The Road deviates from McCarthy's original text via a series of flashbacks to the man's pre-apocalyptic life with the woman (Theron) who both leaves her family behind and is in turn left behind by them.

Unleashed suffers from a surfeit of sentimentality at times (blame Besson for that), but it's Li's first major Western role of any depth and he acquits himself admirably as both mad dog and melancholy master.

Maybe it’s just an expression of relief after a summer of superheroes and fantasy scenarios, but 2 Guns is a refreshing blast.

Dipping between English and Irish, and borrowing wholeheartedly from the fictional music doc/concert format of A Hard Day’s Night (hey, steal from the best), stylish musical comedy-drama Kneecap the movie is an accurate-ish biopic of the real Kneecap, with Dochartaigh, Annaidh, and Cairealláin playing themselves.

The Hundred-Foot Journey is elevated comfort food. The flavors aren’t complex, but it’s nourishing nonetheless.

Adapting the graphic novel The One Hundred Nights of Hero by Isabel Greenberg, writer/director Julia Jackman creates a fable that is still damningly important and relevant: that women are not allowed to control their own bodies or their own stories.

Perhaps the discrete delegation of the thrills to the 1966 story and the moral quandaries to the 1997 story is what prevents The Debt from congealing as well as it might have. Life is rarely that neat.

Has an unerring eye for the banal intricacies of 1950s pre-planned suburban neighborhoods, à la Levittown.

The story is simple, sometimes to a fault.

Laugh? Cry? I thought I'd die, but then that's the genius of Gordon.

The Intruder is a delightful use of the conventions of melodrama to subvert traditional horror archetypes.

It may be about little more than a guy getting his head a little more straight than he thought it was and burying a few resentments that he didn’t even know were sticking up, but Ride the Eagle knows that a small, sad, personal story doesn’t have to be a tragedy. I

Although predictable, the story still manages to pack an emotional punch and depending on your level of relatability to Swift’s hardships – cancer treatment, custody battles, a stagnant career – it might hit harder than you expect.

Into the Storm captures the magnificence of tornadoes, their awful beauty when they set down, the devastation they wreak, and the enormity of their consequences. The film features a rich array of well-developed characters – including the storm itself – which makes it ever more involving as it unfolds.

Chilling and unsettling, intimate yet monstrously vast in its cosmic horrors, Offseason is as dangerously welcoming as the island itself.

Lux Æterna is barely a film – even Noé has called it an essay – but then it's not meant to be complete. Created in five days on Yves Saint Laurent's franc (one has to wonder what they thought they were getting), it's a discussion, not a conclusion.

However, unlike "The Wolf House," the shifting styles of Marona never feel like change for change's sake, or like an extended highlight reel. Each sequence carries a different tone, a reflection of Marona's inner life and inner light. Even in her tragic end, her fantastic tale keeps wagging with hope.

Furious 7 is, to put it succinctly, a rush and a half.

Of course it helps tremendously that Willem Dafoe plays Pasolini. Just as he did with 2018’s "At Eternity’s Gate," in which he embodied the artist Vincent van Gogh, Dafoe brilliantly captures the essence and a more-than-reasonable resemblance to the real figures.

Viewers hoping for a foray into "Donnie Darko" territory will be disappointed by this shift in tone. But those who like things sentimental and sweet – and there’s nothing wrong with that – will find comfort in the notion of leaving the past behind to allow the future to go forward.

Dench deserves better, and unfortunately it will probably be a long time before she gets another starring role in a movie custom-made for an actress her age.

A powerful little gem: a little bit of "The Outsiders" (the film's tone is remarkably similar to Coppola's film, minus the airy redemption and golden sunrises), a lot of "The 400 Blows," and a slice of "Radio Flyer" all wrapped up in a dirty black bow.

If you’re ready for 90-odd minutes of relentless desert scenes with Efron struggling to survive, then this movie is for you.

In the end, it's all la dolce vita no matter how you look at it.

Fortunately, as directors Beck and Woods have become deviously adept at giving the audience what they want – rock-solid scares.

In Moshe’s new film, Livingston throws himself with defeated gusto into the role of Patrick.

Misanthropy in the movies has a new face. And, surprising to say, it's a handsome one. A matinee-idol face, in fact. Some might even go so far as to call it "dreamy." It's the face of Paul Rudd.

It's a great set-up, and for the first two-thirds or so of the film it works exceptionally well as a jaundiced satire on the world of gay porn.

It Ends With Us pours most of its nuance into the beginning, middle, and harrowing climax of its central relationship.

An indie grab bag.

Equal parts tragedy and comedy, high drama and low farce.

The twentysomething talents behind Mystery Team are still in the comedy minors, but this nerdy, nutty, perfectly pitched first swing suggests there are major things to come.

Little effort is made to churn up romantic chemistry between Foster and McConaughey. For better or worse, director Robert Zemeckis sticks to Sagan's original vision for these characters, in which they're basically totems embodying both sides of a philosophical dialectic.

Those moments, as affecting as they are, can't surmount the overworkshopped feel of the whole film.

A small-scale pleasure, a movie that truly stops and smells the roses.

While never screaming its message, the script by first-time feature directors Britt Poulton and Dan Madison Savage still finds a way to damn the sin more than the sinner.

A lighthearted action adventure starring four of the most likable guys on the planet.

There’s tension as the two hole up in Santa Fe to work on the book, but the bottom-line feeling is of two old friends, now two old men, who have found their place in each other’s complicated lives.

Here's hoping that younger members of the audience will seek out Conan Doyle's original stories to further explore Holmes' official amanuensis, Dr. John Watson, whose brilliant case studies regarding his friend, roommate, and fellow rationalist are the stuff dreams are made of.

It all boils down to one important fact: Reynolds gets these comics.

The audience is thrown into Zed’s world (or rather, worlds), and it’s Ahmed’s astounding performance that provides the through line. It’s OK to be lost, because Zed is.

That's where Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time is most fascinating, in its exploration of the blurred lines between what who writers (and filmmakers) are, and what they write, and why they write.

Pulls out every stop to fool the eye.

What the film itself is trying to communicate proves more elusive; whatever meaning Millepied meant to impart by tethering this “entirely new and unique artistic endeavor” to a century-and-a-half-old opera never quite made sense to me.

It’s ridiculous and smart, hilarious and terrifying, difficult to swallow and probably a necessary antidote to the cacophonous history of a land that all too often seems anything but holy.

The fact that the blatantly thumbtacked-on happy ending plays as unvarnished fairy tale adds a definite bittersweet tang of irony.

It's just a good ol' bad ol' low-road road movie, a throwback to thirty years ago, a picture with hairy arms and a brew in one fist. Maybe that's why, as it ended, I could swear I heard Sam Peckinpah's ghost chuckling away.

Despite an inordinately complicated third-act resolution, it's head-and-shoulders above most so-called suspense films.

One of the more surreal docs to come down the pike in some time.

It’s almost like a “what I did on my vacation” essay assignment, only with an A-list of arthouse directors, and so it inevitably feels disjointed, switching from drama to tone poem to documentary to video diary.

The whole film rests on the increasingly prison-ink tatted shoulders of Coster-Waldau, Game of Thrones’ Jaime Lannister, who brings his A – as in ass-kicking – game to Waugh’s film.

Blessed with an ensemble cast of young actors without Brat Pack pretensions, Where the Day Takes You is often so authentic in its depiction of street life that you'll find yourself flinching, a response undoubtedly intended to result in a little consciousness-raising.

Even though I’m So Excited! doesn’t soar, the film is a fun flight. Maybe it needs a central character in whom the audience can invest themselves instead of flitting among a rogues’ gallery of kooky archetypes.

It becomes a warm and insightful tribute to every kid that finds peace climbing up a tree, to every adult that realizes the value of the natural world, and to the ties that bind us to the world around us. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll learn what a keystone species is.

It's one of the better sequels to come out in years, and although it doesn't pack the emotional wallop of the first film, it's still head and shoulders (and punctured eyeballs) above most of what's out there.

League of Super-Pets is a lighthearted, generically animated, fun time out for the kids.

While the tone of Rafiki is simple and direct, director Kahiu demonstrates a delicate touch when she enhances Kena and Ziki’s early euphoric attraction to one another through a subtle shift in the otherwise vibrant cinematography by Christopher Wessels.

The problem with True Story is that you wish there were more of it. The philosophical questions it encourages are like the tail that wags the dog. The truth becomes something of an obfuscation, and unlike films such as "Capote" and "Infamous," there’s not enough drama about the compulsive relationship between the writer and his felonious subject.

As emotionally devastating as it is, The Hunt is nevertheless rather schematic and pat.

By now, we’ve grown accustomed to the signature touch of Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump), who is one of the best creative minds to see the innovative narrative potential lying dormant in technical cinematographic advances. This does not always provide the underpinnings for great stories, but bien sûr his movies are almost always quite something to see.

It’s the same thrill as the Final Destination movies, which Egerton and Hardy have both noted as an influence: watching likable protagonists try and sometimes fail to evade death.

Great effects and a nasty undercurrent drive this vehicle.

It’s an electrifying watch in its profound discomfort, and a testament to McKenzie’s ability to disarm with a smile, then land a righteous blow against the bad guys.

In its funny, implausible, and heartwarming depiction of a ramshackle platonic friendship between two oddballs, Brian and Charles creates a complete and immersive world – rainier than, but not that far removed from, Kyle Mooney's equally idiosyncratic and endearing fantasy Brigsby Bear.

Works both as an engagingly sordid meditation on protofeminism and contemporized sisterhood set in a time and a place where either/or were grounds for, at the very least, defenestration.

This movie is by no means a classic in absolute artistic terms, but as a reaffirmation of all but forgotten verities it's an unqualified success.

The Painter and the Thief doggedly reminds us that vengeance cannot be the sole redress against a crime.

While very funny, The Final Member is also a compelling examination of society’s concept of masculinity and male identity, and an empathetic portrait of three men in the fading decline of their lives, staring at their own mortality. In the end, their obsession with leaving behind a legacy illustrates a universal truth for us all, and that’s no joke.

Red Eye's no classic, but with its smart, twisty little script and those two killer performances, it is a helluva lot of fun.

It's not quite masterful enough to achieve all its goals, but Zucker is undeniably ambitious despite its relatively lowbrow and farcical approach.

Michael B. Jordan (The Wire, Friday Night Lights) delivers a brilliant, sensitive performance as Oscar and is one of the primary reasons Fruitvale has such resonance.

Fun and informative, thoughtful and thought-provoking.

The Cursed may be a shaggy tale in places, but its bite is ultimately deep.

Déjà Vu has enough style and forward (or is it backward) momentum to viewers aroused. It's only after you leave the theatre that your head starts to throb.

Bella is, indeed, a beautiful film. The bustling, cab-crowded thoroughfares of New York City have rarely looked as inviting and the coastline as momentously beachy as they do in this film.

What you’ll find in The French is valuable social history rather than a sportscasting document.

Sandler's first collaboration with co-writer and current Hollywood comedy godhead Judd Apatow, is a crazed, delightfully bizarre return to form for Sandler.

True to Canadian stereotypes, it is a polite evisceration: a slap and a tickle, as it were.

As in "The Pianist," Polanski is content to allow the film's narrative to evoke the emotions he wishes his audience to experience.

Though occasionally emotional, this ain’t no heart-tugging rehash of Lassie Come Home. And there’s something to be said for that.

Even its flaws and occasional moments of repetition between authors cannot detract from this fascinating collection about one of the great filmmakers of our era.

The titular role of Monsieur Ibrahim is not a terribly taxing one, but Sharif effortlessly demonstrates that he still has the stuff that made him a star so many years ago – he exudes a charismatic appeal that is apparently timeless.

With its unconventional take on pet sounds, Keanu is refreshingly silly, an unabashed mix of humor and violence topped off by a big dollop of cuteness.

When Nothing Stays the Same is best is when it's about what it takes to survive, rather than indulging in handwringing: the flexibility, the raw business savvy melded with artistic vision that makes for great booking, and innovations like early evening residencies.

King Knight is a weird delight, the kind of unlikely low-budget pleasure in which Ray Wise turns up as everybody’s favorite f*cking magician and delivers dancing lessons.

Filmmakers Boden and Fleck don’t appear interested in eliciting your full-out sympathy for these low-rollers, though the happyish ending seems somewhat a sellout (albeit a satisfactory one). Who’s to blame them? After all, everybody loves a winner.

Cheadle takes what could have been a role as a mere foil and creates a rich portrait of a vaguely discontented married man. Yet the drama sputters once it reaches a contrived and melodramatic climax that feels undernourished and artificial – both less than and more than one had hoped for.

The one thing that is clear from Japón is that a major new visual stylist has hit the screen and that Reygadas’ first film represents the beginning of an auspicious career.

Sisley has created an authentic and nuanced portrait of a family not just in crisis, but in transition: big transition, sparked by the accumulation of small moments where the heart is laid bare, where the frustration boils over, where the delusions must be faced. And where the truth is embraced.

Mārama is arguably at its most effective as a political text when it isn’t trying so hard to be part of the heritage that includes Hitchcock’s Rebecca and del Toro’s Crimson Peak.

Where so many queer creature features attempt to refract and reframe fairy tale tropes, Jae Matthews' script for My Animal is intriguing because there's always the threat of the real world at the edges.

It’s both more and less than the sum of its parts, but its never less than thoroughly watchable.

Ultimately, the film feels as glitzy and superficial as the fashion industry itself, a bauble in full regalia, and it’s likely your interest in the documentary will depend largely on your prior interest in the subject matter.

Best of all, though, is the kinescope footage of the televised version's early episodes, which eerily resemble nothing so much as every other TV sitcom to follow, Seinfeld included.

The East is an unrelenting condemnation of the Netherlands’ misguided attempt to return its colonial outreach to a time long gone while hitting most (if not all) of the “doomed war” niche genre movie tropes without ever actually teetering into cliche. That’s an ever-tricky move that Taihuttu aces.

As the start of a new trilogy for the franchise, it’s a promising entry that signals a different approach to a well-worn subgenre. If only it could figure out its footing.

Howard surprises with this decidedly honest comedy-melodrama.

Dafoe, as expected, is magnificent in the taciturn role, but the film tends to falter when he's not out stalking, combining as it does elements of family drama, environmental outrage, and outright suspense.