Matt Zoller Seitz

This is not a film about individuals who have lost their moral compass, but a movie that lacks one, by a director who also lacks one but for many years did a convincing impression of a man who never lost sight of true north.

One of Us is so strong as-is that its more harrowing sections — particularly Ari's account of his childhood suffering and the details of Rachel's fight for freedom — are so already hard to watch that you might want to turn away.

It’s raw and often powerful—less of a carefully shaped drama than the equivalent of a series of boxes filled with explosive material being slung about.

Aquaman is as concerned with scientific accuracy as “SpongeBob Squarepants.” And that’s one of many reasons why I like it.

One of the most spectacular and frustrating mixed bags of the superhero blockbuster era, The Flash is simultaneously thoughtful and clueless, challenging and pandering. It features some of the best digital FX work I've seen and some of the worst.

Netflix's The Prom is billed as a musical comedy because people sing in it while making funny faces, but beyond that, the relative levels of comedy and musicality ought to be subjects of debate.

The worst thing you can say about this movie, and maybe the highest compliment you can pay to it, is to say that it would be even more dazzling if it told a different story with different animals but with the same technology, and in the same style — and perhaps without songs, because you don't necessarily need them when you have images that sing.

The first Malick film I’ve watched where the dots never came together to form a legible image.

Even when the movie's not working, its style fascinates. That "not working" part is a deal breaker, though — and it has little to do with Luhrmann's stylistic gambits, and everything to do with his inability to reconcile them with an urge to play things straight.

Clare Lewins' new documentary I Am Ali is a great introduction to the boxer, activist and super-celebrity if you don't know much about him. It doesn't break any new ground, not does it claim to, but it's likable and reasonably thorough.

The film is quite repetitive, essentially a very long sketch, and offers little in the way of character development for supporting players. In contrast to the original "The Office," everyone else is there mainly to stare in shock at David as he offends people or does something stupid.

Even if you have a high tolerance for whimsy, Mood Indigo may still be too much.

The climax of “Last Rites” is as tense and unsettling as you want to be, but it’s also warm and inspiring, because unlike a lot of movies that sell the idea of families being stronger when they all work together, this one totally believes in it and sells it with all the skill and emotion it can muster.

It's so bombastic that it makes "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice" seem modest.

It's frustrating to watch a movie that seems so unable to get out of its own way—all the more so because this is one of the last collaborations between the Oscar-winning screenwriting team of Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry.

Stiller has become a deeper actor with age, and he's perfect here: you know he has a good soul, because this is a comedy, and not a dark one, but he keeps you guessing.

From the looks of it, Huppert had a grand time playing the title character in Greta, a film that could have been released in the era of MTV veejays and VCRs.

Camp X-Ray has cinematic and moral intelligence.

The Holocaust drama “White Bird” is a sensitive, well-meaning but ultimately rather programmatic film, presenting the tragedy mainly as a school lesson for present-day kids.

Empire of Light never entirely coheres, but it's worth seeing for the power of Colman's lead performance and the expertly judged backup acting.

Woo is a virtuoso. This movie is music.

The Dead Don't Die is far from Jarmusch's best, but there's something to be said for its zonked-out acceptance of extinction.