Simon Abrams

Smoking Causes Coughing works because Dupieux’s already been here and done similar things before. This is just a superior collection of shaggy dog jokes.

King Car may leave viewers wondering about a number of basic questions (mostly related to the plot), but it also often feels open and precise enough to work on its own terms.

The film may be cinematic comfort food, but its creators do earn our trust and nail all the essential beats they need to along the way.

Yen continues charging ahead in “The Prosecutor,” which frequently goes hard enough to fly through its corniest lulls.

If you’re watching Leo, it should be to see Vijay show off in between animal attacks, car flips, and celebrity cameos. And even if you don’t expect much from Leo, it still might give you exactly what you need.

Rarely goes so far over the top that it loses you completely. It is, to put it mildly, not subtle. But if you watch it expecting to see a dumb idea executed with appreciable skill, you'll have a blast.

The new French voodoo/gothic drama Zombi Child is mostly satisfying, but also a little frustrating because of its creators’ walking-on-shells sensitivity.

Fighter never strays far from the path that other movies like it have previously charted, but it still delivers most of what it promises.

Witching and Bitching is accordingly overlong, and conceptually thin. But like most of de la Iglesia's films, it's also freakishly energetic, and often hysterical.

The Surrender accomplishes a lot with a sketch-sized story and matching compositional agility and precision. It’s short (less than 90 minutes!) and sweet and the best kind of upsetting.

An uneven but satisfying hostage crisis thriller that is also a perfect example of the type of late-period films martial arts star Jackie Chan has decided to make after entering middle age.

Somehow, The Wandering Earth II never feels tonally unbalanced or narratively convoluted, partly because Gwo and his collaborators keep their movie’s plot focused on feats of action-adventure heroism.

The bittersweet Korean drama Aloners works best when it’s a character study about an isolated thirtysomething’s behavior instead of whatever her creators think should be done about it.

Geoghegan and Hendrix have the right instincts, which goes a long way, given that their vision is slightly limited by their budget. I didn't just fall for this type of film: I also admire its creators' knack for conveying what they like most about their characters through pulpy dialogue, impressive shot choices, and satisfyingly gory set pieces.

Sappy, slow, and mostly effective.

It's uneven, and more than a little mystifying, but Rigor Mortis is also a bittersweet coda to a deliriously silly series of films.

Rabbit Trap, a supernatural drama about a young couple haunted by a creepy child, revels in the tropes and tics of a few decades’ worth of British folk horror.

Khufiya isn’t a deconstruction of the spy thriller, but it does blatantly re-orient viewers to what’s often missing or downplayed in stories about spies, many of whom are presented as solitary little wheels who work for big organizations that could stop needing them at a moment’s notice.

It's a confrontational fever dream film told from constantly shifting perspectives, and a chilly, dizzying trip into a genre defined by violently conflicting emotions.

Love remains distinct, given its unsparing view of people as flawed and not very sure of themselves.

The just-shy-of-great teen comedy Dear Dictator is the rare high-concept coming-of-age story with enough warmth and smart-ass charm to (hopefully!) make it accessible for a fairly wide cross-section of moviegoers.

Dupieux’s latest will either annoy or charm you depending on how much you appreciate being led around by the nose by a filmmaker and a cast of characters who seem pretty committed to jerking you around.

I often rolled my eyes at the kitschy, broad humor that Knife+Heart director Yann Gonzalzez (who co-wrote the film with Cristiano Mangione) sometimes used to characterize his sexually active queer characters.

Goofy, over-earnest, and just good enough where it counts, Kalki 2898 AD outdistances its competition simply by digging deeper than expected into its patchy lore’s rich melodramatic turf.

It is also the post-punk writer/director Sion Sono's most accessible film: a middle-aged filmmaker's tribute to the kind of epic-sized gangster-romance he used to fantasize about making.

The Great Wall has significant problems — namely with Damon and sidekick Pedro Pascal's lack of bromantic chemistry — but chief among its rewards is its ability to marry its Eastern and Western sensibilities.

With Bullet Train Explosion, you get a straight-down-the-line crowdpleaser, replete with duty-bound authority figures in well-pressed uniforms, anxious and often self-absorbed passengers, Macgyver-like problem-solving, seat-of-your-pants close calls, that sort of thing. There are no real surprises here, just what you’d want from this sort of cheeseball entertainment.

It's also genuinely warm and involving because of the participation of everyone from Carmen Vega, Giger's widow, to Sandra Berretta, Giger's former assistant and self-described "life partner." The film is, in that sense, an effective memorial, one filmed after Giger himself admitted that he had said all he wanted to say in his art.