Mick LaSalle

Cherry is like three different movies in one: the teen years, the war experience, and then life as a drug addict. It’s held together by the smart writing, by the overarching tone of tragic absurdity, and by Holland, who hits every bump on Cherry’s way down.

Nomadland is too singular a film to dismiss on technicalities. It’s very much its own thing, very much an original experience, and must be counted as some odd kind of good movie.

All of it works. All of it holds together, guided by the sure hand of director Simon Stone, who subtly imparts his sense of the story. His idea is that everyone involved mattered, and so we come away with an impression of an entire moment of time.

in addition to the quality of its dialogue, Levinson’s script is a testament to the value of talking and listening, past the point of discomfort, past the point it hurts.

Though he crafts a story worthy of a thriller, Hancock’s main concerns here are twofold: the type of personality drawn to this kind of police work, and the effect this work has on them.

Our Friend is both a tribute to a friend and to those rare people that are too humble to realize their own wisdom.

Any Agnieszka Holland movie is worth seeing, even if Spoor isn’t up to the director’s best (“In Darkness,” “Europa, Europa”).

The acting is uniformly strong, which says something about King as a director.

Certainly, the actors seem to be having a good time, even if the people they’re playing are utterly miserable. Hathaway’s comic timing has become a marvel in recent years, but Ejiofor, too, exults in the chance to throw off his usual gravity.

What’s fascinating about Kirby here is that even when she appears to be doing nothing, she’s worth watching.

Thompson and Asomugha are nicely paired. Too much is made by critics of the notion of “screen chemistry,” but there is something complementary in the personalities of these two actors, as well as in the roles they’re playing.

The beauty of Soul is that, just as animation is finding more being demanded of it, Pixar is answering that demand. It is making the case for animation as an ideal vehicle for exploring the grand, the general, the universal.

The last five minutes of Midnight Sky are touching and beautifully acted — if you’re willing to wait for it.

Apart from the excellence of this film, Fennell may have tapped into something tonally that truly expresses the moment we’re in. Point being, we’re in a time of horrible ridiculousness, and ridiculous horribleness. The revelation of Promising Young Woman is that its heightened reality feels more real — closer to actual reality — than comedy or drama.

It’s a grand bogus mess passing itself off as a philosophical statement. It has its moments, but they’re few. Often, it’s a beautiful-looking film — but it’s beauty without substance.

This is a bad film by a good filmmaker. It has the veneer of substantiality, but it’s unsubstantial. It is the product of sincere conviction and artistic confidence, but both were misguided. Every filmmaker needs to take the occasional chance, as Christopher Nolan did with “Tenet.” Not all chances pay off.

The main event here is Swank, who was a plaintive and sentimental figure in her earliest movies and has only fully come into her strength in youthful middle age. This strength makes Fatale an entertaining diversion and holds out the promise for something deeper and more satisfying in the future.

The gentle spirit of Wild Mountain Thyme envelops us early, to the extent that, midway through, even though there is very little left to resolve, we are in its spell.

Ultimately, Black Bear is about the price of art — not only the price the artist pays, but that the people around the artist end up paying, unwittingly. Yet in the actual experience of it, the movie doesn’t feel so lofty. It just feels tense and disquieting, like a thriller. In that sense, it is a thriller, but one of the emotions, and it’s riveting every step of the way.

The movie unfolds as a series of enjoyable, pressurized encounters between the lead character and everyone else — particularly, Bobby Cannavale as Carol’s ex-boyfriend.

Vulgarity is fine when it’s pure and democratic. But when it’s mixed with sentiment, it feels false. That’s the problem with Buddy Games.

Everyone in the movie is excellent, everyone is tonally spot-on, and no one has a single bad moment – which is another way of saying that Clea DuVall, best known as an actress (“Veep,” “Argo”), is a real director. She has made one of the best Christmas movies of the millennium.

For the most part, this film has the disadvantages of Chinese action films, without the advantages. That is, it overdoes the action and it’s short on character, without attaining the manic, wild heights of Hong Kong cinema of the 1980s and early ’90s. Still, it’s nice to see Chan once again in a Chinese environment.

Cage’s latest film, Jiu Jitsu must represent his career worst — and keep in mind, this is the man who made 1989’s “Vampire’s Kiss,” in which he ate a cockroach.

The important thing is that Dreamland accomplishes its main intention, which is to make us invest in this strange love story.

Come Away is an idea that never takes flight.

She is a great talent, a legend, someone who has made enduring classics, and just the fact that she’s still working at 86 is a gift. But somehow none of that makes The Life Ahead, coming to Netflix on Friday, Nov. 13, an experience worth having.

The appeal of A Rainy Day in New York, to the extent it has any, is nostalgia.