This movie achieves a rare grace: it tells a story that could only exist in the form of a movie (or, perhaps, as a piece of poetry). The story is told not so much in customary narrative structures, but in glimpses, hints, and intimations. It has a way of taking the solid and making it chimerical.

So whether you’re here for obscure characters like Charles Xavier’s lost twin Cassandra Nova (Corrin), grisly sword vs. claw fights, queer comedy, MCU mythology, the cover of Uncanny X-Men #251, or just Jackman and Reynolds having a blast being hams, Deadpool & Wolverine has you covered.

It's easy enough to forget there are special effects involved, so convincing is Stu's rippling fur and big beamy eyes filling up with tears.

Morrone is superb in the part, exuding a sort of saintly solitude while caught up in the midst of turmoil from within and without. Even at its most dire, Mickey and the Bear is tinged with an almost holy hope for all involved, a rare and remarkable feat to pull off so well for a first-time director indeed.

It should be mandatory viewing for right-to-lifers and prospective parents as well as fans of creepy, crawly filmmaking.

There’s gore, all right, although the real terror lies in the tease, and the often dark, herky-jerky DV format ratchets up the tension to an almost unbearable degree.

The Deeper You Dig may be a small production, but everything in it feels aspirational, so much bigger and heartfelt and horrifying than can be expected.

Field trips to a cheese aging facility, a winery (of course), and a cattle farmer, whose methods of grazing are plotted out with mathematical precision, highlight the care and passion that are instilled into each and every morsel dropped onto the plate with the tiniest of tweezers. Menus-Plaisirs is a fascinating exploration of that passion, and perhaps the closest many of us will get to experiencing it at all.

Perhaps the bigger canvas here is a native daughter’s tribute to the resiliency of the people of her homeland. It’s no coincidence that the mascot chicken in this rustic Utopia is named Survive.

Movies about writers can be notorious slogs but, amazingly, The End of the Tour is not one of those films. In fact, it is so much better than any movie based primarily on conversations has any right to be.

It's such high sports drama you'd swear this documentary is fiction.

Despite the notable camp value of Blanchett channeling Gloria Swanson, Cruella de Vil, and an extraterrestrial succulent plant, the doomy villain thing is rote.

To a one, they nail the humor, all right, but they also, quite crucially, humanize the high concept.

No one has ever succeeded with anything approximating the sheer energetic brilliance of what Lee has managed here. For all intents and purposes, this is a comic-book movie in the very truest and most vibrant sense of the phrase.

It’s heady stuff, and Brie Larson’s gentle narration helps you navigate this quite complex topic.

This is frightening stuff, ably helmed (by writer/director Gorak, art director on the nerve janglers Fight Club and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas), viciously acted, and altogether horrific in ways George A. Romero could imagine only through the lens of the darkest sort of fantasy.

It makes for an interesting dissection of an American cultural divide in a way that is both thoughtful and funny.

Carmine Street Guitars is an affectionate, somewhat elegiac glimpse into a master and a craft that, like so much of the surrounding neighborhood, is steadily being corporately gentrified.

While The Art of the Steal makes a very convincing – even bone-chilling – argument that the people and foundations that essentially hijacked the Barnes Foundation are primarily concerned with tourist dollars and not the preservation of Barnes' legacy, the film fails to even ponder why easier access to some of the world's greatest art treasures might not be an entirely bad thing.

This is not some whacked-out drug trip movie, or scolding afterschool anti-drug special. This is anti-psychedelia, grounded in the strangeness of true life.

A bizarre and imaginative thriller with a sexual and sociological twist.

At every turn, corruption oozes from the pores of this thriller, and although the film’s tone keeps us on edge, Widows also hits a few perfunctory pits in the road.

Backed by the Rev. James Cleveland, a small band, and the extraordinary Southern California Community Choir, Aretha delivers a stunning, inspirational performance, moving both the choir and the audience to paroxysms of joy and celebration.

Yet the genius of Her Smell is that it's not about Becky. It's about the chaos she causes. Moss and Perry could let her dominate the frame as she does the room, but each sequence is about how everyone else deals with the damage she leaves behind.

The influence of executive producer Alex Gibney is clear in the photography and editing (making Gibney-esque now officially a term of art), but he has his own adept, incisive skill in linking a truly global economic crisis in the making, threading the narrative all the way from rural China to Flint, Michigan.

The U.S. won the Olympic gold, but as seen here, the Russians’ story is by far the more genuinely Olympian, making this a handy victory over all previously told accounts of that so-called miracle.

It's hard to always know what Primer is saying or where it's heading, but it looks fantastic while it unfolds and you won't be able to forget what you've witnessed.

The film has some truly great right-wing anarchic moments, bur for the most part its politics are all too predictably – and only – militaristic, misogynist, racist, and xenophobic; for too much of its running time, it’s just a childishly simplistic masturbatory fantasy for right-wing hebephrenics that’s mostly safe enough to play the White House.

Perhaps the most charming element, beyond the constant presence of Swift’s cat, are the moments capturing Swift’s songwriting process.

Even the usually unbearable Rourke, who plays yet another psychopath here, is surprisingly subdued and effective -- his performance gives the film its menacing undercurrent. Although Daniel Pyne's otherwise sharp screenplay falls short in explaining why who's doing what to whom, perhaps a little ambiguity is necessary in a movie in which appearances are deceiving. After all, sometimes, you've just got to take these things on faith.

Even though there’s a great deal to admire in Ducournau’s debut outing, Raw will mostly appeal to the taste buds of horror connoisseurs. Skittish consumers should consider other dining options.

For experts in the field, who this is most undoubtedly aimed at, this is a rare and incisive look at one party's stance on one of the most important diplomatic initiatives of our time.

Cinque, the rebel leader, is played by former model Hounsou, a mountainous figure who speaks in a gutteral roar and seems to embody the rage and confusion of an entire exploited continent.

This time out however, the Disneynature folks have complemented their flawless footage with a script (narrated by Ed Helms) that is more anthropomorphized than usual.

"Dr. Goodlove," or "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Proletariat" might have been a better title for this ingratiatingly loopy origin story about prerevolutionary icon Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

Shang-Chi doesn't just pull off a fun western xuanhuan, but makes it feel like a door being opened for future Marvel films. Where Shang-Chi stumbles is in the script.

Denying Scorsese's raw talent and experience as a filmmaker would be insanity – although the decision to digitally de-age his actors proves the technology is still spotty, and works best in long shots. But that the only major film made in America this year about unions dredges up Hoffa again, and the Italian American community is yet again made synonymous with organized crime, seems tone deaf and self-indulgent.

These days it's going to take a pretty exceptional political thriller to top our political reality for sheer suspense and treachery, and though director Ray (Shattered Glass) provides a few choice moments of psychological tension, nothing in his film can hope to outpace the anxiety caused by the appearance of former Attorney General John Ashcroft in its opening scene.

The issue of late-term abortions tends to inspire polemics from both sides of the debate; Shane and Wilson’s approach – sensitive, measured, workmanlike – is a welcome one.

A fast-paced amoral joyride that's more interested in the absurdities of violent criminality (torture by crayfish, anyone?) than the complications of real life.

Dissent – or a remotely critical eye – doesn’t have any place in RBG; this is an entirely admiring doc.

Rifkin has fashioned a crawly little movie that underscores the Faustian price of fame in a way that few recent films have managed.

Magic Mike XXL isn’t really a movie. It’s a bachelorette party, or a book club, or any other safe space where women gather for some of that “you go, girl” good feeling. It’s an amusement-park ride. Fasten the safety belt, secure your purses, and get ready to scream.

If you're not already smitten with all things Gaiman, you may well find yourself, like Helena, a stranger in a strange land.

Sirocco is structured like a children’s book, as a young person’s guide to grownup emotions. Yet it may well be grownups – who can use the story to look back at times in their lives when the word “awe” wasn’t preceded by “shock and” – who will take most from it.

Apparently fit and reasonably trim, Deal's honesty touches a nerve that the band's music only gnawed on back in the day.

As a surrealistic depiction of the mental disintegration of Jim (Abramsohn), a seemingly ordinary family guy, while visiting “the happiest place on Earth,” it’s a prank and a spit in the eye of Disney’s relentless cheerfulness. But director Randy Moore’s pièce de résistance goes far beyond flipping the bird to the mouse that roars.

The film is really a story about community and how it unites for something it deems important. But more, it is a story about mood and tone. Kaurismäki's mordant humor – part verbal, part visual – remains intact.

Some may dismiss Then She Found Me as a mere "women's film," but it's really a more honest and mature take on sex and the city.

If you can tune into its somber, hypnotic wavelength, you may be surprised at the raw emotional impact it delivers in key scenes, and at its ability to provoke your imagination long afterward.

With all its emphasis on beat, Brown Sugar can't maintain a steady one, yet when it finds it, the film surely soars.

It's unlike anything else out now, and Williams, to his credit and our immense relief, has for the moment foresworn his usual giddiness in favor of a muted, hunched acting style that befits both the character of Noone and the overall tone of the film.

It's absolutely at its best as a predictable if pleasurable story of unlikely success. In those slight and joyous moments, this Cyrano is definitely something to touch the heart.

Its warm humor and love for its characters ultimately wins us over to its side.

Canadian director Philippe Falardeau (Oscar nominee for Monsieur Lazhar) films these early, subtitled scenes mostly with a documentarian’s observational remove and slightly shaky camera – an effective way to dramatize the horror of war without exploiting it, tarting it up with Hollywood techniques.

With this kind of competition doc, a filmmaker has to be incredibly savvy and soothsaying in selecting his subjects early on: They have to be both charismatic enough to hold the camera’s gaze and competitive enough to advance to the final rounds. In both respects, Baijnauth struck gold with his five baristas.

Is nothing if not foreign, but not in the sense of national demarcations of language and custom. It speaks a different cinematic language, one that tosses off the usual rules of camerawork and narrative structure.

No offense to composer Mark Mothersbaugh (who is heavily involved in all three films) but the soundtrack is better this time around, thanks to some heavy, entrancing, villainous beats by DJ Tiësto.

It’s Robinson’s tender portrayal of Joe that sticks in your mind. He and Tye Sheridan from "Mud" are the summer’s real finds: young actors with promising futures.

In this instance Egoyan's hereafter is a pale imitation of his yesterday.

While not quite up to the standard of Chan's finest movies, Rumble in the Bronx is fast-paced, funny, and exciting, and should serve as a nice introduction for the uninitiated to the hyperactive world of Hong Kong action filmmaking.

Director Catherine Hardwicke doesn’t need that easily-cut path through long grass; she already has a willing cast and story to get to the guts-splaying.

What's in a name? Lately, less and less. With Daniel Craig's third go at 007, I'm not sure there's much left that distinguishes Bond from Bourne from Batman. They're all slurping from the same soup – think: death-haunted, self-righteous, tight-lipped and -quipped, parkour enthusiast.

The Beguiled is a slow-burn tale of repressed sexuality and duplicitous doings. Its final twist, though, steals it from the realm of male-gaze fantasies into sheer nightmare territory.

It's nail-biting good fun, sporting some très haute couture nails.

A top-notch example of uninsulting kid humor at its goofiest.

For all its stentorian performances, though, Shadow of the Vampire is a bit much, from the detailed period sets to the final, bloody scene.

Feel-good comedy with none of the pejorative hints of innocuous blandness that term so often implies.

If the screenplay pulls at threads that don’t always pay off, the actors and the thoughtful cinematography of veteran Dick Pope always ensure that there’s something engaging to watch onscreen. A sequence set in the jazz club, during which the jumpy music and Lionel’s mental and physical state merge into an intuitive singularity, is a real standout.

Midway does a decent job of cramming in not only the eponymous three-day naval battle between the United States Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy but also treats the audience to a wealth of other, related Greatest Generation’s greatest hits.

The comic strip’s late creator Charles M. Schulz would undoubtedly approve of The Peanuts Movie, given his progeny have ensured the film remains true to his artistic and humanist vision.

Works quite well for what it is: a wooly crime yarn with touches of humor and a satisfying, well-developed relationship between the schemers.

An intelligent, viscerally kinetic throw-down, a jolt of pure adrenalized Spike that holds more than a few touches of genius in its overripe storyline.

As a personal, autobiographical tale, Europa Europa is a fascinating narrative. As a historical memoir, its details are compelling.

The effects are reasonably well-created, though hardly transparent. The last 15 minutes of the film spins out into unimaginable realms. Fans of this kind of stuff will leave smitten; those accompanying them to the theatre will have a pretty good time too.

Lowlife is also far more bloodstained than Tarantino’s normal fare. Grisly isn’t the word: The entire effects and makeup team work overtime for some of the most splattertastic effects in any non-horror film since the bone-shattering, skull-squishing glories of "Brawl on Cell Block 99."

Citizen Jane: Battle for the City presents little to augment the knowledge of people already versed in this debate. However, it’s a fine introductory lesson for those who are not.

Blue Is the Warmest Color has its wobbles, but Exarchopoulos will knock you sideways.

So instead of a nice, clean movie about parental regret we’re forced to suffer through an unnecessary biblical metaphor stretched way past its limits of applicability and a bit with an American flag that turns Deerfield from a human being suffering a crisis of conscience into a hollow symbol of a country in a state of political disenchantment.

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.

In this entertainingly tense thriller, Hebrig finds extraordinary courage and understandable fear in both the Strelzyk and Wetzels.

What is not debatable, however, is that Cruise is an actor of limited emotional resources, one who lacks the presence required for the film’s protagonist, a character intended to inhabit more than one dimension.

Not every aspect is as exquisitely structured as Terajima's bittersweet performance. An underlying subtext about reinvention never truly develops, and the idea of Lucy as Setsuko's alter ego stutters. But her performance, especially when matched by Minami's hard-sighing world-weariness, is nothing less than transfixing.

The only reservation I have in recommending this film is the ultimate question of what value there is in this kind of naked, unmediated portrayal of such wretched situations. What Oldman has done is to open a window onto scenes we know are taking place everywhere, all the time. Why -- and if -- we choose to look is a personal call for every viewer.

Boundaries would be a lot more charming if it was anything remotely an organic story instead of being glued to a template.

The details of characters’ internal thought processes are left to our imagination. Still, this movie hits the senses like fresh impact of saltwater air.

A satisfying Cinderella story in which its outcast crew finally get their glass slippers, if not handsome princes. In the greatest of storytelling traditions, it is a true fairy tale with a happy ending.

Falling somewhere between the horrors of Three … Extremes and the beauties of Eros, this triptych of short films set in and underscored by the titular megalopolis is a gorgeous, sprawling mess.

Some of the movie's mysteries are more unsuccessfully secular than rapturously eternal, but the doorway opens far enough to offer a few glimpses of nirvana.

What Zierra is really exploring is the fine line between maverick genius and manipulative bully. The cult of Kubrick is such that no one still dare broach the idea that what he did to his actors, to his crew, and especially to Vitali, was cruel.

As an updated version of the old western TV show, it does a pleasant enough job.

The film’s resolution is more implied than complete.

Los Hermanos's fly-on-the-wall focus on the brothers twisty, unpredictable predicament feels scattershot at times.

It's Eisenberg who finds Ralphie in those narrative spaces, creating a whole and crushingly convincing portrait of a profoundly lost man, and the damage left in his wake.

If Red Hill isn't quite a classic, it surely is a work of genuine passion for a genre that's unmistakable, and unkillable.

Unique to a fault, Sound of Noise is a daft police procedural, an absurdist comedy, a piece of metaphysical agitprop, a music-performance film with a bit of story attached, and/or none of the above.

"We, the people" have never been big fans of movies about the American Revolutionary War. The Patriot, however, appears to be the movie that will break that historical jinx.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Linklater's (and Bogosian's) running commentary on disaffected suburban youth is that it doesn't bore you half as much as it should.