Peter Debruge

At times, the dramatic tension is so strong, “Dreams” could almost be a thriller.

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.

The filmmaking pair don’t stray far from Wills-Jones’ intention, using the story’s unspecified time and place to poke fun at superstition, the pressures to conform and the institution of marriage.

While the pieces for a white-knuckle mission seem to be in place, The Weight has an uneven, lurching quality, where slogging through the picturesque-yet-endless expanse of tall trees (arboraceous Bavaria doubling for Oregon) is punctuated by bursts of excitement.

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.

The intermittently clever movie is full of art-world in-jokes, but seems oblivious to its many plot holes, which are more conspicuous than the slashes in one of Lucio Fontana’s “Spatial Concept” canvases.

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.

The movie could have really used some of that anarchic, industry-skewering “Tropic Thunder” energy. The only risk taken here was asking Sony — plus any surviving members of the original cast — to poke fun at themselves, which only goes so far when the film has no fangs.

It’s a rare privilege to spend so much time with Helen and her charge, and the footage of Mabel (filmed by Mark Payne-Gill in the wild and DP Charlotte Bruus Christensen in dramatic scenes) hunting pheasants and so forth mesmerizes. But there’s arguably too much of it, dominating the film’s slightly excessive run time.

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.

While it was exciting to see what “Tron” might look like in the 21st century, the brand gets in the way of Ares’ internal evolution. However fascinating it might be to watch him “level up,” what audiences expect — and what Rønning delivers — are cycle races and dynamic gladiator battles.

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.

The film’s humor doesn’t necessarily translate, and the animation style doesn’t come close to the medium’s most artistic work. Beyond the sheer inventiveness of the movie’s made-up martial arts, that leaves the tragic elements, which can be disarmingly effective in giving audiences reason to feel invested in the battles — battles that have only just begun.

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

There’s a virtuosity to Gavras’ filmmaking, which yields some surprising laughs and thrills along the way.

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.

Doin’ It wants to preach sex positivity, but feels stuck in the immature, shock-comedy mode of “American Pie” and early Farrelly brothers movies.

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.

With director Aneil Karia’s interpretation, we get the great Riz Ahmed in the role, which is reason enough for the film to exist — but it’s perhaps the only one in a remake that might better have chosen not to be.

The action is entertaining enough in the moment, but not especially memorable.

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 movie like Rental Family lives or dies by its tone, and the one Hikari strikes is reflected in the concerned creases of Fraser’s forehead: It’s maudlin and unconvincing, means well but isn’t above manipulating us for the desired emotional outcome.

The Lost Bus resembles several other Greengrass films in that it’s also slim on character (only one of the kids has a name and personality), but succeeds in plunging audiences into the action — which, in this case, means trying to steer an unwieldy vehicle through hell itself.

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

Ballad of a Small Player looks great, but lacks the fundamental human insight to make it a winner.

Technically, “Frankenstein” was made for Netflix, and though the streamer will give it whatever theatrical run it’s contractually obliged to honor, the visual effects weren’t rendered for big-screen consumption. Alexandre Desplat’s baroque score, on the other hand, makes up for it in grandeur.

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

The technical side isn’t nearly as dramatic as it sounds, and there’s only limited interest in watching White navigate the icon’s first serious bout of depression. That is, unless one understands just how much that record represents to the next generations of musicians and why.

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.

When it comes to customer satisfaction, does Amazon’s refund policy apply to stuff like this?

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.

The movie offers an updated version of the same basic ride Spielberg offered 32 years earlier, and yet, it hardly feels essential to the series’ overall mythology, nor does it signal where the franchise could be headed.

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.

The message feels muddled amid all the pratfalls and fart jokes.

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.

Sacrificing good taste in pursuit of the higher goal — which could be described as joining “Fritz the Cat” in animated infamy — Tartakovsky and co-writer Jon Vitti (a veteran of “Saturday Night Live” and “The Simpsons”) make no apologies for the project’s obscene sense of humor.

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.

The film unfolds in a dreamy, liminal place in Sofia’s personal evolution, but lacks the tangible sense of vicariously experiencing it ourselves — a shame, since it’s a splendid location in which to be doing such intensive self-healing.

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.

The psychology simply doesn’t add up.

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.

Martone’s repetitive, tediously non-linear film attempts something more impressionistic and expansive, with emotionally muted and sometimes strangely exploitative results.

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.

Somehow, Lilo & Stitch has lost its unpredictable sense of anarchy in the retelling.

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.

It’s painful to watch such talents pour so much into roles that are fairly common, if not clichéd by American indie standards.

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.

It takes a certain esprit to pull off this kind of bombastic yet larky star vehicle. Joe Carnahan’s film provides passable diversion for a couple hours, but the fun to be had is limited by uninspired action staging, less-than-sparkling dialogue and a maudlin streak of the “It’s about family!!” type.

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.

As with the Guardians of the Galaxy films, what works here is the uneasy tension within a team that comes together out of necessity, rather than any natural sense of affinity.

The cheesy screenplay, shallow characters and wince-worthy acting (from all but A-listers Hardy, Whitaker and Olyphant) suggest that Evans might be better suited to specializing in the second unit or action sequences on a major franchise, rather than writing and directing a quasi-dramatic feature.

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.

Action does not come naturally to the “Under the Same Moon” director, though the script poses an even bigger problem in G20, a movie whose short title manages to reflect both its high concept and shockingly low intelligence level.

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.

There’s a current of tragedy running beneath all of the couples here, as the characters create obstacles to their own happiness. It can feel a bit diagrammatic, as if the novelist were setting up impossible loves and then watching them fail. But there’s hope too, and however contrived the last scene may feel, there’s poetry in watching someone betting their future on yet another horse.

Jason Statham is good at his job, which explains why he keeps booking the same kinds of movies — well, that and the fact that people keep watching them.

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.

Holland blossoms in the space where all-American domestic fantasy ends and nightmares begin, but never quite delivers on its premise, if only because the resolution feels so familiar.

In Novocaine, it’s the romance that keeps us going, more than whatever sadistic delight the co-directors take in poking Nathan full of holes, treating him like some kind of Looney Tunes character.

As first features go, Death of a Unicorn is considerably more ambitious and imaginative than so much of what studios greenlight these days, which goes a fair distance to excuse some of its flaws.

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.

Though it earns points for sheer oddity (and the nearly monochromatic, future-noir look established by DP Darius Khondji and production designer Fiona Crombie), too much of “Mickey 17” turns out to be sloppy, shrill and preachy — ironically, the same things that make Mark Ruffalo’s deliberately Trump-styled villain so grating in this movie.

Most audiences want action to feel like action, whereas Eusebio makes it look too much like choreography: No matter how dynamic, every fight scene seems rehearsed to within an inch of its life.

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!”

Even Yang, whose commitment is admirable, struggles to convey what’s inside John’s head — which, of course, is the whole point of this project.

Not all movies need to serve up profound insights into the human condition, but the ones that don’t should at least be entertaining, and Twohy’s particular strain of absurdism is not just contrived, but deeply unfunny.

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.

Both intellectually and emotionally, there’s something promising afoot, and yet, Whannell doesn’t go far enough.

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.

It may please the faithful, but it’s not quite epic enough to give less devoted viewers the same thrill they once felt from the live-action movies.

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.

Visually striking as it is, with compositions that rival great Flemish paintings, the obsessive director’s somber retelling of F.W. Murnau’s expressionistic vampire movie is commendably faithful to the 1922 silent film and more accessible than “The Lighthouse” and “The Witch,” yet eerily drained of life.

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.

Director Robert Zemeckis clumsily replicates the fixed-camera conceit in what plays as an elaborate visual-effects experiment.

There’s something so schematic about Iris’ situation, it feels like an insult to those who deal with actual thoughts of self-harm. That doesn’t mean it’s not compelling to watch at times, as Iris does her best to overcome her immobility, but nothing about it feels believable.

While the entire ensemble comes across fully committed to roles that are well beneath them, it’s not at all clear what the point was in presenting the Moke and Jady characters as twins.

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.

Paradoxically, the Lego approach gives the film a far more imaginative visual range than traditional documentaries, even as it robs us of the thing we most want to see: human faces.

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.

Go with it, and Heretic can be an entertaining ride. It may not change your mind about religion, but you’ll never think of blueberry pie the same way again.

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.

While promising, Chew-Bose’s attractive but ultimately hollow debut offers audiences a vicarious vacation to the south of France, in which vivid sense memories are accompanied by words far too eloquent to have sprung from a 19-year-old’s head.

[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.

Leigh’s films can feel shaggy and unstructured on first viewing, and Hard Truths is no different. But there’s profound poetry in every scene.

It’s a klutzy way to tell a story, but Crowley is confident that the chemistry between Pugh and Garfield is so compelling, people will want to watch his movie again and again, at which point, Almut and Tobias’ memories will have become our memories, and the sequence hardly matters.

Though little more than a gimmick, the baby angle gives Korine a hook for an experiment that’s only intermittently engaging for much of its running time.

It’s not a typical whistleblower movie, like “The Insider” or “Official Secrets” (both excellent), but more of a prickly character portrait, imbued with humor and a headstrong sense of defiance (courtesy of co-writer Kerry Howley, channeling Winner’s voice).

What the movie needs isn’t a shaggy Christmas pageant, but the kind of catharsis one might expect when four of its characters lost their mom and the fifth ought to be mourning his sister.

A hilarious behind-the-scenes account of that ill-advised investment, MTV Documentary Films’ unconventional — and unexpectedly inspiring — makeover doc follows along as the pair sink millions into rescuing the crumbling landmark out of bankruptcy.

For the first hour or so, Nickel Boys feels like the most exciting narrative debut since “Beasts of the Southern Wild.” Then Ross tries something bold that doesn’t quite work, and the experiment collapses upon itself.

Now, just one year shy of the pop phenom’s 50th anniversary, director Jason Reitman gives back, turning an oral history of the very first episode into a rowdy, delectably profane backstage homage.

There may never be another film like The End, and that alone makes it special, though surely all involved would prefer for it to be seen. As it is, the film feels like an obtuse missive, hidden in plain sight, just waiting for intrepid seekers to unearth it.

A by-the-numbers crowd-pleaser with a bit more on its mind than your typical canine-centric tearjerker.

Conclave is one of those rare films that respects the audience’s attention, even as it sneaks a few tricks behind their backs.

The trouble with The Union is that neither the film nor its characters have much in the way of personality, to the point it’s not even clear how they feel about one another.

Fitting neatly between “The Heat” and 2016’s “Ghostbusters” reboot, Jackpot! finds the dapper director squarely in his comfort zone, falling back on some of the tricks that worked so well in “Bridesmaids,” minus the underlying relatability of that film’s brilliant screenplay.

A truly spectacular psychedelic excursion in the vein of head-trip classics “The Fantastic Planet” and “The Yellow Submarine.”

Marketed to look like a cross between “Suicide Squad” and a Zack Snyder movie, director Eli Roth’s tamer-than-expected take on “Borderlands” doesn’t have half the attitude or style its cyberpunk ad campaign might suggest.

The movie looks sharp enough, but lands like a rapier with a cork on it.

It’s not as inspired as grown-ups might want, but innocuous enough for the kids.

From a filmmaking perspective, it’s no easy feat taking what looks like so much chaos and organizing it into a character-driven comedy, but that’s just what Affleck and co-writer (and “City on a Hill” series creator) Chuck MacLean have accomplished, giving Liman the blueprint to alternate between unpredictable set-pieces and more relaxed examples of male bonding.

This singular mutant satire works best as an irreverent homage to what’s come before, as opposed to the prototype for future superhero movies.

Elements that might feel frivolous on first mention invariably pay off later, as Elliot brings things around in thoughtful and emotional ways, to the point you forget you’re watching people made of Plasticine.

Fly Me to the Moon only needs to sell one thing: that beneath Kelly and Cole’s fast-paced dialogue and combative flirtation, there exists a mutual attraction compelling enough to keep us guessing. We already know how the lunar mission turns out, but never tire of gazing upon stars such as these.

How many horror movies can claim to hijack your subconscious? With Longlegs, writer-director Osgood Perkins (“The Blackcoat’s Daughter”) delivers the kind of payoff we sought out as kids, daring ourselves to watch films about boogeymen that made us want to sleep with the lights on.

The movie hardly ever turns its gaze out the windows, but the scenery never gets old, since Bhat has a head for creative close-quarters combat.

“Day One” ought to have been the mind-blowing origin story, and instead it’s a Hallmark movie, where everyone seems to have nine lives — not just that darn cat.

Like all things Celine Dion, “I Am” feels intensely personal and sincere, but also managed to within an inch of its life.

At times, it feels less like a feature than a collection of Looney Tunes-y shorts piled one on top of another.

The movie winds up having it both ways once too often, to the extent that Ultraman’s fate and the movie’s message are ultimately unclear.

It’s like “The Sopranos,” as seen through Meadow’s eyes. And though we’re all familiar with the lesson that the cost of vengeance is a never-ending circle of violence, Colonna’s retelling lands like a bullet in the head.

There’s something undeniably exciting about Pusić’s vision, which confronts serious subjects with disarming irreverence. But her creative choices are peculiar, to say the least.

With low-budget Big Boys, Sherman crafts a memorable outing on limited means, brought to life by an unusually endearing cast.

That nonlinear narrative choice in an otherwise understated art-house Western serves to confuse more than it reveals, complicating things for the meat-and-potatoes crowd that regularly turn out for cowboy stories.

Rankin may have conceived Universal Language in the spirit of homage, but there’s something undeniably original about the end result. Don’t be surprised if that translates into a modest cult following and more creative ideas in the future.

Director Michel Hazanavicius finds a poignant way to address not only the horrors of the Holocaust, but the kindness that combated it, crafting an indelible parable destined to be watched and shared by generations to come.

The situation Rasoulof depicts is hardly limited to Iran. There are echoes of Nazi Germany and modern-day China in the way average citizens submit, while the pressures to inform on one’s neighbors recall pre-perestroika Soviet policies. Rasoulof’s genius comes in focusing on how this dynamic plays out within a family, which makes it personal.

Baker’s subversively romantic, free-wheeling sex farce makes "Pretty Woman" look like a Disney movie.

Audiard wonders how much people really change when they transition. In Emilia’s case, less than she’d like, but enough to inspire positive change in society.

Oh, Canada presents a dying artist’s final testimony as a multifaceted film-within-a-film, honoring Banks while also revealing so many of Schrader’s own thoughts on mortality.

The Damned has a tendency to meander, but in so doing, it strives toward something authentic.

Lanthimos trades in discomfort, trusting his audience enough to take his brand of provocation as they please.

To call this garish, idea-bloated monstrosity a mere “fable” is to grossly undersell the project’s expansive insights into art, life and legacy.

Dupieux’s strategy seems to be flipping or repeating certain punchlines for fresh effect, which is fine for a while, until you realize that neither The Second Act nor those second-degree readings have much to say.

It takes its time to get there, but in the end, The Sales Girl is about taking charge of one’s own life, where sex is just one dimension of a well-rounded process of self-discovery.

The big picture here is so elusive and vast that it helps Cowperthwaite to have a few intrepid investigators to follow, letting their research drive the shape of the film (which, when you unpack it, must have been one hell of a task to structure).

For readers of Alexandre Dumas’ novel, extravagant French adaptation “The Three Musketeers – Part II: Milady” packs its share of surprises: killing off important characters, sparing others and reimagining allegiances that have stood for nearly two centuries.

These guys are so good at what they do, Ritchie fails to muster the expected tension. Instead of suspense, audiences feel a sense of delight in watching them succeed, no matter the setback.

Another filmmaker might have subtracted himself in order to foreground the story, whereas Guadagnino goes big, leading with style (and a trendy score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross).

Unfortunately, Brewer and screenwriter Mike Nilon ignored an essential rule: Conceiving an original monster isn’t nearly as important as coming up with compelling human characters

Stevenson’s consistently unsettling and gleefully sacrilegious offering packs its share of legitimate shocks en route to one glaringly obvious “surprise.”

Malta and Laudenbach have crafted an entertaining, kid-friendly toon whose power lies less in its plot than the surprising insights into human behavior revealed along the way.

Things spiral wildly out of control for Dom and Cole, but the foundation feels real.

“The Greatest Hits” feels like the remainder-bin version of better love stories.

This is Hathaway’s movie, and she owns it: independent, desirable and never, ever desperate.

Hausmann-Stokes’ message is simple, and his movie is a perfect place to start: Take an interest in our veterans.

A literal shock to the system, Civil War is designed to be divisive.

The Fall Guy is funny, it’s sexy, and it features the boy toy version of “Barbie” MVP Ryan Gosling — which is to say, this time around, he embodies the ultimate action figure.

With Adlon there to spot them, Glazer and Buteau trust-fall into their respective parts, potentially unlikable qualities and all. At times, the pair get so filthy, you may not believe your ears. But strength, as the saying goes, comes from the mouth of babes.

What matters most is whether we believe Brown in the role, and the “Stranger Things” star has no trouble embodying the kind of quick-thinking independent mind it takes to survive such an adventure.

Cena makes it impossible to imagine another person in the part. He’s game to go big, which fits Rod’s frustrated-actor persona, while also having the capacity to play vulnerable and sincere.

With Crossing, writer-director Levan Akin wants to open our eyes to the easily overlooked.

Villeneuve treats each shot as if it could be a painting. Every design choice seems handed down through millennia of alternative human history, from arcane hieroglyphics to a slew of creative masks and veils meant to conceal the faces of those manipulating the levers of power, nearly all of them women.

We’ve all seen movies like “Lousy Carter” before, and this one’s adequate, without being particularly insightful or memorable.

A chaotic symphony of nearly two dozen characters, this black-and-white indie confection (garnished with sparing touches of color) mixes biting social critique with stylistic bravura.

Madame Web feels like a cross between an extended soda commercial and a teaser trailer for still more spinoffs.

Kaufman’s innovations all make Orion and the Dark less predictable, potentially engaging young viewers in the storytelling process. But they also make for a more stressful experience overall, as if Orion wasn’t high-strung enough already.

While common sense and good taste may be inclined to resist Vaughn’s garishly over-the-top style at first, the movie eventually finds its groove.

It can sound like a cliché to say that any given movie is what the world needs now, but “Will & Harper” earns that distinction.

Wang does a nice job of balancing his naturally comedic sensibility with serious insights into how he triangulated his own identity at Wang-Wang’s age.

Sasquatches may not exist, but miraculously enough, this movie does, and like the creatures it depicts, it must be seen to be believed.

Capitalism, as depicted here, is inherently sociopathic. As the murders continue to claim ordinary middle-class folks, audiences can’t help but find themselves on edge, bracing for the sniper’s next attack.

Any critic sitting through their show probably wouldn’t have much patience for all the characters’ personal catharses, but seen from the right distance, as beautifully told as this, the experience amounts to something special.

With A Different Man, Schimberg attempts — and mostly succeeds, with deliciously awkward results — to cram a lifetime of thoughts about beauty and ugliness, attraction and disgust, identity and performance into a postmodern meta-film mold that few (apart from Charlie Kaufman, perhaps) have managed to make tolerable.

Mopey to a fault, with a missed opportunity for an ending, Your Monster amounts to an intermittently amusing, grubby-looking pity party.

To its credit, this future classic is honest about adolescent desire, self-questioning sexual identity issues and all kinds of other behavior that sends worried moms and dads into meltdown mode.

Thelma may bill itself as an unconventional action movie, but it’s more of a sitcom, really.

Freaky Tales takes nearly 40 minutes to find its footing, but once it kicks in, there’s roughly an hour of grindhouse glory ahead (assuming streaming audiences make it that far).

The Zucheros’ creation is audacious and original, but also suffers from some of the same ADHD issues that afflicted “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (both are movies made for multitaskers with brains wired for constantly switching between screens).

The Beekeeper is the best kind of bad movie — which is to say, it’s the sort that puts entertainment ahead of pretentiousness, embracing the laughter sure to accompany such an unapologetically stupid, ultra-violent premise.

Levy’s funny-sad contemporary drama acknowledges the supportive dynamic that Marc plays in Thomas and Sophie’s lives, even as it centers the gay best friend for a change — not so different from the one he played in “Happiest Season.” All three characters feel well rounded and real, especially in their imperfections.

At least the backgrounds are eye-catching, as a waddle of mallards crack jokes amid beautiful fall foliage.

Barrino’s soul-felt R&B sensibility lends itself to the role, and the patience it took to reach this point mirrors Celie’s long path to finding herself. Barrino may have embodied the character on Broadway 15 years earlier, but the moment is now right, and everyone else in the terrific ensemble seems to have fallen into place around that choice.

Dumas was a master of the serial form, and this version of “The Three Musketeers” manages to preserve that thrill-to-thrill sensation. The experience leaves you wanting more, though it’s probably better suited to binge-watching in its entirety.

Silly as it might be, Silent Night gives audiences reason to get excited about the Hong Kong innovator once again, ranking as one of the few bloody Christmas counterprogrammers since “Die Hard” that feels worthy of repeat viewing down the road.

However immature Sandler’s sense of humor may have been in the past, he seems to have a pretty good handle on what makes kids tick. The movie can be making potty jokes one minute and delivering practical advice the next, wrapping with the sensible suggestion to “find your Leo.”

Dense without feeling rushed, then done without ever having really sprung to life, Napoleon seems determined to cover a great deal of ground over its not-insignificant running time.

The whole matter seems so morally ambiguous that it makes for an unpredictable ride, right up to the film’s abrupt but darkly poetic smash ending.

Kanagaraj hails from the Michael Bay school of excess, using dramatic camera moves (like the oft-repeated trick where he pushes in on a character’s back as that person turns to glower toward the audience) and clever cutting to give the entire feature the energy typically reserved for a 2½-minute trailer.

Journey to Bethlehem is first and foremost a family movie, and though its music sounds a little too early-aughts to become a classic, it fills a crèche-shaped niche in the current theatrical landscape, with nearly six weeks to clean up before Christmas.

We all know where this is headed — Snow’s destined to become Panem’s authoritarian “president” — but there’s still enormous room for surprise and debate, even among readers of Collins’ prequel.

It’s easy to form an opinion about the subject of a great many docs, but unsettling to realize how little we know about how they were treated.

So many movies are either mindless or completely disinterested with engaging the intellect of their audiences that Freud’s Last Session offers a welcome bit of brain stimulation — but does far less for the soul.

Per Howard Hawks’ too-easy rubric, “A good movie is three good scenes and no bad scenes,” this one’s a keeper. The best scene may be the last.

So heavy until now, the movie ends on a soaring note of optimism.

Scripted by “Chicken Run” alums Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell, along with newcomer Rachel Tunnard, the sequel doesn’t offer many surprises plotwise, but is consistently amusing in its dad-jokey kind of way.

It’s emotionally exhausting, but audiences come away with a sense of her legacy, as well as an appreciation for the adversity she faced (and, to a lesser degree, a sense of the criticism that has been leveled against her).

Every aspect of Daddio is designed to spark conversation. But it’s sweeter and more satisfying than you might expect, especially as Hall pays off ideas introduced early in her script.

If you choose to focus on the family connections, then it’s clear that Helgeland has something to say.

Taken literally, The Successor is a chilling thing to watch. Step back and imagine what it’s saying on a metaphorical level, and it’s clear that writer-director Xavier Legrand has crafted one of the most damning depictions of patriarchal power imaginable.

The emotional core of The Creator rests on the shoulders of a star who has just one gear: angry. The rest wants to be “Blade Runner,” but plays more like a cross between “Elysium” (with its floating futuristic fortress and specious political message) and “The Golden Child” (about an all-powerful Asian kiddo in desperate need of protecting).

The film is most successful when it finds Brynn in survival mode.

Audiences want to see Diana Nyad succeed, but the pleasure of the experience comes from watching actors become these characters. No matter how tricky such feats must have been to re-create, you get the impression that everyone involved was having a blast.

Pain Hustlers takes an off-putting mock-documentary approach to this tragedy, focusing on a handful of sleazebag salespeople who bent the rules to incentivize doctors to prescribe Lonafin (the film’s fictional Subsys substitute) first for treating cancer pain, and later for conditions as mild as migraines.

Director Maggie Betts has a rousing old-school crowd-pleaser on her hands with this truth-based (albeit strategically embellished) drama featuring the most entertaining performance yet from Jamie Foxx, who makes a day in court feel like going to church.

It’s striking proof of an original sensibility.

The idea is to have a good time, and Waititi knows how to give audiences that.

Is this a fantasy? A fable? A new kind of horror movie? Actually, Dream Scenario is all of the above and then some, for it also shares a certain postmodern DNA with two of Cage’s most boundary-pushing movies, “Adaptation” and “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.”

The helmer trusts his audience to bring themselves to the material. Ultimately, that’s what makes reading “American Fiction” so rewarding.

Memory invites debate, rather than imposing a specific interpretation. It’s also a film that lingers, shifting and expanding in significance, even as the details start to blur.

One can sense what Costanzo’s trying to do, but he’s made a fatal miscalculation: Mimosa is not leading lady material, and 140 minutes is far too long to spend pretending otherwise.

"Dicks” is an unapologetically puerile, hard-R novelty that’s just lo-fi enough to maintain its underground cred.

The film will get people thinking and talking. The way DuVernay directs it, Origin is a swirling tornado of ideas.

Better to think of The Boy and the Heron as the bonus round — a worthy but mid-range addition to a remarkable oeuvre that expands his filmography without necessarily topping it.

Directed by George C. Wolfe with the same passion and conviction that defined its subject, Rustin reminds that the pursuit for equality has never been and should never be satisfied with the advancement of a single group.

It goes a long way to humanize figures who’ve been long misrepresented on film, while giving audiences privileged access to this inner world.

Because Korine’s never been one to subscribe to traditional narrative tropes, there’s an insidious sort of suspense running beneath the otherwise-thin plot, like some kind of high-voltage electric current.

The Holdovers is a film about class and race, grief and resentment, opportunity and entitlement. It’s that rare exception to the oft-heard complaint that “they don’t make ’em like they used to.”

Fennell’s debut promised a fearless original voice and style. Saltburn certainly has attitude, but nothing new to say.

The entire journey is not based in logic so much as a kind of emotional intuition, and as such, no two viewers will experience it the same way. What strikes some as manipulative will crack open others, as the film offers a kind of connection that’s all too rare, and maybe even impossible.

Practically all that’s missing is an appearance by Anderson himself, the way Alfred Hitchcock used to present episodes of his television series. Then again, one could say he’s present in every frame.