Peter Debruge

For nearly two centuries, Brontë’s book has been a romantic fantasy for readers. Fennell treats it as an erotic one as well, leaning into all that is sensual.

There’s real wisdom to Chasing Summer, which Shlesinger and Decker offset with a handful of steamier-than-you’d-expect sex scenes.

Delightfully insightful ... Whatever comes next (and the movie makes a beautiful kind of peace with not knowing), Green has given his subjects an incredible gift: the kind of immortality only cinema can provide.

Life has a way of getting complicated when you introduce temptation, and though Union County can be frustratingly simple at times, the stakes are life and death.

What’s so much fun about Send Help, beyond its twisted B-movie premise and refreshing disinterest in anything more highfalutin than handing Linda a chance to turn the tables, is how unpredictable it manages to be for most of their time on the island (except for that darn ending).

While some might find it triggering, “Josephine” dares to confront the life-shattering intersection of sex and violence in our culture, facing the toughest of “adult situations” with clear eyes.

Hoffman and Wilde’s commitment makes the film feel more important than it is. It’s better to think of this either as pure, irreverent escapism or a guiltless pleasure.

With The History of Concrete, John Wilson takes the least interesting subject imaginable — the dull gray composite used for sidewalks, overpasses and that great big church in “The Brutalist” — and crafts what’s likely to be the most entertaining documentary of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

For genre aficianados, it’s bold, mind-bending work which satisfies that so-often-frustrated craving: for a zombie movie with brains.

One of the year’s few masterpieces.

These movies are comedies first and crime-film homages second, but it’s their tertiary value as social commentary that makes the franchise so indispensable: Behind the laughs are teachable moments.

The emotions are real; everything else is movie magic, representing where we now stand — at the apex of artificiality — for better or worse.

In the end, “Badlands” is about the value of teamwork and learning that “alpha” and “apex” don’t mean the same thing where Predators are concerned.

Not everyone knows Ibsen going in, but that needn’t diminish the satisfaction of watching “Hedda Gabler” so vividly reinvented.

The look and feel owes an obvious debt to the beloved films of Studio Ghibli, which have offered some of the most iconic representations of wartime Japan and its long, fraught recovery period. “Little Amélie” starts from a place of (mostly endearing) solipsism and builds empathy and emotional depth as it goes.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is an unapologetically irreverent, wildly inventive, end-is-nigh take on the time-loop movie — call it “Terminator 2: Groundhog Day” — except that here, Rockwell’s dizzy protagonist knows what it takes to stop the cycle.

There’s humor in every detail, much of it skewing to the sordid, if not downright scatological, end of the spectrum, from exploding buttocks to anthropomorphic hairballs.

The movie strives to apply logic, inviting laughs (which are not unwelcome in the tense genre), but ultimately succeeds by devising a formula where two threats — ghosts and serial killers — come calling.

Good Boy reflects the powerful connection between people and their pets as few films have, ultimately devastating us with the devotion these soulmates are capable of showing.

It can start to feel quite tedious, unless you allow your brain to engage with the movie on an almost subconscious level. That’s where the incredible attention paid to crafts — the cinematography, sets, costumes and sound design — kick in at last, and “The Ice Tower” becomes a sort of reverie in which we just might see ourselves reflected.

Movies like this don’t exactly light up the box office, but they stick with the folks fortunate enough to see them.

In the end, it’s inspiring to see a director of Coppola’s stature back at work, and better this than some impersonal job for hire.

Tipping embraces the self-indulgent label of “elevated horror,” crafting a tense, trippy, ultra-stylized movie that’s so surreal at times, it might feel like you’re watching an extension of Matthew Barney’s “Cremaster Cycle.”

As wild as things can get (tamer than you might expect), Early keeps the film emotionally grounded. Can Maddie be cured? Maybe not, but her secret’s safe with him.

A laid-back rom-com crossed with a low-key crime thriller, combined with something more serious — unafraid to ask existential questions about overcoming a handicap that directly impacts one’s art — Tuner feels like the discovery of the Telluride Film Festival.

Hanks’ doc mostly shows how great it must have been to know John Candy when he was alive, although Conan O’Brien does a nice job of contextualizing how he inspired others. Amid all that adulation, Hanks might have scrapped the title “I Like Me” and called the movie “Everybody Likes Candy” instead.

Even though it’s fairly obvious where “Good Fortune” is headed, Ansari manages to surprise in how he gets there. Like his character, the writer-director-producer-star seems to be juggling one too many jobs here, and yet, it’s that very connection to overworked, undercompensated Americans that makes his movie so right for this moment.

The affectionate reunion of alter-kocker rockers plays like a greatest hits of past laughs, building to a thrilling live performance of songs fans know by heart, featuring guest appearances from several bona fide music gods.

A lean but revealing film of unexpected existential heft.

Because it’s Wheatley directing, the already funny script gets an extra dose of dark humor from its over-the-top kills.

Some things you simply can’t fake. Take talent: There’s no room for anything shy of genius in The Christophers.

In the end, it’s the through-the-roof chemistry between the two leads that makes the film worthy of repeat viewing.

A profoundly moving and superbly acted diamond in the rough, Steve is better than anything the streamer has pushed for best picture to date.

Ultimately, the filmmaker invites the world to feel loss in a new way, and in letting go, liberates something fundamental in all of us.

Caught Stealing might feel like a break from the “Pi” director’s intensely subjective character portraits, which range from “The Wrestler” to “The Whale,” but in fact, Aronofsky brings us as close to Hank as he has to any of his characters.

Precisely the sort of intelligent, human-scale adult drama audiences insist no one makes anymore.

The action sequences are well choreographed and intuitive enough to follow, but romance doesn’t work quite the way we might expect, which proves to be yet another of the film’s distinguishing features.

The “Neon Bull” director has always had an incredible visual sense, though his plots tend to lack focus. Not this one.

Regardless of how you feel about the ending (and many will happily embrace the movie’s darkly comic finale), Cregger has achieved something remarkable here, crafting a cruel and twisted bedtime story of the sort the Brothers Grimm might have spun.

The movie doesn’t deal in labels — it’s not important to the filmmakers whether Luke identifies as gay, straight or bisexual — but instead presents this relationship as one that expands the provincial notion of romance someone like Luke might have had.

True to its subtitle, the film feels like a fresh start. And like this summer’s blockbuster “Superman” reboot over at DC, that could be just what it takes to win back audiences suffering from superhero exhaustion.

Provazník’s focus is not on trauma, and it’s fitting that such a sensitive, understated treatment of real-world abuse should end on a poignant note of solidarity.

“Nobody” director Ilya Naishuller takes gags that have no business working . . . and milks them for laughs, adding original solutions to otherwise familiar action scenes.

Sparkling like a rhinestone in the rough, Ponyboi stands out amid a lineup of cartoon gangsters, tough-guy dealers and gum-smacking prostitutes — lowlifes recycled from a hundred late-night cable movies with superficially similar plots.

Because the nimble, genre-hopping movie is set in the world of K-pop, it may not even occur to fans that they’re watching a musical — although it’s kind of hard to deny as you catch yourself singing along.

When you’re simply looking for something semi-interesting to stream, stories like these don’t necessarily require great actors, but great actors are the reason some of them still reverberate in our memory decades later.

Typically, we look to adrenaline-fueled entertainment for catharsis. Boyle’s thrilling reboot offers enlightenment as well.

Elio is right at home in the Pixar catalog, but lacks those undeniable signs of intelligent life (wit, surprise and the capacity to expand the medium) that set the studio’s best work apart.

At first, DeBlois’ involvement felt like a way of protecting “Dragon” from some other director coming along and destroying it. But by the end, his vision serves to bring the whole fantastical story one step closer to reality.

While the ultimate destination somewhat underwhelms, it’s a thrill to see Foster navigating a fully bilingual role, while tossing off the kind of personal insights only an expat could feel toward the French — a tiny glimpse into Foster’s private life, perhaps.

Deeply moving but never manipulative, Young Mothers amounts to the brothers’ best film in more than a decade.

While not as stylistically radical as Trier’s last film, “The Worst Person in the World,” this layered family-centric drama (which was also written by Eskil Vogt) shares its ability to find fresh angles on sentiments you’d think that cinema would have exhausted by now.

While the simple premise recalls certain post-WWII dramas in which survivors recognize the Nazi culprits who once terrorized them, the film’s chilling last scene feels like a call to action.

There’s no defiling of peaches or precocious sexual experimentation between the roughly decade-apart duo, though the ambiguous subtext proves infinitely more fascinating, leaving everyone who sees it with a different interpretation.

Laced with a wry sense of humor, Pillion manages to be both understated and explicit in the way Lighton presents practically everything that happens in Colin and Ray’s unconventional relationship.

In the end, Lee has taken “High and Low” to new highs, delivering a soul-searching genre movie that entertains while also sounding the alarm about where the culture could be headed.

Mendonça crams the film with vivid time-capsule details.

The efficient and highly effective thriller scarcely allows a calm moment in which to question how deranged its premise truly is.

The film is at once old-fashioned and refreshingly, realistically up to date in its take on modern courtship.

The propulsive nonfiction story feels as inspirational as any scripted feature, reuniting the four Gallaudet grads who organized the movement to describe events in their own words — words of passion, dynamically signed on-screen and spoken aloud by unseen actors.

With his stellar indie family adventure Sketch, commercials director Seth Worley has come up with a creative — and highly teachable — concept for his feature debut, using imaginative visual effects to impart a valuable lesson about dealing with grief and other strong feelings.

It’s a big step backward from the likes of “Anora” in terms of respecting sex workers, but at least it scores as many laughs.

Much like Penny Lane’s endlessly amusing “Listening to Kenny G,” Yousef’s illuminating doc appeals to all sides, from Kinkade’s haters to his most ardent defenders, revealing dimensions altogether absent from his enormously popular oeuvre.

The movie’s hella derivative, but still quite entertaining, with an appealing cast and memorable characters.

If there was any doubt as to De Niro’s greatness, it’s laid to rest in these face-to-face confrontations. No star could’ve held his own quite so effectively against De Niro.

Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie is nothing if not an homage to the lasting impact that junk culture can have on impressionable minds.

The movie’s razor-sharp visuals leave scratch marks on the back of your eyeballs, liable to burst back into your consciousness in subsequent dreams.

Black Bag is a reminder of just how enjoyable Soderbergh can be when he’s riffing on well-worn genre material.

Like a backstage pass for Broadway buffs, it’s one hell of a show for those in the know, and a sparkling introduction for the uninitiated.

Plainclothes builds to an intense and ultimately cathartic climax, but there’s something retrograde about the shame Lucas feels. Emmi wants us to experience his protagonist’s sense of suffocation, when looking back from the present, we just want to shout: “It gets better!”

Just because Malick’s influence can be felt does not mean that Bentley hasn’t found his own vocabulary to tell Grainier’s story. At times, Train Dreams feels almost quilt-like in the way its pieces fit together, with certain sounds and images flickering briefly, almost subliminally, across our consciousness, often to echo further on.

If Sorry, Baby works, it’s because Victor strikes such a tricky tone: Her debut is warm and compassionate, advancing a conversation for which we’re still trying to find the words.

Whether they’re playing naughty or nice, Witherspoon and Ferrell are two of the rare stars who can be charming even when trying to sabotage someone else’s most important moment, and You’re Cordially Invited is most fun when they’re on the warpath.

The musical finds rare shards of light — and an unlikely connection — in the most despairing of places.

Contrasting how her female characters feel with the expectations men put on them, Blichfeldt makes clear that impossible beauty standards are the unfairest of them all, whether in the real world or this twisted fictional kingdom.

The tragedy here doesn’t stop with a white woman shooting her Black neighbor, but the underlying belief that she felt she could and still get away it.

Sweeney recognizes that some of his laughs could be in poor taste, but isn’t shy about casting himself as a weirdo, when such discomfort can point the way to deeper truths.

The acting feels genuine across the board, with Lithgow (who wrestles an impossible-to-geolocate accent) emerging as the most fearless in an all-around daring ensemble.

Delivering a feverish, raw-nerve performance sure to go down as one of the year’s greats, Byrne has never had a role even remotely this intense to prepare us for the emotional acrobatics her writer-director has in store.

The entire project — including a handful of fun fourth-wall-shattering asides — is crafted with love and a genuine respect for the franchise.

Directing his first feature, Hancock brings an impressive degree of control to a project that’s entirely execution dependent. If the timing and tone weren’t just right, the satirical edge would sour, and the entire project might seem silly or in extremely bad taste.

At nearly every step, Mufasa’s challenges mirror those that Simba must later overcome, but the movie doesn’t celebrate Mufasa’s might so much as his modesty.

Although Collet-Serra brings creative solutions to each of the action sequences, the project is actually most effective when audiences are honed in on the core characters.

Impressive in both its subject and suggested scope, Perry’s sweeping film reflects how the achievement of these women directly impacted the troops’ morale, despite the adversity they faced from skeptical superior officers.

In the end, Jenson’s most radical twist on fairy-tale tradition is the belief that a pat “happily ever after” isn’t nearly as helpful as providing an example of how to cope with unhappiness.

Instead of feeling bloated, Wicked has found its ideal form, where every frame comes crammed with the kind of detail that could easily have been distracting, had a lesser talent than Cynthia Erivo been asked to carry it.

Every season brings dozens of new Christmas offerings, most of which prove instantly forgettable. This one’s a keeper.

It is not a documentary so much as a fan-friendly tribute, designed to celebrate Williams’ legacy without getting too personal or technical in the process.

It’s a delight to find these two, plus their penguin nemesis, back on the big screen.

As always, Eastwood respects our intelligence. And yet, Juror No. 2 registers as something of an anomaly in his oeuvre: It ranks among his quietest films, forgoing spectacle in favor of self-reflection.

You can feel the tension as Morris untangles the trail of responsibility, drawing a thin, clear line through a real-world conspiracy that resulted in more than 4,000 kids — some no more than infants — being whisked away to facilities far removed from their parents.

In this case, revisiting it half a century later, knowing what happened doesn’t preclude us from wanting to get a better understanding of the specifics. But this movie’s insights are limited to the newsroom.

The trouble with Flow is that it already looks dated — commendable to be sure, yet rudimentary at the same time. It’s as if Zilbalodis decided to dump an ocean’s worth of water in the Uncanny Valley. Still, animal-loving viewers will bond almost instantly with the cat and its motley companions.

Screenplay credit goes to Hannah Reilly, who wrote the stage musical from which “The Deb” was adapted with Meg Washington. While their lyrics are clever and contemporary, this project is every bit Wilson’s jam. Her sensibility is grounded in sincerity but relies on bawdy, off-color jokes to deflect from empowerment messaging that might otherwise seem square. And it works.

[Gracey's] angle is frustratingly familiar, though the execution is downright astonishing — we’re talking Wachowski-level ingenuity as Gracey fashions sophisticated montages where you can’t even spot the cuts.

While most of the cast is the same that appeared on Broadway, the movie is undeniably Deadwyler’s show.

There’s never been an animated movie that reflects the world in quite this way.

Sinking her teeth into Mother the way Mother herself might a bloody steak, Adams courageously embodies Mother’s exasperation, finding the comedy in every setback.