Moira Macdonald

If atmosphere is what you want in a movie, Emerald Fennell's psychological thriller Saltburn has enough to fill a multiplex all by itself.

Mostly Next Goal Wins just plods along, agreeable and familiar and instantly forgettable.

You leave the film knowing that you’ve met a hero, but that this remarkable man deserved more.

May December is often weirdly funny.

The Killer is both disappointing and satisfying, with pleasure and competence to be had.

DaCosta whisks us through the story with plenty of wit, particularly from Kamala’s family.

If you go expecting a slightly quirky romantic drama with touches of magic realism, not to mention the pleasure of seeing Ryan in one of her rare screen appearances these days, I think you might leave happy.

It’s the kind of movie in which stories are conveyed wordlessly through a half-smile, a droopy posture, a man who looks for just a few seconds like he might cry but doesn’t — a film made all the more heartwarming for the work it takes to get to its heart.

Coppola tells the story through lush mood, meticulous art direction, swimmy music (not Presley’s) and her two actors’ gloriously big-screen faces.

“Killers” is a master class in filmmaking, taught by that one professor we all had in college whose every word we hung on, and whose classes always felt too short. It’s that thing we always look for but so rarely find: a great story, beautifully told.

As always, it’s a pleasure to watch Branagh’s Poirot as he watches, never missing a thing; may he return, with a more worthy corpse next time around.

Toula and Ian are sweet and bland; their relatives are predictably wisecracky, and the whole thing just feels like watching someone’s extremely well-produced vacation video.

To paraphrase a song that pops up in the film — of course it does — during one of countless swoony moments, you can’t help falling in love with this movie.

The cast is a delight — Cola, between this film and “Joy Ride,” is officially the funniest best friend of summer 2023 — and the film has some thoughtful things to say about identity, attraction, ambition and moving on.

Ultimately, Haunted Mansion feels like the ghost of a movie — just a fleeting shadow, one you can barely remember in the morning.

Oppenheimer is hard to watch, just as that life was surely hard to live; it’s a careful, deliberate stepping toward something unspeakable.

The Barbie world was a grown-up one — wildly sanitized and outfit-focused and unrealistic, but grown-up nonetheless — and, for a kid, an irresistible place to visit. Greta Gerwig’s exuberantly pink new movie “Barbie” both understands that thrill and has sly fun with it.

Along the way, we learn that all four actors are not only charmingly believable as friends but also brilliant at physical comedy.

Cruise valiantly throws everything he’s got into the movie — including a lot of his trademark Very Intense Running — and the result mostly works, but it feels like a franchise that’s winding down. Here’s hoping a few thrills have been saved for “Part Two.”

Megan Griffiths’ latest, I’ll Show You Mine, is impeccably filmed and thoughtfully written, but it doesn’t quite justify its running time.

This is Anderson soaring a bit, playing with the very nature of storytelling and performing, unafraid to let us get a little lost in the process. What’s real, and what’s the play? I wasn’t always sure, but I look forward to watching it again, to get lost one more time.

So why does Elemental feel so flat for much of its running time? Here’s why: It just isn’t very funny. The best Pixar movies blend humor with pathos; having just half of the formula leaves us with just half of the impact.

It’s a film full of quiet magic; of the power of words not spoken, and the enduring strength of love.

Louis-Dreyfus, making Beth neurotic and loving and devastated and furious all at once, is a joy to watch.

Bailey gives a glowing performance of effortless starshine; her singing voice has both sweetness and power, and her smile is the sort on which dreams dance.

Though I’d have preferred Fast X to have a little more driving and a little less fighting, and was disappointed to realize that the film’s climactic moment is pretty much in the trailer, this movie is good, silly popcorn fun — with a couple of scenes at the end (stay put during the first half of the credits) indicating even better times ahead.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret is both lovingly faithful to its source, and very much its own creation; how lucky we are to have both book and movie, preserved for girls past, present and future.

History almost erased Joseph Bologne; this film lets him live again.

There are pleasures to be found in Renfield, particularly a stylish black-and-white sequence early on, and in Hoult’s wistfully debonair portrayal of a well-meaning chap trapped in a job he never applied for. But even with its brief running time, the movie runs out of steam too quickly, and Awkwafina’s character in particular seems like a first draft

It’s a feel-good film about dreams, about obsession, about believing in yourself when nobody else seems to be doing it for you, and Hawkins carries it with effortless ease.

Ultimately, Moving On is about friendship, and who better than Grace and Frankie to show us that?

How you feel about the psychological thriller Insider may depend on how you feel about spending the better part of two hours staring nonstop at Willem Dafoe.

You can see clearly in the final scenes where “Creed IV” might be headed; you can also see that Jordan as a director shows promise well beyond this film. “Creed III” works as well as it needs to, and for the umpteenth film in a franchise, that’s more than enough.

This Emily is indeed unworldly, uncomfortable around strangers, struggling to comply with what society expects of her. And yet the artist bubbles up inside her, emerging at moments both inconvenient (there’s a harrowing sequence at a party in which Emily dons a mask and takes on a ghostly persona) and poetic.

Great acting is a con game, of the highest order, and it’s a pleasure to be Moore’s mark.

This quiet tale of an ordinary 1950s London man (Bill Nighy) facing the end of his life is a joy: elegantly written, movingly performed, evocatively filmed.

It’s a sly little film, playing with our expectations, keeping us guessing — and wondering if Krieps’ name might be as familiar as Streep’s, one day.

You watch it rapt, leaning in, wanting to know more; you leave it wondering if that shadow at the window was, maybe, yourself.

I can’t say I truly enjoyed watching Babylon, or that I’d ever want to see it again, but I definitely haven’t stopped thinking about it since screening it earlier this month.

“Salvatore” is a pleasure for anyone who loves shoes and/or good movies.

Colman, on whose face the film frequently rests (does anyone in cinema have a more open, guileless smile?), quietly holds the drama in her hands. Her Hilary is fragile, yet touchingly determined to will herself toward the light.

The Fabelmans is a movie about being seen — and about learning to see.

It’s an artful, moving and often beautiful film, but be careful about showing it to young children; nightmares could ensue. (It haunted me, and I’m quite grown.)

You watch “Glass Onion” relaxed, feeling like you’re in good hands; everyone on-screen is clearly having a wonderful time, so you can’t help but join right in. The plot’s a clever, multilayered caper, echoing the elaborate structure the movie is named for, and Johnson fills the script with funny name-dropping . . . and lets the cast happily ham it up.

Adams, six Academy Award nominations later, still sings and dances like a Technicolor dream, and this time around she gets to have some fun as not only the ultra-sweet Giselle, whose voice sounds like butterflies and sunrises, but an evil alter ego.

It’s a moving and engaging film about finding truth, told through the perspective of two people who are very, very good at their jobs.

There’s so much that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever does right that it’s frustrating to blame it for the one flaw it can’t help. But you watch it wondering about the movie that never got made, the story that never got finished, the life cut short too soon. Maybe, in a few years, this franchise can make a truly fresh start; this movie efficiently and skillfully lays the groundwork for that. It takes time, as wise Wakandans remind us, to move on.

Wickedly clever and unexpectedly touching.

This tale of ambition and its cost — and its collateral damage — is Blanchett’s movie, and she delivers a tour de force in every scene.

Ticket to Paradise is all about the welcome sight of a pair of movie stars who know exactly what to do with their wattage.

Amsterdam is not entirely without small pleasures: Emmanuel Lubezki’s sepia-toned cinematography is lovely to look at, and it’s fun to play spot-the-movie-star with the talented cast, and to note with pleasure how Washington’s scratched-velvet voice sounds so much like that of his father Denzel. But ultimately it’s a big disappointment.

Ultimately, this “Fantastic Beasts” has some moments of charm and energy, but falls prey to the same problem the two previous movies did: a story that’s both too complicated and unintriguing; in short, not well told.

The night after I saw Everything Everywhere All At Once I had a dream, in which I took a journey that was chaotic and messy and strangely beautiful. I suspect that dream was heavily flavored by the movie I had just seen, which also fit that description. The dream quickly faded, as dreams do, but the movie is staying with me, turning over and over in my head like stones in a kaleidoscope, ever-shifting.

Bullock and Tatum take hold of the material and turn it into an enchanted screwball.

Rylance (“Bridge of Spies”) anchors it all, creating a character with unexpected layers, like a suit with an elegant silk lining you didn’t realize was there.

Shi and screenwriter Julia Cho present a sweet, graceful ode to growing up.

I don’t know about you, but this particular time in history does not seem like the moment for a movie that will leave you a) miserable and b) wondering why nobody in Gotham City seems to have heard of light bulbs. Your mileage may vary, but for me — who loved both the Tim Burton and the Christopher Nolan “Batman” universes — this one feels like an earnest but bloated misfire.

Dinklage isn’t a strong singer, but it doesn’t matter a whit: his swaggering but vulnerable Cyrano, reveling in words but aching with love, will break your heart

As you have probably seen a movie or two before, you know where this is going. But Lopez’s glossy sweetness and Wilson’s dad-jokes charm blend amiably together, and Marry Me glides along smoothly, full of pop songs and earnestness and very expensive-looking hair.

While Poirot is always witty, few of the other characters are. Michael Green’s screenplay often feels weirdly detached, like we missed some crucial early scenes that tell us why we should care about these people. All that said, it’s no great hardship to watch Death on the Nile; it looks pretty, feels pleasantly old-school and is over within shouting distance of the two-hour mark.

Almodóvar fills the movie with eloquent touches — scenes softly fading to black, music twisting like vines, an old house whose stories whisper in every corner, a baby’s watchful eyes, a past that informs a future. Generations pass, this wise movie tells us; family endures.

Filmed in black-and-white shadow, Coen’s version of Shakespeare’s taut tale of murder and consequences in murky Scotland here seems so creepily ethereal it practically floats in the air, with gorgeous language gliding by on the cold wind.

Gyllenhaal here shows herself as a natural storyteller; The Lost Daughter flows like water as its characters navigate territory not often explored in film.

The movie isn’t terrible, but too often it feels Hollywood-bland; a missed opportunity, served neat.

This is how superhero movies are supposed to be: thrilling and funny and moving and full of popcorn-fueled joy.

Cooper, carrying the movie from start to finish, has a final, devastating close-up that’ll haunt you for quite a while. Darkness has enveloped this man; he won’t wake from his own nightmare.

Sometimes, miscasting can be very interesting, in the hands of an actor who knows what she’s doing — and Kidman is definitely that. Here, she creates a nuanced and believable version of Ball (and of “Lucy,” the character Ball played on her sitcom “I Love Lucy,” though we don’t see much of her), meticulously introducing us to a serious, thoughtful woman obsessed with the details of comedy, who understood what it meant to have power at a time when few women did.

And the 89-year-old Moreno, creating an effortless bridge between this movie and the previous one, gives us a gift late in the film that had me reduced to tears; it’s a deeply touching choice that I won’t spoil.

House of Gucci is no masterpiece, but it’s often crazy good fun.

It’s a unique ride of a movie, beautiful and disturbing and haunting — in other words, it’s a Jane Campion film.

King Richard, though perhaps a tad overlong, is as irresistible as the young legends at its center; you watch with pleasure, thinking of the many future champions it might inspire.

Shot in soft black-and-white, with color occasionally peering in at the movie houses where Buddy spends rapt hours, Belfast is brief, tidy and lovely; a heartfelt story of family and home, and how where the former is, the latter resides.

You watch wishing this story, in the real world, could have had a different ending; and marveling at how Stewart finds new, close-to-the-bone layers in a character we thought we already knew.

It’s a long sit, but a day later I find myself still thinking about Chan’s quiet, mesmerizing presence at the film’s center, and how Zhao had the confidence to let that performance speak so softly. It’s a different kind of superhero movie; not to everyone’s taste, but made for us all.

The plot doesn’t matter in the slightest; young and old fans of the first movie will be lining up for the wit, for the inventiveness of the characters, for the breathtaking visuals — and just the sheer fun of it all.

Though Wright can’t quite sustain the tension through the final half-hour, Last Night in Soho is full of dark pleasures.

Ultimately, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is made enjoyable by its human and feline actors, despite the sadness of the material, and it left me wanting to know more about its subject, which I suppose is the point.

The French Dispatch is an elegant ode to good writing, and to those who quietly stand behind the words.

No Time to Die has moments of pleasure, lots of them, but ultimately it feels heavy in a way a Bond movie shouldn’t; its pacing is off and it can’t quite sell the earnestness and even sentimentality of much of its storyline.

In the film, we’re able to see Ailey during the Kennedy Center honors, watching intently as “Revelations” is performed; he looks like he’s carefully checking it, making sure it’s perfect, wondering if it could be better — the artist watching the art. You leave Ailey hoping that, somewhere, he’s watching still.

It’s a nice message, told with charm aplenty. And as always, the Pixar magicians create a wonderfully populated world.

Director Jon M. Chu (“Crazy Rich Asians”) lets us feel the hot, heavy air of a Washington Heights summer, and dazzles us with movement.

The fashion alone, designed by the great Jenny Beavan (an Oscar winner for “A Room with a View” and “Mad Max: Fury Road”), is worth the ticket price; if that doesn’t do it for you, there’s also slyly brilliant work from the two Emmas — Stone and Thompson — working hard to upstage the gorgeous outfits in which they’re swathed.

A Quiet Place, Part II, with its skillful jump scares and sly central premise (silence is safety, noise is fear), delivers the goods, and sent me home nervously worried that something might sneak up on me — as all scary movies should. Bring on Part III, quietly.

The familiarity is part of what makes The Dry tick along so nicely; it reminds you of other good movies even as you enjoy its own special flavor.

French Exit isn’t without its pleasures; but you watch it dreaming of the movie it might have been.

Over its quiet two hours, beautifully punctuated by long shots of sunlit green fields and fireflies flitting at twilight, Minari lets us become part of the Yi family.

Zhao shows us the difficulty of this life — the endless laundromats, the cramped bed in the van, the cold, the possessions left behind — but also its beauty and freedom. I wished I could have seen Nomadland on a theater screen, to see the horizons and pale-peach sunrises stretching endlessly in Joshua James Richards’ beautiful cinematography. And I wished I could have seen McDormand’s face as big as a house, looking wonderingly outward, finding possibility.

Wonder Woman 1984 feels a bit perfunctory; just another massive superhero movie, with little fresh brought to the mix.

A holiday gift, it’s bringing some much-needed light to these dark days.

It’s also a celebration of language — Wilson’s glorious storytelling is given its due by this masterful ensemble cast, who weave colorful tapestries with his words — and of music’s transformative power.

There isn’t much here that hasn’t been explored in countless movies and novels before, but what makes “The Nest” utterly compelling is its front-row seat for two splendid performances.

It just feels like a pretty idea that didn’t get fully developed; an origin story that we didn’t need.

We can’t travel these days, so it’s fun to wallow in the scenery and its vivid colors. Want a great movie? Go watch the original Rebecca instead, but you probably knew that already.

It’s a performance that deserves a bigger playground — but this “Mulan” is still a treat, at any size.

Hope Gap is a deeply sad film, and maybe not what a lot of us are in the mood for these days, but it’s ultimately uplifting, in its quiet way.

The fun is watching the shivery details — such as a shot of the back of Cecilia’s neck, in which we can almost feel the sudden scent of a presence — and appreciating the skill of Moss’ performance.

There is a touching universality to these life stories, which at this point have a lulling near-sameness: grown children, long careers, lasting passions and friendships (Paul’s and Symon’s is particularly touching), a looming shadow of illness, the nearness of twilight.