Silence is Scorsese’s mode of sharing the Holy Communion. To that, every cinephile will say, “Amen.”

Luckily for Franco, Cranston makes for the perfect comic foil in Why Him?.

It’s a tonally imperfect film that’s nonetheless ideal for holiday viewing, a respite from "Rogue One" perhaps, or simply an exciting, old-school explorer’s tale well told (for the most part).

This is Denzel Washington’s third at bat behind the camera while directing himself and, holy smokes, does he knock it out of the park with a vicious, visceral performance that fairly sets the screen ablaze.

Michèle is a daring, complicated character – one that Isabelle Huppert brilliantly creates in concert with the director, Paul Verhoeven.

The movie is cute but predictable.

It’s nowhere near as soulful or questing as "2001" or "Moon" – but as popcorn entertainment, it’s surprisingly provocative.

Jackie has a nightmare vibe to it that’s palpable and unsettling, and Portman’s performance as the widowed first lady is a tour de force of conflicting emotions brought on by the impossibly ghastly reality bookending that sunny day in Dallas.

Assassin’s Creed is a dour, lifeless film that leaves those familiar with the material perplexed, and those ignorant of it downright clueless.

It’s almost criminal to have to stay in your seat when the contact high of La La Land is goosing you to grand jeté in the aisle. The heart, at least, is at liberty to swell to bursting.

Collateral Beauty is ultimately as mushy a movie as the phrase itself, whose definition is never fully explained by the script. It’s another example of something sounding good but meaning little.

It starts off slow and somewhat clunky, but by the time the mind-blowing third act arrives, it’s all a fan can do not to stand up and cheer.

Slash is an endearing, sweet, and altogether badass ode to being young, weird, and subversively creative.

Do not count on Office Christmas Party to deliver a contact high. Yes, there are laughs to be had, but not the off-the-charts merriment promised by the title and the film’s expert cast of comic actors.

The film is less successful at exploring the chinks in her armor – the stuff that makes her human, and a person of interest. Chastain is great – she’s always great, right? – and the brittle braininess she radiates is the film’s crowning seduction.

Incoherent mashup of previous demonized tyke films and unfailingly inept pseudo-science and the result is about as devoid of suspense, much less genuine horror, as this specific sub-genre can be.

The horror imagined by Évolution does not depend on the genre’s familiar tropes but instead its arousal of dread and fear, not unlike Guillermo del Toro in "The Devil’s Backbone," in which the peril is intuited rather than defined.

A quicker overall pace and trimmed dialogue might have lent the film more sparkle and zest, but it still makes it to the finish line with its decency intact.

The peerless actors match and elevate Lonergan’s artistry beat for beat. And the film’s greatest gift of all may be that it declines to tidy up after itself, prettifying life’s messiness with a finishing bow. In the end, it’s the package that counts, not the wrapping.

Forgotten or subject to overkill as they are here, veterans still get the shaft.

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is a hobbled parade.

Either way, Beatty has taken an object of enduring fascination and made him … not so much.

There’s a difference between being transgressive and offensive, and that, in a nutshell (or roasted chestnut), is the difference between Bad Santa and Bad Santa 2.

Allied is so full of itself it forgets to entertain most of the time. Here’s so not looking at you, kid.

The good news is that Moana is a wonderfully animated – in every sense of the word – tale of youthful female empowerment that dazzles the eye with an oceanic kaleidoscope of bioluminescent color, catchy songs, and a perfectly suited vocal cast.

While Fantastic Beasts suffers from some symptoms we’ve basically taken as par for the course in recent high-profile Hollywood spectacles: too many set-pieces, various plotlines stitched together like a quilt, and one-note supporting roles (pretty sure Jon Voight – playing a newspaper mogul – is just there to introduce himself for subsequent entries), it is also really fun.

If you’ve ever felt the same about a Felis catus, you’ll cut A Street Cat Named Bob some slack for the same reason I did. You won’t be able to help yourself. And stock up on some Kleenex beforehand. You’re gonna need them.

It’s a narratively audacious, ultra-stylish, and at times queasily violent film that’s likely to polarize audiences even as they find themselves unable to tear their eyes from the screen.

I recognized a lot of my younger self in The Edge of Seventeen. It’s crummy that teenagers just shy of 17 won’t get the same chance.

Despite its narrative familiarity, the film is suffused with such contagious enthusiasm, distinctive performances, and local color that it stands out nevertheless.

Regardless, the upside is that Shut In is cinematic Sominex for those in need of a 90-minute nap, a thousand yawns, and zero thrills.

The five days of togetherness are filled with challenges and enjoyment, and if the cast is willing, I’m sure other Meyers family reunions will follow, although none is likely to be as sweet as this sugar plum.

By the end of this tight and timely documentary – once again, we’re a nation in chaos, breeding some ridiculously fine rock & roll while the world burns.

A deeply soulful film, shot through with loss, regret, and hope. Like almost all great sci-fi films it’s less about the alien unknown than it is about the human condition.

Though it’s impossible to know exactly how these two people felt in coping with this untenable situation – they only wanted to get married and raise a family, nothing else – Nichols gives you a damn good idea, even when it slightly wears your patience.

Biller infuses the film with such style, such elegance, such joie de vivre, that I had a smile on my face for the whole running time.

Fascinating, troubling, and dutiful, Christine, if nothing else, houses a great performance.

The adaptation, by screenwriter John Romano and McGregor, debuting as a director, roughly sticks to the plot points of the novel but sheds its nuance, and reduces Zuckerman’s role to a mere background information delivery system.

While all of the performances in this movie are superb, Harris’ turn here is hands-down award-worthy.

There’s nary a hint of the original Troll dolls' disconcerting unearthliness in this utterly tame although vibrantly animated feature.

The last ten minutes or so are heartwarming to the point of schmaltz. Even the adept Lassgård, as the old fogey version of Ove, can’t make this increasingly feel-good schtick stick.

Hacksaw Ridge is drenched in the blood of the fallen and the mud forever caked on the boots of those who survived to tell the tale. It’s the closest thing to feeling as though you’ve marched a mile in those shoes.

A tight, compact, and visually sumptuous origin story that revels in the surrealistic vision of Doctor Strange’s legendary creator and artist Steve Ditko.

An engaging and evocative thriller/love story, The Handmaiden is ultimately a tale of freedom and transformation, as satisfying as an exquisitely choreographed four-course meal.

I was unfamiliar with X Japan (as they’re known outside of their home country) but after watching this thrilling documentary I’m a rock solid fan, scouring eBay for old concert T-shirts. As Gene Simmons notes, “If X had been born in America, they might have been the biggest band in the world.”

For fans, Oasis: Supersonic is a reminder of both the band’s musical strengths and of a simpler time for pop music in general, pre-internet and all that that implies.

There’s no pacing to the narrative, and the images are perfunctory. I’m Not Ashamed will draw the same audience that has turned Rachel’s journals into popular reading matter, but the film is not likely to lure any converts.

The subtlety and restraint in the way Reichardt links the vignettes is also commendable. It’s as if she’s reminding us that we’re all part of the grander scheme of things but at the same time disconnected from one another.

Sex, drugs, and rock & roll is a classic formula for disaffected youth, but Danny Perez’s debut feature spins the cliche like some sort of infinitely outrageous horror-show centrifuge.

Returning director Ron Howard somewhat belabors the Botticelli-inspired hallucinations Langdon suffers from following a konk on the head – though you really can’t oversell the creepiness of a beaky plague mask – but he continues to have an inspired hand in casting his supporting players.

The film is chockablock with terrible actors (including Tyga, in a bizarro cameo rapping at a frat party), and the jokes he gives his inferior cast to work with are stinkers.

Not so much horrific as it is just skeletons-in-the-basement creepy, this is a shuddery fun surprise for horror fans, who by the way should stick around until the closing credits are done for a special (if inevitable) trick or treat.

Embrace the simple pleasures of pen to paper.

Overall, it’s a package that will only be well-received by fans.

It’s meant to be thrilling fun, but it never takes off in the way imagined.

Never Go Back is boilerplate action-thriller, filmed with an anonymous style and scripted so that characters talk in catchphrases.

Suffice to say, this departure from West’s usual run of seriously freaky spook shows is a brilliant piece of work, cordite-scented sorrow, and last-laugh gags stabbed through with a discernible lust for life.

Director Keith Maitland’s film is one of the finest documentaries ever made, and it’s also one of the most unusual.

A lean, mean chase movie that plays like equal parts Donald Trump’s immigration policy, Steven Spielberg’s "Duel," and Wes Craven’s "The Hills Have Eyes," Cuarón’s desert-based take on "The Most Dangerous Game" is very much of the moment. It’s also, unfortunately, a one-note story populated with a handful of semi-anonymous archetypal characters.

Courtroom dramas can be tricky, tetchy things, but director Jackson, working from a script by David Hare (The Hours) keeps the suspense and moral indignation peaking high throughout Denial’s slightly overlong running time.

Conceptually, The Accountant kills it, but in terms of execution, The Accountant doesn’t add up.

The Birth of a Nation most definitely has its finger on the pulse of our times.

Make no mistake: This is a horror film right to its core, although the nightmare comes both from without (the war, the state decrees regarding how Shideh must dress in public, even when fleeing incoming missiles) and within (the unknown but entirely evil Middle Eastern djinn).

Hosking has a keen eye for this type of cringeworthy comedy, as evidenced by every scene going on 30 seconds longer than it should, and enhanced by over-the-top, cartoony violence. But is The Greasy Strangler a contender for cult classic status? I guess that’s a question for the ages.

Cassel’s feline visage, covered in a velvety layer of fur for most of the movie, doesn’t fare much better. At times, he resembles an angry cast member from Cats rather than the tormented fiend trying to find his human self once again. It’s beastly.

There’s no grand plot outline in American Honey, and at two-and-a-half-hours' running time, the film certainly rambles.

It’s a tedious watch, inferior in every way to David Fincher’s slick, grinningly grim "Gone Girl." Any chance for lightning striking twice is going, going, gone.

The film mixes vivid cartoons coming to life from the pages of Rafe’s sketchbook with the live action. The film is reminiscent of some of the best aspects of John Hughes’ teen movies: playful albeit with strong emotional centers that ground their suburban teen rebels.

The movie’s disjointed weirdness begs the question: Was Hess ever in the driver’s seat?

The Polish/Israeli co-production picked up the Best Horror Feature award at Fantastic Fest 2015, and it’s a shame that Wrona is gone, but at least we have this superlative example of his cinematic brilliance.

Rises above the usual underdog sports cliches to become something quite affecting and distinctive.

It’s a phantasmagorical chase movie that rarely takes a breather long enough for you to enjoy the sights along the way.

Is That a Gun resorts to smutty humor and moralistic speeches to confront the issue of American gun violence in the wake of Newtown, Conn. This movie uses those murdered babies’ name in vain.

The Dressmaker’s twists are best experienced blind, and its treats are modest but genuine.

That Berg and writers Matthew Carnahan and Matthew Sand stick strictly to the day of that explosion and subsequent fire that sank the Deepwater Horizon certainly presents a narrative opportunity, but the lack of any resonance to larger issues is troubling (the end-credit coda is woefully thin).

Animated films have trended toward a perceptive intelligence in the past few years, but Storks wades in shallow waters most of the time.

Goodhart’s film is a winner – sweet but not sentimental, tart without turning sour. The studio-produced romantic comedy may be flatlining, but who cares, so long as snappy indies like this one step up to fill the void?

The script is replete with filler inserted in the name of “real life”: bad jokes and silly riddles, spontaneous songs, and improvised scenes in which conversations go around in circles.

Neglects to provide the characters with enough background history to explain what makes them such original figures in the Old West.

The film is another near-miss talking point in an endless deluge of reminders that this system creates a breeding ground for toxic masculinity.

Come What May over-romanticizes the horrific, forced French exodus.

Starving the Beast does an admirable job of making even the most arcane of arguments and abstruse alliances plain and clear.

That is what this film documents: racism, homophobia, misogyny, and exploitation of the working class. God bless Texas.

The Vessel speaks eloquently. It’s a testament to the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.

Playing out like some bizarro hardcore version of an episode of "Girls," Wood’s feature debut infuses a hefty dose of white privilege mixed with more than a sprinkling of gender politics, all wrapped up in a sleazy, sweaty, strung-out package that wants, no, needs you to react to the various bad decisions every character makes.

Gordon-Levitt, however, nails the part completely, physically hunching down into himself and getting Snowden’s halting, thoughtful speech patterns just right, while Stone, working with screenwriter Kieran Fitzgerald, creates a whirlwind ride nearly but not quite worthy of The Parallax View-era conspiracy thrillers.

Other People is gentle, heartfelt, and of a delicate build. Kelly’s best observations are small but true: the touching banality of a bad pop song, and that “other people” is in fact most people, if you’re paying attention.

The Land isn’t a perfect film, but it is a hell of a good start, and director Caple Jr. – and his young cast – are artists to keep an eye on, for sure.

Brandon’s odyssey, filtered through Tipping’s lens, is at times funny, harrowing, and well, somewhat annoying (way too much slow-mo), but the talent here is clear.

A standard-issue family reunion dramedy, The Hollars has several genuine moments of human interaction that are near-magical to observe because they feel so plucked from real life.

Is this latest outing as bold or bracing or funny as the original film? Certainly not. We’re well settled into our seats now, but there’s some comfort in how the cushion already knows a body’s grooves.

It’s a fun and mostly effective ride while it lasts, part Slenderman creepypasta weird and part full-on, nerve-jangling horror, but it’s ultimately, perhaps unavoidably, unsatisfying.

Feuerzeig has made a fascinating documentary about a fascinating occurrence. Author implicitly stokes so many of the moral questions the incident inherently raises.

When the Bough Breaks could have offered some cheap thrills, but it ends up a neutered, paint-by-numbers snoozefest, not even worthy for cable syndication.

The Disappointments Room lives (and dies) up to its name.

All three leads bring the goods, but it is Luna, carrying much of the emotional weight of the film, who shines the brightest, showing a depth and countenance well beyond his years.

Any adult attending this film with a pre-K offspring may need to reassure the child afterward that little Tigger back home won’t devour him in his sleep. No kidding. They’re that scary. The Wild Life is an ailurophobe’s nightmare.

Eastwood keeps his direction lean and mean. There’s not an ounce of wasted screen time in Sully’s 96 minutes, but the story, an example of “truth is stranger than fiction,” has all the thrust it needs, and then some.