Nick Schager

Despite looking great, it comes off as a humdrum knockoff of yesterday’s fashion.

Aside from a couple of vicious set pieces, however, this genre effort’s gimmickry results in derivative cornball melodrama. It would have benefited greatly from speaking louder while carrying a big stick.

This creepy nerve-rattler confirms that the director’s excellent 2024 breakout Oddity was no fluke.

A no-frills survival thriller that’s as rugged as its wilderness setting.

All “Thriller," no infamy, presenting an uplifting, crowd-pleasing version of events that, for all its expert impersonations, is simply the palatable half of this sordid tale.

A deep dive into a pool of pretentiousness whose absurdity mounts with each new quasi-supernatural—and heavily symbolic—development.

[Its] sketchiness is second only to its inside-baseball humorlessness.

Plays like a torturous tone-deaf joke that won’t end.

Thanks to a host of colorful performances and an emphasis on over-the-top violence, they mostly pull off their double-dip trick.

A stirring celebration of bravery, camaraderie, and human ingenuity that goes big in every respect, not least of which by recognizing and foregrounding the majesty of larger-than-life movie stardom.

A rousing elegy to an underworld saga par excellence and, in particular, to a ruthless and tormented gangster whom, in Murphy’s expert hands, stands as an undisputed crime-fiction icon.

A Frankenstein-ian cine-monster that both reinvents and pays homage with all the clumsiness and unsightliness of its fabled creature.

Worst of all, Scream 7 doesn’t concoct the sort of ludicrous denouement that has always been these movies’ signature, instead delivering perhaps the most deflating conclusion in the series’ three-decade history. That alone should indicate that Ghostface has lost his luster and should withdraw to the Horror Hall of Fame where he deserves to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Freddy, Jason, and the rest of the genre’s genuine icons.

An uplifting portrait of the possibility of rebirth—even for the most famous person on Earth.

A superb companion piece to the director’s 2022 biopic Elvis, it’s a feat of showmanship both by Presley on stage and Luhrmann behind the camera.

It might not deliver hilariously fatal blows, but it’s smart and spikey enough to leave a pleasurably painful mark.

An audacious indie that plumbs the depths of passion, loyalty, and sacrifice with beguiling earnestness and intensity.

No matter the out-of-this-world nature of their adventure, they remain an amusing and endearingly down-to-Earth doofus duo.

A film that lives up to its title by being, in every way, basic—and, in the process, confirms that there’s a reason some clichés endure.

With Oscar-winner Sam Rockwell as its tempestuous engine, it’s a captivatingly silly saga about the pitfalls of our modern techno-obsessiveness.

A fleetingly recognizable tale of love, desire, obsession, regret, bitterness, and ire that, at every turn, plays as florid, horny, juvenile fanfiction.

A steamy, sad, and amusing snapshot of desire and identity.

Just a pale imitation of scarier bloodsuckers gone by.

A joyous return to form for the Evil Dead auteur, whose no-holds-barred verve is equaled by that of Rachel McAdams.

A far cry from [Stanton’s] Pixar gems Finding Nemo and WALL-E, both of which have infinitely more to say about the human condition than this schematic and bathetic bowl of chicken soup for the soul.

Electrifying a taut tale of tough times and the desperate men they breed, [Hawke] makes sure that, even when it could stand to be a tad weightier, this genre film packs a wallop.

A stirring testament to both [Rushdie's] resilience and to freedom as a vital bulwark against the forces of extremism and evil.

There’s not much to latch onto here except the faint flickers of the better film this one, with more care and attention to detail, might have been.

Never quite as funny as it wants to be, but making up for that in the violence department, it’s a healthy serving of slam-bang cinematic comfort food.

An irredeemably obvious and one-note affair that says everything in its first 10 minutes and spends the remainder of its time vainly trying to drum up humor from a wan Weekend at Bernie’s-esque scenario.

A medley of fears, anxieties, and regrets that repeatedly messes with the senses, it exists at the nexus of sanity and madness, life and death, Heaven and Hell, and sound and image.

A hysterical, insightful, and ultimately moving portrait of the difficulties of keeping long-term relationships alive.

Follows festival tradition by featuring a stellar breakthrough performance from a well-known actor—in this case, Will Poulter’s sterling turn as a junkie caught in a prison of his own making.

This intensely empathetic film—co-starring Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan—has a tendency to tip into strident affectation. But thanks to newcomer Reeves, it still lands more than its fair share of punches.

Consistently funny and erotic, if ultimately a bit too straightlaced for the incendiary subject matter at hand.

A delightful film about the dim-witted and the disreputable. And though its humor ultimately wanes, it compensates with a surprising measure of tenderness.

A winningly weird comedy—premiering at this year’s Sundance Film Festival—about isolation and community.

With his maiden cinematic venture, Wilson doesn’t break new ground so much as continue his idiosyncratic artistry on a larger scale.

A horror-comedy that takes a scalpel—or, more accurately, several weapons—to its jaunty protagonist, all while reveling in his darkly disturbed spirit.

May have things to say, but doesn’t have a clue how to say them.

Designed in every way to make one bleary eyed, it’s the new year’s dreariest, and goofiest, film.

A rugged affair that’s canny and concussive enough to compensate for a somewhat deflating ending, it proves that its headliners remain cinema’s preeminent BFF duo.

As the fourth entry in a long-running franchise (written, like its ancestors, by Alex Garland), it is, to borrow a phrase uttered by its protagonist, “miraculous”—and marks this zombie saga as a nightmare with few equals.

Understated, graceful, and moving, it’s the first great film of 2026.

A sturdy continuation of this cataclysmic big-screen series, whose large-scale set pieces are rooted in the fear, anguish, and compassion of its appealing main characters.

Taut and entrancing, it’s a stark reminder that adolescence sucks.

A typical provincial British tale about everyday Englishmen and women banding together to accomplish a controversial task against long odds, it’s akin to a warm glass of milk.

A movie manufactured to tug at the heartstrings. That it does so this gracefully and movingly is a testament to Winslet’s understated stewardship and a script by her son, Joe Anders, whose manipulations are as gentle as they are affecting.

Yanking unashamedly at the heartstrings, however, it’s a manipulative and uneven tune that strains to elicit the sniffles it so hungrily seeks.

Proves a deliriously amusing vehicle for both glamorous, charismatic actresses. It won’t win Sweeney or Seyfried any prizes, but it’s the sort of hysterical thriller that, in the ’80s and ’90s, was a theatrical staple.

To a greater extent than its franchise mates, Avatar: Fire and Ash is drunk on its own extravagance, unaware that it’s offering up nothing new that might justify its absurd Sturm und Drang.

A tour-de-force of unbound creativity, its silky staging, enchanting performances, and playful inventiveness combining to make it one of the year’s undisputed big-screen highlights.

Its phoniness epitomized by Emma Mackey’s lead turn, it’s the biggest dud of the artist’s career, and the holiday season’s most egregious misfire.

A taut, tense, of-the-moment thriller with real (reel?) bite.

Strap in, hold on, and succumb to this ecstatically inventive one-of-a-kind film.

An assured directorial debut about media reliability that unnerves by embracing the unknown.

[Its] sole imperative appears to be boring its audience to death.

With star Imogen Poots vividly capturing the roiling contradictions born from her character’s crises, it’s a raw, rugged wound of a film.

The charismatic Pfeiffer deserves much, much better than this soggy stocking stuffer.

A breakneck rollercoaster—about ping pong!—infused with a manic desperation that’s almost as electric as its athletic centerpieces are taut.

If its melodrama is unabashedly manipulative, it’s not altogether ineffective at eliciting waterworks.

Largely faithful but unwilling to pick a funny or nasty lane, it’s the most impersonal film of its writer/director’s career, and a revolutionary thriller that too often falls back on establishment conventions.

Its most impressive feat, however, is finding a way to somehow be even duller than its predecessors.

Undone by storytelling that, however well-intentioned, coats its real-life tale in a corny Hollywood sheen.

A film about the unremarkable that’s anything but.

A story about home, inheritance, and fiction’s ability to reveal truths capable of bringing alienated individuals together, it’s a tumultuous, moving triumph.

The series’ second-best installment and a rousing start to what appears to be a grand new franchise future.

With an uninhibited fieriness that’s rooted in profound need and longing, Lawrence—opposite a beleaguered Robert Pattinson—delivers one the finest performances of her career, energizing the writer/director’s portrait of feminine rage, sorrow, and mania.

A raucous mélange of the demented and the degrading, indulging in the very garish, grotesque, X-rated madness it condemns.

Save for a single sterling jolt, his compendium of clichés is a case study in knowing a genre’s tricks but doing absolutely nothing of interest with them.

Stone is a mesmerizing riot in this bleak satire of our current state of disorder—as is her co-star Jesse Plemons, who matches her intensity and manages to outdo her craziness.

Even at its stagiest, it’s a film that, courtesy of both its director and star, burns with unbridled passions.

A film whose tension (and inventiveness) waxes and wanes, although courtesy of Hawke’s unforgettable masked fiend, it continues to boast an iconic horror movie visage destined to ruin viewers’ sleep.

If [Cooper’s] third behind-the-camera venture rarely gets completely under the surface, it nonetheless hits a sufficient number of wise and witty notes.

A caustic portrait of the rat race as legitimately killer, and another feather in the cap of one of world cinema’s true maestros.

A thriller in name only, it has all the grace and cunning of an anvil to the head.

A sly, sinister film about self-loathing, sacrifice, and the things people will do to survive—with a great tormented performance from Dakota Fanning at its center.

In an age of bland, unimaginative cookie-cutter blockbusters, there’s something refreshing about a movie that puts a premium on looking and sounding badass.

Buoyed by a superb cast headlined by Adam Driver and Cate Blanchett, it’s a film of quiet, droll grace, even if it’s delicateness occasionally veers into slightness.

[Its] vignettes are uneven and occasionally repetitive and yet, at their best, deliver the sort of macabre mood and mayhem that make the series an enduring spooky-season pleasure.

With an aesthetic ingenuity to match its pooch’s impressively expressive performance, it’s a thriller that ably justifies its central gimmick.

While its humor often sticks, its mayhem fails to land.

Mistakenly assumes that the woe-is-me routines of the rich and famous are the stuff of great drama.

A timely cautionary tale whose overwhelming suspense is apt to leave viewers sick with dread.

Though its daring gestures don’t always pay off, it’s a tale of internal and external brutality, of fathers, sons and clans scarred by violence, that serves as a sturdy showcase for its exceptional star.

Affords Julia Roberts with her best part in years as a professor whose role in a burgeoning scandal threatens to expose her deep, dark (related) secrets. She’s not enough, however, to make this wannabe-conversation starter coherent, much less insightful.

Saying little but speaking volumes about American disaffection, apathy, self-interest, and foolishness, [O’Connor’s] performance bolsters this askew heist film and cements his status as cinema’s most magnetic new leading man.

It builds to revelations that speak emphatically to social shallowness, pressures and prejudices—even if, in the end, its bombshells resonate as less surprising than inevitable.

A misguided wannabe-uplifting saga about grief, forgiveness, and keeping important memories alive.

A B-movie of unholy bombast and absurdity.

A look at Coppola’s creative process that proves significantly more illuminating and entertaining than the director’s finished product.

Electrified by virtuoso filmmaking, its enraged message comes through loud and clear.

This wannabe winsome fairy tale about confronting fears, atoning for sins, and forgiving oneself is a pile-up of preciousness.

Casts itself as a frightening saga about tyranny’s capacity to acclimate its subjects to slaughter and slavery, and to coerce them into performing (and celebrating) self-destruction under the guise of unity, strength, and progress.

Hermanus’ latest establishes him as a filmmaker of uncanny grace and Mescal and O’Connor as two of Hollywood’s finest young stars.

A prototypical example of talking, ceaselessly and crudely, at the audience.

Both a nail-biting thriller and a messy moral drama, rife with tensions between justice and vengeance, healing and suffering, and reality and fantasy.

Stylized to the hilt but empty inside, it faithfully echoes the harried shallowness of its protagonist, whose desperate search for one big score to reverse his fortunes is all surface, no substance—the cinematic equivalent of a knock-off Rolex.

The film around her never quite comes together, but Foster is more than enough reason to embark on this off-kilter investigation.

A collision of agony and ecstasy that approaches the divine even as it reveals piousness to be an outgrowth of, and justification for, earthly suffering, it’s like nothing the genre has seen before.

Blending horror and humor, sweetness and scares, and fantasy and family melodrama, it shoots for the moon—and, more often than not, scores a bullseye.

With nothing lurking beneath his character’s brawny exterior, and even less to his up-and-down tale, Johnson proves merely an adequate contender in his bid for dramatic credibility.

A refreshingly eccentric spin on the staid biopic.

A beguiling psychodrama about familial fractures, slippery identity, and the difficult means by which people move on from tragedy.

A reimagining that’s thrillingly, monstrously alive.

Linklater’s latest is a moving and multifaceted ode to a bygone era and an artist whose creativity and contradictions were equally titanic.

A big-hearted fable of self-actualization, tolerance, and togetherness.

Snappy, sweet, and moving, this crowd-pleasing winner starring Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen, and Callum Turner continues the genre’s much-needed revitalization.

A work of tremendous look-at-me energy: all prolonged close-ups and studied master shots of actors weeping, screaming, laughing, longing, and freaking out with sweaty, grimy intensity.

With Ian McKellen in superbly crotchety form and Michaela Coel exuding chilly cunning, it’s further proof that Soderbergh remains one of American cinema’s most inimitable, and adventurous, auteurs.

Mimicking the form, and channeling the spirit, of ’70s big-screen blockbusters, it’s a bravura tale of community, persecution, and the way in which memory is both stolen and recovered.

Reeves’ goofy childlike routine lends the film the sweetness it seeks.

An unforgettable portrait of the search for unity at the edge, and end, of the world.

Johnson’s franchise remains a sly and sure-footed delight, as well as demonstrates, with its religiously minded latest, that it’s capable of coloring its Christie-esque mysteries in a variety of shades.

Rife with symbolic weight, the action is thematically jumbled, and worse, it takes so long establishing its scenario that it never develops a sense of urgency and madness.

A frenzied plea for compassion and a stirring tribute to the men and women who sacrifice their lives, and sanity, for those in need.

So rote that even an A.I. wouldn’t dare try to pass it off as original.

Heartbreaking barely begins to describe it, although the terms masterful and transcendent also apply.

This funny and charming slice-of-life tale has the spirit of a low-fi ’70s romantic comedy, complete with characters who resonate as authentic inhabitants of their particular time and place.

In this age of Luigi Mangione, it’s a snapshot of violent anti-establishment resentment and fury that’s eerily timely—and smartly leaves its own perspective on its mayhem open for debate.

A dreamy tale of loss and grief, death and resurrection, as well as a supernatural reverie about the mysterious relationship between the present and past—one in which the living are reborn as ghosts.

It doesn’t totally work, but it has a lot of fun trying.

Campy, corny, and carnage-laden goofiness, all of it spearheaded by Peter Dinklage as a working-class schlub who’s transformed into a deformed do-gooder.

With very rare exceptions, it’s less entertaining than a year’s worth of marriage counseling.

It won’t revolutionize the genre, and in fact would have benefited from considerable additional polish, but it’s just cute enough to warrant two hours of Netflix subscribers’ time.

A romantic comedy that tears down, and then builds back up, its intertwined characters to amusingly penetrating effect.

Distinguishes itself by putting a distinctly 21st-century spin on its time-honored template, as well as via a black sense of humor.

Heed its title’s advice and just don’t.

Despite attractive aesthetics, its fights grow wearisome, especially as the material crosses the two-hour mark and, in the process, zooms past multiple potential endings.

Like the best of its genre, it affords tantalizing entrée into a universe lurking just below society’s surface to which few are privy, and stages engrossing cloak-and-dagger games between players who know the rules and, more dangerously, how to break them.

The amusing thrills intermittently appear, but the novelty is gone.

Confirms that Washington is rarely more alive than when in front of Lee’s lens. Eighteen years after their last collaboration, the two continue to bring out the best in each other—no matter that, in this case, Lee perhaps goes a tad overboard on his end.

Surrealist absurdity of the highest (or is that lowest?) order, a comedy that’s so unabashedly out there that it practically dares audiences to reject it.

A sluggish and monotonous country-ified neo-noir that fails to innovate and, worse, to utilize its magnetic leading lady and her capable co-stars.

[Its] tale about a California serial killer with supernatural intentions is filtered through a persuasive verité lens that, however skin-deep, underscores the enduring effectiveness of its non-fiction devices.

Escalating at a mad rate until it tips into outright lunacy, it’s a higher and more hellish brand of nightmare.

No matter its title, it’s a full-bodied triumph bursting with humor, tenderness, and imagination.

It’s no novel reinvention, but it’s cute enough to at least partially overcome its strained and uneven structure and performances.

The legendary star spends the majority of this misfire looking alternately bored and really bored—an emotion that viewers will find all-too-relatable.

A big, brash, laugh-out-loud crime spoof led by a great Liam Neeson performance.

Arguably the least inspired film in the actor’s canon, if not all of movie history.

The epitome of a knock-off B-movie—and one that’s only mildly entertaining when it shows its cards and goes full-on gonzo.

An aggressively fine intergalactic adventure whose earnest optimism and sweetness flirts—faithfully and dully—with hokiness.

Taking aim at the left, the right, and every mad thing in-between, it’s a fierce and funny provocation designed to p--- off everyone along the political spectrum.

If genre fans will always know what it’s up to, that’s just another way it pays faithful homage to its by-the-numbers precursors.

An odyssey that—weird characterizations notwithstanding—is tiresomely unexceptional.

Cloud is a portrait of merciless 21st-century commerce and social cruelty that’s filtered through various genre lenses.

Rife with Trump-era parallels that only augment its global relevance, it’s a warning about those who seek power by claiming holy authority.

A would-be franchise re-starter that resembles a Saturday morning cartoon come to overstuffed, helter-skelter life.

A globetrotting action comedy whose primary selling point is the chemistry of headliners (and The Suicide Squad castmates) Idris Elba and John Cena.

Even the least violent passages of this follow-up are a tedious drag, courtesy of a story that asks nothing of its lead Charlize Theron and her underwhelming co-stars except endless, enervating moping.

The underwhelming result is similar to its signature beasts: a handsome clone that serves no purpose except to line its creators’ pockets.

Switching genres in a futile effort to justify the series’ continued existence, this misbegotten creation is a leaden and aimless bit of cinematic malware—not to mention the most convoluted 2025 theatrical release to date.

A gripping, unnerving, and altogether thrilling saga that both continues its predecessors’ illustrious legacy and initiates what’s shaping up to be a promising new horror trilogy.

An old-school Jerry Bruckheimer-produced spectacular, albeit one that never deviates from a familiar summer blockbuster course and, consequently, fails to truly kick into adrenalized overdrive.

[Song’s] sophomore effort embraces a lighthearted rom-com template and then plays its material inaptly seriously—making it the cinematic equivalent of a sugary soda gone terribly flat.

It’s not improbability that dooms this Al Pacino-headlined genre throwaway but a crushing lack of originality and a form that makes its clichés even harder to swallow.

Sinister even when it’s slyly winking at its audience, it’s a satisfying meal of tasty horror cheese.

With an unhinged Sally Hawkins spearheading its mayhem, this sinister saga firmly establishes the filmmakers’ place near the head of the contemporary horror class.

Prescient about the dangers posed by AI and, more pressingly, the cutthroat, avaricious, and egotistical madmen who wield it, the film is an incisive portrait of 21st-century villainy, if ultimately a satire that can’t quite locate the funny in the horror.”

Cartoonishly gory and drearily unoriginal and predictable, it’s a collection of tired devices and shout-outs that plays like training wheels slasher cinema.

Merely a cheeky pantomime rather than an actual adventure in which one might get swept up.

It’s jovial, zany, and sweet, and it recreates its adorable title alien via CGI (and a Sanders voice performance) with pitch-perfect accuracy.

A feature-length ego-stroke of monumental hubris that instantly assumes pole position in the race for year’s worst movie.

Lipovsky and Stein elicit not a single solid performance from their cast, and their tale’s twists are illogical even by the material’s established guidelines.

When it kicks into gear in its second half, it provides the over-the-top thrills that fans have come to expect, and which are guaranteed to leave their hearts in their throats.

A delightfully zonked marital satire that lurches in various demented directions.

Come for the healthy servings of capuzzelle, zeppole, and scungilli, but prepare to choke on the stale and squishy platitudes about family and tradition.

A mesmerizing film about the sweep and swirl of life, love, and the relationship between yesterday and today.

[Its] staginess is offset by their blistering investigation of morality, manipulation, individual and social responsibility, and masculine power.

If its fondness for stock formulas and scares means that it’s not shocking, it also knows how to play the hits—and, of course, to deliver on its promise of killer clowns in cornfields.

Amusing, energetic, and just clever enough to sustain its brief runtime, it serves up a boisterous and bruising brand of B-movie bedlam.

Cage makes a meal of it, attuning himself to director Lorcan Finnegan’s wacked-out frequency to deliver another tour-de-force of grief, regret, anguish, and seriously psychotic fury.

Rehashing clichés with formal polish but little novelty, this oater is a dour affair made all the grimmer by the fact that there isn’t a second of its 139 minutes that isn’t colored, in some way, by the on-set shooting that made it notable, and notorious, in the first place.

With Florence Pugh as the intensely magnetic center of this ramshackle maelstrom, and despite a couple of familiar Marvel shortcomings, it’s a protean superhero saga that stands on its own—regardless of its title’s qualifying asterisk.

Even in a genre that’s long indulged in excessiveness, this is the ruthless over-the-top carnage aficionados covet.

Lacks any sense of internal logic and is even lighter on surprising scares, dispensing only clichés that are as moldy as the haunted house in which his characters are confined.

A brutal buddy film pairing Affleck’s killer with his equally murderous brother, it locates the humor in its mayhem and, for it, proves a superior sequel in every respect.

If the spell it casts is somewhat familiar, it’s nonetheless enlivened by surefooted atmosphere, excellent puppetry, and charismatically outsized performances from Emily Watson and Willem Dafoe.

Mordantly, head-spinningly convoluted, it’s a unique take on the director’s favorite themes, laced with bleak wit and encased in an icy chill that’s fitting for a tale fixated on the grave.

Never coherently articulates (or draws connections between) its various concerns, proving a handsomely horrific vampire bloodbath that, ahem, bites off more than it can chew.

Gracefully balancing its lighter and darker concerns, it’s a witty ride whose poignancy—like adulthood itself—sneaks up on you.

A canny cautionary tale about the perils of looking for Mr. Right—and of keeping your phone powered on at dinner.

A taut and terrifying portrait of courage under fire.

Part Die Hard, part wish-fulfillment saga for a post-2024 present that didn’t come to pass, it’s a fantasy of feminist and U.S. might that’s chockablock with implausibilities.

Unsurprising from start to finish and yet proficiently executed thanks to its impressive cast, it’s the definition of serviceable.

Energized by Ariella Mastroianni’s disoriented and frazzled lead performance, it begins unnervingly and ends, like all such sagas should, with haunting bleakness.

Block-headed from start to finish, it’s cinema in service of nothing more than IP exploitation.

Even at a brisk 85 minutes, it’s a bigger slog than a day spent mowing the grass.

Unlike its unique and fantastical title creature, it’s a commonplace monster mash which serves up only frenzied commotion and tired social commentary.

A macho fantasy about a dad acting out his daughter-saving fantasy by rescuing a surrogate child, with Statham talking tough and acting tougher in typically forthright fashion.

A compassionate portrait of mourning and the bonds that keep us united.

A hypnotic star child of out-there wonder and internal corruption and chaos.

No Magic Mirror is needed to identify it as the lamest Mouse House re-do of them all.

An ignominious tour-de-force for the esteemed headliner, who gets to indulge in just about every caricatured mannerism and colloquialism in the stale La Cosa Nostra cookbook.

A superb thriller that employs common genre devices for a canny and caustic rumination on right and wrong, love and lust, virtue and vice.

Burdened by a hazy and mannered style that drains it of urgency and feeling, it’s a self-conscious curio that’s less dreamy than dreary.

In trying to have it both ways, it succeeds in neither, in the process stranding its charming leading man in a saga that needed to be either goofier or more gruesome.

A dismal misfire that strains to meld Meet the Parents-style comedy with The Exorcist-grade horror.

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.