Peter Travers

Hugh Jackman shepherds a tale of sheep crimesolvers that tickles the funnybone, touches the heart and just may end up as the summer’s sweetest surprise.

The stellar Adam Scott stars in an Irish horrorfest from Damien McCarthy, a visionary new talent who really knows how to scare the hell out of and into you.

Even when the sequel loses momentum, and it does like to repeat itself, Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci are comic virtuosos not to be resisted. That’s all.

John Magaro is touching and vital in a wrenching family drama that speaks to what’s broken about family in America.

As Tourette’s activist John Davidson, Robert Aramayo gives an astonishing performance that hits you like a shot in the heart.

Can a brainwashed boy in Hitler Youth learn to stop worrying and love being a Nazi hater? Beautifully directed by Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akin, this unexpectedly tender mesmerizer has an answer you won’t see coming

For all the mirth and mayhem, Bob Odenkirk and his merry pranksters are exposing how violence is wired into the American character.

An electrifying Ian McKellen hits a new career peak and takes an early shot at Oscar in Steven Soderbergh’s unmissable tale of an artist and his forger, played by the brilliant Michaela Coel.

Israeli filmmaker Navid Lapid is taking the risk that audiences will embrace a tragically real situation about his country’s military culture presented as an absurdist comedy. Say yes

Zendaya and Robert Pattinson bring a bracing charge to the premise of turning a romcom about wedding jitters into a deep-dish think piece about the limits of condoning violence, real or imagined. The ending doesn’t work, but oh the drama!

This shamelessly silly crowd-pleaser has an extra 'Nick' and a double comic dose of Vince Vaughn and a knack for springing surprises that you don’t see coming.

Amanda Peet fans rejoice! This tale of broken connections returns this acting sorceress to films, after 10 years, playing an aging star out to restart her career and her love life. She’s funny and fierce in all the right places.

Scream queen Samara Weaving is back in this horror comedy as a bride who takes her vow of “till death do us part” way too seriously. There’s more of everything this time, except for the irreplaceable shock of the new.

Even when her film dips into melodrama, Rose Byrne grounds her portrayal of an unhoused woman living her car in a humanity that feels detailed and true.

In the most purely pleasurable movie so far this year, Ryan Gosling has a blast as a science guy who rockets into space to save all our asses with jolts, jokes and smarts that won’t quit.

Even when it hops off course, this animated gem is funny and fierce in all the right places. Pixar is back, baby. Haters deserve a good squishing.

In Morgan Neville’s intimate and insightful musical doc, Paul McCartney finds his musical wings without the Beatles but with wife Linda riding shotgun and teaching him about hard to reach places in the heart.

Forget the biopic imitations, the found concert footage in this music doc soars with 100 essential minutes of The King back on his throne and thrillingly alive on stage and off. I’d call that a must-see.

Sam Rockwell excels as a wild man from the future in this deceptively profound satire that holds up a dark mirror to the dangerous game we’re playing with AI. A true film for its time.

Chris Hemsworth leads a starry cast in a heist drama that fascinates even through a veil of familiarity. Near the end, a standout Halle Berry flashes a smile of sweet satisfaction. My guess is that you’ll feel the same way.

In this queer BDSM romdomcom with a core of sweetness, Alexander Sarsgård and Harry Melling bring passion and compassion to a taboo subject rare in mainstream cinema. It’s about time.

This lean, mean, R-rated action machine is way better than you might think since Momoa and Bautista take the time, between fights and jokes, to examine the bruised places in the hearts of these half brothers. You feel for them, and that makes all the difference.

I kept smiling watching this fractured family drama. A bizarre reaction for an Icelandic movie about the end of a marriage. But it’s the high spirits that stay with you in Hlynur Pálmason's charmer about the intangibles of love.

A sexy tennis bum (Sam Riley) and a married woman (Stacy Martin) meet at a luxury resort and stir up murderous thoughts in a too cryptic thriller from German director Jan-Ole Gerster that recalls Hitchcock and Antonioni while revealing a tormented mind of its own.

Looking for fun and a chance to scream bloody murder, then send for this terrific horror comedy in which Rachel McAdams crash lands on a desert island with her bullying boss (Dylan O’Brien) and decides to painfully alter his jerk DNA. Despite a divisive ending, I smell a hit.

One thing is for sure about this century-spanning story about the dangers faced by young women trying to negotiate a safe space in a world of men—you’ll never forget it.

Jodie Foster speaks French with elan, but even her indisputable star power and fun bond with costar Daniel Auteuil can’t keep the lights burning in this frothy bauble.

It’s the Mattfleck starshine, plus the indisputable action bonafides of director Joe Carnahan, that sell this cop thriller when formula threatens to overtake it.

You’ll be thinking about this scary, savvy fright fest long after you wake up screaming.

In a fresh film take on Amiri Baraka’s 1964 race play, Kate Mara’s sexed-up subway rider hits on André Holland like a white Eve out to destroy a Black Adam through assimilation, intimidation, and worse. You can’t watch it passively. It dares you to engage.

Kristen Stewart’s directing debut is not an easy sit, but with actress Imogen Poots, she creates an indelible, impressionistic film about a competitive swimmer that doesn’t follow tidy biopic rules or, let’s face it, any rules at all.

Love that Gus Van Sant has crafted his true-crime hostage drama in the grand 1970s tradition of Sidney Lumet’s “Dog Day Afternoon.” Bill Skarsgard drops his Pennywise psycho clown persona to make his unmasked mark as an actor. And does he ever.

Stodgy? Maybe. But the sincerity of this old-fashioned crowdpleaser starring Ralph Fiennes as wartime choirmaster is a refreshing alternative to the glut of computer-generated junk that crowds our movie houses.

A terrifying first film in which a tween water polo team becomes a "Lord of the Flies" metaphor for the hell of modern bullying. The scares are killer, but it’s the violence of the adolescent mind that hits hardest and haunts you longest.

It may be tonally all over the place as cinema, but in his first film, actor turned director Harris Dickinson cuts a direct path to the heart and certifies star Frank Dillane as a major talent.

Nothing about the pulsating ‘Sirāt’ is appropriate or expected or traditional or fully comprehensible. It just is. And it is utterly transfixing.

In this compassionate comedy of missed connections, Jarmusch makes us see the ordinary in fresh, pertinent and provocative ways. And the cumulative power of his vision is undeniable.

The tension flattens in the film’s drowsy second half, but the blazing wonder of Amanda Seyfried as Shakers leader Ann Lee makes believers of all

Will Arnett and Laura Dern give their all to Bradley Cooper’s film about standup comedy as therapy for marital malfunction, but is it enough?

Housemaid Sydney Sweeney and mistress Amanda Seyfried go bonkers to the max and I mean that in the best way.

Timothee Chalamet ping pongs to greatness in Josh Safdie’s whooshing wonder of a film about winning at all costs. And in case you’re wondering: This is the wildest damn thing Chalamet has ever put on screen.

Keke Palmer and SZA show how star power can turn a girl buddy comedy into a world view of the Black experience with laughs that sting with harsh truth.

Nothing happens in Eephus and it’s still one of the best damn baseball movies ever made.

In a mere 76 minutes, director Ira Sachs and his virtuoso actors, Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall, have captured a specific world in universal terms and made a film for the ages.

The lovely animation is next level in this touching tale of a Belgian girl living in Japan who finds understanding in a clash of cultures.

Quentin Tarantino puts his two “Kill Bill” epics together to make one uncut, unrated radically untamed film with extras and Uma unleashed that great godalmighty feels free at last.

You can wait around and hope, but it’s difficult to believe that this rediscovered Sondheim classic with Grof, Mendez and Radcliffe will ever have a more feeling and vital performance than this one. And hey Harry Potter, you can really sing.

As ever with Park Chan-wook, there are tasty bits of bright and bleak to noodle on in this stinging satire of AI and capitalism, but with a rigorous fix on the growing dehumanization infecting our world. One of the year’s best.

It’s murder behind stained-glass windows as “Knives Out” detective Daniel Craig and a cast of all-star sinners find the fiendish fun in a crime story about the wages of wickedness. Don’t worry, it’s not a musical

Take a look at leading man Wagner Moura. That’s a movie star, right there. An Oscar nomination for this political thriller that truly thrills is his next step. Just watch, it’ll happen.

The sequel feels safer than the original and I’m sorry about that. But ‘Zootopia 2’ with its zippity-doo animation and surprises around every corner gets the job done.

Chloe Zhao’s new film landmark blows the dust off history to bring a raw, present-tense immediacy to a tale of love and grievous loss. In what Shakespeare once termed “a mad blood stirring,” Jessie Buckley is guttural, defiant, and untamable in the performance of the year.

Lucy Liu deglams with a vengeance to give the performance of her life in a shocking true story of a mother-son relationship that goes tragically off the rails.

After a one-year intermission, “For Good,” makes its debut as a darker, gloomier, frustratingly less dazzling take on the “Wicked” IP. Should you still see it? Damn straight. Despite its stumbles, the final half of this witchy brew soars on the musical wings of Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande who are twice as wonderful the second time around.

Anora Oscar winner Sean Baker produced, edited and cowrote Shih-Ching Tsou’s captivating tale of three generations of women building a life in Taipei. One personal note: As a leftie myself, I strenuously object to the idea that being left-handed is the mark of the devil.

There’s a timely message in this animated beauty about a time-traveling 10-year-old boy who dreams of the dinosaur era but lands in 2075 instead.

Elle Fanning does the monster mash and brings audiences back to theaters in droves by lacing the action with laughs

Josh O’Connor adds another triumph to his growing list of exceptional performances as a Colorado father broken by divorce and a raging wildfire. Bring handkerchiefs

Glen Powell runs for his life to win a reality TV jackpot in a remake of a dystopian Stephen King thriller that comes on like gangbusters—until it loses steam.

George Clooney is a movie star and Adam Sandler is his manager in a deceptively lighthearted Noah Baumbach comedy that hides a world of Hollywood hurt.

Joel Edgerton and Felicity Jones bring flesh-and-blood immediacy to this classic in the making. about the beauty and terror of pioneering railroad days. A tough sell? Maybe. But not when a movie dares to reach for the stars like this one.

Jennifer Lawrence gives a performance to die for in a devastating tragicomedy about postpartum depression that drives away her husband (Robert Pattinson). Scottish hellcat director Lynne Ramsey doesn’t know from comfort zones and she may push you too far, but don’t discourage Lawrence. Risk becomes her.

The acting could not be better in this new film landmark spiked with laughs that can suddenly—or maybe not for hours or even days later—leave you choking with tears.

Two people talking in a car. Hardly the stuff of white-knuckle drama, right? It is when you hitch two phenomenal actors, Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys, to a suspenseful script and tightly coiled direction by Babak Anvari, and then stand back and let them rip.

You don’t need to know a thing about Jean Luc Godard’s 'Breathless' and the New Wave to accept Richard Linklater’s invitation to participate in the sweet agony and ecstasy of their creation. No true movie lover would dream of missing it.

Half hot romance, half gory action, this big screen take on the Japanese anime TV series is not a blockbuster for nothing.

Even with Emma Stone as his glorious muse, Yorgos Lanthimos can be self-indulgent, self-satisfied and grindingly obtuse, but damn he is also a true visionary.

Exclusively culled from police-cam footage, this outstandingly crafted, Oscar-buzzed documentary examines a white Florida woman who murders her Black neighbor on the basis of a stand-your-ground law that indicts an entire society

Even when her movie spins and lurches, the sensational Tessa Thompson blows the dust off a classic Ibsen play to find its queer defiant heart

In Jafar Panahi’s latest masterpiece, one of the very best movies of the year, five Iranian dissidents debate killing their former torturer.

Josh O’Connor and director Kelly Reichardt tell the story of an amateur art thief who’s not as smart or cool as he thinks he is, though the movie is both those things

Ethan Hawke gives one of his greatest performances as a Broadway musical legend who ends up breaking his own heart in Ricard Linklater’s enthralling, encapsulated biopic

Uneven in tone and pacing, Guillermo del Toro’s passion project about a monster and his creator still roars to life as a thing of beauty and terror.

Alternately terrific and tepid, Bill Condon’s swirl of song, dance and Technicolor keeps the musical alive on screen with the help of Jennifer Lopez, a star who can hold the camera and bend it to her will.

Linda is a beast of a role and Rose Byrne plays her with everything’s she’s got and then some. No list of the year’s great performances would be complete without this tour de force.

Bigelow’s triumphant return, after seven years, is essential cinema, without closure but not without hope. The house she has built for our attention is scary as hell, but in whatever remains of it, humanity still has a future.

The best high-wire director of his generation wakes up the sleeping giant of American cinema by turning this radical blast of action, fun and fervor into the movie of the year.

This expertly-done B movie plunges breakout star Meghann Fahy into one of the scariest situations ever—a first date. The dude (Brandon Sklenar) is a charmer, yet her phone keeps buzzing with text messages to kill him. Hang on for a nerve-jangling ride.

Naomi Watts and Bill Murray are funny, touching and vital as the most recent guardians of a 150-pound Great Dane named Apollo, but the scene-stealing pup scampers off with this slight but irresistible character study and wins a special place in your heart.

OK, Steven Soderbergh’s sleek, sexy spy thriller is sometimes too cool for school. But oh the twisted, erotic mischief dished out by dynamos Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbinder as married spies, still hot for each other but wondering if the other is a mole for the wrong side.

Repeating his historic Oscar wins for Parasite is off the table for Bong Joon-ho. It's not happening. But together with his up-for-anything star Robert Pattinson in multiple roles, Bong turns this scattershot sci-fi space opera into a buoyant social satire that really stings

Forget the silly title. There’s a world of hurt behind the laughs in this emotional powerhouse as therapist Morgan Freemen treats a PTSD soldier (a very fine Sonequa Martin-Green), home from Afghanistan but still talking to the scrappy ghost of her army bestie (Natalie Morales).

Latvia’s dark-horse entry in the Oscar sweeps for best animation doesn’t need dialogue (it has none) or A-list voice talent (also absent) to qualify as a thing of beauty as a cat and four fellow creatures carve out a future after a cataclysmic flood wipes out humanity.

Though the third screen go-round can't top the magic of the first two Paddington gems, it’s still an exuberant gift of family fun that takes our bear home to Peru for new adventures and a tangle with a sinister singing nun played to the hilarious hilt by Olivia Colman

First-time director Drew Hancock kicks off the young movie year with an out-of-nowhere surprise, a fiendishly funny romcom scarefest that hits the entertainment bullseye and makes a star out of Sophie Thatcher as a hot date (for Jack Quaid) who doesn’t know her own power.

In this shivery ghost story, director-editor-DP Steven Soderbergh proves a rich imagination can work wonders on a low budget and turn the familiar into something fresh and frightening.

Fact-based family dramas don’t come more intense or indelible than Walter Salles’s emotional powerhouse starring Golden Globe best actress winner Fernanda Torres as a Brazilian wife and mother who fights a military dictatorship to save her flesh and blood

In her first fiction feature, documentarian Payal Kapadia brings a poetic profundity to this cinematic spellbinder about female sisterhood in a big city (Mumbai) full of societal, economic and political pressures that can force out intimacy and kill the yearning to dream.

In a world of humans, bad boy British pop rocker Robbie Williams casts himself as a computer=generated monkey. Too much? Maybe. But damn, this banger-infused biopic works like gangbusters under the visual magic of director Michael Gracey

Spain’s legendary director Pedro Almodóvar freights his first full-length feature in English with tangled subplots, but nothing can dim the artistry of Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore who make this death-fixated tale of old friends in crisis feel thrillingly alive.

Gia Coppola’s film has no more than a sketch of a plot, but soars on the quietly devastating performance of former Baywatch babe Pamela Anderson as an aging Vegas showgirl who learns her hopelessly outdated dance revue has been given the hook after 30 years.

Here’s your holiday counter-programming ticket to fear and trembling. It’s a passion project for Robert Eggers who creates an atmosphere of creeping dread in which Bill Skarsgård and Lily-Rose Depp are to die for as a vampire Count and his loveliest-trickiest victim

Forget the thin membrane of a soap opera plot— Timothée Chalamet acts and sings the young Bob Dylan to showstopping perfection, catching the famously withholding troubadour in the exhilarating act of inventing himself as multitudes, always creating and always in the wind.

Nicole Kidman burns up the screen in Helena Reijn’s erotic spellbinder about why a married-with-children titan of industry would risk career suicide to find her true self by losing control with a hottie young intern (Harris Dickinson) who bends her to his cruel will. Not as transgressive as it wants to be, but damn close

Brady Corbet’s engulfing masterpiece about an immigrant architect (an Oscarbound Adrien Brody) is the best movie of the year, but it’s also way more than that— an unsentimental; uncompromising thunderbolt of pure cinema that Corbet has built to last.

This flawed but fascinating gay love story from director Luca Guadagnino is lifted to the heights by Daniel Craig who captures his character’s sexual heat and yearning heart in a performance he seems to tear from his insides. Is an Oscar nomination next? That’s the idea.

Creative artistry radiates from every frame of this groundbreaking film from director RaMell Ross who joins with camera wiz Jomo Fray to take us inside the eyes of two young Black men (Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson) to expose the abuses in a Florida reform school

In Mike Leigh’s lacerating new film, Marianne Jean-Baptiste delivers a hall-of-fame acting triumph as a London housewife and mother who’s mad at the world and ready to give us all a tongue-lashing. She’s an emotional powderkeg ready to blow. Better duck