Noel Murray

Dorfman does an excellent job of constructing a dialogue- and performance-driven chamber piece; but he shows less skill at staging fight scenes and raw terror.

King Otto features a lot of thrilling old footage from the pitch, along with new interviews that dig into the ways this real-life Ted Lasso used a cultural gap to his advantage, counting on his players to raise their game whenever they couldn’t understand what he was saying. It’s a great story, crisply told.

This at once deeply creepy and strangely moving movie is ultimately about a girl in distress, unsure of what to do when the change she’s been desperate for turns out to be worse than the misery she’s already learned to handle.

The film has a striking look, filled with deep shadows, shimmering light, and flashes of color. “So Cold the River” also captures the ethical complications facing a reporter who begins to realize that the nature of her assignment may keep her from telling the public what they really need to know.

The movie is less successful at making its plot feel genuinely meaningful, rather than a simple delivery device for chases and shootouts. Still, for those who could use a break from real explosions on the news, the fake ones in “Black Crab” are well-crafted, exciting and mostly harmless.

The larger point of this movie is that our own pasts sometimes seem like a fantasy — a dream we half-remember — where what actually happened and what we merely imagined both now seem equally impossible.

Windfall is, throughout, a top-notch actors’ showcase.

Even when Alice doesn’t work, it remains gripping. Ver Linden underdevelops her “what if” scenario, but thanks in large part to Palmer the film is a fascinating character study.

The film’s overall tone is a bit dry, and the narrative lacks tension, aside from its central mystery. But the performances are strong, and the points the filmmakers are making about the slipperiness of memory do resonate.

This movie is uncompromisingly discomfiting, meant to remind people of all those drunken nights where they overreacted to every well-intentioned joke, and woke up choking on the stench of burned bridges.

Anyone looking for a clear, concise explanation of how these two unlikely impresarios dominated American pop culture in the mid-20th century will find it here, supported by copious archival material and heartfelt testimony from the couple’s family, friends, and fans.

The film as a whole, though, never hits as hard as it should. The characters are too stock — generic enough that their personalities won’t distract from the looming apocalyptic trouble.

A lot about this Chainsaw is under-realized and messy — perhaps because of the project’s convoluted shoot, which saw the original directors axed one week into production in Bulgaria. The final version of the film, directed by Garcia, packs a lot of characters, subplots, and backstory into its 83 minutes, and very few are essential.

This period piece is slow-paced yet peppered with enough gory attacks and smartly staged scare sequences to appeal to horror connoisseurs.

Muted and ambiguous — sometimes to a fault — “A Banquet” is well acted and well crafted and should resonate with viewers who have had experiences similar to those of the movie’s perpetually anxious mother.

Downfall is effectively enraging—especially in its middle section, where the picture really packs the most punch.

This is a B-movie with the pretensions of a prestige drama; and frankly, the less ambitious version would’ve likely been better.

Like Smith’s pictures, this movie is direct, compelling and hard to dismiss.

Ghosts of the Ozarks is an often fascinating puzzle, but once the explanations for what’s really plaguing Norfork start rolling in, any remaining narrative tension dissipates quickly. Even before then, the lack of scares and action proves detrimental.

The story doesn’t really develop organically. There are logical gaps and narrative lurches that are hard to ignore.

This documentary has its limitations, both as a piece of reporting and as cinema. Tulis and his editors rarely give the viewer a moment to breathe and reflect, as they race through a blitz of images from internet chats and cable shows. Their approach to the documentary form is merely functional at best, and sometimes is visually unappealing.

Although Shattered is a relatively short movie, it takes too long for Prieto and Loughery to put all these pieces into play — at which point the story belatedly does develop some tension.

Individual moments in Belle are frequently magical: Many of the real-world scenes are beautifully staged and illustrated, with characters moving quietly and slowly through outdoor spaces while sunlight dapples across the water and birds flit by.

Aside from the quirky and exciting gaming angle, See for Me is a pretty straightforward suspense film — but a well-crafted one.

For most of the movie’s running time, Gyllenhaal pulls off a remarkable trick, turning everyday inconveniences like rotting fruit and rude people—and deeper existential crises like regretting parenthood—into sources of nerve-jangling tension. The film is like a chase picture, with a heroine racing in vain to escape societal expectations.

Sometimes this movie is unsettling; sometimes it’s funny. Mostly it’s a strange and fascinating inquiry into the nature of belief, which takes viewers far away from where it begins and then leaves it to them to find their way back.

This movie is all talk and no action. It’s a two-hour pregame show, with no game.

This film offers a flurry of provocations and up-to-the-minute cultural references that never fully connect. It keeps coming to the brink of saying something clearly and furiously about sex, power and class before retreating back to the simpler path of raw shock value.

If Harjo wants to put all these remarkable artists in one place, to let them tell their stories and to show their work, why not? Just like creativity, acts of thoughtful curation have enduring value.

This is a movie at which some will shrug and some will love. It’s a spiritually probing, deeply personal, stubbornly idiosyncratic work of art. It’s an Abel Ferrara film.

The film takes its cues from Elwy’s remarkable performance as Cadi, who is at once seductive and terrifying.

Although Goulet’s film is ultimately better at scene-setting than storytelling, the world she builds is a remarkably detailed, revealing reflection of our own.

Not everything Miranda and Levenson try with this film works, but even at its messiest, the movie is always meaningful.

While 7 Prisoners doesn’t pack many surprises, it is remarkably well drawn, featuring gripping performances and a vividly squalid setting.

Schweighöfer does have a memorable screen presence, and this film is well made, as formulaic pictures so often are. But this one never fully justifies its existence, or its expense. It’s a big movie with skimpy ideas.

What’s been forgotten is that the prisoners’ dramatic seizure of Attica was intended to give them a platform for their legitimate grievances—to get the tax-paying citizens to understand what exactly their money was buying. If nothing else, Nelson’s Attica gives these men another opportunity to raise their voices.

Like the real-life events that inspired it, Broadcast Signal Intrusion is most thrilling when it’s at its vaguest — like a juicy rumor that’s impossible to confirm.

What this fascinating, thoughtful documentary is really about is how even an icon can evolve. The “becoming” part of a life never really ends.

In gaming terms, this movie’s characters find themselves on a screen where every move leads to a bottomless pit. The nightmare they’re in is as existential as it is visceral.

It’s a polished, entertaining film, but a lot of its meaning derives from how much the audience cares about a handful of TV characters they may or may not already know.

The parts of Coming Home in the Dark about confronting guilt aren’t what make the movie so harrowing. Instead, what matters is that Ashcroft and his cast — and especially Gillies as the menacing and charismatic Mandrake — excel at drawing out the moment-to-moment tension of a crime in progress.

Prisoners of the Ghostland is less a movie than an environment — not always hospitable but distinctly bizarre.

The movie is sometimes quiet and poky to a fault; a few cheap pulp thrills might’ve made it feel more vital from start to finish. But Kurosawa and co-screenwriter Ryusuke Hamaguchi do gradually build tension and intrigue across Wife Of A Spy’s two hours, while also openly confronting a dark chapter of Japanese history.

Most of The Big Scary ‘S’ Word is about the past. But like a lot of calls to action, the film is most effective when it focuses on what’s happening now.

Cryptozoo isn’t a total whiff. It’s a thoughtful and well-intended project, made by some talented people. And just for its visual splendor alone, it’s bound to find some devoted fans.

Álvarez and Sayagues have delivered a blood-spattered potboiler that’s no work of genius but is much better than average.

The climactic emotional beats are telegraphed almost from the beginning, but they still hit hard, effectively leaving viewers who can suspend their disbelief feeling uplifted and dewy-eyed.

More often than not, it’s better when filmmakers have a point-of-view, a sense of style, and something to say—all of which is undeniably true of Oda. But Nine Days resonates at such a distinct frequency that some may find it hauntingly beautiful (and have found it so, ever since the film debuted at Sundance back in 2020) while others may find it much too blaring.

The core question Settlers asks is who “deserves” to occupy this inhospitable planet. To Rockefeller’s credit, he doesn’t offer any pat answers.

Maybe this picture is just a string of wacky ideas, with no deeper meaning. But for those who take the ride, it’s an hour and 17 minutes they’re unlikely to forget.

How to Deter a Robber is a mildly likable dark comedy that never finds a steady groove. It’s neither dark enough nor comic enough; and it never really settles on whether it wants to be a breezy spoof of home-invasion thrillers or an earnest story about teenagers realizing they need to grow up in a hurry.

Pig is a rich character study, marked by several riveting Cage monologues.

In the terms it sets at the start, Dachra is mostly but not entirely successful. It’s not overtly political (though an argument could be made that it’s partly about how Tunisia has changed since 2011’s civil unrest), and it is pretty gripping.

Wright takes an exhaustive approach to the band’s career, going album by album, talking to collaborators and supporters as well as to the Maels. Throughout, Russell and Ron remain somewhat aloof, perhaps by design. They’re more open about their past and their intentions here than they’ve ever been in interviews, but they aren’t about to give away all their secrets.

Credit Wilson and Sheen . . . Nothing that happens in 12 Mighty Orphans is unexpected, but these two pros still react with infectious wonder as the messages they send to their students take root and then sprout.

Caveat is like a gothic horror tone poem, with pungent notes of decay.

For all its questionable creative choices, Moby Doc is at least more personal and daring than the typical music documentary. This is the movie equivalent of Moby’s discography, with highs and lows tied directly to its creator’s own embarrassing slip-ups and sublime moments of grace.

For the most part, The Djinn is effectively taut and tense, helped along by a spooky, synth-heavy score, some nifty special effects and a genuinely disturbing twist ending.

Burnette handles the genre film and the art film pieces of Silo fairly well but shortchanges them both by not committing fully to either.

A lot of big action pictures add “a little heart” between the thrills, but The Unthinkable reverses the ratio, centering emotions. Some genre fans may be impatient with this approach at first, but by the end, it really works.

While the cast is great, the milieu is vivid, the images are polished and the atmosphere is effectively moody, Things Heard & Seen fails to connect on a visceral level.

King for a Day is never less than riveting.

The themes of Jakob’s Wife are a bit simplistic, but the lead performances are incredibly complex, drawing on the two stars’ decades of screen (and life) experience.

It lacks the cleverness or the panache to give its schtick the proper zing.

While Williams and Faith do a fine job of capturing the frustrating powerlessness of a low-wage-earning woman in a sexist and classist society, The Power never generates much in the way of shocks or excitement.

The movie is too ponderous and dry — neither endearingly trashy nor effectively scary.

As the piles of Biggie-related material has proven, it’s perhaps impossible to cover everything this story is really about in under two hours. City of Lies makes an honest effort but doesn’t get the job done.

What becomes clear in this film—if it wasn’t obvious already—is that sometimes the ways in which the rich and powerful thrive have nothing to do with merit. Sometimes they just buy access to people like Singer, who are good at selling their customers a story they can tell.

This would be tough material for anyone to tackle, and the Russos take aesthetic chances that — while admirably bold — flop more often than they fly.

It’s clichéd, falling back on the old pulp premise of the culturally diverse “ragtag team” of tough guys and gals, barking out clumsily expositive dialogue in between unimaginative fights.

The best thing The Devil Below has going for it is its stark, remote location, which evokes the feeling of a world unto itself, hidden away in rural America. But what happens in front of this striking backdrop is too blandly familiar — and not nearly hellish enough.

This is a pretty rote slasher premise, the Utah setting aside. And Devane doesn’t do himself any favors by making his potential murder victims — a techie nerd, a social media influencer, a boorish jock, a pot-head and a prickly lesbian — so gratingly cartoonish.

Kavanagh and Matichak do a remarkable job of capturing an amped-up version of everyday parental paranoia. This is ultimately a movie about a woman who loves her child so intensely that she becomes irrational — and dangerous.

This story of a lonely Kansas City hairstylist (something Gevargizian knows about) is creepy in unexpected ways, poking at the audience’s rawest nerves.

Grant and Kermani skillfully keep the audience in suspense from start to finish, even if it’s just by withholding what the heck is actually happening.

The plainness of Kinkle’s style makes it all the more shocking when the story gets increasingly gory, as the gentle and mundane alike are shattered by the disturbing echoes of past trauma.

In basketball terms, it’s not just that Boogie’s a star player who never passes the ball. He also rarely shoots. He mostly just stands in one place, listlessly dribbling.

The Independents is a wisp of a movie, generally likable but largely insubstantial. But when Price, Naughton and Chartrand start to play? The film becomes a warm and welcoming celebration of music for music’s sake.

This movie is less about the myth of Biggie than it is about the everyday experiences of a man described by his friends as much funnier and more big-hearted than his public image sometimes suggested. Despite the title, “I Got a Story to Tell” is primarily concerned with all the tales that went untold.

The plot here is too plain, but the details are vivid and the outrage palpable. If nothing else, this movie is one hell of an education.

There’s a lot to like in The Violent Heart, with Adepo at the top of the list. But Sanga errs by giving his movie the deterministic structure of a potboiler and the muted tone of a slice-of-life indie drama.

I Care A Lot isn’t some brilliantly subversive social satire. It’s a tightly constructed, masterfully acted, lightly stylish little caper picture, which revels in just how mean it can be. It’s not essential, and it’s not for everybody. But for those who prefer their pulp to carry the faint aroma of moral rot, this movie is a real treat.

Landon struggles to generate much tension from her plot, which frequently feels contrived. The story jerks its protagonist (and its audience) through several dark and heartbreaking moments, before inevitably landing on a final confrontation with an outcome that’s not too hard to predict … and thus not all that nerve-wracking.

The film has a nutty premise and a game star, but it too quickly runs out of fresh ideas.

It’s remarkable how fully fleshed out Bateman’s hell-scape is, given that much of this movie was shot in an empty storage facility. There’s something haunting and poetic too about the simplicity of this story, which is primarily about how people find reasons to persevere once they find a companion.

While the doc may be overlong, it’s consistently fascinating because of its implications.

Everyone involved with Bloody Hell is doing their jobs with creativity and gusto, even if it’s hard to discern any larger point.

For all its wealth of detail and thematic ambition, The Dissident is a good documentary that never quite becomes great. Because Fogel spends a lot of this film re-reporting a story that was in all the papers, all over the world, for months, watching The Dissident at times feels like hearing someone summarize a bestselling murder-mystery novel, while ominous “true crime” music plays incessantly on the soundtrack.

If not for Moretz’s expressive face, the film might stall out before it really gets rolling. It does get rolling though … and at maximum speed.

The movie’s final act takes too grim a turn, leading up to an ending that’s overly dark and disgusting. But even as it goes way over the top, “Hunter Hunter” stays focused on the fragility of the Mersaults, who want to live by their own rules but discover that nature has its own agenda.

There’s a lot to see and to think about here, all well-curated by a documentarian with a clear passion for his subject.

The real stars of this picture are the kids, who in many ways represent the century following the Century Cycle.

This quietly engaging documentary is also subtly political, showing with clear eyes how good people are trying to patch gaps in our society that shouldn’t be there in the the first place.

Even at its most scattered though, Finding Yingying is haunting, largely because it’s so personal. In a way, this feels like Shi reflecting on her own life by honoring someone who had hers cut short.

While Assassins may be somewhat unsatisfying as a true-crime story, it’s provocative as an examination of power.

For roughly two-thirds of its running time, the big-screen video game adaptation Monster Hunter feels like an attempt to answer a question no one has asked: What would the “Jurassic Park” movies be like if they were drained of all sense of wonder? The film rallies toward the end with a few genuinely spectacular images, but even its best scenes fail to justify a tedious first hour.

Mason does a lot to make the characters’ distanced interactions — mostly via video chat — seem natural and not like a gimmick. But the real-world resonances are actually fairly dull. Though not especially objectionable, Songbird may suffer a worse fate: being forgettable.

Watching [Frahm] at work — and hearing the audience react whenever he hits an especially tricky stretch of moving between keyboards — is little like watching an athlete at the top of his game.