Nick Schager

A sci-fi story that spirals about in circles on its way to a predictable and underwhelming twist and an even less satisfying conclusion.

A visually striking but shoddily written and crushingly derivative amalgam of assorted genre forefathers.

Such tension ultimately unravels during a latter half that rushes through too many underwhelming revelations, but that’s not enough to completely offset the film’s beguiling air of despondency.

Merely more of the same gung-ho corniness, delivered with a chintziness and wink-wink self-consciousness that undercuts its aggro appeal.

A beautiful and bountiful bite-size film, it stands as Anderson’s second triumph of 2023 (following June’s Asteroid City) and a mini-masterwork in its own right.

The Saint of Second Chances is a testament to prioritizing goofy, compassionate family entertainment over winning and profit, as so many associated with the Saints readily attest.

A directorial debut of poised peril that should inspire both laughs and a few sleepless nights.

Far from a stuffy history lesson, it’s a film that’s at once urgent, rousing, and alive.

In a streaming landscape already saturated with takedowns of Big Pharma and its pill-popping perfidy, it’s a generic version of far more powerful originals.

Its sentimentality expertly balanced by its humor, The Holdovers is a story about the lies we tell ourselves (for good and ill) and the reality of our not-so-dissimilar human conditions.

Knox Goes Away isn’t the first (or fifth) genre effort to play with memory, although it might be the flattest.

The best one can say about it is that it at least doesn’t feature a lovably cartoonish genocidal dictator.

A high-octane action extravaganza sure to satiate genre fans’ delirious bloodlust.

Though stirringly headlined by Kate Winslet, it’s a by-the-books affair in almost every respect.

No matter Jodie Comer’s committed effort to wring something emotional from this cataclysmic saga, the film proves soggy in every respect.

A true-crime thriller that also operates as a damning commentary on societal misogyny—especially in Hollywood—it’s as chillingly sharp and canny as its deranged fiend.

A triumphant satire about race, exploitation, family and identity that’s as rich and captivating as [Wright's] tour-de-force.

By weighing everything so heavily, and obviously, in one direction, it eventually comes off as a thinly disguised sermon about ugly oppression and noble suffering and defiance.

Ripped from yesterday’s headlines, it’s as fast, flashy and superficial as the director’s prior efforts, and also as exaggerated.

As an authorized project primarily designed to celebrate rather than investigate, that hatred goes largely unexamined in this non-fiction affair.

Both understands our private relations as enigmas to those on the outside, as well as wields that mystery for a subtle, striking examination of the imaginative means by which we fill in personal and collective blanks.

It may be messy, but then, what child’s story isn’t?

A stinging political, social, and media critique made from digitally altered bits and pieces of entertainment favorites, at once hilarious, enraged, and as zonked out of its mind as many viewers will prefer to be while watching it.

The outrage elicited by Scouts Honor over that situation is compounded by the agonizing commentary of victims.

A stylishly pessimistic portrait of one man’s villainy and, just as stingingly, the way in which it infected all that he touched—as if through the very blood.

As self-contained as any episode of the television show upon which it’s based. It’s also as efficient and straightforward as that predecessor, if not quite as disposable, thanks to its peerless star.

Proof that Sandler still has the capacity to spearhead (as opposed to just for-hire headline) a competent movie—including one featuring those closest to him.

A damning portrait of an unrepentant cheat and the unregulated system—and unsuspecting people—he bamboozled for his own gain.