Robert Daniels

Montana Story doesn’t reinvent the Western wheel. Rather it offers tender mercies as a sentimental work that explodes in well-earned fury.

It’s the unbreakable friendship between Kunle and Sean, the ways their time together, good or bad in college, will mark how they see the world, and how the world sees them, forever, that makes Williams’ Emergency an elaborate, chaotically hilarious, intensely terrifying journey worth taking.

Though its many narrative twists and amusing turns might wear down less adventurous viewers, this film will be embraced by those who enjoyed the director’s dystopian critique Sorry to Bother You and his equally scathing series I’m a Virgo.

Good Boy could easily devolve into merely being a gimmick. But Alex Cannon and Leonberg’s dialogue-light script is aiming for more than DTV silliness. They’re making a movie about heart, loyalty, and friendship.

The Most Beautiful Boy in the World isn’t a perfect watch, and it's often confusing and confounding. But it gets at the heart of this forlorn figure, a once idol turned tragic Greek hero. It’s unflinching, and one of the most honest portraits of the pitfalls that can happen in child stardom.

The Inspection isn’t a bad movie. Rather it’s a disappointing slog because the arduous journey it sets up should have offered greater returns.

It’s a fun soulful documentary that’s rarely ever invasive, depicting the type of statesman we’re sorely missing today.

The heart behind the familiar rom-com choices: the parting of two flames, the last-second pursuit to save a relationship and the happy ending that follows — cannot be doubted. It’s laughter and it’s loving that Ahn’s “Fire Island” gleefully contains.

Remi Weekes’ feature directorial debut not only exposes the horrors of the immigration system, but mines survivor guilt for a clever, bone-chilling thriller.

Schmaltzy yet sincere, “Elio,” the latest from Pixar, is as predictable as they come but as tender as they can get.

Bugonia is an enraged picture. It’s mad at the world; it’s mad at humanity. Nevertheless, the structuring to reveal the full scope of that anger is surprisingly deliberate.

Possessor is a bloody existential fever dream that, at its best, is unnerving and thrilling, and, at its worst, is tiring and misbegotten.

The film is missing out on a cohesive vision, to the point where the audience will spend the entire film waiting for the flashbacks and summaries to end, and for DaCosta’s movie to finally begin. But by the end, she’s only offered a visually stunning homage to the original film. For a director of her talent, that isn’t enough.

The film’s sci-fi tone holds best, not when the McManus brothers try to explain the technological components, but when these characters’ find solace in their shared trauma.

The seven filmmakers at the center of “The Year of the Everlasting Storm” do give a slash of cathartic release, a dash of humor and a large batch of necessary pathos to make the world feel a little less lonely, a little less small.

Matt Reeves’ The Batman should tell audiences that other superhero movies are possible, and yet more, they can be had outside the formulaic tentpoles filling theaters today.

Tariq’s Mogul Mowgli is enrapturing, revelatory, and at all times, a nightmarish accounting of the bonds that make us, but can easily break us as well.

While some material may hit with younger audiences, Luca makes for Pixar’s least enchanting, least special film yet.

MoviePass, MovieCrash is an abundantly entertaining, easily digestible rendering of a ‘too crazy to be true’ story that looks at the turbulent, short life of the company from the perspective of its creators, its destroyers, and the rank-and-file workers who could do nothing but watch it all go down in flames.

By the waning minutes, when the film’s glimmering neorealism energy returns, cleansing the abrupt conclusion with a spellbound spirituality, Wladyka has assuredly provided a distinct vision that pulses to potent degrees.

Larraín’s Ema will grate some. Even so, it’s one of the most ambitious and visually stunning films of the year.

Told in 71 minutes, the breezy melodrama moves through reality and happenstance with a winking glee that recalls the gentle works of Bill Forsyth—albeit with less thematic heft.

If Pearce weren’t so heavy-handed, if were just self-aware enough to know how to connect character with metaphor, then Encounter, a flawed sci-fi flick with a simple premise, could be a great adventure fit for the stars.

While “The Gates” itself isn’t a total smash, it’s a more than sturdy final effort from a beloved actor.

It becomes empty, artificial scenes of actors playing dress-up.

Every scene, effective but long in the tooth, is built on the entertainment value of these oddball figures, sorta like “Tiger King” but less gross and exploitative.

The film holds the kind of dumb, action beats and inventive kills, hokey yet fun dialogue that Hollywood used to be so good at producing. It remembers that villains can be wholly evil and that heroes can be bulletproof but still be engaging.

As a star, Patel has rarely been better. And as a director, he grants an intoxicatingly gruesome vision of the kind of gritty vehicles he could steer in the future.