Nick Schager

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.