Even when Greta Gerwig trips up on her ambition to make this pretty-in-pink fantasia more than the fun party of summer, you cheer her refusal to play it safe as she turns Margot Robbie’s doubt-plagued Barbie and Ryan Gosling’s clueless Ken into a match made in movie heaven.

Christopher Nolan deserves every superlative for his brilliant take on J. Robert Oppenheimer (a flawless Cillian Murphy), the dark knight of the atomic age. This terrifying, transfixing three-hour epic emerges as a monumental achievement on the march into screen history.

So what if the plot is the usual tangle to set up stunts. Tom Cruise does the impossible and nobody does it better.

All your friends will be talking about this femcentric raunchfest and its fabulous Asian-American actors who are ready to lace every laugh with human complication.

The fifth and final chapter for our whip-cracking archaeologist suffers from the absence of Steven Spielberg and a workable script, but Harrison Ford—80 and still working deep and true—makes sure that Indy goes out in blaze of glory. One word: Respect.

This R-rated sex farce only plays at being dirty. Behind the carnal jokes lurks a Hallmark heart. But a never-friskier or funnier Lawrence, as a 30-ish Uber driver hired to seduce a college-bound kid (terrific newcomer Feldman) is well worth the price of admission. The rest gets a hard pass.

Mad trippy or catastrophic? This DC superhero epic is actually a mix of both, dragged down by exhausting multiverse hopping but flashy fun on the wings of captivating star Ezra Miller and the grumpy comic perfection of Michael Keaton as a Batman on the ropes.

Polarizing? Sure. But Wes Anderson is a film artist like no other. In defiance of realism, he builds dazzling, minimalist, all-star jewel boxes that are easy to spoof but impossible to equal. This Atomic-age fable about teen space nerds and their parents tinges laughs with genuine feeling.

Wait a hot minute here. Can a new Transformers movie actually be bearable? Let’s not get carried away, but a diverse cast and the absence of ham-handed former director Michael Bay qualify as a step in the right direction.

Heads up, Oscar. First-time director Celine Song crafts the best movie of the year so far by using her own life to explore the meaning of destiny as a South Korean playwright (the glorious Greta Lee) is torn between a past love (Teo Yoo) and her American husband (John Magaro).

This new animation classic, the first in a two-part sequel, is out to make history. Consider it done. In a word—wow! You’ve never seen anything like it in your life.

Never snap judge a Nicole Holofcener film as a sitcom. Just watch how she steers Julia Louis-Dreyfus and a pitch-perfect cast to dig out the raw feelings colliding under the laughs to reveal a generosity toward human foibles, even when comic darts draw blood.

While it can’t match the effortless charm of the 1989 animated classic, this faint but overstuffed live-action echo fills the title role with shining new star Halle Bailey who gives this musical fable just the oomph it needs—a heart that sings and a spirit that soars.

With its pokey pace broken by bursts of violence and racial tension, the end of Paul Schrader’s man-in-a-room trilogy falls short of the master’s peak. But this mesmerizer is the work of a true film artist continually striving to connect his tortured soul to ours.

Only glints of the old whiplash magic remain in chapter 10 as thrills give way to thudding formula and paycheck acting—not you Jason Momoa—that slow down the action to forge the limping runt of the F&F litter.

A fantastic cast led by Jay Baruchel and Glenn Howerton tells the sad but true story of the flame-out of the world’s first smartphone and the manchildren who created it. This raucous workplace comedy (think The Office) puts an unexpected lump in your throat.

Jennifer Lopez and all the mothers out there deserve better than this gross, cringey gorefest about a military-trained assassin (JLo) who makes up to the pre-teen daughter she gave up at birth by instructing her in the fine art of killing bad guys. Happy Mother’s Day, indeed.

For all its backsliding into bleak—what’s with torturing Bradley Cooper’s talking raccoon—this spirited summer kickoff delivers the requisite thrill ride and ends the GOTG trilogy with the sweet sorrow of saying goodbye to Star Lord and his wacky space dorks. It’s been a trip.

Hollywood does gloriously right by Judy Blume’s groundbreaking 1970 novel about a pre-teen girl (a stellar Abby Ryder Fortson) in a tug-of-war with puberty and religion. Costars McAdams and Bates exemplify Blume’s refreshing candor. Call it totally irresistible.

This lively computer-animated take on the video game just opened and it’s already the biggest box-office smash of 2023. Despite lapses into dull and disposable, it’s also a gift for parents seeking family entertainment for the 5-year-old in all of us. Game on.

You’ll either love it or hate it as director Ari Aster tasks Joaquin Phoenix with his most challenging role yet: a total loser just trying to get home to his mama (Patti LuPone). It’s not for everyone, except audiences starved for originality in copycat Hollywood.

Before this frightfest chokes on its own relentlessly repetitive blood-splatter, Nicolas Cage proves fiercely funny as a modern-age Dracula whose malignant narcissism sends his errand boy Renfield (a soulful Nicholas Hoult) into therapy for co-dependency.

Director Ben Affleck slam dunks a movie about a basketball sneaker—the Air Jordan, no less— and it’s the first all-star Oscar contender of 2023, an outrageously entertaining classic in the making with Affleck, Matt Damon, Viola Davis and a cast of MVPs at the top of their game.

Ever since Knives Out snapped the whodunit back to wicked life, it’s harder to accept a lazy, dim-witted mystery that wastes the starshine of Sandler and Aniston on 89 minutes of sequel piffle. One of those new AI bots could have coughed up a script with more personality.

Video games make lousy movies, right? Not this time. Thanks to Chris Pine and a cast of merry pranksters, especially Hugh Grant and a chubwub dragon, the big-screen D&D cuts through the confusion and chaos to create a goofball fantasy even a non-gamer can love.

Wick-haters find only monotony in this carnival of carnage, but the rest of us will revel in the fourth chapter’s state-of-the-art action fireworks led by a hypnotically-Zen Keanu Reeves as the hitman who treats kung fu fighting like a dance tableau. Unmissable? Hell, yeah!

It’s frustrating that this immense, immersive true-crime story has been squeezed into a two-hour movie instead of a miniseries about the two women reporters—superbly played by Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon—who broke a notorious case the police could not.

The tossed-off charm of the original suffers from bloated sequelitis. Still, star Zachary Levi’s comic-book invitation to shake your sillies out will be hard to resist for underserved family audiences.