Nico Lang

Although the movie is warm and affectionate enough, Dean is not very good, and at its worst the film treats its audience as if it is fairly stupid.

Elle, like all of Verhoeven’s films, refuses easy categorization. It combines elements of a rape revenge thriller, an extremely dark class comedy and Cronenbergian body horror to create something totally unique — a singular experience that transcends genre.

Despite the gender gap between the film’s creator and his subjects, the film is beautifully perceptive and, at times, deeply poignant. Mills has created the kind of comedy in which you laugh with recognition because its dilemmas feel so familiar.

Personal Shopper might be a failed, if noble, attempt at transcending genre, but you’ll leave psyched to see what its star does next.

What makes Toni Erdmann, the finest comedy in recent memory, so wonderful and beguiling is the deep undercurrent of sadness that informs its eventual life lessons.

13th — at times dampened by its own enormous ambitions — would be even more effective if it tried to do a little less.

One of the director’s finest to date, the film derives its unique power from the repetition of daily life, elevating the mundane to a kind of divinity.

Gimme Danger checks the usual rock doc boxes, but it succeeds because of its smashing subject matter. The Stooges may not be the greatest musical act in history, but they are one of the most lively subjects for a documentary.

Under Jenkins’ direction, Moonlight is both haunting and poetic, a bittersweet elegy for what could have been. His unflinching camera, which tends to follow the film’s characters like a ghost, gives the film a startling immediacy and emotional power.

It would have been one thing to settle for vapid sentimentality, but what makes The Sea of Trees so galling, as it turns the afterlife into a game of riddles, is how manipulative it is.

XOXO is goofy and stickily sweet, like a mystery lollipop handed to you at an Avicii concert, but the film also lacks a strong take on the culture it’s documenting. It’s full of rave and fury, signifying nothing.

There’s nothing wrong with melodrama. But in order to break the dishes, movies have to be willing to build tension by holding something back. Mr. Church, however, is all reveal, constantly giving everything away in the most obvious fashion.

a great deal of Café Society is shaggy and unfocused, it’s at least pleasing in its shapelessness. Café Society is not quite one of Woody Allen’s best, but it’s good enough to make you hope that he never leaves old Hollywood. The era suits him.

Brahman Naman is like a crispy Samosa with nothing at the center. The Netflix release, directed by Qaushiq Mukherjee, pays homage to American sex comedies from Porky’s and Revenge of the Nerds to There’s Something About Mary, but lacks the heart to go along with the excess of raunch.

Equals is composed of small, sensual moments which build to a climax that feels both gut-wrenching and potently universal, like an old torch song to which you already know all the words.

Given the absurdity of the premise, Cell isn’t nearly as luridly entertaining as it should be.

Love & Friendship is easily the funniest movie Whit Stillman has ever made. His bristling screenplay — which shows shades of Noël Coward and Evelyn Waugh — has so many impeccable one-liners that it would take three or four viewings to catch them all.

What’s most unfortunate is that The Family Fang leaves so many ideas on the table that would have made for a far more fascinating film, one befitting its unique premise.

As a comedian, Gervais hardly lacks a sharp perspective. The Office showed him to be a merciless satirist of workplace culture. But when it comes to international politics, the comedian lacks the keen insight to say anything that hasn’t already been said by other filmmakers.

The film’s script is designed to constantly flatter the sensibilities of its target audience, which is a nice enough goal, but it never seems to reflect the way that people actually speak, think, or behave. At best it’s corny, and at its worst it’s actively offensive.

King Cobra is a movie that’s just good enough to make you wish it were even better.

Elvis & Nixon will not go down as the best movie you’ll see this year, but it very well may be among the most purely entertaining.