Robert Daniels

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.

A Crime on the Bayou never explodes with fury. But that doesn’t mean you won’t feel enraged while taking in the maddening series of systematic wrongs committed against Sobol and Duncan.

A fitting follow-up to “Minding the Gap,” Liu and Altman’s All These Sons is a sharp, deeply personal piece, equal parts devastating and inspirational.

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

In depicting one woman’s fight for justice, Kaufman’s indelible documentary becomes an empowering three-dimensional story of resistance and courage.

Rather than crafting a high-concept science-fiction marvel, Fuqua’s Infinite relies on shoddy VFX and ropey world-building for the worst film of his career.

Port Authority isn’t a transgender-led love story. But another short-sighted film using Black folks as a lesson for ignorant white outsiders.

Rather than make the more interesting movie, Chaves and Johnson-McGoldrick kick the can down the road toward the next money-making sequel. Which would be totally welcomed if the The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It weren’t so artistically inert, and oh so boring.

Cruella is a dull overwrought origin story without an audience.

The parts of Snyder’s Army of the Dead are definitely stronger than the whole. But if you’re looking for a preposterous onslaught of blood and guts melded with sharp-tongued humor, then Army of the Dead is the big swinging zombie film of your fantasies.

Filmed in a rich black and white, director Zeshawn Ali’s documentary and feature debut Two Gods is an intimate, lyrical exhumation of the cycles that haunt Black youth and the challenge of putting to rest old habits.

If Spiral hoped to reinvent the franchise, the dull installment merely amounts to bad fan fiction.

While there’s plenty of large entertaining set pieces, Sheridan’s intriguing premise withers under its overabundant components.

f not for the uptempo rhythm, The Water Man’s thin plotting would make it a slog. If not for Oyelowo’s handsomely mounted camera capturing the forest in supernatural blues and reds, the audience’s attention might wander to their phones. Thankfully, the well-executed components support the fairy tale when the tale itself runs short.

Lewis’ In Our Mothers' Gardens requires time to find its footing, but the documentary ultimately offers a salute to the generationally important women who fought to give their families a more fruitful future.

Though the delightful ensemble allows this slight comedy to bob along, it’s Henry who steers this ship into gentle waters. He imbues Charles’ substantial reawakening with great tenderness.

While Sollima tries to rekindle Clancy’s 1990s magic, Without Remorse is rendered as unmemorable schlock due to his inability to map the author’s familiar espionage themes onto a new protagonist with very different story requirements.

With a colorful blend of biting absurdity and copious dad jokes to offset the commonplace narrative, Rianda and Rowe optimize their dysfunctional family road trip for high-functioning enjoyment.

By the grace of a talented cast, especially the reliable Helms and the revelatory Harrison, Together Together is a sweet, albeit incomplete search for companionship in the unlikeliest of places.

Stowaway is shrewd in its decision-making and even better in its execution.

Laboriously paced, the indulgent jolts and bloodless scares, neither deeply rooted nor artfully raised, float as lifelessly as a lily pad on a bog.

With visual precision and remarkable intimacy, Hannah Olson's documentary The Last Cruise recalls the harrowing 40-day quarantine aboard the Princess Diamond cruise ship at the outset of the pandemic.

Martin and Lindsay’s Tina all too often struggles to show Turner as a three-dimensional person — her wants, her beliefs, her passions — in lieu of her being a product of the abuse she withstood from Ike. As a tribute, it’s a disappointing slog for an always-vibrant legend.

Nobody gathers from the familiar blood-soaked stream of “John Wick,” “Death Wish” and the “Taken” franchise to fashion a savage ode featuring the same mettle of its inspirations but with far greater humor attached to the well-worn beats.

Kali and Molina’s I’m Fine (Thanks for Asking) frustratingly struggles to find its way, but when it does, this story of houselessness, grief, and motherhood blossoms like a sunflower in a rich field of pathos. And offers a very brief balm to these heady times.

These young performers are always true to themselves. Honest and bare without inhibitions. Which is fitting for a movie that’s about rebuilding oneself and one’s connections to the world by telling yourself that the pain is okay. The hurt is real. And the love we give never dies. Park’s The Fallout is a resilient character study of grief in all its forms.

In its quest for entertainment value, this documentary loses sight of the actual grief and hurt a devastated son would feel.

Michelle Ford’s Test Pattern, with patient specificity, probes the institutional injustices suffered by black women to potent, provoking effect.