Overall, No Hard Feelings is a breezy, welcome return to the sex comedy, even if it’s a bit more tempered than it would have you think. It’s a breath of fresh air that hopefully signals a change for the better, bolder, and filthier in mainstream cinema.

Elemental is thoughtful, visually interesting, and emotionally compelling, even if it doesn’t all gel together all the time. When the clunky story falters, the vision and dedicated vocal performances of the cast carry it through, and give Elemental real heart.

The Blackening feels like a cash grab, a film so blatantly made because “horror is so hot right now.” There’s no love for the genre, and if you don’t admire something to some degree, it’s hard to properly satirize it.

When it comes to the segments, Scare Package II is much more successful than the first film in striking a unified tone – maybe less outrageously funny, maybe a little drier, but still entertaining.

When the segments do gel, they share a wickedly witty and suitably sickly, gory sense of humor that relishes insider horror jokes but never feels cliquey.

It is not a failed love story, but it is a lost love story, as its characters fall victim to the realities of time and circumstance and are left wondering what may have been if either of those things had been different.

This hunk-of-junk piece of IP commodification truly can’t be regarded with any further value other than that: a transactional piece of content.

After the fact, The Flash feels like the ultimate case in point as to why James Gunn and Peter Safran have been brought in to course-correct the trajectory of the DC enterprise. According to them, this has been retrofitted to be the first of a few transitory films as we exit the DCEU and move into a newly established DC Universe. Here’s hoping they pull it off, because I don’t know how many more of these I can take.

Across the Spider-Verse isn't just mind-bending spectacle – although it definitely dazzles in every frame. It's mind-bending spectacle in service of a thrilling story about a teenager facing the horrifying possibility that he can't fix everything.

The deepest pleasures of Sanctuary are in how Abbott and Qualley – both identifiably horny and human – suck every drip of pleasure out of Micah Bloomberg's script.

The direction and performance do the heavy lifting, but we have seen so many versions of this movie in recent years – films about mourning characters in a spiral of death and demons – that it is admittedly hard to engage honestly with a film that falls into the same traps.

Földes manages to balance the potentially dissonant tones of the diverse source material and create something akin to a story, one with diversions created as side characters relate elements of some of the smaller chapters within the books as anecdotes and memories.

Overall, You Hurt My Feelings is a sweet, warm, and funny rumination on the delicate nature of our interpersonal relationships. It’s also full of great performances and asks questions other films couldn’t broach without getting too self-important.

While Kandahar is undoubtedly spectacular war cinema, it's also a weighty meditation on the seeming impossibility for some of walking away from conflict.

Maniscalco often talks about his father in his stand-up acts. Watching this film enforces the idea that maybe that’s where this story should have stayed.

At the end of the day, people won't be lining up at a Disney park to ride a clamshell into a ride based on this live-action version. And that tells you everything you need to know. Next time, maybe just give this kind of money to the ink and paint department.

For the 10th entry in such an unlikely franchise, it’s hard not to get wrapped up in all of the typical mannerisms that grant this series its identity. Even when the Fast films are stuck spinning their wheels, they still have their foot firmly on the gas.

Parmet’s ability to repackage a story that oftentimes can feel exploitative and gritty through a more mature and compassionate lens is quite sincere – a challenging film that’s worth the effort.

Venokur's candy-colored world and wild menageries of animal drivers, most especially Shale and MacDonald as expectant parent seahorses, pop out of the primary-colored backgrounds with glee and charm. And even if the route to Zhi and Shelby's first kiss and Archie's inevitable defeat is pretty linear, it's a diverting joy ride for the littles.

What (a kinder and gentler?) Schrader has crafted with Master Gardener is a fable of redemption. And there lies the deviation. For all its looming menace and potential violence, not to mention what the biracial Maya will make of Narvel’s past - a past literally written on his body - Master Gardener is sweet, and, horror of horrors, hopeful.

Knights of the Zodiac has the potential of being fun, but falls short by taking itself too seriously and looking bad all the while.

An open, honest, and crystal-clear explanation of what it is like to live with Parkinson's: much of it painful, with no off-ramp.

This is Rodriguez the lover of the C-movie, the kind of filmmaker that Roger Corman would have adored. Hypnotic has that run-and-gun energy, rough around the edges but not in a way that impinges on the fun. It's also Rodriguez flexing some old action muscles, with that opening heist arguably his most bruising and well-constructed practical set-piece in a couple of decades.

If the youthful scenes seem a little mannered (in presentation if not performance), it's in these sequences of reconstruction, of quiet communication between Pietro and Bruno, of a depiction of adult male friendship, that The Eight Mountains is at its most endearing.

While the first film was nothing special – it often felt like a packaged product, in the worst Nancy Meyers sort of way – it still had some snap-crackle-and-pop energy now and then. This sequel, however, plays like soggy cereal.

As for Johnson's grasp of the era in tech firms, it's astoundingly accurate, so much so that you'll swear you can smell the switch from the Sprite-and-sweaty-T-shirts years to the days of chrome and corporate art.

Between the half-formed romance, the uneven comedy, and the observations that stop just short of real insight, it's a wedding invite that's easy to skip.

Watery-eyed and drowning in contrition, Junejo finds a touching, tragic inner life to Haider's passivity: But in Urdu and Punjabi observational tragedy Joyland first-time director Saim Sadiq isn't interested in simply telling a story of sexual and social liberation.

For a franchise in the throes of a post-Endgame wheel-spinning slump, and with a less-than-compelling upcoming slate of films, Guardians Vol. 3 is a refreshing, if overstuffed, respite. I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t feel bittersweet to be seeing them off for the last time.

If the drama feels occasionally slight, read it as a way in which the film is asking you to understand the perspective of its central character — for Margaret, it’s momentous. And for me, the twentysomething guy in a Bride of the Monster T-shirt and Dr. Martens seeing this movie solo, well, I left choked up seeing something so assiduously warm and sincere.

In the immediate post-Roe era, any discussion of abortion is going to be timely. But what gives Cherry life beyond this moment is that central idea of facing change, and realizing that not making a decision is in itself a decision. There's something heartwarming in it being less important what choice Cherry makes than in watching her try to make it for the right reasons.

It's hard to deny that [Lundgren] deserves better than being the most entertaining element of a poorly executed and infuriatingly predictable fight flick.

While the altruistic nature of the Tompkins’ intentions finally swayed the hearts and minds of the country, a more thorough examination of this process (and all the lawyers involved) would have been welcomed. But this really isn’t a film that’s interested in that complexity.

Even as Aatami survives completely ridiculous and clearly life-ending assaults, the magic of bloody-mindedness keeps the action … if not plausible, then never less than hilarious and gruesome.

If it wasn't for Thorp, this would be intolerable, but as Signe she creates a fascinatingly off-putting character study of a menace to society. There's no redemptive third act here, yet she still creates a rounded depiction of a singularly minded bully.

An action-packed and hilarious story of two sisters whose bond is tested, Polite Society is worth seeking out. Come for the action and loving send-up of martial arts films, and stay for the sisterly support that shines through.

I Am Everything is most fascinating when it goes deep into his formative years and the influences of truly obscure figures like Esquerita and Billy Wright (both Black queer musicians). Yet the further into his life the documentary goes, the less insightful it becomes.

We know that we have turned rivers from mystical places into resources, but in its sumptuous 75-minute delivery River allows us to see the flow of that narrative. And it is beyond gorgeous, as visually dazzling (if not quite as stomach-churning for acrophobics) as Mountain: luscious landscapes of quiet streams, poisoned fish and angular dams presented as abstract patterns, and the quiet joy of swimming.

Szifron and his co-writer Jonathan Wakeham play it too safe, creating an aggressively stale procedural that doesn’t pack the gut punch it wants to deliver.

Competent and unassuming, mildly problematic but ultimately harmless, Somewhere in Queens is alloyed family sitcom nostalgia sourced from stronger materials.

Time and time again, Ritchie proves to be an effective action director. When it comes to writing the picture, less so, and The Covenant stands as another reminder of that sturdy dichotomy.

Cronin's film feels very Evil Dead-y – no mean feat considering these films have evolved from low-budget gorefests to comedies to high-budget gorefests. There are elements of all those prior summonings, making Evil Dead Rise a chimera that is somehow unique.

The extraordinary performances on the Paris stage and fencing piste come early in Chevalier: They set a bold and lively tone the remainder of the film has trouble matching. Instead, it melodramatically proceeds, trope by trope, as Bologne receives his comeuppance for believing in his own brilliance.

The episodic nature of Beau's misadventures serves as both distraction and bloat, a metaphorical cavalcade that lacks the acerbic agility of many of its predecessor.

In a world of blockbuster franchises and micro-budget horror – where movies above a certain budget seem to justify their own expense by adopting a detached irony – The Pope’s Exorcist is the kind of goofball sincerity so many of us hunger for. It’s not going to work for everyone, but if you are the kind of viewer who ends up on its wavelength – by god, what a ride.

It’s like someone’s always turning the knob in one direction, and then in another in Mafia Mamma, rarely settling on any mood with clear reception. It can be a frustrating farrago.

Where Shinkai remains peerless is in taking those big, magical, melodramatic swings and landing them with a gentle, compassionate touch.

Despite its faults, the affection the movie has for its predecessor (most notably in its opening black-and-white sequences) is clear and contagious. There’s also fun work being done by the players rounding out the support group, clueless to the gravity of Renfield’s situation until it’s too late.

Observation is not always enough, and that seems true with the perfectly presented but oddly hollow Showing Up. Set in the world of small-time artists in Portland, it functions as a well-crafted portrait, but leaves wide open the question of why Reichardt chose this particular subject matter.

In her assured film debut as Freddie, Park holds your rapt attention.

We need gentle comedies like this in the world; we certainly need more movies that remind us of why we fell in love with Owen Wilson in the first place. Like the work of Carl Nargle, history will hopefully be very kind to what McAdams has created.

In a less interesting film, this would all be seen through the eyes of freshly radicalized documentarian Shawn (Scribner, black-ish), but Goldhaber amplifies the tension by keeping this an ensemble.

As always, Affleck remains one of the directors who can disguise a powerful parable as giddy, crowd-pleasing entertainment.

But in going to such great lengths to avoid that film’s grim weirdness, the Super Mario Bros. Movie filmmakers have flattened the concept into benign nothingness. They’ve course corrected into the side of a mountain. There’s no heartbeat here.

While Enys Men may play with the trappings and symbolism of folk horror, it's ultimately more of an internal psychological drama, one driven by Woodvine's tragic and quiet embrace of the island's bleak remoteness.

Malum has enough budget to be too glossy to be gutter fun, and adds little visually much beyond some very mediocre practical effects, often feeling that – yet again – its ambitions outstripped its grasp.

A Thousand and One paints a deeply felt portrait of maternal love and family.

The cast is uniformly excellent and delivers enthusiastic performances, even the ones played by puppets, and the pacing is lively and not at all boring.

If The Five Devils more bravely embraced a single perspective, that might have better bound together its depiction of a family splitting apart.

Honor Among Thieves is a big, bright, iridescent gem of a heist movie in a spectacular, vibrant, and fantastical world.

All That Breathes instills admiration and wonder while also subtly implicating human beings in a responsibility for the upkeep and furtherance of life.

Even in the hail of bullets, shrieking needle drops, and blinding lighting effects, John Wick: Chapter 4 still works as a cohesive, linear film with a strangely philosophical heart.

Rodeo is engaging and gritty, but what makes the whole film hold together overall is Ledru. She gives gives Julia a real presence and believability that isn’t always made explicit through the narrative.

Obsession is what they call it when you're wrong. When you're right, it's called conviction, and that's the story behind The Lost King, the remarkable, charming, and true-ish tale of Philippa Langley (Hawkins), the amateur historian who made one of the most important archeological discoveries of the century.

Admirers of Hansen-Løve’s previous film, her English-language debut Bergman Island, may be surprised at how straightforward One Fine Morning is, how resistant it is to delivering a capital-letter Cinematic Moment.

Scaffolding his story on an illogical foundation, Braff (Garden State, Wish I Was Here) continues to be an aggravatingly unsubtle filmmaker, over-relying on totems of profundity (a train set, a tattoo) and showboating with the camera in ways that distract rather than enhance the drama.

The original Shazam! may not have broken new ground as a superhero movie, but it did what the rest of the recent Warner Bros. superhero films seemed unwilling to do: Restore compassion to the realm of heroes. Shazam! Fury of the Gods loses the thing that made it special.

Inside has all the surface trappings of an arthouse hit, but don’t look too closely – there isn’t much there.

While Gravel’s film resonates with the larger themes of labor inequality, parenthood, job insecurity, and social unrest, Full Time never loses the focus of what it is, which is one of the best thrillers of the year.

The film never lets these characters earn anything, despite everyone ending up moving on in Moving On. You’re advised to do the same, when it materializes as one of your viewing options.

If you go into 65 expecting Star Wars meets Jurassic Park, lower your expectations. While there’s not enough outer space to call it an intergalactic odyssey and barely enough dino havoc, 65 has just the right amount of vigor to survive its relatively short runtime.

It's an extraordinary, tiny, intimate, and deeply touching story of a childhood suddenly filled with that most fragile of gifts: hope.

This is an absurdly familiar story and there’s little it does to stand out.

Compared to other franchises that have resurrected their seemingly indestructible purveyors of murderous mayhem long after they should have remained dead and buried (Halloween Ends, anyone?), this latest entry in the ongoing saga of Ghostface demonstrates its premise remains viable, though admittedly showing a few signs of calcification.

While first film Mugen Train was a box-office smash and a rare instance of using the movie format to more succinctly and dynamically tell the next arc of the Demon Slayer story, To the Swordsmith Village is – and I can’t stress this enough – just a music videoesque recap of the first couple seasons followed by three episodes sloppily jammed together, with even their intro and outro segments still fully intact.

Operation Fortune is just one long series of heist sequences that run at the same speed, at the same tone, and all flatly shot by Ritchie's new regular cinematographer, Alan Stewart.

The film itself is fictional, filmed in a 1.33:1 ratio to mimic the framing of the inspirational photographs. It’s absolutely breathtaking work – the camera helmed by Maria von Hausswolff captures the unassuming beauty of Iceland, but also does not hide its frigid nature, both terrifying and beautiful.

Wimmer has now twice disproved his ability to rehash old scripts through his terrible updatings of Total Recall and Point Break. Now he exhibits zero visual skill as writer/director of Children of the Corn, an unwatchable reboot of Stephen King's 1977 short story about a blood cult of rural Nebraskan kids who slaughter all adults to the monstrous He Who Walks Behind the Rows.

The screenplay by Keenan Coogler and Zach Baylin springboards off these ideas to make a no-frills sports melodrama that excels because of everyone’s commitment to making a great one.

One of the main pleasures of the TV series was how Cross and co. always had Luther caught in the crosscurrents of two conflicting agendas, and the tension of that juggling act provided much of the pleasure, especially when it all (mostly) worked out. Fallen Sun is a rote and simpleminded letdown by comparison.

By trying to give these women happy endings, or proposing fake reasons for how they came to produce indelible works, these alternative histories only achieve the opposite. They rob them of the truth of their lives.

If you are in the market for a movie called Cocaine Bear, all you want to know is that the premise does not jump the shark in the very first act. If nothing else, it seems that Elizabeth Banks has used Cocaine Bear as an excuse to work with several of her favorite television actors of the 2010s – and then kill them off in the most glorious way possible.

There’s something to be said for how Jesus Revolution occasionally evinces a period, albeit not in a very sophisticated manner, when a seemingly unbridgeable societal fissure divided the young and the old people in this country.

For a movie that’s ostensibly about scratching at real feelings, it comes off as phony as a perfume ad.

Having sat out the first sequel, returning Magic Mike director Steven Soderbergh has made an entertaining enough movie, but it’s the weakest of the series.

Missed opportunity and bad timing inform the romantic interlude in Of an Age in a way many of us have experienced at least once.

Quantumania goes big, but it never forgets that Ant-Man is our guy.

The Outwaters stumbles because it fails to clear the second hurdle of any found footage movie: not simply answering why would the camera stay on (that's the easy part), but why would anyone edit what's been recovered in this way?

Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s feminist views have consistently been at the center of his work, but his latest film, No Bears, is an ambitious, powerful piece that puts himself in the center of two narratives, parallel to each other, in which two generations of women are forced into difficult situations because traditions and laws have made it almost impossible for them to be with who they love.

It’s harrowing to ponder, but a joy to watch unfold when told by someone with such distinct cinematic prowess.

Sharper ticks so assuredly in execution the hitches won’t distract you – and that may be the biggest con of all.

The Sword Art Online – Progressive films were intended to give fans something new, something a little more meaningful, and while Scherzo doesn't completely deliver, it's at least intriguing enough to make you think, "Well, maybe one more level."

Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont’s latest film Close is a devastatingly heavy watch, a delicately filmed tragedy that takes hold of your emotions and never lets go for the duration of its run time.

It's still not quite Pratchett-y, still a little static – most especially in the oddly flat animation – and still not quite snappy enough. But that doesn't stop Maurice being an entertaining way to convince kids to pick up the book.

It is frustrating to watch Fear carelessly oscillate between creature feature, haunted house movie, and folk horror.

This humdrum slice of forgettable studio fare about a tropical wedding hijacked by pirates has a simple pitch that could have been elevated with a clever script with a more consistent sense of humor and writing for its performers.

While though the influence of 19th-century Russian literature has always been evident and admitted in Ishiguro's work, Living is even further removed from the The Death of Ivan Ilyich than Kurosawa's film. It is even smaller and more intimate, and much of its suppressed wonder comes from a career-best performance from Nighy.

Even if this is a film that does not always make perfect sense, Infinity Pool is a film that does not shrink from its transgressions.