Richard Roeper

One of the many surprising delights in the bright and brassy and wonderfully funny Thor: Ragnarok is the recasting of the God of Thunder as a perpetual underdog.

This is one of the best and most important movies of the year.

Director Lance Oppenheim (who at 24 is a good half-century younger than his subjects) employs a straightforward, deadpan style that suits the material well, avoiding condescension or cutesy gimmicks as he introduces us to a number of residents of the Villages.

Jones and Murray are wonderful together; many of the best scenes in On the Rocks are when it’s just the two of them, verbally fencing.

You know all those sports documentaries about fallen heroes who had enormous talent but squandered it away through a combination of bad breaks and bad decisions, injuries and/or snorting enough cocaine to fill a first-base line? “Facing Nolan” is the antithesis of those cautionary tales, in that Ryan was a straight shooter on and off the field.

All four of the actors playing the brothers are standouts, with Zac Efron and Jeremy Allen White leading the way with some of the finest work of their respective careers. “The Iron Claw” isn’t an easy watch, but it’s one of the best films of the year.

For about an hour, The Lobster is pure absurdist greatness, brimming with pitch-black shock humor and big, wild ideas. The second half of the film isn’t nearly as imaginative and startling, but I walked out of the screening with the surefire knowledge I wouldn’t soon shake off its most inspired sequences.

Director Garret Price was right. This is no period-piece dark comedy. On many levels, it’s a horror film.

The acting is world-class in Eye in the Sky, a timely and tense but sometimes heavy-handed drama set in the modern world of drone warfare.

This is a lurid, cynical, nasty, rough piece of work, and I mean that in the best possible way.

This still works as a solid Disney sports movie because of the remarkable story, Mira Nair’s energetic and uplifting direction, and one of the most endearing casts I’ve enjoyed in any movie this year.

There’s no overreaching attempt to paint the band as anything more than they were, no roster of professors and music experts and somber social commentators weighing in.

It was a tall order to match the brilliance of “Inside Out,” but the sequel meets the challenge on every level.

Loosely inspired by the Lee Majors-starring TV show from the 1980s and given a rocket-booster jolt of stardom from the pairing of Gosling and Emily Blunt, “The Fall Guy” is pure popcorn entertainment — an absolutely ludicrous yet consistently entertaining, old-fashioned action/romance combo platter that plays like a feature-length pitch to the Academy to add a best stunts category (as it should).

What makes Creed III a consistently engrossing watch is the gritty and violent back story, and the present-day tension between two former best friends whose lives were forever changed by a single confrontation that went sideways and who now have been reunited after nearly 20 years, with one man on top of the world and the other about two degrees from reaching the boiling point as he simmers with rage and resentment.

It’s sweet and lovely work, but at times lacking in the type of subtlety required for film acting, even in a musical role with as much comedy as drama. Still, Erivo and Grande have chemistry in abundance and make for a memorable duo.

A Most Wanted Man works as a crowd-pleaser and as a believable reflection of how these fictional events might well play out in the real world.

Over the course of a brisk 86 minutes, the filmmakers do a stellar job of providing context and explaining just how the special came to be.

With Romania standing in for 1850s New York State, The World to Come feels true to its time and place, and all four main players do a spectacularly good job of sounding and acting true to the time.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer never hedges its bets, never takes its foot off the gas. The same can be said of the actors, from skilled veterans Farrell and Kidman to young Barry Keoghan.

Writer-director Taylor Sheridan’s Wind River is a stark and beautiful and haunting 21st century Western thriller, filled with memorable visuals and poetic dialogue — and scenes of sudden, shocking, brutal violence.

Thanks to Affleck’s sure-handed, period-piece-perfect direction, a crackling good screenplay by Alex Convery and the lively, funny, warm, passionate performances from the A-list cast, Air is as entertaining and fast-paced as an NBA Finals game that is destined for overtime.

It’s a hard-R live action cartoon, and it is superb, wall-to-wall action entertainment, and I’m already looking forward to “John Wick: Chapter Four: This Time He Adopts a Cat.”

Neither man is right; neither man is wrong. Neither man can do anything to ward off the inevitable. All they can do for now is soak in every last moment they have together, and oh do we wish for them to have as many of those moments as they possibly can.

The astonishing thing about Gilbert is the behind-the-curtain record it provides of the real Gilbert Gottfried.

This might have worked as a short film or a 30-minute TV episode, but as a feature film, it grows increasingly cloying as the minutes tick on.

For all its influences and roots in similar types of comedies, Emergency is an original work, very much of its time.

American Sniper isn’t some flag-waving political movie. It’s a powerful, intense portrayal of a man who was hardly the blueprint candidate to become the most prolific sniper in American military history. And yet that’s what happened.

The best thing about Spider-Man: Homecoming is Spidey is still more of a kid than a man. Even with his budding superpowers, he still has the impatience, the awkwardness, the passion, the uncertainty and sometimes the dangerous ambition of a teenager still trying to figure out this world.

This is one of the most irritating movies of the year.

While it’s wonderful to see Michelle Yeoh return as Yu Shu-Lien and there are a few moments of soaring majesty, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny is an unnecessary and underwhelming experience that plays like a B-movie knockoff/follow-up of the original.

Live From New York! is a solid, pleasant 82-minute walk down memory lane. But given that we’ve just been through the 40th anniversary celebration, cresting with that marathon of a TV special, it just doesn’t feel particularly necessary.

Working from a sharp and unflinchingly honest screenplay by LaBeouf, director Alma Har’el delivers a smart and knowing inside slice of show business life that also serves as a harrowing cautionary tale about abuse and about encouraging your children to become professional entertainers when they’d most likely be better off having, you know, an actual childhood.

David Fincher’s The Killer is a meticulously crafted and masterfully rendered film about a meticulous and masterful assassin, and with Michael Fassbender in the lead role, you just couldn’t have a better triangle of material, director and actor.

Wells is a talent as a storyteller and as a director with a nice visual touch, and as a screen presence. Emily is wonderful. We like spending time with them. (Noel and Emily, I mean.)

Ferrari never quite achieves the greatness of previous Mann movies such as “Thief” and “Heat,” but it’s a solid and extremely well-filmed slice of one legendary life.

News of the World works at the highest levels as a story of two lost souls who find one another, and as a crackling good, blood-spattered Western.

The good news: Hardy creates two memorable characters, making some bold and always entertaining if not entirely successful choices. The bad news: Somehow, the fictionalized version of the terrifying, violent and twisted Krays manages to be pedestrian and derivative for long stretches.

Levy now takes his quadruple-threat skill set to feature-length film by directing, writing, producing and starring in the warm and lovely albeit formulaic weeper “Good Grief,” which is not the story of the adult Charlie Brown (rats!) but the tale of a man who turns to his best friends for solace in his time of great need.

Battle of the Sexes stands on its own as a finely tuned period piece, a vibrant comedy, an effective character study and, yep, an inspirational sports movie.

It’s impossible not to think of military training camp staples such as “Full Metal Jacket” and “An Officer and a Gentlemen” when experiencing writer-director Elegance Bratton’s semi-autobiographical The Inspection. While Bratton’s film isn’t in the same league as those classics, it’s a strong and memorable if predictable boot-camp journey that features many of the same elements of the first half of “Jacket” and the entirety of “Gentleman” — most notably in that all three films feature an alpha male drill instructor who will either defeat his recruits and send them home, or turn them into lean mean fighting machines.

So, if we’re in the mood for an R-rated, sometimes cartoonishly violent, occasionally salacious comedy where you know some jokes will score and others will land with a thud and we’ll just move on to the next scene, here’s your ticket.

Writer-director Defa has delivered a small and quietly compelling low-key gem filled with offbeat characters who are perfectly normal — which means they’re kind of odd.

Mark Ruffalo is a master at playing a certain type of earnest character who often wears a quizzical expression — not because he’s slow on the uptake, but because he’s the smartest person in the room and he has questions no one else has even thought to ask.

For a time, The Dig is a quiet little gem of a drama with only a few characters, but after Basil uncovers what appears to be an intact, seventh century Anglo-Saxon ship with far-ranging historical and cultural implications, Sutton Hoo gets quite crowded with new characters and a myriad of subplots, most examining the classism and sexism of the era.

Dying Laughing is a movie about stand-up with no performance footage. It’s like a documentary about baseball with no game footage — but it’s great and it’s valuable and it’s wonderful, because we love seeing and hearing these all-time greats talk about what they do with such passion and candor.

Coda features a nice little romance between Ruby and a handsome and well-liked boy named Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo), but this is primarily a story about a family. A family that just happens to communicate via ASL but will remind you of families you know, or maybe even the family you know best.

To be sure, this is a special moment for movies, seeing as how this is a mainstream, theatrical release, R-rated gay rom-com featuring a cast of LGBTQ actors, and of course we should salute that — but for all its forward-thinking casting, cutting-edge references, sexual frankness and cultural awareness, “Bros” should also be celebrated for creating an instant near-classic of the genre, filled with so many of the touchstones we’ve come to expect from romantic comedies and featuring crisp writing and a host of richly layered performances from actors who can handle quick comedy as well as legit drama.

Winslet and Ronan are magnificent together, conveying the escalation of intimate moments, from holding hands to kissing to embracing to an extended and graphic coupling that beautifully conveys the avalanche of feelings each is experiencing as they make love.

This is one of the better musical biopics of the last 20 years.

There’s never a moment when the story lulls. Alas, it’s all just so … preposterous, due to that mistrial of a screenplay.

Once in a great while I see a movie I know I’ll be listing as one of my all-time favorites for the rest of my days. So it is with this remarkable, unforgettable, elegant epic that is about one family — and millions of families. It’s a pinpoint-specific and yet universal story.

Christmas With the Campbells is like a weirdly creative holiday drink; you wouldn’t expect those ingredients to work together, but somehow, they do.

For a time this movie will probably be best known for the behind-the-scenes drama. But the work itself deserves to endure as one of the better films of 2017.

Thanks to an ambitiously layered script from Paul Downs Colaizzo (who also directs with a steady grasp of comedic pacing and a nice visual eye), and a resonant and rich performance by the terrific Jillian Bell in the title role, Brittany Runs a Marathon has some refreshingly sharp edges and occasionally charts a relatively unorthodox course for such a comfort food-type movie.

Writer-director-producer Emerald Fennell (who is also an actor and plays Camilla Parker Bowles on “The Crown”) delivers a sensational first feature film with this well-crafted, bold, visually stunning and emotionally resonant gem.

Gerety delivers a performance that is simply great.

A wonderful, uplifting, endearing, thoroughly entertaining story.

For all its cleverness and pop-culture savvy and meta references, M3GAN also indulges in tropes we’ve seen in a hundred slasher movies, but the dark laughs keep coming, and of course we get an ending that leaves the door open for a potential franchise. She’s the living doll of your nightmares, and you can’t just power her down, kiddo.

Even though the Chicago-born and Wheaton-raised Belushi’s life story and legacy has been examined time and again, the documentary simply titled Belushi is a work of great value.

It’s a variation on the teletransportation paradox as filtered through a live-action Looney Tunes cartoon, with some B-movie creatures thrown in for good measure.

Risk is filled with dramatic scenes straight out of a spy thriller.

The result is one of the smartest, funniest and most visually captivating movies of the year.

This is sweet and smart film.

This is a movie that introduces you to a bold and original concept and asks you to just go with it, and if you’re willing to take the leap of faith (in more ways than one), you’ll find this to be a unique and special fable.

This is a time capsule — an expertly crafted time capsule — of an astonishing career.

There are moments in Infinity Pool where it’s a test of wills to keep your eyes fixed on the screen, but beyond all the gruesome violence, Cronenberg’s screenplay is filled with sharply honed observations about culture and class differences, and some wickedly satisfying twists and turns. This is a film that is bat-bleep crazy but knows exactly what it is doing.

First They Killed My Father occasionally strays into overly sentimental territory — and with a running time of 2 hours, 16 minutes, the storyline stalls a bit at times. Mostly, though, this is an accomplished and moving and solid drama from a director who seems on the verge of giving us a great movie sometime soon.

The talented director Billy Corben swings for the fences and takes a decidedly creative approach, but unfortunately, he devotes far too many at-bats to one particular stylistic choice. Either you’ll find it original and funny and suitably outlandish, or, like me, you’ll grow weary of the technique.

So much of Luce is about what’s happening beneath the surface and between the lines. Everyone says they’re searching for the truth — even as they lie and obfuscate and bend the facts to suit their particular agendas and world views.

This is a film that left me marveling at Swartz’s beautiful mind, and shaking my head at the insanity of the system he knew was badly fractured.

The breezy and cheeky Extra Ordinary (that’s how they’re spelling it and you’ll find out why if you check out the movie) is a romcom/possession movie with some of the biggest laughs in any film this year — and some pretty nasty and cool special effects as well.

It plays like a classic military story about soldiers from various walks of life who bond as brothers.

Hail, Caesar! is pure, popcorn fun — a visual treat, a comedic tour de force and a sublime and sly slice of satire.

The Czech writer-director Václav Marhoul has done an astonishing job of adapting Kosinski’s novel in all its brutality (and its moments of humanity), lensing the story through timeless, dream- and nightmare-like 35mm monochrome and delivering a near-masterpiece epic that will leave you exhausted after its 169-minute running time — but grateful you’ve seen one of the most memorable movies of the year.

It’s a blazingly vibrant, emotionally resonant and exhilarating movie musical that does justice to Alice Walker’s iconic 1982 novel and the subsequent stage and movie versions while forging new creative paths and standing on its own as a bold and original work.

The darkly entertaining but derivative crime comedy/drama “Riff Raff” features an amazing cast — some of them playing the kinds of roles we’ve come to expect from them, others out of their go-to comfort zone but reminding us of their range and versatility.

With Pamela Adlon (“Better Things”) directing in a style reminiscent of the best Woody Allen and Nora Ephron movies of the 1970s and 1980s, a sharp and hilarious and poignant screenplay by Glazer (“Broad City”) and Josh Rabinowitz, and winning performances from the co-leads, “Babes” is one terrific friend-com, or should we say a mom-com, and I can already picture Eden and Dawn making fun of that latter term.

Rebecca Hall gives one of the great performances of the year as the title character in Christine, an intense, stomach-churning, unblinking drama.

Yet with all the futuristic splendor and the suitably majestic score and the fine performances, “Into Darkness” only occasionally soars, mostly settling for being a solid but unspectacular effort that sets the stage for the next chapter(s).

Queer is a good-looking film with moments of great promise that is much like Lee in that it wears out its welcome and tries your patience far too often.

While it strikes a different visual tone and moves at a faster pace than many of the TV show episodes (as one might expect from a feature-length story), thanks to Gilligan’s masterful writing and directing, and the bold and powerful and layered performance from Aaron Paul, it’s an extended epilogue quite worthy of the “Breaking Bad” brand.

From the opening moments of Nia DaCosta’s gory yet strikingly beautiful and socially relevant “Candyman,” it’s clear we’re in for an especially haunting and just plain entertaining thrill ride.

Co-directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, working from a script they penned with Michael Gilio, have struck the right balance between high-stakes action, warm drama and clever comedy in a consistently engaging, mostly family-friendly romp that features some of the most spot-on casting of any film so far this year.

Though stylized and eccentric and non-linear in its narrative path, and filled with dazzling non-sequiturs and oddly cryptic storylines, Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth is indeed set on this Earth, and these characters are very much alive.

In some truly inspired casting choices, Ashley Judd provides emotional depth as Barack’s mother, and Jason Mitchell (who deserved an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Easy-E in “Straight Outta Compton”) and Ellar Coltrane (who literally grew up onscreen in “Boyhood”) deliver stellar work as friends of Barry’s who remind of us of the multiple worlds he inhabits.

There’s no trace of Hollywood glamour or gloss to the story, no hint of actor-y flourishes in the deeply resonant performances. Just a lean, finely crafted, memorably real story announcing the presence of a major new filmmaking talent — and a young actor with the promise of limitless potential.