Richard Roeper

Kimi is filled with the kind of sparkling cameos and supporting work we’ve come to expect from a Soderbergh cast — but always and throughout, this is Zoë Kravitz’s vehicle, and she delivers a smart, empathetic and badass performance in this nifty gem about a woman who has to step outside in more ways than one.

As for the murder mystery, some of the supporting players barely get enough screen time or enough of a backstory to be considered serious suspects, but even when “Death on the Nile” skirts the edge of camp, the fastidious and melancholy Poirot is always there to guide us through the rough spots and solve the case in the nick of time.

Moonfall is the kind of film that doesn’t take itself seriously and yet really doesn’t have a sense of humor about the ludicrous nature of its very existence.

Sure, these guys now have a budget to work with and they can pull off some elaborate stunts, but we’ve seen so much viral, backyard Jackassery through the years, the shock value has dissipated and all that remains is the cringe factor and a growing feeling of restlessness as the gags become repetitive and tiresome.

It’s a memorably stark and authentic work that is at times so gut-wrenching it’s almost unbearable — but Park deftly weaves in moments of warmth and humor and hope as well. This is a special film.

There might indeed be a fine movie lurking within the pages of that original source material, but “The King’s Daughter” is not that movie.

Director and co-writer Clint Bentley’s sun-dappled, beautifully photographed, rough-and-tumble backstretch drama “Jockey” gets the rollercoaster life and often tough times of the jockey and the horse racing world just right.

It was probably the right time to say goodbye to “Ray Donovan,” as the series had begun spinning its wheels in recent seasons, after the action moved from California to the East Coast, but with this movie, Ray gets the send-off he deserves.

Thanks to the razor-sharp screenplay by James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick and the stylish and Wes Craven-influenced direction by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and the ease with which Campbell, Cox and Arquette return to their roles, the new “Scream” stabs and jabs at our memories of the original and creates some bloody fresh twists of its own.

The entire movie comes across as if the screenwriters had gathered the scripts for dozens of similar films in the genre, dropped them into some sort of software blender — and whipped up one big bland smoothie of a story.

A Hero runs a bit long at 127 minutes and is at times frustratingly ambiguous, but Farhadi has delivered another insightful slice of life and Amir Jadidi turns in a remarkably intriguing performance as the never quite heroic Rahim.

Somehow, the great Almodóvar has managed to weave together these tales of recent birth and long-ago deaths in a way that is unnerving and yet authentic, strange yet relatable.

It’s one of the most visually striking and leanest versions of “the Scottish play” ever put on film, with blockbuster performances from Oscar winners Frances McDormand and Denzel Washington as Lady and Lord Macbeth, and a brilliant supporting cast.

American Underdog is a fitting family album for the Warners and solid, safe entertainment for the viewer.

With first-rate production values and a gloriously memory-drenched 35mm cinematography, Licorice Pizza is a visual feast brimming with razor-sharp dialogue, hilarious comedic vignettes, brilliant performances from Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim as well as the veteran, star-studded supporting cast, and some genuine heart. This is one of the very best movies of 2021.

The Tender Bar is unabashedly sentimental — it’s one of those movies about writers told from the point of view of the writer that romanticizes everything about writing — but Clooney’s sure-handed direction and pitch-perfect attention to the 1970s and 1980s period-piece material, combined with the warm and relatable performances, make for classic comfort-movie formula.

Matrix Resurrections is a great-looking film and Reeves and Moss remind us of what an iconic team they made in the trilogy, but the themes of finding one’s identity, free will, taking leaps of faith in order to serve the greater good, humans against machines — we already hashed all that out back in the day, and ultimately this feels more like a warmed-over tribute to the past than a bold and fresh new chapter.

Careening wildly from the black comedy tone of the aforementioned sequences to deadly serious World War I battle scenes, from somber spy thriller to broad comedy, The King’s Man has little of the wickedly outrageous and subversive style of the original film as it flies this way and that and never sticks the landing.

Thanks to the brilliant, nuanced work by the great Mahershala Ali, our heart goes out to both Camerons.

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter is a chilling and unnerving psychological horror film brimming with dicey characters who are capable of deeply disturbing behavior. We keep holding our breath because it feels like something awful is about to happen — and our instincts might not be wrong.

Red Rocket is the latest blazingly original gem from director/co-writer Sean Baker, who in films such as Tangerine and The Florida Project has displayed an uncanny ability to carve out offbeat slices of life in the American subculture.

Filled with juicy performances and unforgettable visuals, Nightmare Alley is one of the best films of the year.

There’s nothing new or particularly memorable about the serviceable CGI and practical effects, but we remain invested in the outcome in large part because Holland remains the best of the cinematic Spider-Men, while Zendaya lends heart and smarts and warmth to every moment she’s onscreen.

There’s life, there’s TV — and there are movies about TV, and though Being the Ricardos is a work of drama, it has the essence of truth.

The ruling on the field is this is an incomplete pass.

Told in solid, straightforward, traditional documentary style and relying heavily on voice-over interviews from unspecified time periods, old TV clips, behind-the-scenes footage and period-piece still photos, Mr. Saturday Night tracks the Australian-born Stigwood’s trailblazing career in its entirety — but a great deal of focus is on the fascinating tale of how Saturday Night Fever came to be.

From Streep and DiCaprio and Lawrence through the supporting players, Don’t Look Up is filled with greatly talented actors really and truly selling this material — but the volume remains at 11 throughout the story when some changes in tone here and there might have more effectively carried the day.

Soaring. Exhilarating. Magical. Heartbreaking. Unforgettable.

Writer-director Nathalie Biancheri treats this potentially sensational material with sensitivity and empathy, though Wolf sometimes careens in the direction of a pure horror film and introduces some late elements that border on the grotesque and seem superfluous to the main story. Still, this is an involving and dark fairy tale, with great performances from MacKay and Depp.

This is a sentimental, utterly predictable and thoroughly charming confection from Jack C. Newell (head of TV, film & digital for Second City), featuring a myriad of gifted local actors delivering warm and witty performances against the backdrop of wintry locales that look like the inside of a snow globe.

Writer-director Griffin deftly toggles between social/political commentary and the deadpan comedy/horror at hand, as this mostly British group does the stiff-upper-lip, carry-on thing for as long as a possible before things start to unravel in raw and brutal fashion because after all, this is the end.

The fantastically nostalgic, consistently funny, mischief-laden and genuinely touching 8-Bit Christmas (now on HBO Max) reminds me of A Christmas Story — with a touch of the storytelling device employed in A Princess Bride.

Sandra Bullock has starred in only seven films in the last decade, and along with Gravity in 2013, her two most intriguing roles by far have been courtesy of the streaming giant Netflix: first with the smash hit horror film Bird Box (2018) and now with The Unforgivable, which has prestige credentials, a brilliant, A-list cast and a few moments of near-greatness, but is ultimately a disappointing and frustrating viewing experience due mostly to script and editing problems.

As you’d expect from this cast, the performances are uniformly excellent, with the standout being Jayne Houdyshell, the only holdover from the Broadway production, who reprises her Tony-winning role and is mesmerizing as an ordinary woman with an extraordinary capacity to get through the night, the week, the year, the life, she’s been given.

With crisp and assured direction from Byron Howard and Jared Bush (with lead screenwriter Charise Castro Smith co-directing), a bounty of catchy new songs by the ubiquitous treasure that is one Lin-Manuel Miranda and fantastic voice work from the ensemble cast, Encanto is a magical and warmhearted journey with lovely messaging about the importance of family, some genuinely funny set pieces and those stunning visuals that fill every corner of the screen.

Adam Driver (who has now played a French squire and an Italian fashion heir in consecutive Ridley Scott movies) and Lady Gaga have legit chemistry together, and it’s still a kick to see Al Pacino roaring like a lion in winter. But Hayek and Irons are playing cardboard-thin characters, Leto flounders about as if he’s in a movie all his own, and “House of Gucci” feels coldly calculating when it should have been flush and warm with scandalous sensationalism.

Some 15 years after Will Smith gave one of his most authentic and enduring performances playing the real-life homeless salesman Chris Gardner in The Pursuit of Happyness, he delivers nomination-worthy work as another type of real-life salesman in King Richard.

When it’s time to answer the question of Who ya gonna call, Ghostbusters: Afterlife comes across as a well-intentioned and sincere but unfortunate misdial.

It’s the MMA version of Million Dollar Baby meets Rocky in Halle Berry’s directorial debut Bruised, a well-acted and occasionally involving but overly long, cliché-stuffed sports film that hits all the usual notes and piles on the subplot drama to the point where we’re nearly exhausted by the viewing experience.

With Campion’s native New Zealand standing in magnificently for early 20th century Big Sky Country, The Power of the Dog is a study in contrasts between the almost surreal beauty of the mountains and the sky and the vast land, and the nasty, petty and often unspeakably harsh manner in which people will treat one another — even their own kin.

Much of The Souvenir: Part II is about the collaborative process of creating a movie, and how filmmakers can use their art to tell their stories — not as the stories happened, but how they wished or imagined they could have happened.

Belfast is deserving of double-digit Oscar nominations, from the picture itself to Branagh’s directing and writing to the editing and cinematography to any number of the performances, with Ciarán Hinds and Judi Dench near locks in the supporting categories. This is the best movie I’ve seen so far in 2021.

Thanks in large part to Munn’s elegant, authentic, grounded and moving performance, we’re rooting hard for Violet to find some inner peace.

Problem is, there’s no movie inside this movie. It’s a breezy and intermittently entertaining and super slick work, but it’s filled with so many overly familiar notes and well-worn cliches, and there are so many winking nods to the viewer, it feels as if we’re about two rewrites away from this thing being a flat-out spoof on the level of Airplane! or Hot Shots! or Scary Movie.

Finch ends exactly as we expect it to end — but what should be an emotional and profound conclusion feels manufactured. You don’t have to be a super-smart robot named Jeff to know when you’re being manipulated.

With the jazzy score by Jonny Greenwood setting the tone for the cacophony of sounds in Diana’s inner world, Spencer is an exquisitely designed, beautifully photographed and at times hauntingly surreal story, set primarily on the estate where Diana was born.

It’s a shame Eternals devolves into such a run-of-the-mill superhero movie, given it features some groundbreaking and/or relatively unusual elements, including a deaf character, an openly gay character and an actual lovemaking scene between two otherworldly entities (although it’s tamer than what you’d see in a 1950s romance).

It’s a crazy kaleidoscope of bright colors, dark corners, David Lynch-style set pieces and shock moments designed to keep you up at night — and it features a quintet of memorable performances from two of the best young actors around and three iconic Brits.

Thanks to Schweighöfer’s stylish, Italian Job-influenced directing, a sense of its own ridiculous nature and some fabulous performances by the charming and good-looking supporting cast, Army of Thieves is the very definition of an entertaining Netflix confection.

Writer-director Cooper (Crazy Heart, Out of the Furnace, Hostiles) is an enormously gifted storyteller who infuses nearly every moment of this movie with a sense of despair and hopelessness, as some genuinely goodhearted but in most cases deeply damaged souls struggle mightily to battle a mythical, flesh-eating creature from the deep woods while also dealing with real-world trauma that’s equally frightening.

This is a very personal project for Rebecca Hall, whose grandfather was Black but passed for white, and she has delivered an exquisitely crafted gem.

Even with all the shootouts and robberies and action sequences, this is also a wonderful showcase for screen-stealing acting, with virtually everyone in the all-star cast getting some center stage moments and knocking it out of the park. This is one of those movies where we sense the cast had just as much fun making it as we have watching it.

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain grows bleaker as Wain’s fortunes plummet and his grasp on reality weakens by the year, but it remains a loving and respectful portrait of a man who created irresistibly adorable kitschy cats more a century before their spiritual descendants were racking up the views on YouTube.

The French Dispatch is filled with a sense of wistful longing, delivered from the perspectives of creative and observant strangers in a wonderfully strange land.

The jaw-dropping visuals and pulse-pounding sound editing in Dennis Villeneuve’s stunningly gorgeous Dune are so awesome it makes up for the slow-moving and quite familiar storyline, which is basically the New Testament meets Mad Max meets Star Wars.

Mass feels like a staged play brought to the cinema, with unobtrusive camerawork that gives us the feeling of eavesdropping on this intense and emotional and hopefully cathartic gathering.

Michael Dorman (virtually unrecognizable and about 40 pounds lighter than when he played Gordo Stevens in the Apple TV+ series For All Mankind) channels James-Dean-meets-Stephen-Dorff in a mesmerizingly good performance as Jesse, a charming bounder who has a good heart and some talent as a singer-songwriter but is always getting in his own way and stepping in some serious, um, stuff.

It’s almost as if Halloween Kills is an inconsistent, sloppy mess.

Nothing about The Last Duel is subtle. Just about everything about The Last Duel is brutally effective.

One imagines his vast fan base will find this to be an immensely satisfying viewing experience.

The ensemble is uniformly excellent, but this is Tim Blake Nelson’s showcase from the moment he appears onscreen, and he delivers world-weary greatness every step of the way.

South of Heaven devolves into a rote thriller, with henchmen upon henchmen upon henchmen falling by the wayside until the inevitable showdown — which plays out in underwhelming fashion.

Still, this is a breathtakingly gorgeous, sometimes thrilling, well-acted and suitably profound sendoff to Daniel Craig in all his ice-blue-eyed, tightly wound, gritty gravitas —a Bond who seemed much more of this world than, say Roger Moore’s 007, a Bond who bled when he was cut and bruised when he was beaten, a Bond who grieved deeply for those he lost, a Bond who will be a very, very tough act to follow.

The flat and uninspired Addams Family 2 is the wrong kind of “twofer,” in that it’s often too dark and grotesque and bizarre for children, but also profoundly unfunny when it tries to appeal to the grown-ups.

Titane is a triumph of hallucinogenic, gender-switching, erotic and violent horror from writer-director Julia Ducournau.

The fine actors onscreen are mere accessories to the computerized puppets thrashing and slashing and stabbing and biting and roaring and breaking stuff all over the place before only one of them is left standing. Sigh.

It’s a sharply honed, darkly funny, ultra-violent and wildly entertaining late 1960s period piece about the making of future made man Tony Soprano, the early criminal escapades of many key characters from the HBO series — and the blood oaths and ruthless betrayals that would set the checkered table for virtually everything that would happen to the Sopranos, their extended family and their associates some three decades later.

The Guilty wants to make a statement about a man who’s trying to save himself through saving others, but the message is delivered with all the subtlety of a frantic 911 call.

The adaptation is a curiously strange effort, as director Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) films the story like an indie drama, with straightforward, realistic, dialogue-driven scenes — and then every 10 minutes or so, a character breaks into song, and it seems much more contrived and jolting than something like La La Land.

So much talent — and everyone goes down with the ship in one of the worst movies of 2021.

It’s more exhausting than entertaining, and the multiple conclusions to the interconnecting storylines are more on the level of the dud that was “Rocky V” than the thrills of “Rocky III.”

Intrusion is a derivative, manipulative, convoluted and dopey story that dishes up one scary movie cliché after another before careening out of control with a late plot development so insanely implausible, so far out of left field, it’s as if someone accidentally deleted 20 pages of the script during production and nobody noticed.

Via the steady direction by Theodore Bogosian and the golden-throat narration from the one and only Bill Kurtis, we learn the full and amazing story of the joint one newspaper wag dubbed a “supernova in the local and national nightlife firmament.”

Alas, the sweet-natured and occasionally moving but surprisingly stiff and slight Cry Macho is most likely destined to be remembered as one of Eastwood’s lesser works.

An “Escape From New York”-meets-“Mad Max” ripoff that desperately wants to be a bonkers, midnight drive-in cult classic but doesn’t have the camp value or the memorably off-the-wall storyline to make the cut.

Perhaps this story would be better told in a limited non-fiction series as well, as Queenpins relies too much on scatological humor, farcical sequences and a not entirely convincing message that these women were feminist, Robin Hood heroes.

So, yes: “Kate” is “John Wick” meets “Die Hard” meets “Collateral” meets “Kill Bill all the Volumes” and we’ve seen it all before and you’re not going to get much in the way of original plot, but what you WILL get is a grindhouse of a good time with some bleak and wickedly sharp humor, screen-popping visuals and some pretty great fight choreography.

With spectacularly haunting original songs by Robert Levon Been of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club accompanying the journey, Schrader expertly captures the equal parts exciting and depressing worlds of casinos, where the slots are always jangling and the bar is always open.

By the time we reach the insanely dubious final twist of The Voyeurs, we’d rather just look the other way.

In less skilled hands, this could have come across as cynical and manipulative material, but Pollono is such a skilled wordsmith and the cast is so universally excellent, Small Engine Repair becomes a viewing experience you won’t easily shake off, not today and not for a long time.

Worth falls just short of having enough strength in the screenplay to warrant a recommendation.

The screenplay is dense with crackling dialogue, and the performances are uniformly excellent, with Shea Whigham leading the way in a badass anti-hero performance.

The popular singer-songwriter Camila Cabello makes her acting debut as the titular character, and she’s a revelation, as the camera loves her and she displays not only the expected vocal chops but a real knack for comedy, as this version of Cinderella is particularly charming when she’s floundering about and getting into embarrassing situations of her own making.

Shang-Chi gets a little bogged down in the grand finale, which features an overlong and typical MCU battle featuring all manner of otherworldly creatures and bombastic special effects — but the journey to that final destination is fantastic.

With much of the dialogue based on the actual conversations between killer and profiler, and Wood and Kirby turning in stellar work, No Man of God feels memorably, sometimes chillingly, real.

This movie is pure cotton candy — sweet and brightly colored and a bit of a guilty pleasure, but it’s not intended to be something you can sink your teeth into, and five minutes after consuming it, it’s like it never happened.

You might well be tired of pandemic-inspired movies and series and I’m leaning in that direction myself, but I’m still recommending the blistering and razor-sharp two-hander Together largely on the strength of the searing and unfiltered and stunningly good performances by Sharon Horgan and James McAvoy.

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.

We’re not buying what the script is selling, not for a hot second.

The Protégé isn’t trying to be anything more than slick, escapist action fare, but when you have the star power of the lead trio, a terrific supporting cast and what appears to be a sizable enough budget, it’s not too much to ask for a little something in the way of a cohesive script. Instead, we get two variations on the same twist, and an ending that’s both murky and irritating. Maggie Q and company deserve better.

It’s The Maltese Falcon meets Inception somewhere in the Vanilla Sky on the way to Chinatown in the inventive and ambitious but wildly convoluted and ultimately disappointing sci-fi noir Reminiscence, which careens this way and that, and this way and that, before running off the rails.

In Flag Day, Sean Penn directs himself for the first time and has cast Dylan Penn, his daughter with Robin Wright, as the lead — and the two are absolutely mesmerizing together, beautifully capturing the enormously complicated dynamic between a con man of a father who rolls out of bed with a fresh set of lies ready to go every morning, and an emotionally broken and bruised daughter who knows her dad is a walking bundle of disappointment but wants to believe that this time — this one time — he really has changed.

This is every bit the international thriller, from the exotic locations to the global political elements to the cast. If only we could get involved in Beckett’s story and truly care about his fate.

As you might expect, this is not exactly a hard-hitting expose (I’m not sure what that would even be), but it’s a most welcome change of gear from all the documentaries out there tackling deadly serious subjects. Sometimes we just need to cleanse the palate.

Thanks in large part to the vibrant, funny, sweet, endearing work by Reynolds and Comer, Free Guy delivers.

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.

Respect is filled with memorable supporting turns, including Audra McDonald as Aretha’s mother and Saycon Sengbloh and Hailey Kilgore as her sisters, who were often in the background in more ways than one — but an old-fashioned show-business biopic such as this rises and falls on the talents of the lead, and it’s hard to imagine anyone in the world doing more justice to the legacy of Aretha Franklin than Jennifer Hudson.

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.

Sparks and writer-director Leos Carax have teamed up to deliver a bold, original, avant-garde House of Broken Mirrors take on A Star Is Born that at times soars with creative energy and on other occasions is so consumed with being eccentric and garishly jarring, it’s as if the filmmakers have turned the Pretentious Meter to 11.

Through it all, the Latino-influenced ballads, dance numbers and hip-hop numbers infuse the story with great life, and how can anybody possibly resist Lin-Manuel Miranda as a kinkajou with a tiny hat?

This is more of a do-over — a mulligan — than a reboot, with writer-director James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy) delivering a darkly funny, blood-spattered, cheerfully gross, violent and bat-bleep crazy mashup of wisecracking humor, elaborate and CGI-infused action sequences and even a rom-com interlude that ends with one of the participants quite dead while the other expresses regrets but there was no other way, this being a Suicide Squad movie and all.

Stolakis skillfully interweaves present-day interviews with archival footage of these prominent figures in the movement — all of whom have renounced their roles and are now living as out gays or bisexuals.

Thorne’s performance as a college student and waitress with a hidden and perhaps nefarious agenda is the best thing in this howler of a wannabe psychological crime thriller, a nasty little film that requires every single one of the lead characters to behave in infuriatingly dopey fashion, just so the story can keep plodding along until we’re slapped with one of the most ridiculous and maddening twist endings in recent film history.

The thing about Ride the Eagle is we have a funny, sweet, insightful, low-key charmer of a story that’s all about making human connections, reconciling broken relationships and finding solace in the companionship of another fellow traveler on this planet — and yet the main characters are almost never in the same room with one another.

Director Jaume Collet-Serra (best known for the Liam Neeson actioners Unknown, Non-Stop and The Commuter) is far too enamored with the CGI possibilities of an epic fantasy adventure, while the team of writers sacrifice character development in favor of banter heavy on groan-inducing puns and recurring punchlines that actually don’t pack much of a punch.

Even when the story comes close to flying off the rails, Matt Damon holds steady and commands the screen.

The Green Knight contains some beautifully written passages, and cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo delivers one award-worthy visual image after another.

The result is a comprehensive doc-biopic that works as an introduction to Del Close for those who might not know the name — but the comedy nerds who revere Close will certainly be geeking out over this deep dive into the man’s life and times.

It’s a great American story of a great American life, and “The Blues Chase the Blues Away” does that story justice.

Ultimately, though, Settlers is more about setting a mood and painting a picture of hopelessness than explaining what happened before the story, what’s happening beyond the borders of the compound and what lies ahead for Remmy. It feels incomplete.

Despite an intriguing premise, some Hitchcockian camerawork and a few effective shock scares, this is a thudding disappointment with surprisingly wooden performances from fine actors, and some of the most excruciatingly awful dialogue in any movie this year.

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

My thoughts turn to the Giant CGI Anacondas in “Snake Eyes” and what their lives are like in between meals — and if that sounds ridiculous and outlandish and weird, welcome to this bombastic, slick, convoluted and unnecessary second-tier action franchise reboot.

Joe Bell never quite packs the dramatic punch the real-life story deserves.

Despite his health problems and a career that carried as many setbacks as triumphs, Kilmer comes across as a self-deprecating, thoughtful, likable and almost jovial figure with a wicked sense of humor and a deep appreciation of artists, writers, poets, actors, thinkers.

As the documentary makes clear, Bourdain, who battled heroin addiction in his younger days, was a thrill-seeker, an obsessive personality, who always seemed to be in search of the next amazing experience, the next high, the next unforgettable adventure.

It’s a rustic, poetic, occasionally funny, sometimes heartbreaking and wonderfully strange and memorable character study of a man who is in such tremendous pain he had to retreat from the world.

Throughout the game, during the action sequences and especially during the timeouts and strategy sessions, the “celebrity” fans are a huge distraction — and making things even more bizarre, their numbers include Pennywise the Clown from “It” and the murderous, rapist gang known as the Droogs from “A Clockwork Orange.” Who in the name of Bugs Bunny thought this was a good idea?

For all its sobering reporting and imagery, Fin also has moments of pure beauty, as when Roth literally swims among sharks, who greet him with mild curiosity and a benign approach. Despite the handful of stories every year about a shark attacking a human, we know the truth: We’re the predators, and they’re the prey.

Please leave all logic and reality at the door as you settle in for a violent slice of Netflix original movie entertainment featuring an outstanding cast of first-rate actors clearly having a great time shooting up the joint.

After a setup worthy of a John le Carre adaptation, the main storyline is an admittedly well-filmed and well-acted but disappointingly lightweight journey more akin to a lesser Bond movie (there’s more than one reference to “Moonraker” along the way), with a cartoonishly forgettable villain and far too much time devoted to domestic soap opera antics played for easy laughs and unconvincing sentimentality.

The One and Only Dick Gregory is a comprehensive biography of a mercurial, brilliant and wildly funny artist-activist.

The Tomorrow War is an earnest effort to bring something new to the time-travel action genre, but this movie is a 2021 vehicle made of parts from the 2010s and the 1990s and 1980s.

Thank the cinematic and music gods it was never destroyed or lost, as Summer of Soul is an absolute found treasure of golden onstage moments, interspersed with interviews from participants such as Gladys Knight as well as attendees and cultural commentators, along with celebrity artists such as Chris Rock and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Thanks to the stylish directing by Everardo Valerio Gout, a tight screenplay from series creator James DeMonaco and a terrific ensemble cast that elevates the material, The Forever Purge is a fast-paced jam that would play well on a drive-in movie screen. Take the whole thing with a big tub of popcorn and many grains of salt.

The result is a raw and sometimes chilling and often darkly funny adventure filled with just enough nods to social media, e.g., we sometimes hear the familiar Twitter sound effect when something is posted.

It’s yet another instantly immersive, richly layered and beautifully shot chapter in one of the most impressive directing careers of our time.

The Ice Road is what we used to call a B-movie, but there’s no shame in a B-movie that carries out its mission with such competence and star power.

This is a lovely tribute that will appeal to longtime fans and those who are just discovering the amazing Peanuts universe.

With Ilana Glazer leading an outstanding cast, False Positive is not a movie you can easily shake off in a day or two. Or three.

Lansky loses steam every time the focus is on somewhere other than Lansky.

F9: The Fast Saga isn’t the worst entry in the long-running and popular Fast & Furious franchise, but it just might be the silliest and the loudest and the most ridiculous — and while that might well have been the filmmakers’ intention, it’s not a compliment.

It will keep reminding you of better movies in the same genre.

It’s nice to see Hart in a role where the comedy is relatively low-key and dialogue-driven (though there are a few hilarious physical bits of humor).

Director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Baby Driver), who is of course British, aims to rectify that with The Sparks Brothers, a sprawling and comprehensive and cheeky film that documents the rise and fall and rise again and fall again and the leveling out and all the other peaks and valleys the group has experienced over the last 50 years.

Director Enrico Casarosa is making his feature-length debut here, and he and the vast Pixar animation army have delivered a gorgeous and lovely coming-of-age fantasy with plenty of slapstick laughs, the obligatory heartwarming family moments and a friendship for the ages.

It’s an intermittently entertaining endeavor thanks mostly to the effortlessly suave lead performance by Pierce Brosnan as a career thief who looks like he wakes up wearing a jacket with a pocket square and with his hair perfectly coiffed, but the action sequences are ho-hum, the editing is stunningly clumsy, and the main heist is so cartoonishly ridiculous we don’t even believe the actors believe it’s possible.

The star power trio of Samuel L. Jackson, Selma Hayek and Ryan Reynolds have a few funny exchanges, and there are a couple of physical shtick routines so over the top it’s as if they dusted off the Monty Python playbook for a modern-day action film — but there are far more misfires than direct comedic/dramatic hits in this blood-drenched, explosion-riddled, live-action cartoon of a film.

Infinite has some impressive set pieces combining practical effects and CGI, and the terrific cast approaches the material with grim-faced sincerity, but it’s ultimately a big bag of nonsense wrapped in glossy packaging.

It would be a cliché to call In the Heights the Feel-Good Movie of the Year, but it would also be accurate. Perhaps for these times we might call it the Feeling-Better Movie of the year.

With an almost circus-like score setting the tone, a supernatural touch and a terrific ensemble cast playing characters that range from the eccentric to the deeply eccentric, Monuments is at times grounded, at times almost hallucinogenic — and always smart and entertaining.

What we have is the movie, and it’s a well-intentioned, well-acted and sometimes visually arresting picture that unfortunately features a primary character who is so foul and irredeemable it’s virtually impossible to believe certain happy-ending developments late in the film. It feels contrived and forced.

It’s essentially a stand-alone film, though it doesn’t really stand so much as it wobbles and careens all over the place before exploding in an overwrought orgy of grotesque images, religious psychobabble and second-rate CGI nonsense.

So many animated films are multi-layered efforts brimming with jokes only the adults will catch, but Spirit Untamed is pure and unbridled family fun, pardon the pun.

Director Michael Barnett’s “Changing the Game” is an expertly crafted, empathetic, journalistically sound documentary following three strong, bright, likable and admirably accessible and forthcoming transgender teen athletes.

Director Craig Gillespie (“Lars and the Real Girl,” “I, Tonya”) has delivered a clever, devilishly offbeat story with appropriately over-the-top and wildly entertaining performances from Emma Stone as the titular character and Emma Thompson as her nemesis, who is so casually cruel (in a manner of speaking), so cold and cunning, she makes Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada” look like the Employer of the Year.

A Quiet Place Part II might not carry quite the same original wallop as the original (how could it?), but this is a meticulously crafted, spine-tingling, fantastically choreographed monster movie that expands the canvas, works as a stand-alone story and leaves us wanting more from this franchise.

What makes Final Account so intriguing and, yes, so infuriating, is seeing and hearing from so many Germans who are near the end of their days and have somehow managed to make excuses, to rationalize, to distance themselves from the hell that was their homeland in the 1930s and 1940s.

We can see every plot point rounding the turn long before the finish line, but that’s OK, because we’re having a (dare I say it) jolly grand time every step of the way.

Smart, sly and subtle, Georgetown is in the tradition of Reversal of Fortune, The Informant! and Catch Me If You Can — fictionalized and stylized entertainment based on true crime events.

It spirals downward into a ludicrous, dumbed-down horror story more concerned with grossing out the audience than in providing any compelling reason for this long-running franchise to keep chugging along, leaving a trail of blood in its wake.

The Woman in the Window is filled with dramatic touches such as a dizzying overhead shot of a staircase, a skylight just begging for someone to come crashing through, pieces of evidence conveniently left lying about and visual references to far superior noir thrillers, including the aforementioned “Rear Window.” It’s also filled with cheap scares, false alarms, dumb cops, loud storms and tricky camera angles designed to make us feel as disoriented as Anna. The only thing those elements really succeed in doing is giving us a headache.

Director Sheridan and his co-writers Charles Leavitt and Michael Koryta (whose novel is the source material) have fashioned a thoroughly engrossing tale filled with memorable characters, dryly funny dialogue and show-stopping, often brutal confrontations in which the weapon of choice varies from semi-automatic firearms to a deer rifle to a fire extinguisher to handguns to an axe to bare fists, depending on the circumstances.

Despite an intriguing premise, it ultimately falls apart as the gimmick wears thin and the plot veers into ludicrous territory, with the heroine making a series of increasingly rash and idiotic decisions.

This is an unapologetically over-the-top, blood-soaked, orgy of stylized violence filled with familiar action-movie characters going through familiar action-movie paces, with a whole lot of CGI, a bounty of epic set-pieces and a borderline exhausting number of kills.

This is an A-list cast that consistently elevates the material, even when we’re traveling down some very familiar roads.

From the get-go, we have a pretty good sense of where The Water Man will take us, and while there are a few small surprises along the way, the real delight is the journey itself and how the real bond of a family is stronger than any monsters lurking in the dark.

Tired, uninspired and meandering, Wrath of Man is a step backward for Ritchie, a step sideways for the stoic-for-life Jason Statham (reteaming with Ritchie for the first time in 16 years) and a misstep for anyone who invests their time and money on 118 minutes of such convoluted and forgettable nonsense.

The laughs come at a rapid-fire pace, but the comedy sometimes veers into hokey, over-the-top set pieces.

Still, this is an involving and inspirational tale, highlighted by a Christopher Walken performance that is remarkably free of any showy tics or mannerisms and is a reminder Walken is a great actor first, a lovable caricature second.

The Amazon Prime original movie Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse has to be considered one of the more disappointing films of 2021 so far, given the long and rich history of entertaining adaptations of Clancy’s work and the vibrant star power of its leading man.

Things Heard & Seen has the requisite horror-movie look (deep shades of brown and orange, low camera angles, repeated glimpses of effectively creepy paintings and haunting photographs, religious symbolism everywhere) and Norton in particular is a hoot as just the worst person in the world — but still, Things Heard & Seen should be neither of those things.

Tony Hale took neurotic brilliance to the next level on Arrested Development and then Veep, and he’s squarely in his comfort zone playing another cringe-inducing, socially awkward and hilariously tone-deaf character in the offbeat charmer Eat Wheaties!, one of the most endearing movies about light stalking you’ll ever see.

The mother-daughter dynamic in Four Good Days is powerful and lasting and devastating and maybe the thing that will help Molly save her life.

Mr. Henson left behind a body of work that continues to endure today, but a great deal of his legacy remains on Sesame Street, and this film tells us exactly how he and everyone else got there.

This is an unapologetically violent video-game-turned-movie, filled with gore and also brimming with flat dialogue, whether it’s big-picture speechifying or mostly lame attempts at snappy, action-movie banter. One might reasonably surmise longtime fans of Mortal Kombat would have a better time playing the latest version of the game than watching this origins story.

Penna and his co-writer Ryan Morrison handle this existentially challenging material with grace, and Kendrick, Collette, Kim and Anderson deliver equally impactful, intense performances.

The dialogue is peppered with funny one-liners that occasionally sound a little too spot-on (we can almost see the dialogue leaping off the page), but Helms and Harrison have slipped so seamlessly into their characters and are so good at making every line reading seem real and spontaneous, we stay involved.

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.

Many scenes are bathed in a sickly green, as if we’re watching everything through cheap night-vision goggles; others are tinted blood-red. No matter what filters are used, there’s no disguising this is garbage wrapped in a glossy package.

Problem is, the more we know about these two, the less we care about what happens to them.

It’s always a shame when a group of talented humans get together and deliver something that comes across as a halfhearted effort, even if they poured their blood, sweat and tears into it.

For at least half a movie, it’s a wildly entertaining concept with some pretty good payoffs and there was a chance we’d have the best B-movie in recent memory, but then the story takes the easy way out and we’re left wondering why they didn’t ride the original idea all the way to the finish line.

This is a warmhearted and borderline corny story we’ve seen hundreds of times before, but the backdrop for this tale is certainly unusual, and pretty special.

Pfeiffer is delivering one of the best performances of her career as the complex and formidable and deeply sad Frances, but she’s like a world-class basketball player stuck on the court with a bunch of weekend amateurs. There’s no one to give her a decent game.

Director Olson and her team have done an amazing job of weaving together the cell phone footage into a cohesive timeline of a stunning crisis in the nascent days of the pandemic that shook the world.

Godzilla vs. Kong is the kind of movie you can pretty much forget about almost instantly after you’ve seen it — but it’s also the kind of movie that makes you forget about everything else in your life while you’re watching it.

Shatner and Smart have a comfortable chemistry, and it IS nice to see a movie romance between two people who remember the 1960s. It’s just too bad they’re in a vehicle that isn’t nearly as impressive as that vintage Porsche.

Through a treasure trove of archival footage, interviews with former backup singers and songwriters and other associates of Tina’s, as well as a series of interviews filmed with Turner (who is now 81) at her Shangri-La-esque chateau in Zurich, Tina is must-see for longtime fans and, perhaps more important, millennials who might not grasp just how much of an influence Tina Turner has been on generations of performers — regardless of gender.

Most impressive of all is Odenkirk, who looks and sounds nothing like an action star until it’s time for Hutch to become an action star, and we totally believe this physically unimpressive, normally mild-mannered guy as a simmering cauldron of rage who could take that teapot over there and kill ya with it.

The Vault isn’t airtight, but it works as a slick piece of escapist entertainment.

There’s nothing inherently wrong in leaving some things open-ended, but Happily opts out of giving us answers in such a flippant, off-hand manner that we feel betrayed for investing in the story to that moment.

Still, in large part due to the stellar work from Depp and Whitaker, this is a valuable and somewhat illuminating look back at the senseless, stunning killings of two rap icons just six months apart.

If there’s such a thing as a Cold War Comfort Movie and let’s say there is, The Courier fits the bill perfectly, ticking off many of the familiar boxes of the genre.

Like Superman when he’s first brought back to life, the new Justice League isn’t necessarily better than the original, but it’s different and darker, markedly so.

Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admission Scandal is a documentary, yet Matthew Modine does some of the most oddly compelling work of his career in a fully realized performance in this movie.

A valuable and unique rewind glimpse of what it was like to be a teenage celebrity in the pre-Instagram era.

Such a brilliant, spine-tingling buildup — and such a thudding disappointment of an ending. Watching the creatively creepy and starkly haunting Come True is like going to see a great new band in concert and seeing them kill it for the first 90 minutes, only to end the night dressed in wacky costumes and playing bagpipes.

A nice little gem of escapist entertainment that keeps us guessing until the very end, which is corny as all get-out and maybe I even got something in my eye.

This is one of the most painfully realistic depictions of dementia in recent film history, and yes, that means The Father can be a tough viewing experience at times — but how can one be anything but grateful for the chance to see one of the world’s greatest actors doing such enormously moving work past his 80th birthday?

In the borderline trifling but consistently amusing and wry period piece My Salinger Year, Qualley has the opportunity to carry the story, and she delivers an effortlessly endearing performance in a literary adventure that plays like The Devil Wears Prada meets Can You Ever Forgive Me, only at lower stakes.

Alas, the basketball scenes and the basketball talk in this basketball movie continually bounce the wrong way, and there’s no overcoming that.

After all these years, the land of Zamunda is still the world capital of comedy.

This is Grillo’s film to carry, and he pulls it off with a combination of brute force and light charm.

This adaptation of the young adult science fiction novel “The Knife of Never Letting Go” (the first in a trilogy) is sunk by the nearly unwatchable and unlistenable execution of the main premise.

A visually arresting, consistently entertaining story featuring a host of endearing and memorable characters. Everyone in the ensemble is excellent, but the standout is Awkwafina, who does some of the best animated voice work I’ve ever heard.

This is a film that pulls off the difficult balancing act of carrying an important and uplifting message while delivering consistent laughs and introducing us to some wonderfully badass teens.

A clumsy, off-putting, uninvolving hybrid of domestic tragedy and sci-fi drama with zero payoffs and one of the most infuriating codas of any movie this century.

It’s an ambitious reach, and the talented cast of mostly familiar names is game for the challenge, but Crisis goes over the top with too many key plot developments. The end result is a serious case of Messaging Exhaustion.

Andra Day looks and sounds like every inch the movie star in the performance numbers and when Billie enjoys rare moments of peace and happiness offstage — and she is equally, heartbreakingly believable as Billie’s appearance deteriorates and her soul is crushed by years of drug abuse, and a lifetime of being physically and emotionally battered by a series of men who looked at this amazing, glorious, singular star and saw little more than a cash register.

Writer-director Kerem Sanga has a knack for delivering arresting, noir-like visuals, especially from medium- and long-shot distance, and the talented cast gamely tries to sell the material, but The Violent Heart is so muddled there are times we have to remind ourselves of the connection between certain characters, and the histrionics so over the top we’re hoping everyone will just take a deep breath and CALM THE HECK DOWN.

Even though Eilish has been a ubiquitous presence on the pop culture landscape for the last few years, this movie serves as an intimate and revealing filmed document.

Harsh times and heartbreak abound in the Russo brothers’ gritty addiction epic Cherry, but there’s poetry in the language of the script and in certain moments of wonder and hope, of dark comedy, of love and redemption.

A relatively breezy and slick slice of entertainment, with a fast-pace style befitting the material and expertly calibrated performances from the ensemble cast.

Writer-director John Swab is clearly influenced by films such as the The Big Short and his grasp sometimes exceeds his reach as he indulges in a few too many stylized touches and meandering subplots, but Body Brokers keeps us in its grips throughout.

A vicious and cheerfully twisted psychological thriller dripping in deception and dread, bathed in pop-art colors and infused with a wickedly dark sense of humor.

Writer-director Chung and the production team have delivered a sepia-toned memory piece that never sugarcoats the culture clashes in and out of the Yi household and yet remains hopeful in tone throughout, reminding us of the power of family and of the Great American Dream.

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.

A somewhat convoluted and occasionally formulaic but disturbingly effective legal political procedural.

Although sometimes convoluted and occasionally implausible, this is a well-filmed and ambitiously creative first effort from writer-producer-director Ravin Gandhi.

If you miss this film, you are robbing yourself of one of the great movie-watching experiences of your life.

Despite that not-intriguing title and some late developments that come precariously close to piling on the sentimentality, this is ultimately a breathtakingly beautiful, stark and deeply human story about love and loss, and the extreme measures some will take to numb their pain.

Life in a Day 2020 is an affirmation of life, of the simple joys experienced by citizens of the planet over the course of a single day. We’d never have met any of them without this film, and we’re grateful for the opportunity to get to know them a little bit.

This is an old-fashioned and borderline corny biopic that looks like it could have been made 40 years ago — but it’s also a true-life story about a man who denounced his racist lineage and dedicated himself to the cause, a man who is still with us today, and it’s a story well worth telling.

A lovingly compiled tribute to a groundbreaking comedian and actor who was adored by his colleagues and loved by the fans — but wrestled with alcoholism for decades, eventually succumbing to symptoms brought on by the disease.

The well-intentioned drama never makes the case why a decent man would stay close to his detestable father.

Trippy and entertaining mind-bender.

Levinson’s dense and richly layered, albeit sometimes overly theatrical, script affords Washington and Zendaya multiple opportunities to showcase their considerable talents and for the discourse to expand beyond the fraying relationship.

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.

We know we’re being manipulated from time to time, but the messaging is so earnest and the performances are so heartfelt, we’re willing to go with it. Call it a Comfort Movie.

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.

Malek and Washington are electric together in this atmospheric, moody thriller that will keep you guessing and on the edge of the proverbial seat (or living room sofa). You won’t be able to shake this one off for a very long time.

Watts is such a chameleon of an actress, such a pro at slipping into a vast array of roles without drawing attention to the mechanics of her work, that we almost take for granted how damn good she is — and she delivers beautiful and resonant work as Sam.

It’s a tribute to the amazing and fantastically perplexing and singularly mind-blowing Hulu film “In & of Itself” that even though a few of the feats performed by magician/actor/storyteller/performance artist Derek DelGaudio in his one man-show could be explained away by the use of special effects (which DelGaudio does NOT employ, as far as we can tell), most of it just seems ... Magical.

For a movie called The Marksman, we rarely Jim actually demonstrating his marksmanship, as we’re left with Neeson again doing extended, hand-to-hand combat with a much younger, cockier foe who has no idea what he’s up against.

Conor Allyn’s No Man’s Land is filled with noble ideas about the value of listening to and learning from the “other side” in the immigration crisis, but as it becomes increasingly heavy-handed, we feel as if we’re sitting in on a lecture.

It’s an uneven but memorable tale about a young man with impressive survival instincts and a conscience that shifts to fit the circumstances.

Our Friend occasionally goes overboard on the sentiment. But thanks in large part to Segel’s huggable-bear persona, Affleck’s typically steady work and Dakota Johnson turning in perhaps the most impressive performance of her career, the laughs and the tears feel quite real.

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.

Not that Frank is without talent or without charm. He’s still out there performing, and he’s got a hell of a voice, and he sure has a way with a story.

Essentially an extended infomercial but works as a breezy, slightly goofy, occasional touching and infectiously upbeat slice of entertainment

One Night in Miami is filled with profoundly impactful exchanges, and a sprinkling of edgy, comedic observations.

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.

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.

With a richly layered and resonant screenplay by Kata Wéber, surehanded direction from Mundruczó and a stunningly authentic performance by Vanessa Kirby (“The Crown”) sure to garner an Oscar nomination, Pieces of a Woman is a stark and unforgettable character study about love and loss, and what loss does to love, and how some tragedies are so devastating, so huge, the survivors will never be the same.

As the plot twists grow increasingly ridiculous and some of the main characters have to act like complete idiots just to keep the story rambling along, “Fatale” commits the crime of somehow becoming tedious and dull even as the body count piles up.

The deeper Shadow in the Cloud dives into sci-fi fantasy territory, the more we’re asked to just go with it and enjoy the spectacularly choreographed action sequences — but thanks in large part to Moretz’s ferociously effective work, we’re all too happy to take that zany ride.

Here is a strikingly beautiful, bold, funny, heart-tugging otherworldly journey almost dizzying in its multi-leveled complexity, and yet containing the simplest and most enduring Capra-esque messages about how we don’t know what we’ve got until it’s gone, and how we should embrace every waking moment because it can all vanish in the blink of an eye.

Though aimed at a young audience, this is one of those superhero adventures that will keep the adults entertained as well.

The Midnight Sky is a waking dream that keeps you in its grips.

Like the great Douglas Sirk melodramas of that time period, Sylvie’s Love is unabashedly sentimental and just gorgeous to behold — but the difference here is the terrific ensemble cast is primarily Black and Latinx.

Writer-director Amy Miller Gross clearly is a competent director and has a fine ear for dialogue; it feels as if “Sister of the Groom” exists in the real world. Alas, it’s not a world where you’d want to hang out, unless your thing is watching selfish narcissists do verbal and sometimes physical battle over decidedly First World Problems.

Boseman is in utter command of his character. It is a beautiful, sad, wonderful, bittersweet thing to behold.

While this worshipful documentary breaks no new ground and often seems like little more than a glorified IMDB bio accompanied by video, it serves as a lovely and valuable reminder of Hepburn’s unique star power and grace in front of the camera — and her kindness and tireless work for the less fortunate long after she had kissed the cinema a fond farewell.

The cast is outstanding, with Mikkelsen leading the way in a nomination-level performance as Martin. Another Round is filled with memorable sequences.

In the stunningly tone-deaf and horrifically unfunny The Very Excellent Mister Dundee, Hogan plays himself in a “Curb Your Enthusiasm”-esque conceit gone terribly wrong.

Unlike the typical, effects-laden, comet-threatens-the-planet B-movie, Greenland is more in the vein of Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds,” with the scenes of chaos and destruction serving as the backdrop for the story of one family’s desperate quest for survival — even when circumstances have ripped them apart.

To be sure, we get a classic comic book movie storyline about a megalomaniacal madman intent on taking over the world, but there’s often a relatively light tone to the proceedings. This is a throwback piece of pure pop entertainment.

This is a sometimes wrenching and draining film, but it’s also a powerful and ultimately deeply moving tribute to a group of good and decent men who have been emotionally and, in some cases, physically wounded by war but refuse to surrender.

With spare and precise dialogue that often sounds inspired by Dashiell Hammett, a labyrinthine story with a few heart-stopping twists and pitch-perfect performances by Brosnahan and the supporting cast, this is one of the best movies of the year.

We’ll eventually see dozens if not hundreds of projects using the pandemic as a plot point. Songbird will be among the least memorable.

Streep kills each of her numbers (no surprise there), while Jo Ellen Pellman more than holds her own with the big-name stars and gives the story its heart and smile with her empathetic portrayal of Emma.

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

Wild Mountain Thyme comes close to winning our hearts based on the performances and the lush County Mayo scenery and the sheer romanticism of it all, but writer-director Shanley keeps us at arm’s distance in the climactic sequences, when we should be swept up in the story of Rosemary and Anthony but we’re left exasperated at the forced eccentricity of it all.

Coppola intended the third film to be an epilogue that serves to sum up and bring closure to the original saga, and this recut to breathe new life into the picture. He has achieved just that.

You’ll hear the warning bells signifying a Category 5 Pretentiousness Alert right from the start of the ponderous and stiff psychological drama “Elyse,” and it’s not a false alarm.

Director April Mullen shoots Wander like a kinetic horror film, which results in some pretty cool sequences but also far too many quick-cut flashbacks to the deadly auto accident, which results in us feeling more annoyed and manipulated than intrigued.

Suffice to say Levine has fashioned a twist-filled gem that leaves us a bit drained but also a little bit exhilarated by all its peaks and valleys and sharp curves.

Pour a cup of cheer and toast filmmaker Dana Nachman for telling the stories of some of these elves and the families who have benefitted from the fruits of their tireless volunteer labor in Dear Santa, a sprightly feel-good documentary that comes at a time when we could use a lift — and serves as a reminder there are an awful lot of truly good people in this world.

The title gives fair warning. If you watch this movie, you’re in for an absolute, unmitigated, cringe-inducing, “WHAT IN GOD’S NAME WERE THEY THINKING?” disaster.

When the material in Uncle Frank wades into soapy, melodramatic waters, the performances are pure and powerful.

You wouldn’t want to spend five minutes with these insufferably juvenile jerks, let alone an entire movie.

Writer-director DuVall is a talented filmmaker and she keeps the mostly superficial story humming along at an entertaining pace, and the cast is terrific and gets the maximum value out of the material.

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.

This is an unabashedly sentimental, family-friendly mashup of “A Christmas Carol” with “It’s a Wonderful Life,” sure to leave you smiling and maybe even a little teary-eyed.

Run is stopped dead in its tracks by a howler of a screenplay that regularly calls for various characters to behave as stupidly as the dumbest victim in a splatter movie.

Mangrove is an invaluable work enlightening us on an important chapter in Black history across the pond.

Mank is the kind of movie that makes you want to go back and re-watch not only “Citizen Kane” but the works of other characters featured in this story.

Fatman skids and slides and careens between genres and never finds solid footing in any one place, and ultimately winds up as an interesting failed experiment.

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.

The climactic scenes when all hell breaks loose are gripping and enthralling, and in the midst of all the blood, sweat and tears, Joel Kinnaman is kicking ass and taking names in true action movie-star fashion.

This is a film so sweet it might give you a contact sugar rush, but it features two inherently likable, great-looking romantic leads, a fine supporting performance by the always reliable Virginia Madsen, a timeless true-meaning-of-Christmas message — and a genuinely cinematic style, mostly because the movie was actually filmed on Andrews Air Force base in Guam and the surrounding beaches and jungles and islands.

While it is unabashedly sentimental and at times goes over the top with the symbolic melodramatic devices, it is a beautifully shot and heartwarming film, and the 86-year-old Loren is magnificent and regal and fierce and funny and beautiful and screen-commanding throughout.

This is a nifty little gem in the heist genre, with the familiar message about the perils of greed and always wanting more and more and even more.

Hillbilly Elegy is a beautifully constructed, unforgiving, heart-tugging family epic about three generations of the Vance family.

The abrupt tonal shifts may throw some viewers for a loop, but when the confrontations segue from tense verbal exchanges to sudden bursts of violence, it feels authentic and organic to the foundation laid down in the first half of the film.

There’s a terrifically entertaining sequence late in the film that plays like an homage to a certain element of the original “Poltergeist,” and a thrilling and nerve-wracking extended final sequence that will put you on the edge of the proverbial seat.

An excruciatingly cheesy, hopelessly dated, profoundly unfunny and tone-deaf romantic comedy about an intelligent, hard-working, likable and lovely woman.

The Craft: Legacy is a smart, edgy, wickedly funny and wild ride from the talented writer-director Zoe Lister-Jones.

Through the psychedelic journeys and the blood-spattered crime scenes and the brooding atmosphere, Synchronic is at heart a good old-fashioned buddy movie about two friends who will risk all for each other.