Nick Schager

The Electric State" is just about as derivative as a modern blockbuster can be, and worse is that it skates along from one cacophonous and jokey set piece to another as if on rails.

For all its avenues of inquiry, however, it never quite gels into more than a collection of tantalizing but unfounded theories.

When it comes to sleek, stylish genre movies, Soderbergh remains a maestro at the top of his game.

Modest and moving, it’s a new sports-movie classic, as sneakily effective as the pitch which gives it its title.

For sheer unadulterated geekiness, it’s got few contemporary equals.

No matter a committed performance (two, actually) from Robert Pattinson, it’s an original that plays like a rehash—and an underwhelmingly unfunny one at that.

True cinema is John Lithgow terrorizing Geoffrey Rush in a nursing home with his creepy hand puppet.

What ultimately lingers more, however, is its portrait of the grit, determination, and sacrifice exhibited by these individuals—a stirring reminder that there’s nothing more noble than having your fellow man’s back.

At once incisive and ambiguous, it’s proof that Jude is operating on a completely different level than most of his contemporaries.

A unique saga of fathers, sons, and brothers, of fate, vengeance, and survival, and of a wind-up simian toy that just might be the Grim Reaper.

With leads Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller generating considerable sparks, and violent set pieces that up the supernatural ante one out-there revelation at a time, the director’s latest proves a bonkers B-movie on a big-studio budget.

[Ford’s] presence—along with a winning turn from Anthony Mackie as the patriotic title character—makes this adventure a sturdy return to franchise form.

With wit, wonder, warmth, and a few wink-wink nods to the Indiana Jones movies, it’s further evidence of this franchise’s cute and cuddly preeminence.

As sumptuous and vapid as a commercial for Dior or Chanel’s latest fragrance.

The main takeaway from this dreary dud, however, is that winning an Academy Award is no guarantee of continued big-screen success.

Reinsve reconfirms that she’s one of international cinema’s most electric presences, and her formidable performance is the axis around which this taut drama revolves.

[A] bland stab at genre hybridization, whose sole accomplishment is falling flat at everything it tries.

An alternately (and sometimes simultaneously) harrowing and hallucinatory story of an OB-GYN who discovers that her every attempt at nurturing life leads only to more death.

A breakout (produced by Barry Jenkins) that heralds Victor as an idiosyncratic and exciting new American artist.

A somewhat slight homage with a strong voice and gentle twist rather than a wholly original work of terror.

Courtesy of charming and goofy performances by Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon as strangers who find themselves at war over their loved ones’ weddings, it’s amusing enough to do just fine on a screen of any size.

A harrowing first-person view of a ceaseless nightmare, defined by both blistering immediacy and crushing sadness.

The result is even better than his initial design: a sharp, hilarious, self-aware, and acutely insightful work of both celebration and critique.

An excruciatingly literal affair, not to mention a repetitive one, spinning in circles to dizzying, and ever-diminishing, ends.

A giddy grotesquerie that has midnight-movie crowd-pleaser written all over it.

A lyrical tale of combatting misfortune via community.

Initially teasing a condemnation, only to come away with something less certain and more fascinating, it straddles various lines, and perspectives, with impressive confidence.

An illuminating look at a superpower in the throes of a burgeoning cultural catastrophe—and of a few of its myriad desperate-for-love men.

This winning non-fiction portrait proves equally adept at eliciting laughs and tears.

Nothing—including a game performance by Dev Patel—can prevent it from tumbling down a bottomless hole from which it can’t escape.

No amount of narrative wackiness and star power can make [cabbages] or this Sundance Film Festival offering funny.

A quiet and formally rigorous portrait of a paternalistic society, the crimes it breeds, and the fury, shame, regret, and self-loathing that follows.

An endearing, infuriating, and despairing non-fiction portrait of a country’s final descent into oppressive authoritarianism, all of it shot covertly by one brave teacher, it’s a striking work of rebel cinema.

A captivating character study about a young man trying to carve out a grown-up life despite having spent half of his years on Earth behind bars.

With formal polish and deep compassion, it proves to be the most heartwarming film of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

A model of tone, concision, and emotional and psychological insight, led by a staggering performance from John Magara and an equally moving one from pint-sized co-star Molly Belle Wright.

Devolves into such a morass of shrill chaos and affected symbolism that it’s difficult to feel anything other than exasperation with its central maternal crisis.

A rather obvious and pedestrian lesson, if one that’s embellished with a few memorably macabre sights.

Those with a hankering for willfully pretentious absurdity may find this festival entry right up their alley.

A successful experiment that’s highly attuned to the digital immediacy of our modern condition.

Diaz and Foxx still got it, the film constantly screams. The evidence on display, however, suggests otherwise.

A peerless example of using exacting form to not simply inform and enhance content, but to create a profound link between movie and moviegoer.

It isn’t a debacle, but it also won’t have genre aficionados howling for more.

[Gudegast] infuses his inspired-by-real-events tale with the muscularity of its metal-titan namesake, all while pivoting everything around the grungy, rugged charisma of his star.

Funny and charming as ever, it’s a welcome cinematic reprise for the British icons, even if this latest outing is slight enough to suggest that it might have been perfectly fine as a short.

Concise, clever, and unnerving, it’s a perfect film for the onset of winter.

Includes enough critical voices and material to complicate Johnson’s view about his actions and ethos—in the process undercutting the material’s superficial optimism.

Throws a bevy of familiar, rousing punches on its way to a feel-good finale. Yet in the fearsome eyes of Destiny, it boasts its own unique power.

Pulsates with harsh, anguished emotion, thanks in no small part to splendid visuals that make it the most beautiful film of the year.

Boasting an exceptional Nicole Kidman performance as a woman recklessly in search of who she is and what she wants—as well as the orgasm that she’s long coveted—it’s a thrilling and amusing shot of cinematic Viagra.

Its formal lyricism offset by a script that’s intolerably clunky, it’s an affected portrait of euthanasia and friendship that gets lost in translation.

A harrowing 215-minute epic of perseverance, trauma, exploitation, and anti-Semitism, it’s a bracing examination of the scars of war, the difficulty of recovery, and the genius, madness, and self-destruction begat by calamity.

Only receiving a multiplex release because Warner Bros had to do so in order to maintain the franchise’s theatrical rights, it’s inconsequential and hackneyed to the point of being forgettable.

This breakneck Netflix offering confirms the enduring vitality of its chosen formula—and, in the process, proves an unexpected and welcome Yuletide streaming gift.

A corny and turgid saga that should bring to a close Sony’s live-action “Spider-Verse,” if not the faltering genre as a whole, it’s an unspectacular affair that melds Marvel, Tarzan, and John Wick to depressing and forgettable ends.

Goes heavy on convincing musical performances to make up for the fact that it has nothing astute to say about its subject—in large part because it doesn’t seem to really know him.

An attempt at comedy that’s a genuine disaster.

Ultimately, the truths of Hard Truths are as simple and poignant as they are difficult to initially discern. An unmistakable certainty, though, is that this reunion of Leigh and Jean-Baptiste was too long in the making—and should be repeated once again post haste.

A monument to dark desire and the corruption it breeds, and a masterpiece of unholy terror that instantly takes its place alongside the genre’s hallowed greats.

Rasoulof’s film damns Iran for its fanatical, corrupting, chauvinistic tyranny, all while generating breakneck suspense and, ultimately, resolving its tale with a disaster that contains within it a measure of hopefulness.

A tribute to scientific innovation and compassion that, no matter its obvious manipulations, adeptly pulls at the heartstrings.

An agonized drama about the burden of yesteryear and the conflicting ways to embrace and transcend it—one that’s rich in character, conflict, detail, desire, and history.

A Yuletide misfire that lands like a lump of coal.

Despite winning the Best Actress (for its female ensemble) and Jury Prize awards at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, it’s a bold gamble that doesn’t quite pay off.

An elaborate imitation of its predecessor. If little more than a cover song, however, it’s a majestic and malicious one that reaffirms its maker’s unparalleled gift for grandiosity.

A snapshot of an annual family gathering that’s laced with an array of prickly emotions, it’s an evocatively ragamuffin and rowdy mood piece.