Mick LaSalle

If “Remarkably Bright Creatures” only had that magnificent octopus going for it, it would be halfway to a good movie. But the human characters are interesting, as well, showing the stresses of the different stages of life.

It’s a good film, very unlike most “disease of the week” pictures, in that it’s often quite funny, and it tells a fascinating story about something that remains mysterious to most people.

Instead of settling for a tour de force from McKellen, Soderbergh goes for something better — a fascinating give and take from start to finish.

Jonah Hill has directed and co-written an impressive little movie with “Outcome.” It could be called a Hollywood satire, but what’s striking about it — and audacious and unexpected — is that it’s dramatic and heartfelt. Here and there, it even comes close to being sentimental.

Like “It Ends with Us,” which was also based on a Colleen Hoover novel, “Reminders of Him” is a movie whose willingness to be deeply unpleasant saves it from becoming a soap opera.

The Optimist could be described as a Holocaust drama, but it approaches that history in an unexpected way.

It’s a sneaky little movie about what people are really like, and it’s impressive.

I’ve been fascinated by McCartney for decades, and “Man on the Run” made me feel like I was getting closer to understanding the real guy.

In America, it might be called a mess, and at times this movie sags. But overall, there’s something about it that holds interest. “A Private Life” is an odd ramble that eventually arrives somewhere.

You can love or hate “The Chronology of Water,” but if you don’t come away from it marveling at the brilliance of Poots’s performance, you just weren’t paying attention.

If “Dead Man’s Wire” has a weakness it’s that it doesn’t create an intense desire to find out how it all turns out. It compensates with dark humor and with a central performance by Skarsgård that’s fascinating.

Fortunately, the last 30 to 40 minutes of “The Housemaid” are so propulsive and unexpected that it makes up for what the middle lacks.

The movie’s biggest asset, aside from Buckley, is the set design. To look at the physical interiors of the houses is like stepping inside a Vermeer painting. Care was taken to provide “Hamnet” with the most realistic and detailed of settings.

Jay Kelly is Baumbach’s best film and, from an artistic standpoint, his first complete success.

What truly propels the film is the growing realization, through both the script and Sweeney’s performance, that Christy isn’t an ordinary person blessed with an extraordinary gift. Rather, she’s an extraordinary person whose very life force is awe-inspiring.

Not enough can be said for how strong [Crowe] is in this film, and how welcome it is every time he appears on screen. He seems able to read people. He also seems German, complete with German gestures.

The quiet intensity of “Blue Moon” is at times agonizing. Any more would have been too much.

The only weakness of the movie is that, because it’s a true story, it can’t rearrange the order of events for maximum drama. Thus, what is essentially the climax of the film comes about three quarters in, and the rest of it, while never less than interesting, feels like falling action. The good news is that Sweeney and Kirby get their best scenes, respectively, in this last section of the movie.

Though Hauser and Sweeney can’t exactly save the movie, they keep it from derailing.

Night Always Comes isn’t an especially ambitious movie, but it’s simple where it needs to be simple, and it’s complex when complexity is called for.

Neeson is a delight and seems to be having as much fun as the audience. But the surprise here is Anderson, who was sad and plaintive in “The Last Showgirl” and now reveals herself a skilled and self-aware comedienne. Anderson is having a moment right now, and I’d like to see it continue.

Oh, Hi! is that rare case, a movie that’s engaging and interesting moment by moment, but everything else is wrong with it.

In 1925, Charlie Chaplin released "The Gold Rush," his best film to date and one of the best he would ever make - or anyone would ever make.

Sweeney gives the movie its extra spark, its sense of occasion.

As suspense thrillers go, “Dangerous Animals” is as uncompromising as it gets. It doesn’t aspire to much, but it’s well-acted and well-written, looks great and full of surprises.

Clown in a Cornfield will never be ranked among the classics of our time, but there are aspects of it that are worthy of admiration.

It’s a wail of grief, an expression of love, a testament to the body. Cronenberg puts it all on the line here, and he gets his actors to put it all on the line with him. If you don’t feel its visceral charge, you’re not paying attention.

Drop is the kind of film that separates the real movie lover from the conditional movie lover. It is manipulative, fundamentally ridiculous, obvious, far-fetched, gut-level in its appeal and irresistible. As such, it embodies the true soul of movies.

When one performance in a movie is exceptional, you can credit the actor. But when everyone is great, it has to have at least something to do with the director. That’s the case with “Bob Trevino Like It,” which has three standout performances.

In retrospect, Levinson might secretly wonder if the bizarre casting was the right move after all. But at least he got strong performances from his lead actor, and he took a good script by Pileggi (“Goodfellas”) and made a good movie out of it. You can’t ask for much more than that.

Cleaner is a good-not-great thriller in the “Die Hard” mold that gets an extra lift from Campbell’s skillful direction and from Ridley, who is slowly but surely showing herself to be a performer of wide range and appeal.

The key to any Amy Schumer comedy is how often she gets to play self-delusion, embarrassment, fear and rage. As long as the emotions, terrors and humiliations are big, she’s funny, and her latest, “Kinda Pregnant,” gives her lots of opportunities to be funny.

Back in Action is no comedy classic, but it’s a better than average excuse for getting back on the Cameron Diaz train.

Still, as Dylan biopics go, this is probably the best imaginable.

September 5 succeeds as a tense and involving film, at least partly because it makes the case that the tragedy, despite all its other consequences and ramifications, marked a signal moment in news broadcasting. It was the first time that a hostage drama played out on live television.

Maria, despite being occasionally slow, is a weird, good movie.

Gladiator II coasts: never good, never terrible, always a little disappointing, with speeches that fall flat and gladiator battles that are like watching the World Series when your team isn’t in it.

With “A Real Pain,” Jesse Eisenberg has invented a new genre we can call “the Kieran Culkin movie.”

The film is a showcase for a talented ensemble of Black actors, not the least of whom is Samuel L. Jackson, who plays Doaker, an older, mellow wise man.

Juror #2 is very much the work of an engaged, sensitive director — a series of tight, focused scenes informed by strong performances. There’s something classical about it, old-fashioned in the best way, like a 1974 Coupe de Ville or a 1962 Buick Electra. It’s a smooth, solid ride.

In “My Name is Alfred Hitchcock,” Cousins gives us a new way of looking at Hitchcock, as a filmmaker with an evocative visual world, and a case could be made that it would be easier for viewers to appreciate that aspect of Hitchcock on a second or third viewing.

Conclave is a fascinating drama about the personal and political machinations involved in the selection of a new pope. If a bunch of cardinals filling out multiple ballots over the course of several days doesn’t exactly sound riveting to you, prepare for a surprise.

Baker is concerned with people who are broke and on the outside (“The Florida Project,” “Red Rocket”), and while there are aspects of “Anora” that make us aware of the distance between people born with everything and those born with nothing, he doesn’t let politics or economics dwarf his characters.

The Apprentice is an anti-Trump movie, depicting his early career as a real estate developer in New York City, but it treats Donald Trump with a modicum of sympathy.

If you want to see great acting that’s unadorned, not fancy, and very much in the style of 2024, see Plaza in the climactic scene from “My Old Ass.” You will walk out of this film different than when you walked in, and a little bit better for the experience.

The Substance gets more wonderfully appalling as it goes along, but it’s impressive from its first moments, and it never lets up.

War Game is one of the more timely and disturbing movies of recent months.

It’s a somber, serious experience that won’t appeal to everybody, but it’s quite smart and will keep you guessing until its last seconds.

My Penguin Friend is what you’d expect from an animal picture, except that it’s better — lifted by a smart script, sensitive direction and a truly beautiful performance by Jean Reno.

Though “It Ends With Us” ultimately lands in the zone of social commentary, the experience is mainly one of witnessing life as experienced by one woman over the course of years. And it’s worth the journey because of Lively and her simultaneous and contradictory mix of pleasantness and cold discernment.

The Instigators is unremarkable but consistently amusing, and makes you feel like everyone showed up at the set expecting a party.

There was enough story here for an epic, but Napper chose to make a poem-like movie, one that sustains a tone of mystery and wonder from start to finish.

Green Border has the directness and truth of a documentary and the emotional immediacy of a narrative feature.

Murphy is the key here. It would be a pleasant surprise to our time-traveling moviegoer from 1984 to find Murphy looking so much like his old self and in possession of his old gifts. His comic timing remains impeccable, and laughing with him here is both fresh and familiar, an ideal combination.

The human connection the two characters make in this film would be understandable to anyone in any century, past or future. For that reason, there’s a very good chance here that Hall, Penn and Johnson have made more than a good movie with “Daddio.” They may have made a classic.

This is a welcome and unusual movie, and Gere gives a compelling performance.

Even if you’d never in a million years want to ride with these guys, “The Bikeriders” makes you understand why they wanted to ride with each other.

Almost single handedly, [Louis-Dreyfus] muscles “Tuesday” into the territory of being worth seeing.

It’s hard to say what McCarthy intended with “Brats,” but he ended up making a cautionary film for journalists. As such, it may have a limited audience, but if it’s seen by the right people, it might do some good.

With “Young Woman and the Sea,” Gertrude “Trudy” Ederle finally gets the movie she deserves.

Hit Man is not among Linklater’s best movies, but he gives his best to it, and the results are on the screen.

Back to Black holds back from wallowing in Winehouse’s dysfunction. Instead, like an authorized biography, Back to Black chooses to be kind to everybody. It’s not the flashiest choice, but the world is big enough for one kind biopic. Winehouse deserved to get lucky, at least once.

Based on the novel by Robinne Lee and adapted by Jennifer Westfeldt and director Michael Showalter (“The Big Sick”), the film is smart, realistic and emotionally honest.

A tennis match can be a personal battle, a clash not only of athleticism but of mind, and Guadagnino gives every game and set the gravity of gladiatorial contest.

This is a tense film that builds in impact as it goes along, and ultimately, it’s riveting.

It's a special movie that can make you laugh out loud numerous times at gross comedy and then make you think and feel something, too. There’s also something to be said for a movie that seems like the most fun these actors ever had.

Between the lines, Scoop conveys, not only what Andrew most likely did, but what led him to assume that he’d get away with it.

Wicked Little Letters is for people who like British comedy, but also for people who think British comedies are too refined for their taste. This one isn’t. It’s crude and outrageous enough to appeal to modern American audiences.

The acting, the setting and a feeling for the time period make “In the Land of Saints and Sinners” more than the usual action movie thrill ride, though it’s that too. That combination of elements makes this one of Neeson’s best movies of the past few years.

DogMan won’t appeal to everybody, but there’s something to be said for a movie that makes you wonder if the filmmaker has gone crazy.

Because Gyllenhaal is a more complicated actor than Swayze, and more comically adept, the new “Road House” has more humor and more attention to the peculiarities of the central character.

This is what Hopkins has been showing us for decade after decade: the deepest, rawest and most tortured feelings of private, dignified men. His is nothing less than a glorious cinematic legacy, and the miracle is that he keeps building on it.

As a lesbian thriller, the movie calls to mind the Wachowski’s “Bound” (1996), though “Love Lies Bleeding” is clumsier and more spontaneous, as though it were being made up on the spot. Though the spontaneity ultimately exhausts itself, it’s enjoyable most of the way.

Morricone’s presence in the documentary is the key element, because by watching him, we understand the sensitive qualities that made him so good at interpreting and augmenting the work of others.

Ordinary Angels has some of the feeling of an after-school special because it’s a heartwarming movie in which everybody is nice. But it’s more well-made than most. It hooks the audience from the first scene and then builds in tension over the course of its almost two-hour running time.

Though directed by someone who has been making movies for four years, “Drive-Away Dolls” feels like a young person’s movie, which is a good thing. It also seems like a movie directed by someone who grew up watching Tarantino movies, not Coen Brothers movies, which is unexpected but welcome, too.

The great strength and slight weakness of “How to Have Sex” is that it’s just like being there — except you might not want to be there.

Suncoast is a personal and mostly quiet movie, but it has the force of a real expression, of something that somebody just needed to say.

Sometimes I Think About Dying is a good calling card for Ridley, who proves that she’s not limited to playing spunky adventuresses from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Rather, she has a compressed intensity that could be put to good use in a variety of roles.

American Star is a nice surprise. To hear it described, its premise sounds almost ridiculously predictable: Ian McShane as an old hit man on his last assignment. But the movie turns out to be a serious work that goes to unexpected places.

Whatever it is, it’s the rare case of an intelligent disaster movie.

The Beekeeper is the purest stupid fun I’ve had in a movie theater since “F9: The Fast Saga” in 2021.

Germain and Brown open up the stage play with flashbacks, which are not nearly as effective as the two guys talking. But as long as they’re talking, and they talk enough, “Freud’s Last Session” is very much worth seeing.

The tone is low-key, and Franco never presses the audience. Instead, he lets scenes happen, avoiding close-ups and all other means of exaggeration or emphasis.

With any other actor, All of Us Strangers was bound to be an emotional film, but Scott has a way of going down to the nerve endings. He makes the movie into something raw and deep.

American Fiction is not a perfect film. The book trails off at the finish, and though the movie comes up with something better, the end still doesn’t feel ideal. But none of that matters as much as it might, because Wright gives the perfect performance.

Maestro exposes a truth about marriage that I always knew but could never quite articulate: To be truly known and understood can actually be scary.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes has an overwrought title, but it’s the best movie of the film franchise.

May December is light and amusing, but also profound and serious. See it once — and then think about it for a long time.

The film starts off akin to a tongue-in-cheek “Twilight Zone” episode, then becomes a meditation on fame before transforming into a scathing satire of several things at once: Gen Z, cancel culture, and even the people who complain about cancel culture. Written and directed by Norwegian filmmaker Kristoffer Borgli, it’s bleak and funny and provides Cage with his most satisfying role since 1997’s “Face/Off.”

This is a rare film and a rare use of cinema. Other documentaries are like filmed news stories. This one is like a poem. If you see this, you will never again think of hearing in quite the same way, and you will hear sounds that are so haunting that they will be with you for the rest of your life.

Stallone, often tortured in his movies, is cinema’s most tortured optimist.

It takes about half the movie, but gradually we realize that we’ve stumbled into something wonderful, that there’s magic happening here, both onscreen and within the lives of the characters.

Domingo, who began his career as a stage actor in San Francisco, brings velocity to all the scenes involving the march. He seems unbound, possessed by an understanding that he’s doing something bigger than himself.

For le Carré fans, The Pigeon Tunnel is a must-see, but the film will also be useful to people wanting an introduction to his work.

Here and there, there are moments when the energy dips, but what carries the film from scene to scene are the truthful performances and the genuineness of the storytelling.

The movie explores the real essence of determination, and it’s not what people imagine as they recite affirmations to themselves. Nyad shows us determination almost at a level of pathology, as a single-mindedness that could be considered sick, except that Nyad wasn’t delusional about her capacities.

Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon is a bladder-buster of a movie with no obvious bathroom break, no section where the story starts to sag. This makes it, almost by definition, a good and admirable piece of work. But Killers of the Flower Moon is also a lumbering mess, an ungainly and tonally odd film that, for all the strength of its parts, has little cumulative impact.