The Wedding Guest arrives with unexpected gifts.

This astonishing animated feature from first-time Slovenian director Krstić is required viewing for art history majors and anyone else with even a glancing interest in the works of everyone from Warhol to Gauguin, Diego Velázquez to Joan Miró.

The Mustang, Clermont-Tonnerre’s impressive debut feature, is a slow-burning, tightly coiled character study of felony offender Roman Coleman (Bullhead’s Schoenaerts).

Level 16 is a mystery horror that gets darker as it unravels.

Gloria Bell is its own thing. Lelio inflects the film with a believably Californian vibe, all washed-out easiness, and the faint feeling that so much easiness must take an awful lot of work. And Moore can so exquisitely convey two emotions at once, the actorly equivalent of patting a head and rubbing a stomach at the same time.

Bisexual coming out stories are basically nonexistent in cinema, and that would be enough to set Giant Little Ones apart from the pack. But that's just one element of a wider story, told with a charming earnestness, about sexuality as a spectrum.

Dragged Across Concrete is a nihilist's morality tale. In the end, Zahler suggests, there's the dead, the innocent, and those smart enough to know that running is the only path out; and even then, there's a lot of innocence on that pile of corpses.

What truly binds this film is the love story that lies at the heart of it. It’s a love battered by fate and bad luck, quite the opposite of such forces as planned redesigns of China’s social and geographic landscapes.

Most important is that there's no caricatured, mustache-twirling villain, or low-grade local bullies, driving the action.

Perhaps the fault lies not in our stars, but in our shameless need for a sappy ending.

At its best, Captive State blends imaginative science fiction with the caliber of detail-oriented espionage you might find in an Alan J. Pakula film.

Screenwriters Nina Fiore and John Herrera have modernized Keene’s decades-old storyline without completely chucking the quaint qualities of the original.

But for all our Tony Montanas and Pablo Escobars, both imagined and real, I guarantee you have never seen a drug-trafficking movie like Birds of Passage.

It’s a celebratory movie designed to rekindle awe and admiration for the accomplishments of the NASA astronauts and ground scientists, as well as a reminder of the endless realms of possibility that can be achievable when a country and its politicians work in unison toward a shared goal.

Pratt delightfully plays against type here as a fierce bully, and Hawke looks as though he were born to wear spurs and a badge.

True, few of the cutup crew ever had the depth of knowledge or stylistic panache that Godard – one of the last remaining masters of the 20th century's most vibrant art forms – brings to the screen. But then, is The Image Book really a film? Godard himself has re-engineered it as an art installation, to be shown on a TV with speakers surrounding it, and that would probably be a better home.

By turns wry, quirky, joyful, and above all human, this easygoing but never less than fascinating documentary focuses on the surprisingly tolerant township of Eureka, Ark.

You could fault A Madea Family Funeral for its many other shortcomings. It runs about 30 minutes too long; the tempo of the numerous dramatic scenes is on par with drying paint; characters lack consistency from scene to scene; the dialogue sounds like a first draft that needs major editing; its occasional technical sloppiness; and so forth.

As the energy-beam projecting, space-flying defender of the underdog, Brie Larson has captured the pugnacious, charming, steely Captain Marvel in the ways she deserves.

The Wandering Earth is as much a love letter to disaster films as it is a worthy entry in the genre itself. That, combined with some truly eye-popping visuals, makes it a film that should be seen on the biggest screen possible.

The Hole in the Ground is filled with all the tropes of the "sinister child" subgenre, but first time feature director Cronin (best known in horror circles for his 2013 award-winning short "Ghost Train") deftly weds it with the same rural Gothic sensibilities that have made Irish horror such a vibrant and unsettling scene for the last few years.

Despite the buildup of these horror expectations, there is no predicting how deliciously enjoyable it is to witness the macabre dance performed by Moretz and Huppert, two of the best actresses working in today’s movies. They play their game of cat and mouse with claws out; by the end of the berserko film, their characters are practically swinging from the rafters. Everyone appears to be having a grand time in Greta, and it would be crass for us as viewers to not respond similarly.

The real delight here, however, is Broderick’s mensch, a middle-aged man painfully aware that he’s become a loser.

There’s a degree of mythologization at work here, an attempt to frame the birth of the Texas oil industry as this great drinking game between old money and new money. What it lacks is a distinct perspective; for all its period details and solid acting, the underlying message about this time in Texas oil history – that it was right, that it was wrong, that it was necessary – is lacking. This makes The Iron Orchard a film that is both worse and better than it could have been.

The director is notorious for not having a working script, writing the day’s scenes the morning of, and improvising at any given moment. The internet tells me that this film was shot in two weeks, and while Hong’s off-the-cuff style seems restless at times, it coagulates like a small scab that never quite stops itching.

In transgressive cinema, there is only one real sin, and that is to be boring. Somewhere around the six-hour mark of Gaspar Noé's 96-minute drug freakout fable Climax.

It may be a simple, old-fashioned, underdog-gets-their-day, feel-good story, but it sure as hell will leave you feeling good.

FP2 is all stupid surface, held together by Trost’s surly charm. It may be filled with dumb “beat off” puns, but it’s just smart enough to be all heart.

A feel-good film that uses hope, kindness, and generosity (if a bit austerely) to convey this strong message that releases endorphins as strong as any runner’s high.

These dragons are rendered so expressively, and they have become so dear. We may not deserve them, but that doesn’t stop the heart from wanting.

Never Look Away seems as self-satisfied with itself as its fictional artists are with the works they produce. Pardon my disgruntlement, but after three hours, my tendency is to desire a more resounding ending and something less solipsistic.

Everybody Knows is not Farhadi’s best work, but he does deliver an affair to remember.

As a depiction of the lowest ebbs of what is written off as flyover country, Donnybrook doesn't lack for empathy for the truly unsympathetic. What is in short supply is any sense of direction.

The screenplay by Erin Cardillo, Dana Fox, and Katie Silberman nails the mechanics of a rom-com, even if it takes Wilson’s delivery to drive the lessons home. Scenes are succinct and the movie comes in at 88 minutes even with a tacked-on song-and-dance video at the end (as a nod to the film’s wildly successful karaoke-bar sequence earlier in the film).

There’s a distinct Eighties vibe that appeals to the intended demographic, especially in the bumbling school administrator Dean Bronson (Zissis, more stooge than villain), the sexual politics between the characters (they are in college after all), and the delicious bitchiness of mean girl Danielle (Matthews). Yet for all its ambition with loopy timelines and dubious scientific explanations, convenient logic only justified in pushing the plot along, the actual world-building falls flat.

It does not reinvent the wheel (or, more aptly, sled runner) but it's a tale that survives the retelling.

We never see Salazar’s performance, only the SFX team’s re-creation of her performance, and that generates a disconnect between the audience and the lead character that the film can never overcome.

Henson aside, the most memorable performance comes from musician Erykah Badu in the smallish role of a trippy, weed-dealing psychic seemingly from another planet.

The movie’s constant meta-comedy recognition of the endearing yet aggravating earworm quality of the first film’s “Everything Is Awesome” theme song may be its most effectual in-joke.

Cold Pursuit very nearly brings Neeson full circle, imbued as it is with a lower-rent version of the patented Raimi gallows humor.

Åkerlund's style, and his quietly sensitive handling of the bloody details, will still bang the head that does not bang.

The story, though structurally flawed, is an artful portrait of modern life: the 24-hour news cycle, class warfare, and rampant overconsumption leading to crippling anxiety and burnout, even in the young. It’s sadly all too familiar: Too late to be a cautionary tale, it reads more like society’s distorted self-portrait.

One personal pet peeve is the music. A movie about evil reincarnation could pave the way for any of a hundred different song choices, but The Prodigy’s score is focused on a dissatisfying blend of danger chords and a single shapeless Hungarian folk song.

There are times when it’s funny. There are also times when it beats you over the head with context clues. When the action ramps up, the over-the-top music score seems to stomp its foot and say, “Something is hap-pen-ing!” Certain plot points are overemphasized. It veers toward parody. But it’s also satisfying to see the outcome.

The end result goes far beyond the simple colorization of moldering battlefield documentation. It restores the humanity of the combatants, both the British and, surprisingly, the German. Ultimately, it’s a you-are-there time capsule of enormous emotional and historical importance.

Pushing the concepts of consensual BDSM to their very furthest extremes, Pesce's curious, stylized, and perversely erotic romance will inevitably make the audience flinch.

Capernaum is as close to unfiltered truth as the screen or the audience can handle. Set in the slums of Beirut, it is an eye-opening insight into life at the frayed fringes of a society that seems seconds from unraveling.

The best ingredient is the way Ray relates to his son. Those moments – sometimes quiet, but often volatile – lift the film up from being a turgid episode of "Fargo" or "Justified."

A spectacular misfire – is a 180 from Locke’s lean brilliance, overstuffed with plot complications, overheated with bad acting and maudlin sentiment.

The story is tender and heartbreaking.

Fans of wartime romances like Casablanca and Doctor Zhivago are sure to swoon over the fate of Cold War’s divided lovers.

A bit of action, a bit of humor, and a whole bunch of teachable moments.

Cobbled together on what appears to be a very low budget, Glass shatters under the weight of too many comic book allegories-cum-history lessons, weirdly abrupt plot machinations, epically puny bouts of brawny fisticuffs, and a third-act bit of outright what-the-f**k-ery that gives even the lamest deus ex machinas a bad name.

The underlying narrative theme of sons who become greater – and better – men than their fathers is underdeveloped. Meanwhile, the animation feels oddly dated, as the decision to give visual continuity to three and a half decades of storytelling re-enforces this as fan service.

Some kids may find the whole affair traumatic, particularly when the poor pooch finds herself dehydrated and chained to a corpse in the wilderness. Then again, that’s nothing compared to those same kids’ parents’ recollection of a Disney flick in which a tearful boy must shoot his rabies-inflicted yeller dog in the end. Bless the beasts and the children.

St. John's script is the underlying bug in the code. Science fiction is at its best when it's a morality tale – especially when dealing with tech, such as brain mapping, that is seemingly within our grasp. Yet there's no moral or emotional weight to anything William does.

Nicole Kidman, as good as she is, is given little to do in a one-note role, but fares better than Julianna Margulies who appears merely in a one-scene role. Kevin Hart’s huge number of fans may push this film to early box-office success but eventually they are likely to toss it into the untouchable pile.

The film is an action-packed thriller-Western hybrid, but it takes a dreamy pace in setting up the story (the first 20 minutes or so are rather languid).

Speaking in a barely audible rasp bordering on monotone, Kidman bravely submerges herself in a performance with some genuinely harrowing emotional moments, and yet the unswerving conviction she brings to the role is conspicuous.

From a purely visual point of view, Escape Room is worth the price of admission.

Granted, it's breezy enough in a retro-chic kind of way, but the meh factor is too high to overcome for all but the hardiest of J-Lo die-hards.

Jones makes a fine Ginsburg – especially in the mouth, lips pursed expectantly – but something in Hammer’s resigned manner paints a Marty that is more ineffectual than stoic, and the chemistry between them is pretty middle-of-the-road.

Yet in many ways Shoplifters is an unlikely yet organic extension of his last film, 2017's crime drama "The Third Murder." Less a whodunit than a whydidyoudoit, that legal procedural was really a subtle assault on Japan's judicial system, in which it's more important that a case makes sense than it reaches the truth. Shoplifters cuts close to the same marrow as "The Third Murder," but with how Japan views families as his subject.

I would not recommend this film to everyone, but those seeking a poignant satire on art will be continuously rewarded, as the film seeks, over and over, to grapple (in often wondrous ways), with what it means to live.

The film is episodic and often veers into hit-or-miss flights of fancy.

Combined with some awfully lazy riffs on Holmes’s fondness for his seven-per-cent solution, Holmes & Watson is not so much a case of whodunit as it is a question why bother.

Aquaman also benefits from a cast that is unafraid to chew a little scenery. Momoa is an established entity at this point in his career; equal parts cartoon character and Eighties action lead, he carries the film through its muddiest moments through sheer charisma.

McKay has made a protest film, plainly seething – a primal howl from a guy who used to just goose howls of laughter.

Ultimately, this is the best version of this story that the CG-obsessed Zemeckis could have possibly produced. But just because he could make it, that doesn't mean he should.

While there is poetic grace, that's not to say that there's no didacticism. Like Baldwin, Jenkins has a rigorous sense of what is broken in society.

Knight, coming from a born animator’s background, retrofits the intergalactic Sturm und Drang for a more humanistic tone that manages to be both more entertaining overall and moderately Spielbergian (he continues to executive produce the franchise) in this tale of a girl and her big, lovable, lemon-colored E.T. It’s a kinder, gentler Transformers movie for the holidays. Go figure.

An impactful film, one that’s made for the season of giving, if giving means never giving up.

For no matter how derivative this carefully calculated sentimental journey may be, there’s still an undeniable magic in its voice and its step likely to enchant adults – and hopefully kids – alike. Uncle Walt would be proud.

The film feels rote, an exercise of base and pedestrian concerns that never moves beyond anything resembling a statement. Of which there is none, except perhaps von Trier regarding his navel, which I suspect he wouldn’t have it any other way. For the rest of us? We suffer, which is most likely by the director’s design.

Eastwood plays it cool, thankfully. It’s the best film about drug trafficking that you can take your grandparents to.

It all comes back to the heart of the Spidey story, the old adage that "with great power comes great responsibility." It's tough doing the right thing, and sometimes it's thankless and can come with a lot of pain, but it's still the right thing, and that's why you do it. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse always comes out swinging.

There’s nothing feel-good about this story – even moments that should be hopeful.

In the end, Tea With the Dames peters out as a conversation, given there’s no real beginning, middle or end to the film. It’s a privilege, however, to have been given a tableside seat to listen to this foursome reminisce and ruminate for an hour and a half, with laughter punctuating the conversation every few minutes.

The internet is infinite. So, too, are the ways it can breed creepy behavior and new opportunities to commodify human connection. People’s Republic of Desire explores only a tiny swath of the internet of grossness, but it’s a subject so epic it deserves much longer examining than a quick 95 minutes affords.

Viewers unfamiliar with Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli’s extraordinary output over the years may find Never-Ending Man an exercise in tedium – the creation of an animated film, even a short one, is a famously slow and exceedingly precise process – but for those who, like me, adore his life’s work, it’s a precious and fascinating glimpse into the inner life of the world’s greatest living animator.

Ultimately, Mortal Engines is the kind of non-summer blockbuster that seems destined to find a few ardent defenders. Too unfocused to be good, too packed full of ideas to be entirely bad, it should become quite the cable television staple in just a few years' time.

Mary Queen of Scots catches the outline but misses all the details.

So what if it's a story we've seen already this year? It's still a blast, and with added Savage it manages to be a good-hearted cash-in that retains the original's mix of emotion and acerbic humor while providing a hilarious commentary on the film itself.

Not enough can be said about Willem Dafoe’s amazing performance as van Gogh. It is some of the best work of his career.

This is a film that alternatively shows humanity in all its ugly glory as well is its quiet moments of beauty.

Honestly, the visuals let a stellar voice cast down. In trying so hard to escape Disney, Serkis just fell deeper in his shadow.

While the movie principally focuses on Flynn’s professional aspirations, including his desire to be accepted as a chef in his own right despite his age (the online trolls had a field day after the NYT article), a prickly relationship with his mother, Meg, provides a subtextual narrative that sometimes feels a bit uncomfortable.

Becoming Astrid’s saving grace is Alba August. She is in almost every frame of this film, and gives life to what, on paper, amounts to a Lifetime channel biopic.

If you and the film find yourself on the same wavelength, there is a fair amount here to like. Like many actors moving behind the camera, Pettyfer may err a bit too much on the side of loud performances, but cinematographer Jarin Blaschke (The Witch) adds some much-needed desperation to these characterizations through his unsentimental depiction of rural Pennsylvania.

There are undoubtedly filmmakers who could’ve taken that setting and created something genuinely spooky; it’s a shame to see an excellent setting go entirely to waste.

Scintillating black comedy of manners from Yorgos Lanthimos, it latches its fangs in deep.

An anime version of "Mr. Mom" this is not. Director Hosoda’s clear-eyed story allows for comic moments of fatherly ineptitude but focuses just as often on the marital and familial stress this sudden role reversal causes.

A complex and fascinating look into a convergence of creativity, money, and iconoclasts, Meow Wolf: Origin Story is a tale that to my knowledge has no precedent. And while Meow Wolf might not be to everyone’s tastes, they are trailblazers. I’ll take their elaborate and inventive installations over pastel desert paintings of horses and clouds any day of the week.

Maria by Callas is not the place to look if you’re in search of a biography of the star.

The signature refrain of "Hollywood Ending," with its high-kicking energy and table-punching emotion, is just irresistible. It's the sweet that balances out the bitter of a film that makes it clear that this won't all end well. Anna and the Apocalypse is like biting into a candy cane and getting jabbed by those sharp, sugary shards.

A vibrant, outspoken, and incredibly talented artist, this doc is both a biography of a life and a document of a person living on her own terms, just trying to figure things out like the rest of us.

Robin Hood isn’t as awful as all that, really. For one thing, it’s too singularly bizarre to be anything less than head scratchingly entertaining, and the action set-pieces are pulled off with much quivery panache.

The script unfortunately replicates one of the worst errors in "Toy Story 3": Sidelining just about every major supporting character from the early installments.