but undeniably effective.

This is an irreplicable experience that speaks volumes about following your dreams despite the challenges that await. The reward will always be worthwhile, even if it’s just about the friends you make and NPC cops you massacre along the way.

What Lowe accomplished in only her second full-length feature in roughly eight years shows such promise as a daring filmmaker with an original voice that deserves a megaphone, and I can only hope it doesn't take eight more to see what comes next.

My Dead Friend Zoe opens wounds and douses them in peroxide — the immediate sensation stings, but eventually cleanses and soothes.

Garland may have just delivered one of the most vicious and unrelenting watches of the year, one that I’ll keep debating and untangling both in my head and with others for a good long while.

Azrael is both familiar and unique, blending genre comforts with a risky idea. Luckily, it all works, paying off a relatively massive gamble that benefits from Samara Weaving's star power.

Y2K is a deadly unserious disaster comedy featuring fantastic cyber-monster effects and humor inspired by the time period.

Morgan’s feature debut is as stunning, diabolical and boundary-pushing an emergence as any filmmaker could hope to achieve.

Molli and Max in the Future is the textbook definition of an indie darling that executes well above its obvious production restraints, as unique and boundlessly ingenious a film you'll find in today's media landscape.

It's a hilarious low-low-budget, rough-around-the-edges oddity that makes me very happy, and I hope someday it'll make you feel the same crisp beaver-beatin' joy.

Erik Bloomquist’s direction is composed, and his co-written screenplay with Carson plays on politician-slamming themes, yet Founders Day is still a second-tier slasher that crosses too many plotlines in an overly complicated small-town massacre.

Gray plays to the simplest pleasures of heist cinema and wins us over because sometimes it’s alright to simply be dependable and straightforward.

The Conference is one of the better slashers released this year if you’re in the mood to watch liars and brown-nosers get hacked, skewered and brutalized to bits, pulling overtime at the right moments.

It's A Wonderful Knife might make its points with steel blades, but that doesn't negate the saccharine earnestness that assures this one as a new Christmas horror favorite with a heart three sizes bigger than you'd expect.

When Evil Lurks is a capital “H” horror film that risks it all and hits the jackpot, pummeling its audience into submissions and still leaving us asking for more.

In the hit-and-miss subgenre of horror anthologies, V/H/S/85 is a shining beacon. Filmmakers are given the space to explore a gamut of ideas, none of which feel restrained to fit a specific anthology mold.

For what it’s doing and for how visually appealing it can be, Dark Harvest delivers October ickiness with a crooked smile.

Wake Up makes its impression like a candy bar with a razor blade at its core. It's a sweet little treat for action-horror fans that hurts so good, as long as you're in the mood for visually traumatic, hopeless vibes.

Eileen is a nifty little shapeshifter of a thriller made of tremendous parts, just lacking a bit of steam upon exit.

Though Green may alienate some audiences with choices nowhere near as terrifying as William Friedkin’s original, something about the film’s heart endears beyond another exorcism retread satisfied to follow the same blasphemous beats.

Totally Killer tries to skirt responsibilities by having you laugh at its self-awareness, which works as much as it doesn't. Kiernan Shipka will be the reason people talk about Totally Killer, even if the film's foundation of paper cards is one strong gust away from collapsing at any second.

Dream Scenario is a sprawling dissection of subconscious desires and how marketable popularity spells doom for its subjects, showcasing Borgli's flexible originality without sacrificing emotional investment.

While its minimalist approach keys into creepy unknown anxieties about our extraterrestrial neighbors, Duffield’s signature dose of emotional heft floats away into the clouds this time around.

Bad Things wants to be quirky, callous and cutthroat before an explosive ending, but never aggressively combusts as we’d hope—even with chainsaws and flesh-cutting blades in play.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter should delight horror fans raised on Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, and offers an R-rated bite of vampiric brutality for genre fans with a stronger bloodlust. Øvredal does well to transport his cast to a time when scary stories were told around lanterns in the dead of night, and even if the moodiness evaporates due to a protracted runtime and the foregone conclusion of Dracula’s landfall, the director accentuates the basics of violent feeding sessions in hair-raising fashion.

The Sacrifice Game is cool, calm, and collected despite bringing so many subgenres to the party, achieving tonal unity that should please crowds and leave them craving whatever comes next for Wexler and company.

There's something to be said about the way Sakamoto depicts how the newer Japanese generation is left to fight for success amongst themselves — misled by older handlers and governing bodies — but you're ultimately here for ha-has and beatdowns, and neither disappoints. If there was ever an action movie that'd slay at a teen girl sleepover, it's Baby Assassins 2.

A soulful ghost story that does an unexpectedly solid job speaking to younger audiences about the afterlife, nailing the film’s appropriately spooky gateway-horror ambitions.

Vannicelli weaponizes therapy-speak where other titles become preachy, uses role-playing as an abusive confusion tactic, and provokes a rather alluring mindf*ck that doesn’t have nor need all the answers to captivate viewers.

With a steely reserve and killer instinct, Extraction 2 thrives as a buffet of brutality that plays back the mercenary thriller hits with a fresh coat of camouflage paint.

It’s better as a comedy than as a wickedly sharpened thriller, making The Blackening one of those surefire “see it with a crowd” pleasers.

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts proves that the Transformers franchise is accelerating in the right direction, delivering solid Autobots action and a solid voice cast behind the infamous robots in disguise.

The Wrath of Becky is still a fun-filled slaughter-fest, even considering the lulls before Becky unleashes her fury.

The Boogeyman is a capable creepshow built for mass appeal that gets the job done because at the end of the day, scary is as scary does.

What Influencer brings to the party lands with a softer impact in the messages it preaches, but that doesn’t prevent a twistier predatory narrative from snagging our attention like a buzzworthy viral sensation.

Sisu keeps it simple as a smaller-focus WWII epic that loves killing Nazis as much as we love watching them die in over-the-top ways.

Renfield makes a mess of its story at times, but does a good enough job getting gorgeously gruesome with its vampire action sequences to win us over with cartoonish gore – and Nicolas Cage's Dracula is one for the ages.

Air is an underdog crowd-pleaser with a standout ensemble cast sharpened to a point. As both director and co-star, Ben Affleck finds a balance between comedy and explanation that remains accessible to all audiences.

A lot of dreamlike logic floats through a freakish onslaught of dependably scary imagery strung together by what fits a moment versus the fluid nature of a more captivating survival scenario.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is an accessible fantasy adventure that both roasts and respects D&D culture without losing newcomers along for the ride.

Furies is a double-barreled adrenaline shot of ladies-first action extravagance that shines a light on Vietnamese genre cinema.

Cameron and Colin Cairnes succeed in developing a time-warp slice of Halloween spookiness, a vessel for David Dastmalchian to prove himself (for those who don't know) as a commanding lead performer.

If You Were The Last succeeds in being sensually aware, wholesomely funny, and emotionally fulfilling.

Brooklyn 45 is a tragic fireside reminder about how easily good men and women can be corrupted, whether by propaganda rhetoric or the ghosts of miseries past.

Evil Dead Rise is both a familiar and refreshing Evil Dead sequel that delivers all the gore you’d expect with a measured dose of the humor that makes this series a fan favorite.

I don’t love every storytelling element, but I do adore all that involves the star of the show, an aggro bear on obscene amounts of blow. You’ll get what you pay for, and can we ask much more from Cocaine Bear?

With House Party, Calmatic jumps from a prolific music video career to feature filmmaking with the same energy, leading to shorter-burst storytelling that values standout moments over longevity.

M3GAN capably proves herself more than a horror villain meme, although the film does sometimes struggle to balance the horror and comedy.

Dash will leave viewers behind based on the virtue of its obscure construction, yet should excite those seeking alternative character studies based on gig culture, second lives, and the unfaithful depths humans will plummet before telling a simple truth.

The Leech is a seedy, nefarious and scrappy morality tale that excels on the backs of its big-swinging performers.

A Wounded Fawn is an artfully chaotic descent into bloodlust, monstrous misogyny, and euphoric comeuppances of the most punishing pleasures.

Violent Night might take a hot minute to find its footing and keeps plucking low-hanging wordplay sugar plums, but at full strength, nobody's stopping Santa from making this year the reddest Christmas imaginable.

Blood Relatives is a warts-and-all brand of vampire indie that gets by with a bit of help from tremendous actor chemistry.

Nanny seeps into your pores, stings like salt in a throbbing wound and doesn’t require what some horror fans might—conversely—wish appeared.

Run Sweetheart Run is a passionate Los Angeles marathon that severs heads, scolds abusive norms, and gets loud about the ways society needs to reflect upon bettering itself. Shana Feste finds action-packed elegance in rage and reflection, borrowing from fast-moving midnight flicks that aren't afraid to challenge oppressive stigmas.

Satan's Slaves: Communion delivers another artfully accomplished and wickedly malevolent slice of Indonesian horror that returns to formula basics without sacrificing Anwar's trademarks. Maybe a bit too ambitious with its storytelling. But still righteously right-on in terms of razor-toothed horror execution.

McKee’s darker genre touches in titles like The Woman and All Cheerleaders Die are sorely missed in Old Man, which is too reliant on performances that outshine a story seen coming like an asteroid the size of Mars.

Sadly, some only listen when the quiet part is said out loud — Sissy blares its concerns and horrors like neon demons in front of the brightest ring lights.

Project Wolf Hunting goes for broke in terms of exquisite beatdown violence in the pursuit of primal genre happiness. Writer/director Kim Hong-seon executes like there’s a going-out-of-business sale on fake blood, and we reap the benefits as showstopping displays of action-horror devastation take center stage.

Hellraiser is a reinvigorated reboot that gets the blood pumping, starting with Jamie Clayton’s worthy Pinhead performance that sets a fresh tone with immense reverence paid to Clive Barker's works.

Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon sizzles like a heated cajun fairytale that tells humanity how it is, brimming with Amirpour's distinctly creative voice that keeps me coming back for more.

Terrifier 2 rips, tears, hacks, shreds, butchers, disembowels, decapitates, devours, pulverizes, tenderizes, slices, dices, skewers — I'm missing plenty — and knock-em-out-dead eviscerates the current competition when it comes to low-budget slasher effects.

Spirit Halloween dodges the bargain bin by opening its doors to a proficient gateway horror tale that plays like Goosebumps Lite in a seasonal decoration store.

V/H/S/99 understands the ‘90s assignment and crafts low-budget chaos that delivers a unified anthology slathered in guts, heavy on nostalgia, and with a punk-as-hell attitude.