Monica Castillo

Although Kristen Stewart pulls off Seberg’s short haircut, she hardly embodies any of the presence or persona of the French New Wave “It” girl. Stewart’s monotonous delivery makes her character sound uninterested and bored.

The Cuban pulls together music, romance, loss, and memory into an emotional tale that spans cultures and generations. One thing connects them all: Cuban music.

In a strange way, War Machine kicks off when it proverbially jumps the shark, introducing something so ridiculous as a big killer robot to jolt the movie awake from its ho-hum military recruiting motions. It’s not a movie built to withstand big questions, but for a high-octane action thriller, it’s a lot more fun when it goes off the rails.

Not all the pieces of Boogie fit neatly together, but it’s a film about a family that doesn’t fit inside the box of a standard inspirational immigrant story.

Good on Paper sometimes gets silly, sometimes serious, but it never waivers from its mission of being funny through it all.

Michael Pearce’s grim thriller “Echo Valley” is a melodramatic mess redeemed by the performances of the film’s exceptional cast.

Anenome is Ronan Day-Lewis stretching his canvas beyond his background in painting, and while there are some interesting crossovers between the broody visual style and eye-catching surrealism, he still has much space to fill.

The visual bonanza cooked up by Rodriguez, cinematographer Bill Pope and editors Stephen E. Rivkin and Ian Silverstein is enough to power through any narrative bumps with quickly paced action and bleak, yet colorful, imagery.

Dan Fogelman’s Life Itself packs in enough narrative twists and turns to leave viewers with a sense of emotional whiplash. One tragedy bleeds into another so often that the events begin to blur.

Despite its rough edges, Fisher Stevens’ Palmer is a gentle drama. It doesn’t go as deep into Palmer’s emotions or mindset, but instead keeps them closely guarded in Timberlake’s gruff performance.

Although the relationship at the heart of We Broke Up may be messy and complicated, Rosenberg ties all of the story’s elements together into a neat, bittersweet package.

The Moment is something different, a big swing into the mockumentary genre satirizing the pressures of pop stardom and the struggle for creative control. It doesn’t always work, but Charli xcx, as ever, throws a wild party.

“Don’t Look Up” told a story while jackhammering its message, but “2073” plunges its audience right into police violence and terror with little thought in the sci-fi aspect of the narrative. It’s merely the aluminum foil to deliver the filmmaker’s thesis.

While much of this Black Beauty strays from the original, the spirit of empathy and combatting animal cruelty remain intact.

While “Eleanor the Great” never quite recovers from the moral issue at its center, Squibb’s lively performance makes it memorable.

First Date feels like a throwback caper to something you'd find on cable, funny yet full of action with a generous helping of a timeless romance for good measure. It’s the kind of movie you come across and have to see how it ends.

Russo-Young (“Before I Fall”) takes some considerable risks in her direction to make The Sun Is Also a Star look different from the typical romantic drama. But not all of these creative decisions pay off.

This is not your typical “bank robbery gone wrong” kind of movie, nor does it follow the familiar beats of a Bonnie and Clyde-style “lovers on the lam” story. “Marmalade” is a strange mix of its own, launching the rom com criminal premise to thrilling heights.

Ultimately, “Azrael” lacks the energy or chills to terrify viewers.

Tim Fehlbaum’s The Colony has many ideas about the future, and while not all of them quite stick together, there’s a few interesting aesthetic and narrative choices to make it something of a curiosity. There’s enough going on to capture your notice for brief stints before trailing off into dense plot details or well-worn sci-fi tropes.

Doin’ It is more of a fling than one for the books, but it’s a fun one, nonetheless.

If Susie Searches wanted to critique the true-crime podcast trend, it could have done so more directly. For now, we have a movie at odds with itself and its main character.

It’s a privileged perspective with nothing to share for the rest of us.

It’s a letdown for a movie that has its heart in the right place to resort to so many clichés.

Its lack of visual cohesion and bizarre finale get in the way of enjoying the whirlwind of fists, bullets, fantastical fights, and a sword with katana-like powers of cutting bodies in half. No one can accuse this film of becoming boring, but its over-stuffed narrative never quite delivers on its promising start.

No matter, after much sound and fury the movie is more of a molehill than a mountain. Betty Gilpin deserves better and so do we.

The result is sometimes dizzying, enchanting or confounding, but it is certainly never boring.

Then there’s a third act that’s so wildly out of left field, it shifts the tone completely. It’s an almost comical departure, but it’s certainly a disappointing one.