Richard Roeper

Sacha Baron Cohen remains a fearless and funny comedic force, and Maria Bakalova is hilarious and endearing as Tutar. We also get a clever twist ending and I’ll say no more than that. Borat is an idiot, but “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” ends on a pretty smart note.

With a running time of 1 hour 55 minutes, Bad Hair might have benefited from a quick trim (sorry), and it’s a real mess at times, but you won’t soon shake off its genuinely scary and originally twisted delight

The special effects are first-rate and the performances are way over the top yet entertaining, but The Witches is far too disturbing for young children and not edgy enough to captivate adults.

The Devil Has a Name is a master class in casting.

Even a warmed-over, behind-the-times Woody Allen script is going to contain some choice one-liners, and this is a superb cast that knows how to put the right spin on clever dialogue — even when they’re playing thinly drawn characters in a dated and unnecessary story.

It’s funny as hell in a drive-in splatter movie kind of way, smart and insightful and respectful in its depiction of modern-day teens, brimming with sly and satiric social commentary — and legitimately profound.

The argument about whether Sandler is terrible or talented has long been settled. The answer is both.

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.

More than a half-century after first taking the stage, “The Boys in the Band” still leaves us with so much to think about, so much to feel, so much to consider.

Even the smaller touches in Save Yourselves! ring true.

As the plot grows increasingly convoluted and borderline laughable, Chastain is steady as she goes, playing a character who’s worthy of a film franchise in a movie nowhere near deserving a sequel. Odds are we’ll never see Ava again, and that’s a shame because, with a better script and more inspired direction, she could have been a contender.

Certain events are rearranged from the factual timelines, and yes, The Trial of the Chicago 7 exercises poetic license. This is not a documentary; it’s a dramatization of events that resonates with great power while containing essential truths, and it’s one of the best movies of the year.

Following the playbook of “The Full Monty,” “Calendar Girls,” “Military Wives,” et al., Misbehaviour achieves just the right mix of farcical humor, dry wit and the obligatory dramatic moments when the light banter and sight gags give way to Poignant Confrontations reminding us there are serious undertones to this breezy romp.

This is one of the better intimate dramas of the year.

The Way I See It tells Souza’s remarkable story in straightforward and effective fashion, as even Souza himself seems surprised at the turn his life has taken.

The pairing of Law and Coon as a married couple doing an extended love/hate dance in The Nest results in an absolute master class in acting.

That this is such a well-made production, with passionate and strong performances from the stellar cast, makes it all the more exasperating. What a missed opportunity

Foster Boy certainly follows the legal thriller blueprint, sometimes to credulity-stretching limits — but this is a solid and important story about systematic abuse within the foster care system, featuring an outstanding cast including a half-dozen seasoned veterans who know how to sell even the most melodramatic moments.

The material can get awfully sudsy and we can see a couple of the big reveals coming two scenes in advance, but on balance this is a well-written, moving story bolstered by an outstanding cast.

At first, the jigsaw puzzle seems needlessly difficult to solve, but once all the pieces are in place and we see the big picture, we’re left with admiration for director/co-writer Antonio Campos’ ability to weave a memorably brooding film from Donald Ray Pollock’s novel of the same name.

We learn all kinds of illuminating factoids.

Reddy’s story is given the standard, time-honored biopic treatment in I Am Woman, which checks off just about every cliché imaginable — and yet wins us over, in large part due to the star-power performance of Tilda Cobham-Hervey as Reddy.

Geraldine Viswanathan, fresh off her scene-stealing turn as the intrepid high school newspaper reporter in “Bad Education,” gives a knockout performance.

Beautiful. Even on the small screen. Yes, it’s a shame that American audiences won’t be able to see Niki Caro’s spectacular live-action epic “Mulan” in theaters, but the good news is this is such a great-looking film, with amazing set pieces and dazzling action and colors so vibrant they would dazzle a Crayola factory, it will still play well on your home monitor.

The material is pretty thin and some of the jokes get repetitive, but Get Duked! is good stoner comedy fun, and quite the promising debut from a rookie filmmaker.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things is crazy good.

The result is just a bigger, louder, more special effects-laden extension of a franchise that skated on pretty thin ice the first two times around.

There’s no doubting Arquette’s sincere desire to learn the sport and craft of wrestling, to get into shape, to resuscitate his career, to make his family proud. We’re still rooting for the guy.

It offers some valuable insights into Trump’s behavior, and offers a compelling counterargument to some widely accepted notions about whether or not psychiatrists should even be allowed to comment on the mental health of individuals they have not personally treated.

In the flourishing genre of faith-based movies, this is one of the better efforts we’ve seen.

Take the “smart” out of “Booksmart,” the “super” out of “Superbad” and the edge out of “The Purge,” and you get the Hulu movie The Binge, one of the worst comedies of this or any other year, notable only because it features what might just be the most terrible performance in Vince Vaughn’s up-and-down career, and I say that with no glee because I’m a Vince Vaughn guy.

The 24th is an important reminder of a dark chapter in American history.

Tenet reaches for cinematic greatness and, though it doesn’t quite reach that lofty goal, it’s the kind of film that reminds us of the magic of the moviegoing experience.

Armando Iannucci (creator of HBO’s “Veep”) transforms Charles Dickens’ masterful but often dour and cumbersome 624-page Victorian novel into a brilliant piece of entertainment that often plays like “Alice in Wonderland” as interpreted by Monty Python.

I found it to be a fantastically creative, fourth-wall-breaking, pop-art waking dream.

There are times the family-friendly slapstick comedy and heavy messaging about the heartbreak of animals in tight, dark, cold captivity don’t exactly mesh. But the visuals are truly impressive and the story has an uplifting arc, and oh do these actors have fun hamming it up.

Words on Bathroom Walls has its moments and its heart is in the right place, but the missteps are too many and too big for the story to carry the day.

You feel a hurricane of emotions watching Barbara Kopple’s brilliant and searing documentary Desert One.

The young and attractive cast does a fine job of selling the ridiculous plot developments; it’s probably great fun to make a drive-in horror film complete with gallons of fake blood and one character after another biting the dust in creative fashion. Plus, Danny Trejo!

Russell Crowe is an A-list star in a B-movie, but to his credit it never feels as if he’s slumming it.

Cut Throat City ends on a note that’s too clever by half, but that doesn’t undercut all the vibrant, rough-edged, impressive storytelling that led to that moment.

The overwrought score and the Orwellian themes announce “Barbarians” as a prestige project brimming with Big Ideas, but it’s ultimately stilted and didactic, and more than a bit nasty.

For every moment of inspiration and hope in the teen-political documentary Boys State, when you find yourself thinking, By gosh, the kids are all right, there are at least two jaw-dropping instances of 16- and 17-year-olds compromising their values with such cynicism you weep for our future.

Every frame of the film is bursting with sensory overload information, from the shaky, hand-held camera angles to the constant scrolling of viewer messages to the occasional use of split screens.

A vibrant and crazy and thought-provoking and immensely entertaining film that could have been even more resonant had it not settled for a relatively conventional final act we’ve seen in dozens of thrillers.

The Tax Collector is an underachieving, exceedingly violent urban gangster film with a meandering storyline and a contrived final twist.

She Dies Tomorrow is a well-crafted, beautifully acted, minimalist gem for our times.

Spinster isn’t a particularly visually arresting film, nor is it bursting with memorable and colorful supporting players. It’s simply an effective vehicle for Chelsea Peretti to expand upon her smart/cynical persona to include some genuine heart and likability as well.

This is no piece of pretentious fluff. It’s a grim and nasty but wickedly entertaining bit of business, seasoned with sharp little plot turns before an admittedly ludicrous but dramatically satisfying twist-on-top-of-a-twist ending.

There’s little in the way of originality in Work It, but there’s a fresh, upbeat, infectious vibe to the silliness, thanks in large part to the talented and likable cast of young actors.

Rogen does a remarkably fine job in creating two distinct characters.

[An] uplifting and inspirational and just plain cool documentary.

[A] comprehensive and expertly rendered documentary.

A wildly entertaining, over-the-top, blood-soaked, noir-Western from director/co-writer Scott Wiper that’s filled with stunning visuals of the breathtaking and sometimes foreboding countryside (with Morehead, Kentucky, standing in for West Virginia) and searing performances from the ensemble cast.

Janet Montgomery is heartbreakingly good as Emma.

Throughout, the always likable Gillian Jacobs creates a memorable portrayal of a woman who’s a mess but still rather wonderful.

This is a movie with a deeply split personality, and despite some flashes of creativity from a talented director and cast, neither the straightforward biography nor the flights of creative fancy are particularly resonant.

This powerful and well-acted story might have been much more effective if told in strictly linear fashion.

The performances and the production design are first-rate, but even at 74 minutes, Guest Artist is an overly talky, at times outdated and cliché-riddled two-hander that wears out its welcome by the halfway mark.

For all its sharp barbs at Catholic school hypocrisy and its frank depictions of masturbation and teenage hook-ups, Yes, God, Yes somehow retains a breezy and upbeat and even sweet disposition, thanks to the light touch of writer-director Karen Maine and an absolutely winning performance by “Stranger Things” star Natalia Dyer.

This is a dark and brutal cautionary tale that traffics in any number of familiar scary-movie touchstones, but does so in consistently clever and entertaining fashion.

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.

To call this a Netflix Original movie is only half-correct. True, it’s on Netflix, but no, there’s nothing original about this uninspired knockoff of “Fatal Attraction” (even the title and the poster borrow from that 1987 classic of the genre), which is marred by stilted dialogue, predictable plot turns and surprisingly halfhearted performances from a talented cast that acts as if they know this is slick garbage and they’re just trying to make it through the shoot so they can call their respective agents and say, “We need to talk.”

In the bland and outdated and curiously tame would-be sex rom-com “A Nice Girl Like You,” Hale once again tries her gosh-darndest to sell the material — but even though this toothless yawner is based on a real-life memoir, every single frame feels artificial and forced.

This is an artist’s coming-of-age story featuring a wonderful actress who’s unfortunately not right for the role; a shambling screenplay that has characters wandering in and out of the story as if in search of their own movie, and not one but two of the most off-putting patriarchal figures in recent memory.

Relic is the feel-dread movie of the year.

This is a rousing and satisfying actioner that occasionally gets bogged down in complicated exposition but presents some intriguing twists on time-honored themes about the double-edged sword of immortality.

The formula has rarely been mined to such resounding success. This is one of the funniest movies of the year AND one of the most romantic movies as well.

Filmmakers Cristina Constantini and Kareem Tabsch have fashioned an illuminating and insightful documentary/biography.

Lurie has fashioned a worthy tribute to these brave American soldiers, some of whom paid the ultimate price.

The modern retelling retains little of the charm and whimsy of the source material, in favor of a cloying story, a most unwelcome new character and some pretty cheesy special effects.

While The Greyhound pays great attention to detail and feels authentic, especially in the claustrophobic and intense scenes in the bowels of the ship, the battle sequences that look like something straight out of a video game dominate the movie and keep us at a safe distance from getting emotionally involved on a level this story deserves.

The filmed version of the Broadway sensation makes for immersive, exhilarating, magnificent cinema, almost sure to thrill first-time viewers as well as diehard fanatics who have seen the stage production once or twice or a dozen times.

Force of Nature is more of a nasty little rainstorm than a Category 5 anything.

I won’t divulge any more so you can experience the cool madness of The 11th Green for yourself. Suffice to say it’s out of this world.

This forgettable film is too rough for younger kids and too stupid for the grown-ups.

This is a relatively gentle indictment of the cynical, money-driven political system, bolstered by winning performances from the ensemble cast. The insightful screenplay by Stewart takes Hollywood’s tendency to condescend to small-town America and turns it upside down in clever fashion.

Deadly serious people are involved in deadly serious business in “Wasp Network,” and there’s an air of importance and urgency to their every move, and we should be utterly immersed in this story — but we’re not. Not even close.

With all the wonderful supporting performances, the true standout is Sabrina Carpenter, an actress-singer from TV’s “Girl Meets World,” who infuses Nola with such heart and such authenticity and such resolve.

This is a film that provides more questions than answers but leaves plenty of food for thought.

In the funny and insightful and loosely structured comedy/drama 2 Minutes of Fame, Pharoah plays an aspiring stand-up comic not unlike the young Jay Pharoah, which presents the opportunity for him to trot out some of his Greatest Hits impersonations — but he also proves to be a more than capable actor.

Unfortunately, not even Gordon-Levitt’s stellar work can sustain a well-made but ultimately underwhelming docudrama from first-time German writer-director Patrick Vollrath.

Director Carl Hunter infuses Sometimes Always Never with creative visual touches, whether he’s using graphics to illustrate certain Scrabble words, or shooting a poignant scene through a patterned glass door, so we feel the emotions of the character in question just through the movement of his silhouette.

Though it would have been lovely to take in the lavish set pieces and the cool CGI creations and the whiz-bang action sequences on the big screen, Artemis Fowl still plays well as a warm and funny and entertaining at-home family viewing experience.

Director Lee and the team of writers have created an immersive, violent and sometimes shocking tapestry that plays out like “Deer Hunter” meets “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” with a steady undercurrent of subtle and not-so-subtle social and political commentary.

Davidson delivers a fully realized, nuanced performance, tackling dark comedy and raw drama with equal aplomb.

Becky is a deeply fractured fairy tale that leaves logic at the door and revels in elaborate set pieces that usually wind up with someone maimed or dead.

Tommaso has an appealing, casually messy, docu-style approach, as if we’re eavesdropping on these lives.

Spelling the Dream is a fresh take on the competition, focusing largely on the phenomenon of Indian-American dominance over the last quarter-century.

The uniquely talented director Josephine Decker (“Madeline’s Madeline”) and the screenwriter Sarah Gubbins (adapting a 2014 novel by Susan Scarf Merrell) have teamed up with a two-generational quartet of fine actors to create one of the most visually arresting and intellectually provocative films of the year.

This is lovely little gem.

It feels as if about 50% of this movie accurately captures the music business, while the other half is a fluffy confection of pure fantasy — and that’s a formula that works perfectly in an escapist film such as this.

Thanks to the sure-handed, fast-paced work and creative framing by director Michael Showalter (an alum of “The State” who helmed the Nanjiani-starring “The Big Sick”); a clever screenplay by Aaron Abrams and Brendan Gall, and the impeccable comedic timing of Nanjiani and Rae, The Lovebirds is one of the funniest movies of 2020.

Even though there’s a tragic offscreen death and a devastatingly brutal confrontation scene between the two leads, Military Wives is like that one friend of yours who’s always in a good mood and is forever lifting everyone’s spirits, even at somber occasions and during the toughest of times.

The occasionally clever dialogue and the peppy voice performances are the best things about Scoob!, but not nearly enough to overcome the loud and convoluted overall tone.

It’s potentially fresh and unique material, but from the first scenes through the tone-deaf conclusion, Capone is a noxious film about a noxious man — a gruesome and grotesque viewing experience that tells us nothing new about Capone while rubbing our noses in one detestable scene after another. By the time we get to a typically overblown scene in which a diaper-wearing Capone wields a gold-plated Tommy Gun while on a shooting spree, we surrender.

For every sobering note, Becoming has a dozen uplifting moments.

Gerety delivers a performance that is simply great.

Working from a clever if occasionally convoluted screenplay by David Golden, director Michael M. Scott has fashioned a classic cautionary tale about two seemingly good and smart people who make some dumb decisions when greed and opportunity come knocking.

Jackman does a magnificent job of portraying a man who has been lying so long on so many fronts, even he isn’t sure of the truth any longer.

It’s a shame this real crowd-pleaser won’t be playing to crowds, but it still works as a Friday night, pop-the-popcorn, living room entertainment.

As the quarantine continues, this is a great time to revisit or introduce yourself to some of the most iconic cult films ever, and the three-part series “Time Warp” (the first episode debuts Tuesday on multiple streaming platforms) is a breezy and insightful look at dozens of wonderfully strange, sometimes campy, often hilarious, exceedingly endearing favorites.

The screenplay packs a punch and a sharp bite, the visuals are dazzling, the camerawork captures the fever-dream madness of the story — and the performances from the young cast (and a few solid veterans) are spot-on.

One of the pure joys of this job is experiencing a breakout performance or discovering a new director destined for great things. Saint Frances gives us both.

It’s almost astonishing how unfunny this movie is, given the talents of primary cast members Ed Helms, Taraji P. Henson, Betty Gilpin and David Alan Grier. They’re all troupers and they dive headfirst into the material, but the dialogue they’re delivering and the situations they’re mired in make it impossible to wring even a smile, let alone a legitimate laugh, from the material.

Corny? Absolutely. Sincere and spiritual? Yes.

Sean Hayes is a droll delight as Susan, who uses cynicism and snappy put-downs as a defense mechanism but has a real heart.

We forgive Elephant its conceits because it’s such a joy to observe the rituals of these incredible, amazing creatures.

To the credit of Orley’s screenplay and Davidson’s smiling-devil performance as the charming but toxic Zeke, we can understand how a vulnerable teen could mistake a loser for a legend — and we’re rooting like hell for the kid to realize that mistake before it’s too late.

Directors LeBrecht and Newnham do a nimble job of threading the stories of a number of campers into a compelling narrative, deftly moving back and forth from the newsreel-style footage from the 1970s and the interviews and life updates on the campers many decades later.

Nearly every step of the way, Stargirl finds just the right notes to find the right side of the line between precious and lovely, between arbitrary and plausible, between serendipitous and condescendingly magical.

Frantically overcooked, bursting with headache-inducing, rapid-cut action sequences and only half as clever as it fancies itself, Bloodshot is an ambitious and intermittently entertaining minor-league superhero film.

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.

The gifted director Kelly Reichardt (“Old Joy,” “Wendy and Lucy,” “Meeks Cutoff”) adds to her impressive canon of minimalist, Oregon-set treasures with an immersive and deceptively simple and uniquely original frontier morality play set in the unforgiving Pacific Northwest of the 1820s.

Nothing incendiary to see here, folks. Just a mostly forgettable, slow-season splatter movie.

It’s a fantastically over-the-top, drive-in B-movie for the streaming generation.

All the players in The Misogynists sound as if they’ve been handed talking points instead of a screenplay.

To Annette Bening’s credit, she finds just the right notes to illustrate Grace’s capacity for love, as well as her special gift for never letting up and driving you a little bit crazy.

Michael Winterbottom (“The Claim,” “24 Hour Party People,” “Code 46”) is a wonderfully gifted and versatile director, so it comes as no small surprise Greed is such a thudding. one-note takedown of a fictional avaricious fashion mogul.

The story fluctuates between the uninspired and the just plain weird — and then gets even weirder. It’s too basic and familiar to keep parents and older children consistently entertained, and too trippy and existential for the little ones.

This is a film brimming with essential truth about the events at hand, and it delivers an impactful but also entertainingly resonant message. It’s also a crackling good, emotionally satisfying, old-fashioned thriller, with readily identifiable heroes and hiss-worthy villains.

It’s a tart little gem, bolstered by a bounty of clever and winning performances.

Elisabeth Moss delivers the best performance of her film career, carrying the story every step of the way.

There’s something wonderful, albeit borderline shameless, about a movie that gives Billy Crystal a hall pass to indulge his corniest instincts, from his character’s gimmicky hat to his karaoke scenes to his baseball-influenced memories.

Ordinary Love gets everything right, but there’s almost nothing in the way of a major plot revelation or insightful flashback explaining certain elements from the past.

Most problematic of all is the character of fictional FBI Agent Jack Solomon (Jack O’Connell), who is tasked with leading the surveillance and digging up dirt on Seberg and becomes deeply conflicted about his job.

Ford gives a grounded, quietly powerful performance as a reclusive, regret-filled, self-pitying old-timer who crawls out of a bottle and finds a renewed sense of purpose when he sees the world through Buck’s eyes. If only those eyes weren’t so distractingly incongruous.

This is a scary movie that loves other scary movies.

The only thing more insane and contrived than the Big Reveal is the epilogue, which contains not one but two maddeningly bizarre developments that are beyond strange and inconsistent, even for a movie that’s been strange and inconsistent all along.

It’s a knowing and insightful look at how lives can be forever changed and love can be lost or gained in a single moment.

Come As You Are has a wonderful way of making even the most obvious situations seem fresh and funny and original.

Despite the invaluable comedic/dramatic gifts of Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell, who do their best to inject some life and energy into the proceedings, Downhill is a pale, tame, broad and soft-edged remake of the far superior 2014 Swedish film “Force Majeure.”

It’s a Hollywood story of a spectacular rise to the top that was quite apparently a real-life horror story all along.

Brie’s performance is open and honest and disturbing and funny and lovely and resonant. The work is so good and so convincing that even when Sarah is spouting the craziest of her mad theories, there’s a small part of us that wonders if Sarah’s truth is the real truth. We certainly believe SHE believes.

Robbie turns in a much richer and funnier and layered performance as Harley this time around, thanks in large part to the stiletto-sharp screenplay by Christina Hodson.

No blood is shed. No bodies turn up. And yet The Assistant is one seriously chilling monster movie.

Despite a game performance by Lively, The Rhythm Section is a junk pile of missteps, from the convoluted screenplay that hops from locale to locale in Advil-inducing fashion to the overly stylized directing to the self-consciously “cool” oldies pop music selections.

Over all, Noelle is subpar — but it’s silly, harmless fun. It’s so forgettable it’ll be virtually erased from your memory five minutes after the end credits roll.

Klaus is a weird, meandering tale — but it has a distinctive visual style and a sly sense of humor and features brilliant voice work from the ensemble cast.

The Gentlemen never ceases to surprise and amuse.

As the Gardner family descends into madness, with the purple-pink light seemingly taking possession of the house and the grounds, director Stanley and his creative team come up with original and in some cases quite effectively nauseating touches.

There’s hardly a moment in this film that doesn’t feature at least one great actor in top form.

Troop Zero is so sugary you’d get a cavity if you bit into it — but it’s also a cozy, satisfying and inspirational underdog tale, featuring a wonderful performance by Mckenna Grace.

Almost nothing that takes place in the last 20 minutes of this movie could ever transpire in anything resembling the known universe. By then, you’ll have long since either checked out or decided to strap on the popcorn bag, put reality on hold and just go with it.

We have the first serious contender for Wasted Opportunity of the Decade.

Underwater breaks no new ground as a sci-fi horror flick — other than as a possible contender for the murkiest movie ever made.

This film is a symphony of recognizable notes.

Imagine how great it would be to see a vehicle worthy of the respective likability, comedic chops, intelligence, onscreen charisma and beauty of Tiffany Haddish and Rose Byrne. No, I mean you’re really going to have to imagine that, because Like a Boss is not that movie.

With brilliant, innovative, claustrophobically effective directing choices by Mendes, Oscar-worthy cinematography from the living legend Roger Deakins and strong, raw performances from the two young leads, 1917 is a unique viewing experience you won’t soon shake off.

This is terrific family entertainment.

Uncut Gems is part psychological thriller, part black comedy, part thriller and part dysfunctional extended family drama — and it clicks on all those cylinders.

Through Gerwig’s wonderfully creative prism, it’s as if we’re meeting the March sisters for the very first time, and we’re immediately swept away in a gorgeously filmed, wickedly funny, deeply moving and, yes, empowering story with themes still relevant some 150 years after the time period of these events.

A Hidden Life is one of the most metaphysical films ever set against the backdrop of World War II.

While there’s a whole lot of fiction in this based-on-real-events tale, the essence of truth rings through.

Cats is a slick and tedious and weird-looking exercise in self-indulgence.

The Rise of Skywalker rarely comes close to touching greatness, but it’s a solid, visually dazzling and warmhearted victory for the Force of quality filmmaking.

There are far more laugh-out-loud moments in the first half of Jumanji: The Next Level than in the second hour, but I liked the unexpected (if kinda trippy) spiritual element that comes into play late in the story.

Paul Walter Hauser, perhaps best known for his portrayal of another sad-sack wannabe in “I, Tonya,” delivers screen-commanding work as the title character.

This is a surprisingly and disappointingly tame film, in which Morris is almost deferential to Bannon.

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.

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

We’re not buying ALL the hype and hokum sugarcoating this fact-based fairy tale, but we’re happy to come along for this particular ride.

This movie rocks.

The Two Popes is the kind of well-made but flawed release you can wait to catch on home video.

As a stand-alone work of cinema fiction, A Million Little Pieces is an effective blunt instrument of a film — a rough-edged, unvarnished, painfully accurate portrayal of addiction and rehabilitation.

This is one of those movies where it looks like the immensely appealing cast had as much fun making the film as we have watching it — especially because so many of these familiar faces are playing against type.

Time and again, supposedly smart characters do really stupid things, just so the plot can continue to stumble along.

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.

To say this film doesn’t follow a conventional narrative is putting it mildly. One can understand how some viewers will be thrown off, maybe even put off, by the radical change in plot course midway down the stream. I found it to be a fresh and bold and immensely effective choice.

Directors Jennifer Lee (who also wrote the screenplay) and Chris Buck, along with the obligatory army of talented Disney animators, deliver one brilliantly rendered set piece after another.

We appreciate Mister Rogers even more after seeing this film, but I’m not sure we really got to know him any better.

This is a film of such dramatic power and innovative comedy and romantic poetry and melancholy beauty that upon exiting a screening, you might well feel the urge to tell everyone in the lobby of the multiplex to delay their plans to check out some mainstream offering because if they truly love cinema, they should see THIS movie, immediately.

It’s a smart, solid and engrossing paper-chase investigative story about one man’s dogged determination to shed light on the government-sanctioned, post-9/11 torture tactics used by American interrogators on foreign soil.

I’m not buying every chapter of this Marriage Story, but there’s enough material here to warrant a look.

While Mirren and McKellen are as wonderful as you’d expect, especially in the early going when their respective characters are just getting to know one another, even these two legendary talents can’t overcome a convoluted, unfocused and increasingly implausible storyline.

You can see the big twist coming an hour in advance. And the big epic showdown is resolved in a manner that defies even the most cursory of examinations. There’s something almost depressing about how often this movie takes the easy, lazy way out.

Ford v. Ferrari expertly captures the essence of mid-20th century racing, and the spirit of the men who went to battle in Le Mans.

This is a star-studded extravaganza light on character development and heavy on battle spectacle, resulting in an impressive-looking but dramatically underwhelming story.

Even on my most Ebenezer of days, I wouldn’t have been able to resist this sentimental journey.

Some of the callbacks to “The Shining” are chillingly effective; others felt gratuitous and missed the mark. Still. A tip of the REDRUM to Doctor Sleep and to Ewan McGregor’s memorable performance for giving us the opportunity to catch up with Danny Torrance in a most satisfying manner.

The scenes between Gleeson and Huppert are rendered in muted tones and are sweet and effective. Subplots involving Sylvia and Paul are flat and uninteresting.

This is the best movie of the year so far and one of the best films of the decade.

Alice Waddington makes her feature directing debut with this futuristic sci-fi psychological thriller, and she is a clearly talented visual stylist.

Motherless Brooklyn isn’t in the same league as obvious influences such as “The Maltese Falcon” and “Chinatown,” but it’s an effective mood piece and a worthy entry in the genre.

There are more than enough ingredients here to cook up one rousing and thought-provoking sci-fi thriller. Except this time around, they’re just serving up overcooked leftovers.

Harriet certainly doesn’t shy away from reminding us of the horrors of slavery, but it’s mostly about the quest for freedom, and a remarkable woman who found her own freedom wasn’t nearly enough.

This truly IS must-see cinema — one of the most visually striking films you’ll ever see, featuring magnificent performances from the two leads.

It’s hard to make a case for being a timely, provocative thriller when so many characters are regressive caricatures.

While there are some sparks of creativity in the script by Michael Mitnick and some strong performances (most notably from Shannon and Waterston), it fizzles out under the weight of a pompous and meandering storyline that includes cryptic flashbacks to a wartime encounter, and a strange subplot about the advent of the electric chair.

In the uncomfortably funny, unapologetically insensitive, cheerfully outrageous Jojo Rabbit, writer-director Waititi (“Thor: Ragnorak”) delivers a timely, anti-hate fractured fairy tale AND turns in hilarious work as Adolf Hitler, imaginary friend to a 10-year-old German boy near the end of World War II.

They’re all terrific, but Emma Stone in particular kills with a sharply honed, funny and endearing performance as the battle-tested and cynical Wichita, who is fearless when it comes to taking on zombies, but terrified when it comes to fully committing to a human connection.

Mistress of Evil is an entertaining thrill ride with a sly sense of humor and some admirable albeit obvious political and social commentary, with messages along the lines of, “It doesn’t matter where you come from, it matters who you love.”

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.

Almodovar’s stylized and meta slice of self-representation is as visually stunning as it is emotionally effective.

As quickly as Thing can snap its fingers, we’ll soon forget our visit with this version of The Addams Family.

Lucy in the Sky is an irritatingly self-conscious, maddeningly rudderless and scatterbrained story that bounces all over the place and never finds an identity.

The main story keeps stalling out in favor of these drive-by interludes that take center stage for a few minutes and then fade into the background, usually never to be heard from again.

Paul and young Danny Murphy are terrific together, with Paul playing a wounded bear growling his lines and Murphy delivering a fully realized performance. And for such a bleak and harsh tale, The Parts You Lose finds some rays of light at the end of the night.

In the flat-out hilarious 1970s period piece “Dolemite Is My Name,” Murphy is the funniest he’s been since we last saw Sherman Klump and family in the early 2000s — but he’s equally effective in the handful of relatively low-key, dramatic moments. It’s a fully realized performance.

For all its next-generation technology, and even with the great Ang Lee (“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” “Brokeback Mountain”) directing, Gemini Man is a mind-numbingly unoriginal international spy thriller.

At times the film overdoes it with the clown metaphors (including the use of songs such as “Everybody Plays the Fool” and “Send in the Clowns”), and I had major misgivings about one particular subplot, but with Phoenix appearing in virtually every minute of this movie and dominating the screen with his memorably creepy turn, Joker will cling to you like the aftermath of an unfortunately realistic nightmare.

This is not a movie. This is mutilation porn. This is a gratuitously violent, shamelessly exploitative, gruesomely sadistic and utterly repellent piece of trash with no redeeming qualities other than its mercifully short running time of less than 90 minutes.

With all we know about this chillingly amoral, blackhearted man, Where’s My Roy Cohn? still serves as a thorough and insightful history lesson that makes a convincing case that among other sins, Cohn was one of the early architects of bitterly divisive, take-no-prisoners, make-no-excuses, dirty-tricks politics.

From start to finish, Judy feels more like a stylized tribute act than an insightful interpretation of the real thing.

7 Days to Vegas works as a broad and funny comedy about some truly bent but hilarious characters.

Directed with claustrophobic, docudrama-style intensity by Derrick Borte (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Daniel Forte) and featuring a career-best dramatic performance by Gaffigan, American Dreamer is a dark and intense and sometimes brutally violent slice of rotted life.

“Between Two Ferns” is filled with hilarious alternate-universe moments.

It’s an extravagant dessert after a six-course meal. Absolutely unnecessary, but still a real treat.

Given the nature of director/co-writer James Gray’s admirably daring, bold and ambitious, sure-to-be-polarizing, flat-out weird, crazy fever-dream space opera, it’s only fitting for the title to be so obscure and challenging.

While Gun’s story is certainly worth telling and this is a well-intentioned, solid film with fine work from Knightley, Official Secrets is too heavy-handed and drab, and falls far short of procedural thrillers such as “All the President’s Men” and “Spotlight” and “The Post” or broadly entertaining whistleblower stories such as “Erin Brockovich.”

It’s nothing we haven’t heard before, but it’s still heartbreaking to see small farmers telling their individual stories about the financial and emotional stress they’ve experienced.

It is an ambitious, dreamlike, beautifully shot movie (with cinematography by the legendary Roger Deakins) that aims for the fences again and again in the course of 149 minutes — but nearly every one of those mighty cuts is a swing and a miss.

Hustlers is slick and sharp and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, with writer-director Lorene Scafaria delivering a film that often feels like Scorsese Lite — a breezier, infinitely less violent, pole-dancing, glitter-covered riff on “Goodfellas.”

Directed in capable, straightforward fashion by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, and featuring voice-over narration from the artist herself, The Sound of My Voice is like a well-sourced and thorough video Wikipedia entry about the life and times of the now 73-year-old Ronstadt.

This intense and claustrophobic gore-fest is far removed from the elegiac tone of “A Quiet Place.” It’s more like a “Saw” movie, mixed in a bloody blender with elements from films such as “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “The Cabin in the Woods” and “The Hills Have Eyes” and even “Carrie.” And yet there are a few genuinely thought-provoking sequences sprinkled in.

For all of Muschietti’s visual flourishes and with the greatly talented Bill Skarsgard again delivering a madcap, disturbingly effective, all-in performance as the dreaded Pennywise, It: Chapter Two had a relatively muted impact on me.

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.

Even accepting the increasingly dizzying level of logic-defying, mind-effing, increasingly convoluted time-bending developments in the entertainingly bad (but still bad) Don’t Let Go, I found myself wondering why and how.

It’s a morose and slow-paced and off-putting drama, in which even the joyous moments seem brittle and draped in melancholy.

Shia LaBeouf turns in one of the most sincere and effective performances of his career.

Though set in a real place and occurring within a historically accurate framework, The Nightingale often feels like a journey through Hell itself. It’s that punishing. That bleak. That horrific. That haunting. It’s also a powerful, gripping, masterfully filmed tale.

Ready or Not is a warped and audacious and absolutely ridiculous slapstick gorefest. The gross-out visual punchlines might have you doubling over with laughter. Or gagging to the point where you’ll regret ordering those nachos. Or both.

Though Light of My Life is a well-filmed and occasionally brutally effective piece of work, Affleck dilutes the power of the story with too many self-indulgent, patience-testing scenes.

Yes, it’s a raunchy, edgy, hard-R comedy about a trio of 12-year-old boys who drop the f-bomb every other sentence and get involved in all sorts of predicaments featuring sex toys and beer and molly — but even the most hardcore jokes have a good-natured and even sweet larger context.

Them That Follow is a harrowing and chilling deep dive into an isolated community in the Appalachian mountains.

Blinded by the Light is almost unspeakably corny at times as it shifts tones from realistic drama-comedy to flat-out musical — but it’s easy to forgive the bumpy moments in favor of sitting back and enjoying the simple pleasures of an old-fashioned, inspirational, coming-of-age tale … Especially if you’re a big Boss fan like yours truly.

In a rare weak performance for Cate Blanchett, she plays an aggravating, off-putting wife and mother in Richard Linklater’s disappointing book adaptation.

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

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.

Sure, there are times when we’re aware our emotions are being manipulated — but we’re fine with that, because we want to see, and we expect to see, the heroic underdog triumph against nearly insurmountable odds.

Thanks in large part to Costner’s robust, earnest, growling, deadpan voice work as a dog who can be brilliant one moment and fantastically clueless the next, “The Art of Racing In the Rain” still comes close to winning us over … Until the final scene, which was so shameless and manipulative, I wanted a refund on every lump in the throat and teary-eyed moment I had experienced to that point.

It gets to the point where it hardly matters to us who lives and who dies, because they’re all stone-cold killers.

Painfully long, exceedingly tedious, consistently unimaginative and quite dopey.

In certain elements of tone and structure, Once Upon a Time In Hollywood has echoes of "Pulp Fiction" and "Jackie Brown," but it is alive and electric with a beat all its own.

While not all the pieces of the puzzle perfectly fit into place, it’s still a good yarn filled with arresting visuals and solid performances.

Some of the developments seem a bit rushed and forced, but then Shelton wraps up the story with the perfect grace note, and we find ourselves thinking about the lives of these characters beyond the closing credits and hoping they’re all going to be just fine.

This is a viewing experience to be treasured. It is one of the very best films of 2019.

Toni Morrison is an absolutely beautiful wordsmith and a beautiful force on multiple fronts, and if this documentary is an unabashed love letter to her life and work, I say: Why. Not.

With an intriguing premise, the magnetic Daisy Ridley (Rey in the “Star Wars” sequel trilogy) in the lead and a stellar supporting cast including Naomi Watts in a dual role, Ophelia has its moments of inspiration and beauty.

Nanjiani and Bautista are terrific together, but Stuber also benefits from a quartet of wonderful actresses who are all effective despite limited screen time.

While the musical numbers don’t match the impact of the originals and there’s a bit of a lull in the second act where not all that much seems to be happening, The Lion King is on balance a solid and at times stunningly beautiful film.

Clocking in at a bloated 2 hours and 20 minutes and featuring a VERY slow build before we get to the good stuff, the gorgeous and weird and ludicrous horror film “Midsommar” tests our patience more than once before delivering some seriously grisly and wonderfully twisted material in the final act.

It’s a zesty and sweet and satisfying but not an overly dark slice of entertainment, bursting with pyrotechnics and sprinkled with sharp humor and infused with just enough life-and-death ingredients to keep you interested throughout.

A quirky and entertaining deadpan comedy/drama.

It’s the kind of music doc that makes you want to download about 50 songs — although you already should have most of them on your playlist.

Nightmare Cinema as a whole is the bloodiest, most violent, most gruesome and most twisted movie I’ve seen this year. And I mean that mostly in a good way.

It’s arguably the weakest, lamest and least memorable entry in the history of the franchise. It’s also crass and tone-deaf. And played mostly for laughs that are few and far between.

The Dead Don’t Die is delivered in one long, deadpan note. Some of the sight gags and quips are gold; others are just filler, but still kind of interesting in a wacky sort of way.

The fourth entry is a worthy addition to the Toy Story library, bringing back some of the most beloved characters in the history of animated film and introducing us to a fantastically entertaining new bunch of toys — some of them adorable and huggable, some of them more reminiscent of a certain type of creepy, old-school doll usually seen in R-rated horror films.

Tessa Thompson’s performance is the best thing in the movie, in part because she’s playing a character who genuinely respects the legacy of the Men (and Women) in Black and is thrilled to be part of the team.

Unusual framing device aside, Halston is on balance a solid and affectionate tribute to an American original.

As 16 Shots so well documents, this was a seminal moment in Chicago history, as “just another justified police shooting” turned out to be anything but that.

With Rolling Thunder Revue, Scorsese remains at the top of his game, and is the perfect filmmaker to tell the story of a unique chapter in the life and career of a fellow creative legend.

Despite the frequent verbal confrontation scenes in which characters lash out at one another, soap opera style, for lying or serving their selfish interests, Dark Phoenix doesn’t come close to carrying the emotional impact of so many Marvel Universe films where the characters come across as complicated, relatable and three-dimensional.

Even with all its pyrotechnics, and even with arguably the finest and deepest team of actors ever to appear in any of the three dozen movies about the big guy, King of the Monsters careens about all over the place in search of an identity, never really finding its footing as a campy treat, an exciting popcorn adventure or a monster movie with humans we actually care about.

It’s never a good thing when a film about a dying man sometimes has us wondering if some of the people in his life will be better off without him.

Elton John deserves a movie operating on a much grander scale than a standard, paint-by-numbers showbiz biopic, and Rocketman is a suitably snazzy vehicle.

Virtually every frame of this film is strikingly effective.

Clever trappings aside, Brightburn is filmed mostly as a horror movie, with the monster lurking just around the corner or pounding on the door as the dopey victims behave just like all the other dopey victims in forgettable slasher films.

In virtually every scenario, director Wilde and the team of screenwriters serve up the material in a fresh and original manner.

Despite a couple of large, genie-blue stumbles along the way, Guy Ritchie’s live-action version of Disney’s Aladdin is on balance a colorful and lively adventure suitable for all ages and a touching romance featuring two attractive leads — and has enough creative musical energy to introduce this story to A. Whole. New. World.

The dynamic between Dern and O’Connell is powerful and palpable, even though their bond develops solely through written correspondence and prison conversations in which they’re talking on the telephone and separated by thick glass.

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.”

If you want to see a solid movie about Bundy as mostly experienced through the viewpoint of the single mother who fell in love with him without knowing he was a murderer, check out the Netflix feature film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Vile and Evil.

The result is a well-acted, competently made, utterly tedious bore of a film lacking in creative spark, unwilling to take chances and determined to grind Tolkien through the muck and the blood of war and death at the expense of providing much insight into his creative process.

This is a noble effort, but ultimately Mary Magdalene isn’t much less of a mystery than she was at the start of the journey.

The Intruder is next-level dopey. Every single character in this film, including the villain, is irritatingly, maddeningly dumb. Nearly every scene is practically an invitation for the audience to talk back to the screen and ask these people if they’ve lost their minds.

There’s a certain vulnerability and intelligence, and a respectful and self-deprecating aspect to Rogen’s on-screen persona that makes these male-fantasy romances seem at least semi-plausible.

Director Lears and co-writer/editor Robin Blotnick had the benefit of knowing the outcomes when they put together the film, so it’s easy to understand why Ocasio-Cortez is the primary focus. But they do an excellent job of weaving in the stories of the three equally impressive candidates.

I’m not prepared to instantly label Avengers: Endgame as the best of the 23 Marvel Universe movies to date, but it’s a serious contender for the crown and it’s the undisputed champion when it comes to emotional punch.

Stretched over 135 minutes and overloaded with shout-to-the-rafters confrontations, Her Smell has too much talking and squawking, and not enough rocking and rolling.

Minghella does a fine job of capturing the essence of the 21st century talent competition show and all its corny, addictive allure.

Working with an economical running time of 100 minutes and a relatively modest budget, Hart infuses Fast Color with genuinely moving drama, an engrossing, supernatural-sci-fi mystery and some pretty darn impressive special effects.

Cruz is a deadpan treasure, never cracking the hint of a smile even as he delivers some well-timed one-liners. Wish we could have had an entire movie about this guy. Instead, we were cursed with the annoying and shrieking but not even close to terrifying La Llorona.

This is one of those wonderfully convoluted guilty-pleasure actioners with so many WTF moments.

The new Hellboy lands with a thud that’s loud and dark — but almost instantly forgettable.

Despite the best efforts of McGovern et al., The Chaperone is lightweight trifle.

Of course, Gilliam’s quest to make his Don Quixote film mirrors the original novel, and the movie he finally made is like a funhouse mirror version — filled with wonderfully, sometimes disturbingly strange imagery as tragedy meets comedy meets romance meets the noble glory of the artist sacrificing nearly everything in the quest to make lasting art.

Despite the strong performances and more than a few audience-pleasing moments where peace and love triumph over stupidity and bigotry, the film travels such an obvious path and falls into such a predictable rhythm, it doesn’t quite carry the emotional resonance such a powerful true-life story should convey.

Thanks in great part to the staying power of the source material, and the blistering work by Ashton Sanders and KiKi Layne, Native Son leaves a lasting imprint.

It’s ugly but not scary. It’s creepy but not chilling. It’s one of the least successful adaptations of a Stephen King story since …The last Pet Sematary.