Nick Schager

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.

Resembling an ethereal and despondent companion piece to Jonathan Glazer’s "Under the Skin," it’s a genre effort that’s off the beaten path—even if an invisible path is precisely what its protagonist traverses.

The acclaimed star delivers a masterclass in silent expressiveness, and he proves the riveting axis around which Tim Mielants’ precise and deft feature revolves.

There may be no cinematic artist more deserving of a lionizing documentary than Williams, and that’s precisely what he receives from Music by John Williams.

Another of Eastwood’s inquiries into the nature of justice, the limits of the legal system to attain it, and the possible need, in that case, to take matters into one’s own hands.

No matter its hopeful closing notes, it’s a downer of epic proportions, its action encased in a shroud of loss, loneliness, and depression that’s at once bracing and taxing.

Affected and artificial to the point of aggravation, it’s an interminably draggy endeavor that gives the lie to its oft-spoken phrase, “Time flies.”

Told with a sensitivity that’s matched by its subtlety, it earns the waterworks it quickly and consistently elicits.

A harrowing documentary recap of Brown’s unseemly track record with women.

If this truly is the pair’s big-screen goodbye, at least it ends on a fittingly wacko note of pure, unadulterated sentimentality.

An investigation into the myriad means by which the internet can be wielded to nefarious ends.

More impressive than its nimbleness, however, is its poise and empathy, the latter of which is chiefly bestowed upon its protagonist.

[Finn's] second feature may not be as consistent a rollercoaster ride as his maiden effort, but it gets the job done frequently enough to be a chart-topper.

A narratively and emotionally disjointed journey, its fine lead performances, moving details, and racial commentary never cohering into an affecting spectacular.

Terrifier 3 is a juvenile splatterfest with an ignorable plot, and its performances veer from the competent (LaVera and Thornton) to the inept (most everyone else).

An off-kilter creation that feels like the wacko offspring of Aki Kaurismäki and Abbas Kiarostami’s cinemas.

A non-fiction affirmation of Carville’s belief that you can’t affect change without power, and you can’t attain power without winning.

So determined to avoid satisfying fans that it’s borderline antagonistic, as actively hostile to genre conventions as its protagonist is to the world at large.

It’s quite a shortcoming when a documentary avoids so many elements of its own story that it proves less comprehensive and compelling than a Ryan Murphy drama.

In a genre overly taken as of late with “elevated” trauma scares, its gritty, skillful menace is a breath of fresh air.

Cares far less about scares than thrills, and it generates plenty of giddy ones as it mires its characters in a predicament of head-spinning proportions.

A reasonably faithful and effective thriller, light on legitimate frights but polished and unnerving.

Its formal showmanship unconvincing and off-putting, the film is a case study in the hazards of prizing style over substance.

What ensues is the exact same thing that happened to Mia Farrow’s wife, except minus the creepy surprise and, thus, any reason to pay attention.

A daring saga that boasts far more moments that stumble than soar. It’s a mess that can be admired—but a mess, nonetheless.

Flails in trying to cast itself as a heartening story about seizing happiness, but as a snapshot of the foolhardy acts that amour can drive sane individuals to commit, it plays as an eye-opening cautionary tale.

Pushes everything past the point of moderation and decency until it becomes a riotous discourse on the personal and cultural forces that drive women to madness in search of physical perfection.

What’s missing, however, is a payoff worthy of his set-up, resulting in a diverting thriller that drags its way to an underwhelming finale.

As grim, and transfixing, as they come.

To say that it’s a fourth-generation knock-off of myriad similar YA sagas that have come before it would be an understatement.

With his maiden foray into drama, the writer/director continues to prove himself one of modern cinema’s true greats.

The film may be as fragmented as its protagonist and, ultimately, unable to reconcile its disparate facets, but its headliner’s portrait of desire, degradation, and delirium is a sight to behold—and the performance of his career.

Fine performances abound, including from Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow, but the film is ultimately at odds with itself, its handsome appearance and severe attitude clashing with its pulpy impulses.

There’s no mystery to Speak No Evil, and even less disquieting creepiness; instead, it’s a bludgeoning beast, epitomized by McAvoy’s Paddy.

As tender and somber as it is thrilling, The Return proves a sword-and-sandals saga rooted in life’s biggest issues, all of them written on the unforgettable countenance of its illustrious star.

Partnered with the always ridiculous Rudd, Robinson reconfirms his standing as the reigning master of discomfort. Together, they make "Friendship" the funniest movie of the year.

By choosing to reside in abstraction, it imparts only generic and empty truths.

Taut and mournful, it’s a lament for the mistakes made in anger, the wounds that fail to heal, and the past that never truly seems to be past at all.

Playfully mocking today’s always-online, virtual-signaling teen generation while simultaneously embracing its bevy of old-school tropes, it’s exactly the sort of crowd-pleaser designed to be seen in a theater, after dark, with a rowdy audience.

Never dull if also only intermittently surprising, it’s another of the director’s sturdy star-studded genre efforts.

Resembling a bonkers marriage of “Young Tully” and “Teen Wolf,” and led by a ferociously naked and unafraid performance by its star, it’s an amusingly incisive howl of maternal pain, frustration, disappointment, resentment, and feral strength.

Invigorates its well-worn formula through meticulous stewardship and an excellent performance from headliner Gustav Dyekjær Giese as a boxer who attempts to realize his dreams of glory in the most daringly illicit manner imaginable.

A film that’s as sweet as it is scary, and whose frights are the sort that come from all-too-relatable fears about being alone, being apart, and being unable to hold onto the people and memories that matter most.

Barry Keoghan is arguably the most electric actor working today, and he absolutely ignites Bird.

A shallow and slender tale of lousy dreams, worse decisions, and painful regrets, all of it predicated on a lead turn that’s too one-note to wow.

Pulling on the heartstrings with tug-of-war-grade might, it’s a carpe diem fable that elicits more exasperated eye rolls than tears or laughs.

If Abbasi’s film doesn’t say anything particularly novel about either, it still manages to damn the Don as he would his adversaries: with no restraint or remorse.

A pleasant and well-acted curio, and little more.

Despite a premise that begets one of the strangest lovemaking scenes in recent memory—a quasi-incestuous gender-bending head-spinner—the film is too frequently the epitome of pretentiousness.

[Its] genuine focus is the emotional turmoil that drives people to practice this profession as well as to patronize its “experts” in search of guidance and insights into the biggest questions of their lives.

Doesn’t ultimately put its star through the slam-bang paces often enough, but as a human weapon pushed to the limit, the actor proves ideally fit for such rugged genre environs.

A history lesson that compensates for a lack of breakneck thrills with ominous timeliness.

Regardless of how you feel about Ronald Reagan the president, most will be united in finding this biopic a preachy, plodding, graceless groaner.

A subpar exorcism movie that’s all the more depressing for being directed by Lee Daniels, whose distinctive flair is only sporadically spied amidst its shopworn clichés.

A thorough non-fiction recap of the rise and fall of the pint-sized phenom, whose mega-watt charm and expert comedic timing made him a sensation, and whose later years were marred by lawsuits, scandals, misery, and premature death at age 42.

Omits as much as it reveals, fixating so doggedly on its subject that it fails to dig into the various pertinent questions and dilemmas raised by his tale.

An electric thriller with blood on its hands, flesh in its mouth, and deviance on its mind.

A mediocre remix that, for all its familiar elements, fails to improve upon a single aspect of its trailblazing predecessor.

Most notable for excessively straining for R-rated credibility at every turn.

There’s nothing very unsettling about its eventual horrors, in large part because the film is too infatuated with its sleek style to get its hands dirty.

Proves that forty-five years after the xenomorph first terrified audiences, there’s still plenty of acid-bloody life left in the franchise’s monstrous bones.

A quietly explosive tale of disconnection and betrayal, its placid exterior masking a wellspring of combustible tensions that are both impossible to ignore and difficult to resolve.

Devoid of plausible characterizations, decision-making, and plotting, it’s a dud of epic proportions—literally, as its 130-minute runtime makes it feel like it’ll never end.

So drearily routine and slapdash that even an A.I. would deem it too plagiaristic.

As a pulpy game of cat-and-mouse, however, it provides enough thrills to compensate for its illogicalities, and in Josh Harnett, it boasts a star adept at locating the fiendishness in fatherhood.

The sole thing it instigates is frustration over its lethargic unoriginality.

A bewildering and gripping saga about reproduction, identity, and family that, at its finest, taps into a legitimately demented vein.

As with its predecessors, those who can’t stand Deadpool or aren’t educated in Marvel movie lore won’t tolerate a second of it. The rest will be in bleeping heaven.

A superb coming-of-age saga that lives in the intersection of youthful euphoria, despair, insecurity, irresponsibility, and fearlessness.

Suggests that the Taliban are engaged in an elaborate role-playing performance for which they’re unqualified.

Akin doesn’t untangle his main character’s inner life; rather, he simply recognizes that healing is a process that both begins with oneself and is aided by those we allow into our lives and hearts.

By minimizing its predecessor’s goofiness in favor of vacuous character drama, winds up only sporadically kicking into gale-force gear.

It’s a feature debut that portends big things for the up-and-coming filmmaker.

A thriller that grows fouler and scarier with each step toward damnation, as well as providing an unforgettable showcase for Nicolas Cage as a zealous maniac unlike any other.

A documentary that not only formally resembles a conspiracy-minded YouTube post, but is about as reliable and convincing as one.

Aiming for the stars, it proves a laborious affair that rarely gets off the ground.

A model midnight-movie beat-’em-up.

Kids will undoubtedly chuckle at their familiar exploits; the rest will view the film as an excuse to take a nice air-conditioned nap.

Far better than anticipated (or has any right to be), thanks in large part to Murphy recapturing some of the wisecracking magic that originally made Axel a sensation.

A drama expertly modulated to raise both eyebrows and pulse rates, led by a superb Léa Drucker performance that’s rooted in uncontrollable self-destructive passions and intense self-preservation instincts.

Courtesy of an intense lead performance from Lupita Nyong’o, it packs a moderate silent-but-deadly punch.

So expansive and incomplete that it resembles a modern television series awkwardly edited into feature form.

A 21st-century cautionary tale about the desire for fame and the platforms which make that dream seem so easily attainable.

Silly and slipshod, it’s not the role that will catapult the acclaimed actor back into the types of projects he deserves.

A fiery sermon of despondency and damnation, as well as a memorable nightmare of marriage, motherhood, and madness.

Unabashedly romanticizing its subjects as paragons of strength and style, it doesn’t have much substance lurking beneath its surface—but then, with a surface like this, it doesn’t really need any.

Alternately electric and maddening, it’s likely to polarize audiences more than any multiplex offering this year.

A morass of the worst of humanity and, also, a tech industry that seems perfectly comfortable profiting from it.

Destined—depending on one’s perspective on this matter—to inspire either heartfelt sympathy or blood-boiling outrage.

A tale whose creative inspiration seems to be Three’s Company—and that’s not a compliment.

Cares less about saying something significant than about imparting quirky vibes.

It’s a nightmare that burrows under one’s skin like a virus (or a curse), and it heralds its creator as a bracing new genre-filmmaking voice.

Chronicles the whirlwind phenomenon and, it turns out, the tricky process of looking back and learning to both accept the good and let go of the bad.

Follows the same basic pattern as the work of her dad M. Night Shyamalan—namely, it starts strong and then slowly falls apart under the weight of its obligations to clarify its baffling scenario.

A rehash that—in the interest of staving off franchise death for a little while longer—could stand to learn a few new tricks.

Full of the very thrills one might expect from a summer blockbuster.

Occasionally stumbles along its well-worn path. Still, courtesy of [Mortensen] and Vicky Krieps’ excellent lead performances, it delivers moving measures of the genre’s beauty, brutality, and sorrow.

An overpowering work of excavation and confrontation—as well as a timely and urgent warning about the continuing threat of antisemitism.

An affectionate portrait of Chelly as a one-of-a-kind trailblazer who lived life to the fullest, and always on her own iconoclastic terms, all while also providing a vivid snapshot of New York City during its daring and dangerous pre-sanitized era.

With Furiosa, however, [Miller] chooses to follow the playbook he penned less than a decade ago. Consequently, the results are—for better and worse—only as epic as you’d expect.

Whereas Bertino’s original was sleek, sinister and deft, this do-over is noisy, dull and dumb as a bag of rocks.

Destined to be passionately adored and despised, it’s a provocation, a stunt, a dare, and an experiment—as well as a bold one-of-a-kind experience that...shouldn’t be missed.

A tense, fatalistic saga of bad luck and worse decisions, it’s a throwback that feels as fresh and alive as its predecessors did decades ago. Not to be missed, it stands as one of the most welcome surprises of this moviegoing year.

Too often rehashing its myriad predecessors’ ideas, conflicts, and images, it’s a competent if unexceptional blockbuster game of monkey see, monkey do.

It's content to be childishly silly rather than legitimately weird, veering between gags concerning age-old products and Jan. 6 with a mildness that keeps things pleasantly pedestrian.

A masterful film that invites contemplation and, in return, delivers lyrical beauty, haunting mystery, and more than a bit of unexpected terror.

[Depp] proves that he remains one of cinema’s most magnetic presences—even if his latest project doesn’t do terribly much with him.

A portrait of millennial estrangement and discontent that, despite suffering from sporadic redundancy, strikes a raw cringe-comedy nerve.

Set to Tom Holkenborg’s bombastic score, Gregorian chanting, and endless pew-pew-pews, Rebel Moon—Part Two: The Scargiver roars and rampages, yet its drama can’t match its aesthetic pomposity.

The real issue here is simply a dearth of novelty—an insurmountable shortcoming for a B-movie that should be able to drum up some thrills from its offspring-of-Nosferatu premise.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare would seem to be an almost ideal project for Ritchie—which is why its lethargy comes as such a dispiriting surprise.

What’s conspicuously missing from this non-fiction inquiry—much to its detriment—is an attendant discussion of what came next, and how McVeigh’s actions directly and indirectly led us to our precarious present moment.

Makes up for any narrative patchiness with a bevy of unforgettable images and an attendant sense of ancient beliefs and rituals that divide as much as they unite.

Knowing just how much to say aloud and how much to suggest through visual and aural means, this superb Irish fable feels at once modern and ancient, and hums with mystery and malice.

A towering genre film about a not-so-fanciful end times—one that both understands, and proves, the peerless power of the visual image.

It’s consistently engaging, but also not much more revealing than a quick perusal of Jennifer’s Wikipedia page, and the fact that its real-life saga may not be over only amplifies the impression that it’s less than the full story.

Telegraphs its bombshells from the outset and dutifully shuffles toward a conclusion that tethers this saga to Donner’s The Omen.

It’s as big a swing as any in Besson’s career, and consequently, when it wholly and embarrassingly misses, the blow back is borderline overpowering.

A sequel that ups the ante in virtually every way—none of them good.

Composed to seem at once off-the-cuff and mannered (replete with varying film stocks), La Chimera blends sweetness, sorrow and silliness with a lyrical touch.

An uninspired cover song in desperate need of its forerunner’s fire and flair.

Russell Crowe continues to prove that he’s better than the B-grade projects he’s now offered, but his convincing performance isn’t enough to elevate this surprise-free mystery.

The Contestant outs the Japanese reality show as a pioneering work of manipulative heartlessness, happy to put Nasubi through the ringer for ratings and, also, for spectators eager to chuckle at his mistreatment (and marvel at his cooperation in it).

It all resembles a lot of cosplaying, although its central failing is foregrounding cacophonous mayhem and middling melodrama over the drollness that defined the first two Ghostbusters movies.

Fortuitously timed, providing an insider’s view of this most tabloid-y of political tales and the woman at the center of it all.

A lifeless hodgepodge of the hoariest clichés the genre has to offer.

Has its heart in the right place but little else, starting out competently and then slowly falling apart with each clumsy step along its "Game of Thrones"-lite path.

Little more than a creaky lark that fails to generate consistent laughs, even if it proves that John Cena is a charming goof-off who’s game for anything.

Strives for stratospheric emotional heights and yet proves so self-seriously somber and saccharine that it plays like a leaden parody.

The Animal Kingdom is what an X-Men movie would look like if it doubled-down on its tolerance-for-outsiders metaphor and did away with any exciting superpowered spectacle.

[An] overly dramatic and revelation-lite feature-length documentary, whose main purpose seems to be rehashing that which has already been exhaustively covered by the media and, also, underscoring the sociopathic dishonesty of Joran van der Sloot.

A marvel of slapstick invention that in terms of pure unbridled creativity puts most big-screen comedies to shame.

A stark window into the conflicted soul of [Ceylan's] homeland, whose tensions and schisms are subtly evoked throughout the course of this challenging, if ultimately rich and rewarding, 197-minute import of longing, resentment, compromise, and self-interest.

Aiming for ribald and risqué and coming up with only ruinous humorlessness, it may be the longest 84 minutes anyone will spend in a theater this year.

[Boasting] an ambitious and exhilarating story that matches its style, it’s the finest thing Villeneuve has helmed and the 2024 film to beat for outsized sci-fi showmanship.

Headlined by a serviceable Liam Hemsworth and a fantastic Russell Crowe in all his hammy scene-stealing glory, it’s the bro-iest bro-fest that ever bro’d—and I say that with far more affection than condescension.

On the basis of Madame Web, however, Sony’s Spider-Man Universe is now completely lifeless—and in no need of resuscitation.

Even in a crowded true-crime field, it’s something of a doozy.

A sumptuous period-piece celebration of sensory delights—both culinary and otherwise—infused with all manner of complex, intoxicating flavors.

A midnight movie that recognizes that there’s no existence without sacrifice, and no birth without death.

They Called Him Mostly Harmless proves most interesting as a story about the various ways in which people both come together and go it alone in order to fill (or at least cope with) the holes in their lives.

Boasts the idiosyncratic anxiety, depression, and angst of its author’s work and the bouncy tone and matching visual style of every other recent cinematic kid’s fable—two flavors that, it turns out, don’t really go well together.

Its comic touch almost as heavy-handed as its slow-motion-drenched action is dull, it seems primarily designed to answer the question, “How many movie stars can one fiasco squander?

As a hitman on an assignment in a far-flung locale, [McShane's] as good as he’s ever been, exuding a heft and danger that typifies this understated and affecting genre effort.

In raising some of the questions that desperately need to be asked before next January, it serves as an urgent warning.

For all its commotion, however, the film doesn’t drum up the madcap mania it seeks.

A movie that’s about—and asks its lead to literally and figuratively wear—masks, A Different Man is a multifaceted meta mind-melter.

A remarkably intimate non-fiction exposé about the ordeals women suffer after being sexually assaulted—and the strength, courage and togetherness required to change that status quo.

Too much of Realm of Satan comes off as unreasonably poe-faced, which not only neuters the proceedings’ sense of giddy transgression but feels at odds with these characters’ comical bizarreness.

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story paints a rich portrait of Reeve as an individual, celebrity, activist, and family man, bolstered by commentary from his children and friends and, additionally, from Reeve himself.

A zombie film unlike any other, focused less on mayhem than on grief, loss, and the quiet, tragic terror begat by the dead’s return.

What they have to say, and what’s depicted here, won’t make anyone feel more optimistic about our looming undead-avatar futures.

A hot-blooded crime story whose affectations outweigh its subversions.

Together, [Culkin and Eisenberg] make for a winning pair, balancing each other in a variety of ways that speak to the material’s larger concerns about loss, grief, remembrance and regret.

As far as celebratory backward glances go, it’s compelling enough to temporarily brighten one’s day.

The director’s latest is a distinctly cool, dynamic Soderbergian riff on Michael Powell’s "Peeping Tom" via "The Haunting," with a dash of "Paranormal Activity" sprinkled around its edges.

A socially conscious romantic comedy, and if those two modes don’t sound compatible, [writer/director] Libii does nothing to alter that impression.

Although handsomely mounted and occasionally chilling, it’s the cinematic equivalent of a one-note tweet.

You can cut-and-paste all your adolescent obsessions into a giant collage (and recruit Pedro Pascal and Ben Mendelsohn to participate in the madness), but that doesn’t mean it’ll amount to more than a messy, insubstantial grab bag of your favorite things.

It's a thriller, a heist caper, and a surprisingly moving romance all in one, and it seems destined to be one of the breakout hits of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

A three-hour drama whose slender story serves as the skeleton for a formally exquisite examination of loss, faith, family, and connection, it's the year’s first masterpiece.

A pedestrian thriller that never generates a modicum of suspense.

Love Machina’s scattershot structure does its subjects no favors, with the film taking a variety of meandering detours until its overarching purpose grows hazy.

Pictures of Ghosts isn’t a timeline but a winding journey through remembrances of things past, and it moves with entrancing gracefulness through a history that’s near and dear to Kleber Filho’s heart.

Hit Man is hot and hilarious, a winning combination amplified by a story that gets knottier at every turn.

A beat-‘em-up whose competent fight sequences are ultimately overshadowed by its unintentional humor.

It takes its time—quite frankly, too long—to deliver the gruesome goods/

[Bayona's] finest film to date, and a fitting tribute to those who both perished and managed to escape their fateful mountain tomb.

An old-school melodrama of pride, folly, and sacrifice that’s electrified by yet another superb turn from its leading man.

It boasts some of the nerve-wracking anxiety of Uncut Gems and the keenness of last year’s standout Playground, even if it doesn't eventually pull off its delicate tightrope act.

Overwhelms via length and monotony, employing a challenging form that’s both its greatest strength and, ultimately, its most frustrating weakness.

A sweet and sad slice-of-life about the comfort and sorrow of solitary repetition, buoyed by a Yakusho performance that rightly earned him the Best Actor prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

A franchise farewell so underwhelming, nary a tear will be shed over its passing.

A stately affair that’s never particularly intellectually incisive or revealing, and its stolid execution fails to transcend the material’s inherent staginess.

Cheerfully dumb and dutifully formulaic, it’s “content” in the worst sense of the term.

Hits many of the right feel-good notes. Unfortunately, it also strikes a lot of discordant ones, neutering most of its attempts at rousing inspiration.

This misbegotten attempt at creating a new out-of-this-world Snyderverse is merely a knockoff dressed up in its director’s stylistic signatures.

Blame for this sports drama’s shallow leadenness can’t be similarly pinned on the supernatural; instead, its shortcomings are attributable to a one-dimensional script and resultant performances that are far less nuanced than its headliners’ ripped bodies.

Its lack of originality is at least partially offset by its gripping depiction of intolerance and exclusion as impediments to survival.

A gut-wrenching saga about illuminating the darkest corners of private lives, and about the difficulty—and perhaps unjustness—of genuine Christian forgiveness.

Unoriginal and ungainly at every turn, it’s a debacle devoid of any genuine magic.

As Toho Studios’ new Godzilla Minus One proves, the Japanese know how to get the iconic radioactive behemoth right.

A film that, regardless of its easy-going pace, demands active engagement with its action—a request that’s innately in tune with its depiction of creation through dialogue.

One of the director’s finest, its thematic scope and emotional power growing with each new revelation.

Envisions Napoleon as a complex mix of the imposing and the absurd, his dreams of conquest—and single-minded ability to make them a reality—matched by his folly and awkwardness.

Thanksgiving is less a cheap rollercoaster ride than a faithfully grisly throwback, complete with more than a few subtle (and not-so-subtle) shout-outs to Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th.

Both a comprehensive primer and a nostalgic celebration, it successfully makes the case that few 20th-century funnymen were as daring, pioneering, or outright amusing.

Never more than skin-deep and ultimately overstays its welcome but which comes alive when—especially in its latter half—it indulges in its most wildly deviant impulses.

This rote affair would deserve the designation “for fans only,” if not for the sneaking suspicion that even they won’t be wowed by this return trip to Panem.

The film is moment-to-moment lively, sharp, and funny. Too bad that, like a dream, its pleasures are all over the place, and dissipate almost as quickly as they arrive.

An irrelevant B-team affair which further suggests that the MCU can’t survive, short- or long-term, without the active participation of its most famous characters.

Provides only some of his story, its up-close-and-personal view masking as much as it reveals.

Jacobson’s documentary resounds as merely a small victory in an ongoing war.

The Devil on Trial still allows David and others to argue that demonic possession did take place, but given the evidence on display, many will likely find that up for considerable debate.

An affectionate homage that captures the psychosexual delirium of its genre inspirations, it’s a throwback chiller steeped in blood, kink, and the terrifying thrill of violation.

It’s arguably the greatest expression yet of Fincher’s style and worldview—caustic, unrelenting, and wickedly funny.

A cautionary tale about…making “a pact with the devil.” However, Milli Vanilli doesn’t have much to reveal that isn’t by now well-known pop lore.

When it comes to its central legal struggle, though, it leaves out so many crucial details that it cuts itself off at the knees.

Just as there’s no reference to the many falsehoods Diana has apparently told about her past, there’s zero overt mention of the controversy surrounding her signature triumph—thereby proving that the film cares more about rah-rah uplift than thorny inquiry or messy reality.

Painting a multifaceted portrait of the racing legend during a particular moment of personal and professional crises, the auteur’s first feature since 2015’s Blackhat hums with steely passion and pain.

A boldly demented science fiction saga (executive-produced by Steven Soderbergh) that melds the unsettling body horror of David Cronenberg and the seductive surrealism of David Lynch with a menacing video game-inflected spirit of its own.

As appealing a turn as the Oscar-winning actor has given, and it does much to elevate this inspired-by-real events tale of unlikely alliances and an even more improbable victory.

While its assortment of recurring images, conversations, scenes, and dynamics intermittently borders on the exhausting, it plays as an intriguing meditation on desire, dreams, and the things that make us who we are—and without which we’re lost.

Last Stop Larrimah is a tale about provincial dynamics and the hostilities they often breed, as well as about the unique types of men and women who willingly choose to spend their days and nights on the outer edges of civilization.

With thrilling dexterity and acerbic wit, finds a way to mock crass commercialism, cultural misogyny, corporate greed, worker exploitation, bigotry, social media hate, and the many systems and forces conspiring to crush us all.

A WWII horror story rooted in separation, alienation and a cold indifference that shakes one to the very core.

Operates in a single, precious sub-Kelly Reichardt register, its every second marked by studied images, sounds and performances.

He’s a grand chronicler of his own biography, and expertly goaded on by Morris, whose queries challenge present and past statements and compel further elaboration and contemplation.

Its anger is matched by its empathy, both of which abound in its tale of woe set in the nightmarish region between Belarus and Poland.

Delivering scares at a pace that rarely allows one to catch their breath, and with enough gruesome surprises to consistently startle.

The Exorcist: Believer trots out Burstyn for continuity credibility and then treats her with stunning disrespect—the most brazen of many indications that the film is a soulless cash-in on an established name brand.

Poor Things is a work about distortion, assemblage, and invention, and thus it’s apt that the film deforms and amalgamates to beget something thrillingly unique.

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.

Prepare to bang your head and raise your horns to what is surely the most epically metal release of 2023—and a satisfying conclusion to a gonzo parody par excellence.

Any grown-up’s desire for such material will be swiftly neutered by [the film], which despite boasting the participation of genuinely funny people like Will Ferrell, Jaime Foxx, Isla Fisher, and Randall Park is a mirthless mutt of a movie.

Arguably the most derivative offering the tired genre has yet to offer, borrowing elements from so many forebearers that it plays like a conventional pastiche.

Habitually shooting her characters through narrow doorways and windows, the better to convey their isolation as well as their squeezed-by-circumstance states, the director fashions a sinister atmosphere, aided by intermittent pregnancy and corpse imagery.

A testament to the vitality and fragility of memory that itself serves as an act of preservation—of a prized past, a fraught present and an everlasting devotion.

Heart of Stone plays like reheated leftovers, its flavor familiar but diluted.

Whether hewing to the letter of Stoker’s source material or branching off in novel directions, this B-movie distends itself without purpose.

Great racing sequences aside, it’s so clichéd and unadventurous that it makes its source material seem deep by comparison.

With no twists or clues to keep things lively and volatile, one’s mind instinctively begins to ponder how things are being precisely timed, where the other actors are moving to in the background, and the many other behind-the-scenes logistical challenges inherent to such an endeavor.

A Compassionate Spy takes a far more rose-tinted, one-note view of Hall—a tack that requires skirting past major conflicting particulars and eschewing the very uncertainty that Hall himself exhibits in numerous archival interviews.

[Wheatley’s] chaos and madness is of a blandly cartoonish variety, neither serious enough to scare nor outlandish enough to elicit laughs.

A small-scale tragedy about arrogant intolerance and self-centeredness that’s at once highly specific and, more depressing still, universal.

Considering Rogen’s participation as both a writer and actor, it’s surprising that Mutant Mayhem plays it so safe, not merely in terms of plot but with regards to its comedy.

Without greater context, though, Missing: The Lucie Blackman Case comes across as slight, and that notion is reinforced by a finale that draws no meaningful lessons from its tragic saga.

Just as busy, corny, and predictable as its 2003 iteration—as well as destined to swiftly pass into the cinematic afterlife that is both convenience store bargain bins and cluttered streaming platform libraries.

The cautionary tale is a familiar one. But it’s told with enough flashy verve and humor, along with a gossipy bombshell audio recording, to play as a breezy non-fiction look back at a phenom that had its 15 minutes—or, at least, enough time to get through an evening’s worth of quiz questions—in the smartphone spotlight.

A divided epic of awe and horror, fission and fusion. It’s simultaneously a unified portrait of a conflicted man and a singular achievement for Hollywood’s reigning blockbuster auteur.