Mangrove is an invaluable work enlightening us on an important chapter in Black history across the pond.

Mank is the kind of movie that makes you want to go back and re-watch not only “Citizen Kane” but the works of other characters featured in this story.

Fatman skids and slides and careens between genres and never finds solid footing in any one place, and ultimately winds up as an interesting failed experiment.

Winslet and Ronan are magnificent together, conveying the escalation of intimate moments, from holding hands to kissing to embracing to an extended and graphic coupling that beautifully conveys the avalanche of feelings each is experiencing as they make love.

The climactic scenes when all hell breaks loose are gripping and enthralling, and in the midst of all the blood, sweat and tears, Joel Kinnaman is kicking ass and taking names in true action movie-star fashion.

This is a film so sweet it might give you a contact sugar rush, but it features two inherently likable, great-looking romantic leads, a fine supporting performance by the always reliable Virginia Madsen, a timeless true-meaning-of-Christmas message — and a genuinely cinematic style, mostly because the movie was actually filmed on Andrews Air Force base in Guam and the surrounding beaches and jungles and islands.

While it is unabashedly sentimental and at times goes over the top with the symbolic melodramatic devices, it is a beautifully shot and heartwarming film, and the 86-year-old Loren is magnificent and regal and fierce and funny and beautiful and screen-commanding throughout.

This is a nifty little gem in the heist genre, with the familiar message about the perils of greed and always wanting more and more and even more.

Hillbilly Elegy is a beautifully constructed, unforgiving, heart-tugging family epic about three generations of the Vance family.

The abrupt tonal shifts may throw some viewers for a loop, but when the confrontations segue from tense verbal exchanges to sudden bursts of violence, it feels authentic and organic to the foundation laid down in the first half of the film.

There’s a terrifically entertaining sequence late in the film that plays like an homage to a certain element of the original “Poltergeist,” and a thrilling and nerve-wracking extended final sequence that will put you on the edge of the proverbial seat.

An excruciatingly cheesy, hopelessly dated, profoundly unfunny and tone-deaf romantic comedy about an intelligent, hard-working, likable and lovely woman.

The Craft: Legacy is a smart, edgy, wickedly funny and wild ride from the talented writer-director Zoe Lister-Jones.

Through the psychedelic journeys and the blood-spattered crime scenes and the brooding atmosphere, Synchronic is at heart a good old-fashioned buddy movie about two friends who will risk all for each other.

Ten minutes into Lombroso’s film, it’s painfully clear these are people with ugliness in their hearts and dangerously racist ideas. But there’s value in seeing these how these hate hucksters operate and going behind the curtain to see how small they really are.

It’s just an awful and ridiculous and clumsily edited B-movie mostly of interest because of the name cast, an insanely horrible concert within the film — and the incredible back story about the making of “Grizzly II,” which could be great material for a fictional adaptation a la “Argo” or “The Big Short” or “American Hustle.”

Sacha Baron Cohen remains a fearless and funny comedic force, and Maria Bakalova is hilarious and endearing as Tutar. We also get a clever twist ending and I’ll say no more than that. Borat is an idiot, but “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” ends on a pretty smart note.

With a running time of 1 hour 55 minutes, Bad Hair might have benefited from a quick trim (sorry), and it’s a real mess at times, but you won’t soon shake off its genuinely scary and originally twisted delight

The special effects are first-rate and the performances are way over the top yet entertaining, but The Witches is far too disturbing for young children and not edgy enough to captivate adults.

The Devil Has a Name is a master class in casting.

Even a warmed-over, behind-the-times Woody Allen script is going to contain some choice one-liners, and this is a superb cast that knows how to put the right spin on clever dialogue — even when they’re playing thinly drawn characters in a dated and unnecessary story.

It’s funny as hell in a drive-in splatter movie kind of way, smart and insightful and respectful in its depiction of modern-day teens, brimming with sly and satiric social commentary — and legitimately profound.

The argument about whether Sandler is terrible or talented has long been settled. The answer is both.

Jones and Murray are wonderful together; many of the best scenes in On the Rocks are when it’s just the two of them, verbally fencing.

More than a half-century after first taking the stage, “The Boys in the Band” still leaves us with so much to think about, so much to feel, so much to consider.

Even the smaller touches in Save Yourselves! ring true.

As the plot grows increasingly convoluted and borderline laughable, Chastain is steady as she goes, playing a character who’s worthy of a film franchise in a movie nowhere near deserving a sequel. Odds are we’ll never see Ava again, and that’s a shame because, with a better script and more inspired direction, she could have been a contender.

Certain events are rearranged from the factual timelines, and yes, The Trial of the Chicago 7 exercises poetic license. This is not a documentary; it’s a dramatization of events that resonates with great power while containing essential truths, and it’s one of the best movies of the year.

Following the playbook of “The Full Monty,” “Calendar Girls,” “Military Wives,” et al., Misbehaviour achieves just the right mix of farcical humor, dry wit and the obligatory dramatic moments when the light banter and sight gags give way to Poignant Confrontations reminding us there are serious undertones to this breezy romp.

This is one of the better intimate dramas of the year.

The Way I See It tells Souza’s remarkable story in straightforward and effective fashion, as even Souza himself seems surprised at the turn his life has taken.

The pairing of Law and Coon as a married couple doing an extended love/hate dance in The Nest results in an absolute master class in acting.

That this is such a well-made production, with passionate and strong performances from the stellar cast, makes it all the more exasperating. What a missed opportunity

Foster Boy certainly follows the legal thriller blueprint, sometimes to credulity-stretching limits — but this is a solid and important story about systematic abuse within the foster care system, featuring an outstanding cast including a half-dozen seasoned veterans who know how to sell even the most melodramatic moments.

The material can get awfully sudsy and we can see a couple of the big reveals coming two scenes in advance, but on balance this is a well-written, moving story bolstered by an outstanding cast.

At first, the jigsaw puzzle seems needlessly difficult to solve, but once all the pieces are in place and we see the big picture, we’re left with admiration for director/co-writer Antonio Campos’ ability to weave a memorably brooding film from Donald Ray Pollock’s novel of the same name.

We learn all kinds of illuminating factoids.

Reddy’s story is given the standard, time-honored biopic treatment in I Am Woman, which checks off just about every cliché imaginable — and yet wins us over, in large part due to the star-power performance of Tilda Cobham-Hervey as Reddy.

Geraldine Viswanathan, fresh off her scene-stealing turn as the intrepid high school newspaper reporter in “Bad Education,” gives a knockout performance.

Beautiful. Even on the small screen. Yes, it’s a shame that American audiences won’t be able to see Niki Caro’s spectacular live-action epic “Mulan” in theaters, but the good news is this is such a great-looking film, with amazing set pieces and dazzling action and colors so vibrant they would dazzle a Crayola factory, it will still play well on your home monitor.

The material is pretty thin and some of the jokes get repetitive, but Get Duked! is good stoner comedy fun, and quite the promising debut from a rookie filmmaker.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things is crazy good.

The result is just a bigger, louder, more special effects-laden extension of a franchise that skated on pretty thin ice the first two times around.

There’s no doubting Arquette’s sincere desire to learn the sport and craft of wrestling, to get into shape, to resuscitate his career, to make his family proud. We’re still rooting for the guy.

It offers some valuable insights into Trump’s behavior, and offers a compelling counterargument to some widely accepted notions about whether or not psychiatrists should even be allowed to comment on the mental health of individuals they have not personally treated.

In the flourishing genre of faith-based movies, this is one of the better efforts we’ve seen.

Take the “smart” out of “Booksmart,” the “super” out of “Superbad” and the edge out of “The Purge,” and you get the Hulu movie The Binge, one of the worst comedies of this or any other year, notable only because it features what might just be the most terrible performance in Vince Vaughn’s up-and-down career, and I say that with no glee because I’m a Vince Vaughn guy.

The 24th is an important reminder of a dark chapter in American history.

Tenet reaches for cinematic greatness and, though it doesn’t quite reach that lofty goal, it’s the kind of film that reminds us of the magic of the moviegoing experience.

Armando Iannucci (creator of HBO’s “Veep”) transforms Charles Dickens’ masterful but often dour and cumbersome 624-page Victorian novel into a brilliant piece of entertainment that often plays like “Alice in Wonderland” as interpreted by Monty Python.

I found it to be a fantastically creative, fourth-wall-breaking, pop-art waking dream.

There are times the family-friendly slapstick comedy and heavy messaging about the heartbreak of animals in tight, dark, cold captivity don’t exactly mesh. But the visuals are truly impressive and the story has an uplifting arc, and oh do these actors have fun hamming it up.

Words on Bathroom Walls has its moments and its heart is in the right place, but the missteps are too many and too big for the story to carry the day.

You feel a hurricane of emotions watching Barbara Kopple’s brilliant and searing documentary Desert One.

The young and attractive cast does a fine job of selling the ridiculous plot developments; it’s probably great fun to make a drive-in horror film complete with gallons of fake blood and one character after another biting the dust in creative fashion. Plus, Danny Trejo!

Russell Crowe is an A-list star in a B-movie, but to his credit it never feels as if he’s slumming it.

Cut Throat City ends on a note that’s too clever by half, but that doesn’t undercut all the vibrant, rough-edged, impressive storytelling that led to that moment.

The overwrought score and the Orwellian themes announce “Barbarians” as a prestige project brimming with Big Ideas, but it’s ultimately stilted and didactic, and more than a bit nasty.

For every moment of inspiration and hope in the teen-political documentary Boys State, when you find yourself thinking, By gosh, the kids are all right, there are at least two jaw-dropping instances of 16- and 17-year-olds compromising their values with such cynicism you weep for our future.

Every frame of the film is bursting with sensory overload information, from the shaky, hand-held camera angles to the constant scrolling of viewer messages to the occasional use of split screens.

A vibrant and crazy and thought-provoking and immensely entertaining film that could have been even more resonant had it not settled for a relatively conventional final act we’ve seen in dozens of thrillers.

The Tax Collector is an underachieving, exceedingly violent urban gangster film with a meandering storyline and a contrived final twist.

She Dies Tomorrow is a well-crafted, beautifully acted, minimalist gem for our times.

Spinster isn’t a particularly visually arresting film, nor is it bursting with memorable and colorful supporting players. It’s simply an effective vehicle for Chelsea Peretti to expand upon her smart/cynical persona to include some genuine heart and likability as well.

This is no piece of pretentious fluff. It’s a grim and nasty but wickedly entertaining bit of business, seasoned with sharp little plot turns before an admittedly ludicrous but dramatically satisfying twist-on-top-of-a-twist ending.

There’s little in the way of originality in Work It, but there’s a fresh, upbeat, infectious vibe to the silliness, thanks in large part to the talented and likable cast of young actors.

Rogen does a remarkably fine job in creating two distinct characters.

[An] uplifting and inspirational and just plain cool documentary.

[A] comprehensive and expertly rendered documentary.

A wildly entertaining, over-the-top, blood-soaked, noir-Western from director/co-writer Scott Wiper that’s filled with stunning visuals of the breathtaking and sometimes foreboding countryside (with Morehead, Kentucky, standing in for West Virginia) and searing performances from the ensemble cast.

Janet Montgomery is heartbreakingly good as Emma.

Throughout, the always likable Gillian Jacobs creates a memorable portrayal of a woman who’s a mess but still rather wonderful.

This is a movie with a deeply split personality, and despite some flashes of creativity from a talented director and cast, neither the straightforward biography nor the flights of creative fancy are particularly resonant.

This powerful and well-acted story might have been much more effective if told in strictly linear fashion.

The performances and the production design are first-rate, but even at 74 minutes, Guest Artist is an overly talky, at times outdated and cliché-riddled two-hander that wears out its welcome by the halfway mark.

For all its sharp barbs at Catholic school hypocrisy and its frank depictions of masturbation and teenage hook-ups, Yes, God, Yes somehow retains a breezy and upbeat and even sweet disposition, thanks to the light touch of writer-director Karen Maine and an absolutely winning performance by “Stranger Things” star Natalia Dyer.

This is a dark and brutal cautionary tale that traffics in any number of familiar scary-movie touchstones, but does so in consistently clever and entertaining fashion.

The Czech writer-director Václav Marhoul has done an astonishing job of adapting Kosinski’s novel in all its brutality (and its moments of humanity), lensing the story through timeless, dream- and nightmare-like 35mm monochrome and delivering a near-masterpiece epic that will leave you exhausted after its 169-minute running time — but grateful you’ve seen one of the most memorable movies of the year.

To call this a Netflix Original movie is only half-correct. True, it’s on Netflix, but no, there’s nothing original about this uninspired knockoff of “Fatal Attraction” (even the title and the poster borrow from that 1987 classic of the genre), which is marred by stilted dialogue, predictable plot turns and surprisingly halfhearted performances from a talented cast that acts as if they know this is slick garbage and they’re just trying to make it through the shoot so they can call their respective agents and say, “We need to talk.”

In the bland and outdated and curiously tame would-be sex rom-com “A Nice Girl Like You,” Hale once again tries her gosh-darndest to sell the material — but even though this toothless yawner is based on a real-life memoir, every single frame feels artificial and forced.

This is an artist’s coming-of-age story featuring a wonderful actress who’s unfortunately not right for the role; a shambling screenplay that has characters wandering in and out of the story as if in search of their own movie, and not one but two of the most off-putting patriarchal figures in recent memory.

Relic is the feel-dread movie of the year.

This is a rousing and satisfying actioner that occasionally gets bogged down in complicated exposition but presents some intriguing twists on time-honored themes about the double-edged sword of immortality.

The formula has rarely been mined to such resounding success. This is one of the funniest movies of the year AND one of the most romantic movies as well.

Filmmakers Cristina Constantini and Kareem Tabsch have fashioned an illuminating and insightful documentary/biography.

Lurie has fashioned a worthy tribute to these brave American soldiers, some of whom paid the ultimate price.

The modern retelling retains little of the charm and whimsy of the source material, in favor of a cloying story, a most unwelcome new character and some pretty cheesy special effects.

While The Greyhound pays great attention to detail and feels authentic, especially in the claustrophobic and intense scenes in the bowels of the ship, the battle sequences that look like something straight out of a video game dominate the movie and keep us at a safe distance from getting emotionally involved on a level this story deserves.

The film's extended suspense sequences deserve a place among the great stretches of cinema.

The filmed version of the Broadway sensation makes for immersive, exhilarating, magnificent cinema, almost sure to thrill first-time viewers as well as diehard fanatics who have seen the stage production once or twice or a dozen times.

Force of Nature is more of a nasty little rainstorm than a Category 5 anything.

I won’t divulge any more so you can experience the cool madness of The 11th Green for yourself. Suffice to say it’s out of this world.

This forgettable film is too rough for younger kids and too stupid for the grown-ups.

This is a relatively gentle indictment of the cynical, money-driven political system, bolstered by winning performances from the ensemble cast. The insightful screenplay by Stewart takes Hollywood’s tendency to condescend to small-town America and turns it upside down in clever fashion.

Deadly serious people are involved in deadly serious business in “Wasp Network,” and there’s an air of importance and urgency to their every move, and we should be utterly immersed in this story — but we’re not. Not even close.

With all the wonderful supporting performances, the true standout is Sabrina Carpenter, an actress-singer from TV’s “Girl Meets World,” who infuses Nola with such heart and such authenticity and such resolve.

This is a film that provides more questions than answers but leaves plenty of food for thought.

In the funny and insightful and loosely structured comedy/drama 2 Minutes of Fame, Pharoah plays an aspiring stand-up comic not unlike the young Jay Pharoah, which presents the opportunity for him to trot out some of his Greatest Hits impersonations — but he also proves to be a more than capable actor.