Moira Macdonald

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.