Small in its movements and thoughtful in its observations, All We Imagine As Light is quietly resonant – so quiet you might wonder if it has much impact.

Oppenheimer never quite embraces the absurdity and madness of his own proposition, and instead engages in a surprisingly flat tragicomedy of manners.

In the subtle subtext of having a solitary creature like a cat find companionship in a boat full of animals who have lost their pack, their flock, or their herd, we will find a tender story about knowing where we are meant to be.

In his three-acts-and-an-epilogue structure, Guadagnino inserts more story than Burroughs intended, and Queer becomes aimless.

What struck me more was the film’s interpretation of Bailey’s coming of age not as something to be mourned or that comes on too soon. Instead, it’s an activation.

There’s none of the visceral artfulness that Scott managed in the original. Quite simply, if you can’t make man-on-baboon hand-to-hand combat interesting, why do you think you can make a sword fight fun?

These characters have become so dear; I longed for something more climactic, more cathartic for them. Still, for the time we have with them, they make terrific company.

In George’s odyssey, McQueen attempts to emulate and skewer the classic British boys’ own adventures by juxtaposing it with social realism, but it ends up divided between the two instincts. Blitz is also burdened by a surprisingly leaden script filled with paper-thin Cockney stereotypes.

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

In this charming, funny, tear-inducing, and instantly recognizable world, and through the (in)actions of Grace, Elliot tells a gentle, touching, bitter-but-ultimately-sweet fable with a warming message: It’s OK to leave your shell behind.

Like every good musical, Emilia Pérez is a movie with big feelings, even if the feelings sometimes (often) outpace the logic.

This is an undeniable star-making performance for Madison, who finds the grace and charm and stupidity and selfishness and wild-eyed wonder of Mikey, a tough survivor who falls for the oldest fairy tale in the book.

As a trilogy capper, The Last Dance is barely a shuffle and a shimmy.

Crowley doesn’t blink at the cradle-to-grave graphic intimacy of Payne’s script, and in Garfield and Pugh he finds a duo who understand the deceptions and devotions of a beautifully flawed relationship. Watch ’em and weep, kids.

This is the antithesis of a sequel for sequel’s sake. Instead, it’s second verse, even catchier than the first.

If there’s a complaint to be made about Look Back, it’s that there’s not enough of it: Adapted from Chainsaw Man creator Tatsuki Fujimoto’s one-shot manga of the same name, the story it tells is purposefully contained.

Most importantly, Sherman and Abbasi deflate the myth that has dominated the last decade, that somehow Trump is some kind of aberration from the historical Republican Party, perverting it to his will.

Taken on its own fluff piece terms, Piece by Piece is an interesting sprint through three decades of cultural relevance and relatively scandal-free living. If Pharrell’s happy, then it seems we have to be too.

The Nightmare Before Christmas said that it’s all right to wrap a few scares up under the Christmas tree. Terrifier 3, the latest in the extreme gore franchise, sets fire to the decorations, cuts off your eyelids, and makes you watch the whole house burn.

If the cast blurs together, the expert costume and production design, filmed in lusciously retro 16mm, give the eye plenty to enjoy.

Picture scenes of excess followed by degradation, shame, teary promises of “never again,” resolve to start anew. Then the record skips and we’re right back to the beginning of the song, and it doesn’t sound any better on repeat listen. The Outrun hits similar beats, yet manages to do so in ways that feel novel at first, and ultimately transcendent.

Phillips sets the stage for a courtroom procedural – and then rolls a hand grenade into the middle of that weighty stage with a series of song and dance numbers.

A model and artist’s muse turned photographer who shot unforgettable images of Europe at war, Miller was then largely forgotten by the establishment, until her son revived her work after her death in 1977. Underappreciated in her time, one wishes better for her than this underwhelming biopic.

Even though the film is a jumble that oftentimes leaves its top-notch cast unmoored and renders its science-fiction elements somewhat anemic in light of our current expectations from special effects, Megalopolis is truly one from the heart, an outpouring from one cinephile to his tribe.

Weaving, who excels at this kind of character-driven action-horror, plays perfectly with our empathy, wordlessly guiding us through this damned land.

The key to a great literary adaptation is not to slavishly replicate but to find a way to change everything for the new medium except the heart. The Wild Robot, the 49th animated feature from DreamWorks Animation, doesn’t just put a digital coating on that heart, but celebrates every vibrant beat.

Revenge proved that Fargeat can combine astonishing, lurid, hyperpsychosexualized visuals with incisive social commentary. Yet there’s a vibrant audaciousness to The Substance that’s matched and complemented by her cool examination of the cost of youth and beauty. She can swing between cerebral drama and body horror, but this is definitely not a Cronenberg knockoff.

Writer/director Megan Park follows up her debut feature, the South by Southwest award winning high school shooting drama The Fallout, with another look into the lives of teenagers. But whereas her first film took a suffocating dive into the emotional extremes of their inner lives, coming-of-age comedy My Old Ass is sweeter without being cloying.