Sara Stewart

If it’s overstuffed in the way of most sequels, well, at least it’s stuffed with good cheer.

As an addiction memoir, it works well enough; there are a handful of deeply felt moments.

Garbus’ film is at its best when giving voice to the female relatives of these victims, who come together to pressure the cops — who’ve been instructed to downplay the possible connection between the killings — to do more.

Just in time for Mexico’s Day of the Dead holiday comes this gloriously colorful animated musical, which almost (but not quite) makes up in visuals what it lacks in snappy dialogue.

This Cinderella is all dressed up with nowhere very interesting to go.

Perhaps faithful to the spirit of the man, but frustrating if you’re actually curious about the facts.

Seth Rogen’s raunchy Sausage Party contains occasional flashes of satirical brilliance. But in true stoner form, it also thinks a lot of stuff is funnier than it actually is.

The Report, true to its no-nonsense name, does the admirable work of trying to interest viewers in the way that bureaucracy can be used to hide the most terrible truths. Alas, the movie gets as buried in paper-pushing as its characters do.

Chastain and Wasikowska take center stage while Hiddleston flutters around like one of Allerdale’s huge black moths. Watching the women square off within del Toro’s eye-popping, painterly palette is a feast for the eyes, if not particularly substantial fare for the mind.

Capping off the year that transgender stopped being transgressive, the story of artist Lili Elbe (Eddie Redmayne) makes for one of the year’s finest films.

No matter how well you know “Over the Rainbow,” you may never hear it as heartbreakingly performed as Zellweger sings it here.

Though deeply well-intentioned, director Kasi Lemmons’ film never really breaks free of conventional biopic mode.

Unfortunately, the cast of characters you’ll find here is a pale imitation of her Hogwarts heroes.

If you’ve got comics-movie fatigue, with frequent fourth-wall breaks to point out lazy writing, blatant foreshadowing or heavy reliance on CGI for fight scenes, Deadpool 2 is here for you. That doesn’t mean those things aren’t there (they are) — but the eagerness of Deadpool to call out its own shortcomings earns this trash-talking franchise a lot of goodwill.

By the time its credits rolled, I was ready to forgive Rogue One any imperfections. Its last 10 minutes are spectacular and dark, with a final flourish that should give any “Star Wars” fan goose bumps — and a new hope that the next main installment will be this good.

Good-looking but tonally dubious feature debut from Elizabeth Wood.

Gore and supernatural comeuppances ensue in a haunted-house flick that mostly eschews jump scares for more satisfying psychological and erotic twists.

As apocalypse scenarios go, this one feels both retro and commendably topical: Nuclear bombs, remember those? (Also: Edward Furlong, remember him?)

Disney, take note: This is how to do a winning live-action update of a cartoon.

Entertaining particulars aside, this trope is pretty well-worn — the game everyman who finds making illegal money easy and fun, until it isn’t.

Bening forgoes vanity and digs into the humiliation Grahame felt as she aged out of the vampy roles Hollywood typecast her in. Bell brings a sturdy humanity to Peter, a low-key stage actor and nice guy who’s completely unfazed by their age difference.

The third and weakest book in Suzanne Collins’ trilogy should never have been split into two films, but since that’s become money-grubbing standard practice for young-adult adaptations (“Twilight,” “Divergent”), here we are.

This documentary, a love letter to their sisterly bond, gives a reasonably engaging look behind the scenes.

Dreadful, misogynist slog of a film.

Naz & Maalik does what all great New York movies do: ground unique, engaging stories in the middle of the glorious chaos that is our city.

Clearly, the elder Scott’s aim is on the scares — and oh, what satisfying, terrifying, screams-echoing-down-a-ship’s-corridor scares they are. All the philosophical debate here belongs to the robots — which is possibly even more chilling.

It’s almost impossible to resist The Lego Movie 2 for its continued everything-is-awesomeness, even if it does fall back on the trope of playthings terrified of being relegated to the storage bin.

Director Ben Wheatley (“Kill List”) is masterful with arresting imagery set in a dystopian spin on the ’70s; less so with a compelling narrative.