Witney Seibold

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is set in a world that I wouldn't mind living in. Even if there are occasional, ineffable cosmic deities plotting to devour me, and terrifying silver aliens ripping my soul apart with their eyes. "First Steps" is a superhero movie where we're already better. And I love that.

Despite a problematic ending, Midsommar is an emotionally harrowing and slowly insidious journey, languidly forcing dread on the viewer, wrapping them in a weird nightmare summer camp of sunlight and cheer.

Bleak, severe, and awesome, "The First Omen" is the best horror movie of the year so far.

The Old Man & the Gun is a fitting swan song to screen legend Robert Redford.

Skillfully made, spooky, stylish, and featuring some quite good character work, The Strangers: Prey at Night stands much taller than the 2008 original. The central killers are plenty scary, and some of the images on display would make John Carpenter proud.

The film may end on a bleak note, but there's some levity mixed into the very batter.

Godzilla Minus One is one of the rare Godzilla pictures about the indomitability of the human spirit.

The Way Back is a somber sports drama more interested in exploring the plight of its hero than in just the big games.

It may not be the best Lanthimos, but it's certainly the most Lanthimos.

Crowley may be telling a melodramatic story, but he studiously avoids sentimentality.

If you hand Paul Feig a good script, he becomes a better director. With "The Housemaid," he doesn't just explore his characters well, but wisely delves into themes of class. The dishonesty of the rich dangles over "The Housemaid," pointing out how wealth is a moral trap. It's alluring and dangerous. Wealth is practically a living creature. It seems to be dazzling and charming and seductive, but hides its true intentions, fangs secretly in its otherwise perfect smile.

Melissa McCarthy gives one of her best performances in a surprisingly relatable story about a criminal misanthrope with a heart beating deep inside her.

Cold Pursuit is partly a great action thriller, and Liam Neeson is still kicking plenty of butt, but the film is mostly an intriguing, relaxing, totally tuckered-out character study of old men running out of the energy required to run a criminal enterprise. As thrillers go, this one is more adult than your average.

With a sensitive ear for the experiences of its friendly subject, and nothing but sympathy for what he says, Love and Saucers paints a fascinating portrait of a talented and unique person.

In lesser hands, Challengers would have been a chintzy soap opera. Guadagnino, however, is able to bolster an admittedly typical soap story with an energetic style and attention to detail.

It's a lightweight, weirdly teen-friendly (but very R-rated) slumber party movie with an upbeat and liberating "be gay, do crime" vibe. It's a queer, hand grenade-shaped squeak toy. 

"Godzilla x Kong" is infectiously fun, raucous, and, in the 8-year-old sense, awesome. One will not take much away from "Godzilla x Kong," but you'll leave the theater with a big damn fool grin on your face.

Although it doesn't possess the hard-boiled, shifty-eyed salaciousness of a traditional whodunnit, "Conclave" is certainly in the spirit of a private investigator story.

While not exactly transcending the familiarity of its very predictable genre, The Ritual is a spooky, shadowy horror film with good character work, an excellent mood, some provocative themes, excellent lighting, and a scary... thing... that horror fans will love.

Peter Jackson's technical ambitions sometimes muddy his otherwise moving WWI documentary They Shall Not Grow Old.

Sicario: Day of the Soldado is a darkly thrilling film with excellent performances, and its gritty, intense action is balanced by heady themes of moral decay, but overall, because of recent political developments, it feels behind the times.

Brightburn doesn't take its satire to any kind of satisfying extreme – although a mid-credits stinger does include a larger joke at work – but as a superhero murder thriller, it is perfectly entertaining.

While hardly high cinema, Kickboxer: Retaliation is an enjoyable fight epic with some awesome fighting, great cameos, and hugely impressive stunts.

Hess and his army of screenwriters (only five are credited) have taken the wisest possible route with their adaptation: A Minecraft Movie is a broad, slapstick farce without a hint of seriousness, reverence, or coolness. The most shocking thing? It's not terrible. 

The Book of Clarence is aspirational, unique, moving, funny, weird, and very shaggy. But it's better to have a picture's cup runneth over than to present us with an empty chalice.

Ad Astra is grand but, rather frustratingly, it's not great. James Gray’s film is a most impressive technical achievement, and the first half is exciting and flirts with profundity. The second half, however, slows to a maddeningly sluggish pace, and the film ultimate leaves you worn out and disengaged.

An exciting and scary final act makes up for a middling kid horror fantasy that is marked by a slow start and an inappropriately comedic tone.

Geostorm is as dumb as you think, but more fun than you might expect.