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.