Moira Macdonald

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.

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.

Much of the film’s pleasure is in hearing Morrison speak.

Richard Linklater’s Hit Man is one of those movies that just picks you up immediately and sweeps you away; it’s made with an irresistibly breezy confidence.

A taut, gripping documentary about one young woman’s dream ... Maiden is wonderfully suspenseful — especially if you, like me, have no idea how the race turned out.

A Quiet Place is brief, taut and often quite terrifying. And it creates in its audience a fascinating relationship with sound.

In this season of Big, Serious Movies, what a treat to find this wonderfully silly, perfectly paced hall of mirrors hanging out at the multiplexes. It’s as if Agatha Christie came back for a visit, after getting caught up on pop culture in the beyond.

It’s not a perfect movie, but Zendaya makes it a great pleasure.

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.

Isle of Dogs is full of delightful touches, but it’s not Anderson’s best. Nice fur, though.

On this wintry landscape, with its endless plains and biting wind, it seems as if everyone — even the quietest — has a story, if you take the time to listen to it.

Those fascinated by the art of animation will find much to ponder here — the hand-drawn brush strokes, the lush colors, the way just a few quickly sketched lines suddenly take vivid life.

Pandas leaves its viewer newly educated, filled with hope, and dazzled.

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

So much of Sicario, Denis Villeneuve’s disturbing drama set in the world of law enforcement and Mexican drug cartels (the title is the Mexican term for a hit man), takes place on Emily Blunt’s face.

The film is inspiring and funny and lovely.

So much of the pleasure of Denis Villeneuve’s poignant science-fiction drama Arrival lies in watching Amy Adams figure things out.

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.

Jackie is mesmerizing; a familiar story told from an entirely different angle. It’s voyeuristic, to be sure — the scenes of Jackie alone in her White House bedroom, after the shooting, feel almost unbearably intimate — but you can’t look away.

A coming-of-age tale like you’ve never seen, Julia Ducournau’s Raw left me intrigued, mildly nauseated and extremely curious about what passes for recreation at French veterinary schools.

Despite an unnecessary reliance on blurry re-enactment scenes early in the film, Wardle makes Three Identical Strangers as spellbinding as a great psychological thriller.

It’s a sharp, pointed satire that’s also very funny.

Hathaway and Wilson, instead of exuding odd-couple comic chemistry, seem to barely be in the same movie; they don’t click, with each other or with a bland Alex Sharp as their tech-bro mark.

In only his second movie as a director, Peele is already a master of tone, and Us is full of memorable, vivid touches.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

Whether you care about motorsports or not, Ford v Ferrari is a kick: both a rollicking true story well told, and a moving depiction of male friendship.

Schultz has a lovely way of telling a just-on-the-verge-of-melodramatic story on a very human level.

Wake Up Dead Man is less funny and more meditative than its predecessors: Father Jud, a man of quiet faith, inspires a certain introspection in Benoit, and the two men ponder questions of religion and mortality, which wasn’t really on my “Knives Out” bingo card but was often utterly engrossing, with the two actors finding a thoughtful chemistry.

Is After the Wedding a great movie? No, not especially. Are these two women treasures of cinema? Absolutely.

Pattinson keeps you interested, even when the movie’s tone and pace wobbles.

I’ll admit to a weakness for this sort of thing (which Merchant-Ivory, a couple of decades back, made into elegant art), but even I couldn’t muster up much enthusiasm for this one, a tepid love triangle set in the Ottoman Empire in the early days of World War I.

While it’s great fun to watch the Incredibles/Parrs zipping around saving the world (with help from their preternaturally cool pal Lucius/Frozone, voiced with gusto by Samuel L. Jackson), Incredibles 2 gets its heart by being a sweet family story.

There are moments in Gleason where it’s very hard — whether you know ALS or are new to it — to look at the screen; moments so devastating you wonder how this couple, and those who love them, can bear it. But there’s also, in this remarkable film, evidence of astonishing courage and miraculous love.

An odd combination of space adventure, psychological thriller and moody tone poem, it stops just short of dazzlement; instead Ad Astra, like an astronaut lost in space, slowly and majestically floats away.

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

You can imagine how other filmmakers might approach this — it’s a beautifully cinematic story — but no one else would film it quite as Malick has. This quiet, meditative and very deliberate film (nearly three hours long, though not a great deal happens) is at once historical drama, love story and ode to nature.

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.

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

While A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is charmingly filmed (I loved the animated depictions of the toy Neighborhood, and the way Heller switches camera formats to give a more old-school portrayal of Rogers’ TV show), it didn’t quite have the emotional wallop I expected.

Diego Garcia’s cinematography plays a key role, showing us lavender sunsets, endless plains and fire spreading down a hill like melting butter. Amid this beauty, Dano’s direction is restrained, letting us focus on the pain in Mulligan’s darting eyes.

Close owns this movie, from beginning to end; it’s a performance of such intelligence and subtlety that only when the movie is long over do you start wondering about whether the plot holds up.

There are moments now and then that register, particularly early in the movie when we meet the regulars on the musical-impersonator circuit.

While Eddie the Eagle feels formulaic and overstuffed with weirdly random scenes...it’s still a charmer.

It’s a film about heroism and the right to love, told without stirring speeches. Instead, it unfolds movingly in the tiny moments between Richard and Mildred.

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 leave The Assistant thinking about why some of us are invisible and some of us don’t notice — and about how evil lives in the places from which we look away.

Not all of Hustlers is beautiful, to be sure, but it’s always a kick.

Isabelle is complicated, in a way that movie women often aren’t; Binoche makes her an intriguing puzzle to solve.

Though every performance is splendid, it’s Washington and Davis who create a mesmerizing symphony of emotion, finding both love and tragedy in every look, every line.

Its settings and cinematography are beautiful, filled with marble hallways and vivid red carpets that seem to be punctuating the scenery with a slash. . . And its performances are a pleasure, everywhere you look.

Sing Street reminds us of being young and lost in a song, realizing with a jolt that someone else had the same feelings we did.

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

With impeccable performances — particularly an electric, extended scene between Marcus and the college dean (Tracy Letts), and Gadon, whose wistful character has a face full of secrets — Indignation is an elegant debut for longtime producer Schamus; a visit to the past, with both sunshine and darkness.

A Different Man spins out of control in its final act, but still leaves you pondering its questions.

It’s not a terribly good idea to base a movie on a book in which almost nothing happens for 500 pages, but that’s what we have here.

Moore lets us see, through her quietly shining performance, that Gloria believes in love, in the way an old song can make you feel a little younger, and in the power of dressing up and hitting a dance floor by yourself, moving as if in a trance, letting the music take you to a better place.

Shot in artful, quiet light (many of the frames look like elegant paintings), The Innocents is beautifully performed by its nearly all-female cast; each nun, even those unnamed, is given her own personality and story.

Oh yes indeed. Avengers: Endgame brought it...This film had an insanely difficult job to do — to gracefully and tidily wrap up a 22-movie Marvel Comics cycle with a cast list bigger than the Hulk, and to do so with both poignancy and hold-your-breath action — and it delivers.

The searing documentary Hooligan Sparrow is a portrait of courage.

Linklater really nails the atmosphere here; watching Blue Moon feels like sitting with smart people in a retro bar, covered in a gentle blanket of cocktail piano. And Hawke, often surrounded by wafting symphonies of cigar smoke, gives a beautifully shaded performance, of equal parts bravado and vulnerability.

This Frankenstein has no shortage of horrors, but it also finds notes of forgiveness and kindness; it’s a monster movie with a soul.

While occasionally the film wanders a bit too far into sentimentality (a scene involving a baby feels like it crosses a plausibility line), watching 1917 is an emotional and moving experience. You think of these two young men as one minuscule piece of an enormous tragedy, filled with individual stories.

Soderbergh keeps the action light and playful, and lets the cast members find their own silliness within it.

Yes, this is a standard rom-com, in all the best of ways — both playing with the genre’s well-trodden tropes, and letting us enjoy how much fun they can be.

There are moments of astonishing lyricism.

In a movie that reminds us that parenting comes in many forms, it’s touching to learn that the Cayuga word for “aunt” is “small mother.” We almost didn’t need the definition; it’s visible, in Gladstone and Delroy-Olson’s eyes.

For all the witty voices and great escapes (maybe one too many of the latter), Finding Dory is ultimately a character story, and DeGeneres’ lovable, brave Dory swims right into our hearts.

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.

Are we alone, or is there more than we know? Personal Shopper is less interested in the answer than in, hauntingly, posing the question.

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 impossible to watch this film without a tapping toe and a smile.

For the most part, the movie finds a family-friendly balance between stunning scenery, hold-your-breath action and animals having goofy conversations with each other.

It’s fun to watch Samantha playing her sources like a teenager plays a video game — expertly, offhandedly — and fascinating to witness the machinations between Naomi and Erin, neither of whom ever tells the other what she’s thinking.

Barker has a knack for jump scares — and for making a wildly fanciful story feel real.

It’s a film full of creative swirls.

Filled with sweetly funny moments, “Thelma” is a perfect showcase for the delightfully wry Squibb, whose character constantly reminds us that you’re never too old to try something new, whether it’s takeout sushi or low-speed chasing after criminals.

Everything about Rose Glass’ violent revenge thriller Love Lies Bleeding is unexpected; you watch it as if strapped into a roller-coaster car, not sure when the next dip or swerve might be.

Candles illuminate faces in the dark; a curving staircase looms like a shadow. And the actors pitch their roles perfectly: Kidman’s breathy calm; Farrell’s charm, just hinting at something dark within it; Fanning’s way of prettily arranging herself, showing off Alice’s newfound power; Dunst’s quiet melancholy.

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.

Bigelow has a way of making scripted drama feel like an utterly gripping newsreel. That’s not necessarily all to the good — I found myself wishing for more character development — but you can’t deny the power of the filmmaking.

mother!, for this viewer, felt long and punishing; artful yet self-sabotaging, eventually crumbling. I never looked away — but I never want to see it again.

The Edge of Seventeen, in its R-rated way (booze and sex play supporting roles), is a sweetheart — just like Erwin.

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.

As with “Rivers and Tides,” Leaning into the Wind is a work of art in itself; beautifully and meditatively shot (by Riedelsheimer), accompanied by a faintly mysterious score that seems to be telling us secrets.

It’s a sweet, faintly screwball, faintly Shakespearean look at love, families and what happens when a well-made plan goes just a bit awry.

Pugh, a young newcomer with just a tiny handful of film credits, gives a performance of rare ferocity.

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.

Older audiences braced for tragedy may be drawn to its imaginative visuals — the stories told by the monster are rendered in delicate, painterly animation — and to the achingly vulnerable, growing-up-too-fast boy at its center.

Screen chemistry is an odd thing; often you only notice it when it isn’t there. (See: far too many Hollywood romantic comedies.) But Their Finest, an utterly charming film set in World War II-era London, contains a textbook example.

Outside In is about connection, and about two remarkable actors telling us a story.

Diana’s a superhero without a chip on her shoulder; she was raised in love, and Gadot lets that belief shine through her eyes. You’re both drawn to this woman and in awe of her.

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.

Stronger, ultimately, leaves its audience feeling a little stronger; we fall with Jeff, and we stand with him.

Unfolding like a thriller but uncomfortably real, September 5 is a haunting portrait of a time when seeing terrorism live on television was something new and strange — and a reminder that, sadly, things may not have changed all that much. But it’s also a stirring depiction of people simply doing their jobs, making decisions in the moment as best they can, trying to do things right when there’s no playbook and hundreds of millions of people watching.

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.