If Brandon absorbed daddy dearest’s predilection for body horror and new flesh, then Caitlin has clearly studied his razor wit and grasp of metaphorical social commentary.

It’s trashy eurosleaze with none of the sumptuous debauchery.

Thoughtful and achingly empathetic – there is so much grace in these performances – We Grown Now occasionally tilts a touch too capital-A Arthouse Film.

In one of those odd happenstances of cinema, The Beast shares those themes of processing romantic trauma through temporal displacement with Alice Lowe’s Monty Python-esque Timestalker: but La bête lacks its pithiness and humanity.

The disappointment in The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare lies in how much potential it had to be something more.

The People’s Joker feels like it would work better as a one-woman show, a monologue that seems weighed down by the burden of its own metaphor.

This thing’s a journey, y’all – the miraculous coexisting with yawning boredom.

Garland’s script is not just a warning about the ease in which an armed society slips into violence, but a love letter to journalism.

Too often, the kid in such cinematic scenarios ends up teaching the parent some life lesson. Instead, Nilon’s script depicts a different and deeply compassionate dynamic between father and sons.

In the documentary profile It’s Only Life After All, Emily Saliers and Amy Ray of indie folk rockers Indigo Girls convey what they want the audience to experience from their music: self-esteem, a shared experience, and healing, likening it almost to a warm hug from a loved one. And that’s exactly what the film provides.

The Long Game is shot well and sounds good, and has potential on its quest to be a first generation American anthem.

Kudos to the suits for backing a horror film this provocative and spine-chilling.

There’s an old thesis that if your comedy is over 90 minutes, it’s probably not funny. A funny comedy should leave the audience tired from laughing by that point. That Radu Jude’s satire Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World clocks in at an epic 163 minutes should be a cause for concern – as should be the presence of bullying schlock director Uwe Boll, even in a cameo as himself.

Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher’s fourth narrative feature – a soft kiss of magical realism here, a Keystone Cops caper there – is dreamily disorienting.

The title seems engineered to ride the tailwind of a Liane Moriarty suspense, but constitutionally, Wicked Little Letters is more of a cozy British mystery goosed with eye-popping profanity.

Dev Patel’s directorial debut Monkey Man is a gritty, nasty piece of work.

Even by Byington’s lo-fi standards, Lousy Carter feels ramshackle. It’s got traces of the familiar warm bathos of his sardonic best work. However, like Lousy’s cardigan, it’s all a little threadbare.

Neeson’s quietness doesn’t simply come across as tough guy silence. Instead, there’s a maudlin introspection that bears surprisingly meaningful fruit.

A film of immense contradictions and baffling coherency, it may be Besson’s most interesting work to date, because he finally embraces the outcast.

Filmed in magnificent monochrome with the kind of richness that reminds you black and white are colors too, Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus will put you in a contemplative place.

There is truly magic in this long, golden summer day.

It’s an understated performance in many ways, but in those quiet moments, whether it be a new haircut or a tapping foot, Ebrahimi provides an astonishing education of what it means to be a woman fleeing an abusive relationship.

Torres mixes in everything that makes his specific brand of comedy unique into Problemista: Alejandro's toy pitches are obscurely sassy, his imaginative use of CGI and costuming is fantastical, and his dry delivery is the perfect juxtaposition to the film's outlandish absurdity.

Late Night With the Devil is able to mine plenty of effective and fun ideas out of its premise, and it works as a potent examination of the price of success.

It’s deranged, but also at times curiously defanged. At least it’s still a fun, bloody watch, even if it frustrates along the way.

At a raw and rare 70 minutes, Invader is Keating challenging himself to deliver the leanest, sparest home invasion imaginable. But it’s only minimalist in the story and cinematography.

Yes, even after all these years, ‘busting will still make you feel good.

There’s something a little pious about how resistant the film is to portraying Nicky not just as an admirable character but as an interesting one, too.

Aside from the requisite wide shots of sweeping desert, sea, and cityscapes marking the various stages of the journey, Garrone (the Italian director of Gomorrah and Tale of Tales, among others) keeps the camera close to Seydou, and Sarr’s skill at the subtle transformation of his emotional responses from, say, heartbreak to happiness (and back again) is incredibly compelling to watch.

The all-out Love Lies Bleeding is a love story that won’t work for everyone. However, for those who can revel in the blood-soaked, complicated, sapphic delights that make up the backbone of the film, the saga of Lou and Jackie will be one for the ages.

There’s an earnestness about Accidental Texan that can only warm your heart. Every moment is predictable, but in Bristol’s capable hands that becomes a strength.

Sure, the kids will giggle, and the animation is well-executed (even if there does seem to be something a little off around the eyes in this version of Po) but it just doesn't land with that same ebullient skadoosh.

It's chilling and tragic in equal measures.

Hundreds of Beavers works because everyone involved knows to deliver the whimsy with a straight face, treating knitted fish, puppet frogs, and the Wisconsin snowdrifts in which it was filmed all as equally real.

Dune: Part Two is both horrifying and romantic, presenting a far, far future that is recognizable because people never change. While the war may be portrayed as a jaw-dropping spectacle, the answers to all those political and moral questions may leave the audience deeply uncomfortable. Herbert would be proud.

Perhaps time will be kind to Drive-Away Dolls; the cast of rising stars seems destined for greatness, and the setting will sharpen into focus the farther we move away from the decade. But it’s hard not to feel that Drive-Away Dolls is the sum of its production history: a decades-old concept that missed its window for relevance.

The film becomes a kind of meditative act.

The next generation won’t learn the artist’s whole life story from this biopic, but they just might be inspired to do some Googling after the credits roll.

While a solid addition to the new canon of microbudget sci-fi flicks that look like a million bucks, with an aesthetic that’s equal parts Blade Runner and Tron, it’s really about this couple who aren’t a couple yet. It’s that old equation of two people who are clearly too high-maintenance for anyone but each other, and that’s why Litwak isn’t afraid to use oh-so-familiar beats of the rom-com classics.

Madame Web is a fender bender – nothing calamitous, just a time suck. An annoyance. A waste.

It’s perfectly delightful.

Cumming presents a natural world red in tooth and claw, yet the inevitable lessons learned in this moss-covered and frost-blasted wilderness still have modern resonances – about fear, bigotry, superstition, survival.

For a film that’s rooted in genre tropes, there’s no genre atmosphere to visually anchor down the film’s themes. With the spectacle fizzled out, visually Williams’ film isn’t enough to take it over the edge and make it memorable. Still, first-time direction hurdles aside, it’s a serviceable, fun goth romp.

Trần’s script (very loosely adapted from Marcel Rouff’s 1924 novel La vie et la passion de Dodin-Bouffant, gourmet) isn’t simply an ode to the idea of food being the food of love. Instead, it’s an utterly charming and touching description of a tender relationship between two people in middle age.

She Is Conann is a politically charged, blood-, sex-, and tears-soaked sword, carving through the helpless arteries to the heart of cinematic mediocrity, and it is Mandico’s strongest vision yet.

In those complexities, and its more mordant analyses of the arbitrary mechanisms of power, The Promised Land bears impressively bitter fruit.

After the inexplicable roars of applause for the ham-fisted Promising Young Woman, seeing first-time feature director Molly Manning Walker treat similar issues with so much more empathy and nuance makes How to Have Sex a disturbing if welcome addition to the conversation.

But while Argylle’s stunt-filled antics are suitably loaded with those Vaughnian action sequences, it’s also bloated by more plot twists and reveals than a breezy action comedy can or should be forced to endure.

Origin doesn’t always get there, but the effort is exhilarating. It’s the contact high of an artist really going for it.

For a film with such weighty aspirations, I.S.S. lacks gravity.

Except for a potent scene in which Freud rages against Christianity’s conceptual embrace of “God’s plan” to explain why a supreme being would allow terrible things to happen, it’s a relatively bloodless tit-for-tat conversation that shoots sparks that rarely catch fire.

If you're going to dig the same shallow grave for the thousandth time, at least have the verve of Eli Roth's shamelessly fun Thanksgiving – or at least make sure the entire cast knows if you're going for tension or comedy.

It's a lot more than simply a string of names and dates and anecdotes, but after this many hours that's what it starts to become.

A shot-for-shot remake would have had more school spirit than this.

Destroy All Neighbors has all the verve of a blood clot.

At times it feels like it wants to be a comedy, à la History of the World, Part I, and at others it seems solidly part of serious dramas like Ben Hur. It’s a tricky tone to balance, and The Book of Clarence doesn’t always succeed, weakening an otherwise enjoyable and entertaining film.

This is Wenders’ portrait, and as such it is as unique and thought-provoking as Kiefer’s own epic works.

Apart from a handful of tracking shots, the film is a series of middle-distance static shots, giving us the same detachment the Höss household possesses living next to a concentration camp. But The Zone of Interest’s coup de grâce is never showing any activity within Auschwitz itself, allowing only the sounds of the camp to be a constant, nerve-racking presence.

That edge between emotional incompetence and modern macho hubris is where Waddell finds something interesting to say, but it's too often buried under barely competent filmmaking (please, filmmakers, I am begging you, do not scrimp on your sound mix), stilted performances, and some horribly outdated gags and clumsy stereotypes, all further undermining a rom-com that is rarely romantic nor that comedic.

Frankly, it feels strange that a movie with so much to say about loss wants to wallow in it when a chance at joy was right there.

But just like no sports team can be populated entirely by superstars, there’s certainly a place for high-floor horror that understands its audience, works within the confines of its PG-13 rating, and provides just enough visual and storytelling variety to keep the audience satisfied.

Sure, it’s not terribly satisfying resolutionwise because you’re still left with as many questions as answers in the end. But that’s the thing about looking back on your life at a relatively late age. So many gaps left unfilled.

The last hoorah of Synder’s messy DC Extended Universe – one that could have been a thrilling goodbye and a reminder that not all of it was bland – will likely sink to the bottom of the ocean, a forgotten relic of an era. Momoa’s Aquaman deserved a lot more.

I will never understand the internet’s fascination with Sweeney, who appears to be scowling even when she’s smiling, but she and Powell both bodily throw themselves into their parts. The effort is there. It’s just a shame the material they’re working with isn’t better.

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.

Thrillingly airborne and a riot of color, Migration’s many scenes of flying are an absolute joy.

The deep emotional success of The Iron Claw all relies on a remarkable cast – most especially the four brothers, at ease with each other but fatally at odds with themselves.

Mann's decision to restrict this portrait to such a limited time period may leave audiences a little dissatisfied that important events are only recounted, not depicted. But then, if you're on the most thrilling corner of a track, you may not see the finish line.

Ultimately, the new life in this adaptation of The Color Purple is still worth revisiting, with performances from a stacked ensemble that help the film rise above being a straightforward adaptation.

Overall, Clooney has provided a fine time at the movies, with engaging sports sequences, thoughtful storytelling, impactful visuals, and great performances. Its focus can get a bit fuzzy, but this doesn’t dull the film’s overall shine.

It takes only moments into the film, when star Timothée Chalamet first opens his mouth to sing, to discover Wonka’s two fatal errors: The songs are not good, and the guy singing them is even worse.

Family dynamics are just one tentpole in Jefferson's construction of a movie that deals with authenticity in direct opposition to the easy and frivolous.

We see the work, the figurative (and sometimes literal) sweat that went into crafting these characters. It’s capital-M Movie Acting, and I couldn’t love it more. It moved me.

Poor Things is a revelation, a potent story about self-creation that’s worth seeking out, and that’s worth getting lost in.

Maybe the film is simply a fanciful manifestation of one person’s healing passage through a landscape of grief and trauma. But there is little doubt that The Boy and the Heron is one of the Japanese auteur’s most cinematic feature-length films – maybe the most cinematic — in his relatively limited oeuvre.

There's as much of Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru here as there is the rubber-suit genius of Godzilla creator Ishirō Honda (himself never shy of political subtext), and that's a pairing as powerful as any monster mash-up.

Silent Night looks just a little too much like every other action movie to serve as a celebration of action auteurism.

Raging Grace is too gleefully ridiculous to live up to its didactic ambitions, and too on-the-nose to let its wings of crushed velvet madness truly spread.

One of the many charms of Kaurismäki’s films is the way he fuses the impassive emotions he’s subtly evoking with his characters with his absurd, hilarious signaling of the form of filmmaking itself.

Overall, Eileen is a pretty close adaptation of the mood of Moshfegh’s stories, even though some lost elements dull the author’s unique and singular voice. If the script meanders its way toward its unsettling end, it still manages to stay compelling.

The Disappearance of Shere Hite is an illuminating, haunting, and ruminative documentary worth watching, if not for crystalizing the history of Hite’s work on film then for a look at how much and how little things have changed for women.

The final destination is a truly touching and very modern story of being an overlooked child, and you'll cross an ocean of wonder and amazement to get there.

Try as he might to capture the political complexities of their relationship and how it was sacrificed because of the needs for an heir, Scott tells rather than shows (much as Napoleon's much-harped-upon mommy issues turn out to be a narrative and thematic dead end). It's all strategy, no tactics.

Wish doesn’t evoke swelling feelings of nostalgia, but rather a longing for the pristine storytelling of the studio’s past.

What resonates most about Trolls Band Together are its lessons about self-acceptance and letting go of perfectionism. It’s a great message for young kids to internalize, and perhaps a good reminder for adults in the audience, too.

It's a performance that ranks with some of Cage's best, a mix of Pig's earnestness and Adaptation's idiosyncrasies.

Scripted by Samy Burch, based on a story by Burch and Alex Mechanik, and citing head-spinning references from Ingmar Bergman’s Persona to Mike Nichols’ The Graduate to Hard Copy, May December moves a little like a dream, disorienting as the shimmering heat captured by cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt.

A loving, gory, ribald slasher flick that is both serious about the genre and gruesomely ridiculous.

The Strangler has been called a slasher, but it is not. It has been called a giallo, an anti-giallo, and even a revisionist giallo. But it is none of those things. Paul Vecchiali's newly restored 1970 crime flick is, instead, a meditation that crawled onto the Left Bank of post-war French philosophical ruminations.

In the end, Saltburn doesn’t have a lot to add to the conversation Fennell keeps wanting to have about the power of white men in this world. It’s a surface-level critique of the upper class and a style-over-substance poke at the out-of-touch aristocrats and the bitter have-nots.

It’s a shame that Waititi’s return to Indigenous-centered filmmaking is marred by regressive narrative choices and lazy jokes. Otherwise, we might have had a real winner on our hands.

The problem in adaptation here is that Collins’ source book accessed Snow’s inner monologue, a churn of competing emotions and priorities at odds with his unruffled outer self. Without that insight, Snow’s evolution from war-scarred orphan to what Donald Sutherland is playing in the original quadrilogy is rendered as blank as, well, snow.

Following James, I couldn’t help but think that Mackenzie and Collier had found a real-life David Brent (I know, they’re probably everywhere). The sheer force of his belief in his own skills (clothes designing, particularly) and the unflappability he exhibits is constantly stupefying.

Effortlessly charming and more than a little generous with its asides, The Delinquents is a film that lays out surprises and delights like a lavish feast – although it’s no surprise for those who’ve been paying attention.

The heart is in the right place for Your Lucky Day, but the execution is a little loose. Brown puts a lot of tenderness in his film, particularly with the film’s central couple, but there’s not enough friction and surprise to create a tight holiday-set thriller.

Where the Devil Roams may be the family's most complete movie, and its febrile and claustrophobic horrors will sneak into your nightmares.

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.

Clunky horror in-jokes, like a heavy-handed Scream nod in the name of Winnie's aunt (Isabelle), feel labored, and it's all plagued by the same unevenness that afflicted director Tyler MacIntyre's Tragedy Girls: The gore and the comedy are well-executed, but the timing is off.