Moira Macdonald

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

The whole endeavor is so relentlessly lovable, like Bridget herself, that I defy anyone to not enjoy themselves.

Take “Billy Elliot,” trade the refined world of ballet for the “soap opera in spandex” of professional wrestling, swap the preteen boy for a young woman, throw in The Rock — because every movie is better with The Rock, right? — and you’ve got Fighting With My Family, a shaggily likable underdog tale.

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.

Get Out will scare you, make you laugh and perhaps make you uncomfortable. It’s supposed to.

Yorgos Lanthimos’ particular brand of dark comedy can be an acquired taste, and his latest, the gritty conspiracy thriller Bugonia, pushes that taste to the limit.

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

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.”

It’s chilly in Oslo, and in this movie; the better to sneak up on you quietly, like an unexpected shiver.

Most of all, you see Roberts, who takes hold of this movie like a lamppost in the winter darkness. That huge Julia Roberts smile turns up here, but it’s haunting.

“Turn off your brain, and let your heart do da talking,” advised Rocky, and he was right. This franchise just might go on forever, and my heart kind of hopes that it does.

The Fall Guy isn’t a perfect movie; it’s longer and a bit more self-aware than it needs to be, and not every joke lands. But it has that rare quality in a big-studio film: a sense of fun.

Feig, who’s made a specialty of stories featuring unlikely female duos, knows exactly what he’s doing here in the classy-B-movie genre, and “The Housemaid” ticks along like oatmeal-toned clockwork — a little scary, a little silly and very popcorn-appropriate.

The fun here is in the little moments the actors find, and in the way that Waititi, within the massive machine that is a studio superhero movie, brings out a looseness and playfulness in the performances.

Sometimes too many ideas collide into each other — a zippy back-and-forth structure in the screenplay gets abandoned, and the pacing in the final act feels off — but Birds of Prey is never boring and often great fun.

It’s all quite wistfully romantic, and mostly winningly so, despite the sometimes wise-way-beyond-their-years dialogue and not always plausible plot.

A charming, moving and over-too-soon portrait of a country, and of what it means to have a longer than expected life.

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.

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.

In other words: yes, it’s fun.

The horror is all the more effective for having sneaked up on us quietly.

Nobody in this movie would be out of place in a glamorous old-Hollywood drama, which is kind of what On Swift Horses is trying to be — and, most of the time, coming pretty close.

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.

Blending archival footage, actor re-creation and special effects (sometimes all in the same shot), [Sokurov] creates a sense of specific place and time — and, in doing so, crafts a sort of cinematic ode to art.

The message of Bad Moms is that being a mother today is impossible... But it’s a hammer brought down with a light, goofy touch (maybe too light; the male characters could use some punching-up), with a gleefully charming central trio that I enjoyed hanging out with.

What we have here is mostly a straight-up, mildly raunchy rom-com, where everyone learns lessons and gets a happy ending. But Shankman gives it all an agreeable bounce, and Henson (better known for dramatic roles, in “Hidden Figures,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and TV’s “Empire”) zestfully dives into the comedy.

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.