Richard Whittaker

In its often distressing, sometimes nauseating depiction of a woman caught in weaponized co-dependence, Alice, Darling is rarely an easy watch. Yet it is always captivating, and that all comes back to Kendrick in what may well be her most powerful performance to date.

An interpersonal drama shot like a 1980s British television supernatural tale, The Eternal Daughter is a ghost story in the same way that Lenny Abrahamson’s class-riddled gothic fable The Little Stranger is, or Henrik Ibsen’s Gengangere (better known by the mistranslated title Ghosts).

The United States of Insanity is as much a portrait of a long-ignored, mocked, and lambasted band, and the subculture that surrounds it, as it is a trip into a deeply disturbing and Kafkaesque assault on civil liberties.

Bennett’s true genius is not merely in his words – although few have ever achieved his flair for simplicity and wit. It’s in his compassion.

Don't let the big (but not that big) budget fool you: It's Troma, baby, just how you like it.

The seated dance between Johnson and Penn is witty, earnest, honest, and overflowing with kindness, making Daddio a remarkable story of two strangers opening up to each other.

Splitsville succeeds because it never seems fragmented. As a director, Covino dances between the sensual and the silly while constantly exploring the core thesis of the messiness of relationships.

If there are two signatures to Indonesian horror, they would be an overwhelming sense of relentless dread, and poisonous centipedes. The Queen of Black Magic has plenty of both, and an enthralling supernatural siege story binding everything together so tight you'll barely be able to breathe.

Noa may not be Caesar's heir as leader of the apes, but he definitely walks in his footsteps as a worthy protagonist in the latest iteration of this ever-intriguing sci-fi classic.

Just like the best of the 1980s actioneers, Nobody has just the right mix of brains, brawn, and gut-busting laughs.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife may not change cinema in the way the original did, but it’s a worthy next generation.

Honestly, this may be the only horror film that invokes Red Shoe Diaries and Cthulhu equally.

Propper’s greatest success is that she doesn’t overdramatize tragedy and trauma. Awful things do occur, but in an organic way, so that the inevitable reaction is a sense of stunned shock. That’s why there’s no sense of judgement: Instead, there is just Propper’s overwhelming sense of empathy for what it is to be young right now.

Lucky is not simply not a rape-revenge film. It's a brutal, brilliant rebuttal to the idea of a fit of cathartic violence.

Director Dan Trachtenberg proved deft at re-envisioning franchise when he dumped the kaiju found footage gimmick of Cloverfield in favor of character-driven survivalist paranoia for 10 Cloverfield Lane and Prey is no less of a worthy twist of the garrote.

As Bauman falls deeper and deeper into the mysteries of Bilberry Inn, McCarthy masterfully reminds us that a ghost can be real and a metaphor, as the scares demand.

Yuasa entrances the eye, but he also know how to make your heart soar with this deft, delicate, and highly entertaining story of loss, of coming to terms with grief, of moving on without ever forgetting.

Happily drifts into the same kind of sci fi-tinged bourgeois relationship drama territory as Elizabeth Moss/Mark Duplass four-hander The One I Love, or the dimension-hopping dinner party of indie fave Coherence. Snide, sleek, and effortlessly biting, Happily is wittier and meaner than either, but also curiously romantic, like an episode of The Twilight Zone with a score by the Mountain Goats.

Honor Among Thieves is a big, bright, iridescent gem of a heist movie in a spectacular, vibrant, and fantastical world.

It’s an understated performance in many ways, but in those quiet moments, whether it be a new haircut or a tapping foot, Ebrahimi provides an astonishing education of what it means to be a woman fleeing an abusive relationship.

This is a character study in extremis, built around the strengthening bond and rising tension between an aimless serial killer lover and her more driven but mysterious counterpart.

There’s a profound mournfulness to this elegiac portrait of the end of an era, given greater poignancy by Jones’ understated performance.

The ninth film in the franchise, Predator: Badlands flips the whole Predator equation on its severed head from moment one by, for the first time, really concentrating on the Yautja rather than on humans.

Audiences wanting a more rounded discussion of the U.S. occupation of Iraq might find it too militaristic and Americentric, while flagwavers wanting raw jingoism may find its questioning too probing. But as a depiction of the futility of conflict from those who fought, Warfare is far from ambivalent.

First-time feature director Kapsalis understands that the best way to capture a performance like this is to just leave the camera on her as Holly leans in to her worst instincts.

It's that rare horror-comedy that is both comedic and horrifying.

It’s such a simple story but told with such grace, tenderness, compassion, and wonder, that all its strangeness seems familiar and welcome.

Most anthologies have the framing mechanism simply service the stories they contain: Instead, Spindell weaves each tale into the bigger fabric, like bloody fat quarters making up a gruesome but surprisingly snugly quilt. When the pieces all are sewn together, the fully assembled The Mortuary Collection may well be the most wickedly fun anthology since Trick'r Treat.

Cobweb's greatest achievement is in ambiguity, in leading the story to its inevitable ending without ever sacrificing that unnerving quality.

Földes manages to balance the potentially dissonant tones of the diverse source material and create something akin to a story, one with diversions created as side characters relate elements of some of the smaller chapters within the books as anecdotes and memories.

It’s in the semi-improvised or captured moments, like the looks of desperation and abandonment on the faces of old men on the streets of a mining community, that Caught by the Tides is most striking.

Where Shinkai remains peerless is in taking those big, magical, melodramatic swings and landing them with a gentle, compassionate touch.

The Nightmare Before Christmas said that it’s all right to wrap a few scares up under the Christmas tree. Terrifier 3, the latest in the extreme gore franchise, sets fire to the decorations, cuts off your eyelids, and makes you watch the whole house burn.

In this charming, funny, tear-inducing, and instantly recognizable world, and through the (in)actions of Grace, Elliot tells a gentle, touching, bitter-but-ultimately-sweet fable with a warming message: It’s OK to leave your shell behind.

If anything, Ross’ work reminds us that the camera need not be God’s unblinking eye on a story. He has crafted an exceptional film driven by captivating performances.

In adapting James Lee Burke's short story, "Winter Light," Higgins and cowriter Shaye Ogbonna (The Chi, Lowlife) have taken the barest of its bones and grown fresh meat.

Even in the hail of bullets, shrieking needle drops, and blinding lighting effects, John Wick: Chapter 4 still works as a cohesive, linear film with a strangely philosophical heart.

Las Vegas may demolish its own history, but The Last Showgirl will break your heart by showing you a woman clinging to the rubble of her life.

Most importantly, Sherman and Abbasi deflate the myth that has dominated the last decade, that somehow Trump is some kind of aberration from the historical Republican Party, perverting it to his will.

As for Johnson's grasp of the era in tech firms, it's astoundingly accurate, so much so that you'll swear you can smell the switch from the Sprite-and-sweaty-T-shirts years to the days of chrome and corporate art.

It's another tour de force performance from Jenkins, in the same week as his headturning performance as the pater familias of a clan of grifters in "Kajillionaire."

Hundreds of Beavers works because everyone involved knows to deliver the whimsy with a straight face, treating knitted fish, puppet frogs, and the Wisconsin snowdrifts in which it was filmed all as equally real.

Indeed, much like the Academy that created an animated features Oscar just to keep cartoons away from "real movies," Paint Vs Pixels often falls into the trap of believing that animation should be kid-friendly. Yet it still provides an incredible viewpoint from the artist's side of the wonder of American animation and its rich legacy.

There's an undeniable boldness to Capobianco's decision to channel a biography through the medium of stop motion, but it's perfect for the untrammeled exuberance and boundless ingenuity of Da Vinci.

An open, honest, and crystal-clear explanation of what it is like to live with Parkinson's: much of it painful, with no off-ramp.

Suicide Squad just never quite has the heart of Guardians.

We know that we have turned rivers from mystical places into resources, but in its sumptuous 75-minute delivery River allows us to see the flow of that narrative. And it is beyond gorgeous, as visually dazzling (if not quite as stomach-churning for acrophobics) as Mountain: luscious landscapes of quiet streams, poisoned fish and angular dams presented as abstract patterns, and the quiet joy of swimming.

Broad, sharp, hysterical, witty, and perfect for everyone who likes their Valentine’s hearts with candy or carved, still beating out of their chest.

In its mix of angsty formalism and sing-along fun, Annette may be the closest that musical cinema has come to when Brecht and Weill put a knife in Macheath's hand for The Threepenny Opera.

After the facile mysticism of Silence, the tone-deaf anti-union cant of The Irishman and the self-indulgent cutesiness of Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story By Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon feels like the work of a filmmaker who is doing more than just ticking off boxes on a decades-old wish list.

The film further establishes the Philippous as some of the best directors of young actors working today.

Much as Blue Moon is a eulogy for the death of a creative life, it’s also a testament to Linklater’s continued vitality as a filmmaker.

Lean as a hellhound, Shelby Oaks doesn’t rely on jump scares, although there are plenty of those. Instead, its true terror is found in writer/director Chris Stuckmann’s ability to move effortlessly from adrenaline shocks to creeping psychological strain.

As always, Affleck remains one of the directors who can disguise a powerful parable as giddy, crowd-pleasing entertainment.

Vogt brings out the ugliness of childhood (the shallow empathy, the lashing out, the selfishness, the curiosity about the disgusting) and ramps it up with endless malice that slowly builds to horrific action. It's the anti-jump scare, with a sickening catharsis that what you think is coming does, indeed, come to pass.

Blanchart’s not reinventing any wheels – if anything, there’s a certain pleasure to be had from his decision not to follow the current trend of trying to simulate a real-time effect.

The Thunderbolts may not be the Avengers, but they’re the heroes we need now.

Even among all the fictions, audiences will find more truths about modern Russia than they’ll get from most news broadcasts.

Like any great funfair ride designer, it’s Barker’s grasp of pacing, of when to lull and when to launch, that makes Obsession such a terrifying blast.

After the inexplicable roars of applause for the ham-fisted Promising Young Woman, seeing first-time feature director Molly Manning Walker treat similar issues with so much more empathy and nuance makes How to Have Sex a disturbing if welcome addition to the conversation.

The key to a great literary adaptation is not to slavishly replicate but to find a way to change everything for the new medium except the heart. The Wild Robot, the 49th animated feature from DreamWorks Animation, doesn’t just put a digital coating on that heart, but celebrates every vibrant beat.

Anderson still directs with purpose, and while One Battle After Another is never as coherent as it is exciting, it avoids the tag of being “lesser Anderson.”

Weaving, who excels at this kind of character-driven action-horror, plays perfectly with our empathy, wordlessly guiding us through this damned land.

Watery-eyed and drowning in contrition, Junejo finds a touching, tragic inner life to Haider's passivity: But in Urdu and Punjabi observational tragedy Joyland first-time director Saim Sadiq isn't interested in simply telling a story of sexual and social liberation.

It may all be a flashback, but Black Widow is truly a bridge with a true direction as the MCU moves into its post-Avengers era.

Kudos to the suits for backing a horror film this provocative and spine-chilling.

O’Sullivan’s script is also a remarkable document of community theatre: again, often a place for cheap laughs about hams and backstage romances, but it’s never played for comedy at the character’s expense.

Johnson may need reminding that atheists aren’t just here to provide comfort to believers. That misstep aside, Wake Up Dead Man is a cunning and entertaining mystery, a return to form for the franchise.

The first film was both a fun and furry buddy cop romp and a gentle metaphor for acceptance and cohabitation. Zootopia 2 goes further down that path in a fashion that is unabashedly moralizing when it comes to how some groups are excised and othered in a community, and how gentrification can be a tool of oppression.

Truly, Everything Everywhere All at Once does one thing: exactly what the title promises.

It's a film that you absorb, until it slithers around and engulfs you.

It all comes back to Sorkin's core idea, implicitly and expertly expressed: that the tactic of violence and provocation, then making the victims seem like thugs, is still performed in Portland and St. Louis and New York, just as it was in Chicago. It's also a reminder that there was no Chicago 7 until the establishment brought them together.

There is truly magic in this long, golden summer day.

Violation, much like Brea Grant's Lucky, strikes hard at the heart of the impossibility of revenge. In her elegantly-structured script, writer/director Sims-Fewer rejects the idea of a revelation changing the perspective on a moment we have already seen. Instead, she contextualizes what we are to see.

Director Scott Glosserman began his film as a found footage mockumentary before flipping into a conventional slasher for the final act as a deliberate, subversive plot point. Nash keeps his deliberate pacing to emphasize the grisliness.

Only when The Inspection is complete does it truly reveal itself: a powerful, poignant, and complicated look at what people will do for acceptance.

It's a deliberate effort by director, co-writer, and rom-com veteran Nicholas Stoller (The Five-Year Engagement, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) to get inside modern gay relationships – or, more especially, affluent, white, middle-class, cis gay male relationships in New York.

It's Gillies' performance that raises Coming Home in the Dark from fascinating to utterly chilling, complimenting Matt Henley's cold, angular cinematography and John Gibson's score, all reed instruments and long, clean draws over strings, like an icy wind blowing slow through dead grass and bones.

Coldly gorgeous and never less than enthralling, Watcher is undoubtedly worth watching.

It's a performance that ranks with some of Cage's best, a mix of Pig's earnestness and Adaptation's idiosyncrasies.

This is Wenders’ portrait, and as such it is as unique and thought-provoking as Kiefer’s own epic works.

Quantumania goes big, but it never forgets that Ant-Man is our guy.

Remember that meme format about how “men will literally x instead of going to therapy”? That’s arguably the elevator pitch for Riders of Justice, a spiky, sensitive, lewdly humorous, and sporadically violent meditation on obsession, vengeance, and statistical probability.

This is a family story – of a time, a place, an event, a community – in all its rich and quiet nuance, with all the members, related by blood or by affection, given their space.

The script, and Byrne’s suitably breathless, solipsistic reading of it, give the audience every reason to not simply dislike Linda but despise her.

This is the antithesis of a sequel for sequel’s sake. Instead, it’s second verse, even catchier than the first.

It's a finely-crafted puzzle box that speaks as much to the heart and the head, with a simple but poignant message that we are only ourselves if we are complete.

While Raes may not be able to replicate the experience of the show for the cinematic audience, she undoubtedly leaves them with a new perspective on the curator's calling, and the work of Vermeer himself.

What makes The Front Room universal is that it’s ultimately about power, about who runs the house.

The Legend of Ochi is a kids’ movie in all the best possible ways, all the most enriching, magical ways that a kids’ movie should be. It’s also educational, but not in a teaching, preachy fashion. Instead, it’s filled with wisdom and heart, a fabulous tale of the fantastical that will leave your children filled with a sense of wonder about the world.

If future films deliver similar spectacle and true, epic filmmaking, then this lengthy sequel can afford to be a prelude.

At every point, Strange Darling is a grisly melding of deviously experimental form and terrifying function.

The Shrouds is arguably Cronenberg’s most introspective film. His earlier work was driven by fascination, fetishization, and a puckish humor. All those elements are present here, but muted, restrained, and ultimately under an overwhelming sense of futility, as Karsh uses the shroud tech to retain a detachment from his grief.

There's still too much punching down, but especially too much peddling in stereotypes and xenophobic clichés.

There's as much of Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru here as there is the rubber-suit genius of Godzilla creator Ishirō Honda (himself never shy of political subtext), and that's a pairing as powerful as any monster mash-up.

What's most fascinating is that there's no self-indulgence on Medak's behalf. It's a filmmaker coming to terms with a deep bruise in his life, and the realization that time may heal all wounds, but will still leave a scar.

It’s a slow document of stiff upper lips beginning to quiver, and while Knightley excels as the perfect Kensington upper-crust mummy, it’s Goode who personifies that desperate attempt to keep a veneer of control, even as his world is on the verge of devastation.