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and the production design are first-rate, but even at 74 minutes, Guest Artist is an overly talky, at times outdated and cliché-riddled two-hander that wears out its welcome by the halfway mark.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In the bland and outdated and curiously tame would-be sex rom-com “A Nice Girl Like You,” Hale once again tries her gosh-darndest to sell the material — but even though this toothless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.