Peter Travers

As killer ape movies go, this one’s a bloody wonder—it’s too bad no one bothered to add plot, character or a reason to care

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.

Before it reverts to moldy zombie tropes, this low-budget, no-frills survival thriller puts a fresh spin on the familiar thanks to Daisy Ridley as a human living among the walking dead.

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.

Kate Winslet makes her directing debut with a script written by her 22-year-old son and acted by A-listers who, try as they might, can’t save it from dying-at-Christmas clichés.

It sounds pretty cheesy and sometimes it’s a whole cheese wheel, but Hugh Jackman and especially Kate Hudson sing and act their hearts out.

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.

Jack Black and Paul Rudd can’t carry the unbearable weight of massive missteps in this comic remake of the 1997 snake movie that was always funnier when it tried to be serious.

What was once riveting now feels rote. What once made us want more of the same now makes us eager for the shock of the new.

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.

Do Hollywood suits think we want nothing more from a Christmas movie than to feed on the dead carcass of an undeserving horror franchise? The scary part is they may be right.

A low point in the career of the legendary James L. Brooks, starring gifted actors who seem, all of a sudden in a fit of group amnesia, to have forgotten how to act.

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.

Oh, What. Crap. This lump of coal in our holiday stocking entraps Michelle Pfeiffer and is flat, stilted, lazy and so stretched out with Xmas clichés that you want to scream, bah-humbug.

An inexcusable horror sequel that lowers the bar to zero in terms of fun and fright. The only thing that scares me is this turd’s inevitable box-office success.

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