Those willing to overcome its lack of coherence will be rewarded with a wacky story that only genre cinema can offer.

That it holds together is a testament to the cast who it feels like are battling against clumsy escalations that go bigger and louder when the quieter moments carry with them a far more tactful deployment of emotion.

Hell of A Summer might not have the most original premise, but Bryk and Wolfhard are fully aware of that, creating one of the most entertaining and crowd-pleasing slasher films of the 2020s.

Even as not all the jokes land, the rare experience of getting to take in a spoof comedy like this makes it worthwhile all the same.

If you don’t stress over the logistics of time travel and are willing to appreciate the “deeper meanings” that are on full display, then check out this beautifully shot love letter to the messiness of New York City and life itself.

The script might have glaring flaws and painfully ambiguous morals, but The Creator is a truly remarkable piece of original science fiction storytelling. Even when it borrows from ideas established in films that preceded it, Edwards manages to make it feel fresh and new. The Creator is a beautifully crafted, albeit imperfect, science-fiction thriller that tries to unravel what it means to be a good human in a bad world.

What truly saves this film from its own baffling choices and makes it watchable are the performances. Scott, Piper, and Alwyn all turn in compelling performances, but it is the titular "little bird" that steals the show. As the rebellious, headstrong Catherine, Ramsey is an infectious delight who infuses every scene she's in with an energy that is both comedic and earnest in its bluntness.

Harmonizing romance with comedy and a lot of enjoyable action, Shotgun Wedding still lands on its feet amid some bumpiness and delivers precisely what it needs to make this a fun, feel-good entry for 2023.

While it takes a while to get there after dancing around its premise, when Run Sweetheart Run hits its stride it is more than worth running along with it.

As we’ve seen from Arrested Development and Succession, rich people belittling each other over their petty grievances as they lust for real power is incredibly entertaining, but House of Gucci never seems entirely sure how seriously it should take its characters. It should have just followed Leto’s lead and been a blast.

It is exciting to watch a writer and director like Garland take a huge swing like Men, even if it doesn’t entirely hold together as tightly as something like Ex Machina or Annihilation. Men is certainly more about asking questions than providing answers, a challenging, strange, and often horrendous journey that certainly doesn’t hold back in terms of weirdness, and wants to crawl into the viewer’s brain.

Jeanne du Barry’s straightforward script might not convince the average moviegoer to spend two hours in the French court. However, fans of period romances will be well-served with a love story that puts a sex worker in the spotlight. And while Maïwenn and Depp are not the steamiest couple in period biopics, Jeanne du Barry is still entertaining enough to be worth your time

It has a lot on its mind that it wants to tackle, but that leaves much of the explorations it is undertaking feeling half-baked. This doesn’t drag things down too much, as it is mostly able to keep light on its feet, but it does make things a bit wobbly.

Sympathy for the Devil should be thankful for Cage and Kinnaman's brilliant dynamics as, without them, the movie would be nothing more than a bland thriller.

Even though it is a fairly straightforward, surface-level doc at times, A Disturbance in the Force is a worthwhile look at accepting the flaws of the past, the media of the 1970s, and a period when the biggest franchise in the world could do some weird-ass shit that would still (mostly) be embraced by the fans.

While the road is frequently more important than the destination, the lack of surprises may test the audience’s attention span, especially in the third act, when both characters are already well-established and we understand their inner struggles. That said, You Sing Loud, I Sing Louder is still a powerful family drama enhanced by phenomenal performances.

Though the ending is somewhat disappointing and less dynamic than everything that preceded it, this can’t take away all that the film still has going for it.

As far as feature debuts go, Purev-Ochir delivers a solid offering, one that showcases her strengths and leans into the soul of her original short, elaborating on an intriguing concept to impressive results.

If you are looking for a good slasher film, look elsewhere. If you are looking for a fun family-friendly film with a few good monsters, then try Spirit Halloween: The Movie.

The Watcher in the Woods is a great movie for seventy minutes, but the subpar ending really does stain an otherwise solid watch.

Luckily, Neeson’s performance is compelling enough to keep you interested, even though as the case unfolds you realize that it’s going in a pretty obvious direction. That’s why the movie greatly benefits from its cast, whose undisputable talent fire up the screen and make you feel like the trip to Golden Age Hollywood — which was beautifully recreated with a grade-A production and costume design — was worth your time.

For horror fans who prefer a more subtle and nuanced brand of horror that verges on the very outskirts of psychological horror, the lo-fi grunginess of Falling Stars will certainly appeal to them, though the outcome may leave them with more questions than answers.

While it is not going to be among the very best of 2023 when it comes to its story, the craft that went into its presentation is unlike anything you’ll see this year or any other. It manages to burst through the surface of its frequently stormy narrative waters and grab hold of your heart just as it does your eyes.

The characters are consistently charming, the humor sufficiently silly, and the animation often beautiful, though the standard path it takes holds it back from fully exploring the potential lurking just beneath the surface. When it all bursts free towards the end is when the film is at its best.

Even with its many narrative flaws, The Silent Twins gives us an insight into not just the lives of the two sisters but the way they made sense of it through stories of their own.

Though it doesn’t have the audacity to close when it should with its characters at their very lowest, The Estate is still proper fun in seeing a deeply improper family tear each other apart.

While Bird Box Barcelona is only following the trend, it is too bad to see the spin-off try so hard to keep fans excited about the next chapter that it undercuts the emotional weight of its ending. So, while the film surpasses the original in every sense, it still gets dragged down by the needs of a franchise.

Christmas Bloody Christmas makes two promises in its title: it’s going to be about Christmas, and it’s going to be bloody. It succeeds on both fronts to create a fun, fast-paced Christmas horror that is all style, very little substance – but when it works this well, it's totally fine.

It is an experience built around surprise revelations and plunging into the unknown. What is found there is not nearly as impactful as the actual journey itself, making for a mixed bag of horror and humor that rises above its lesser parts enough to hold together.

All in all, Incredible but True remains an unmissable movie for Dupieux fans. And for those worried about getting lost in the filmmaker’s passion for nonsense, the movie might be his most accessible work yet.

To anyone interested in the history of film, Champagne includes the earliest known examples of freeze-frame techniques, highlighting how innovative Hitchcock was.

Beyond the clichés and the added elements to try and boost the drama, Tetris at its core works because the true story is inherently an interesting one, and when the film sticks to these details, it's at its best. Like a difficult game of Tetris, this film might fumble some of its pieces, but in the end, it's ultimately a satisfying experience.

Led by two solid performances by Pugh and Freeman, A Good Person shows growth from Braff as both a writer and director, as he attempts to push himself into a more mature story that we’re used to from him.

Bennett lifts the story up just like the bubbles in the veuve's own delicious champagne, showing us the brilliance in this biopic drama.

National Anthem may at times feel a bit too simple, but the craftsmanship and the core performances are enough to make it worth a watch.

Blue Beetle brings a breath of fresh air to DC with its focus on smaller stakes and family dynamics, standing out just enough from other superhero films.

For all its faults, Mickey: The Story of a Mouse is at times a charming look at one of the biggest icons of our time, and while this story has been told many times before, it’s never been told with the sort of scope and frankness about how Disney has maybe failed with their mascot.

It offers a solid police investigation story though fails to use its unique sci-fi world as well as it could have.

Good Burger 2 certainly isn’t a masterpiece, but Kenan & Kel still have the special sauce that makes this film work.

Waititi’s latest isn’t bad by any stretch, and isn’t close to his worst (again, Love and Thunder, watch your ass), but as a sports film and a comedy, it is fairly average.

Despite being a bit tonally uneven, A Little White Lie is a lovable indie dramedy led by the always delightful Michael Shannon and Kate Hudson that is worth bookmarking.

The Sky Is Everywhere takes a lot of swings that miss, but the heart of the film is in the right place, and when it really works, The Sky Is Everywhere knocks these emotions and ideas out of the park.

Lightyear is still an extremely fun action sci-fi film that is better than most animated films released in a given year, and will bring a smile to fans of this character.

While Bloody Hell is undoubtedly courageous for dealing with many sensitive themes, the film struggles to find its pacing and keep the audience engaged in a story that sometimes feels too predictable.

Insidious: The Red Door might not be the scariest installment in the franchise, but it feels a lot more human than the others before it. The character moments end up feeling more effective than some of the film's big set-pieces and, while that may bug some genre purists, those who have stuck around since the first film released over 10 years ago will be pleased.

Despite its obvious flaws, They/Them is still worth a watch, mainly because of the sensitivity with which the filmmaker presents the fears and joys of LGBTQIA+ people. It’s no easy feat to introduce a huge cast of characters in a short runtime and still make us care about all of them, but Logan does exactly that.

Gillan gets a great opportunity to show her comedic skills, and Stearns remains a solid purveyor of dark comedy, but Dual’s gloom eventually overtakes the absurdity to a depressing degree.

Fackham Hall holds its own as the first of its kind — and carves out a brand-new niche in the satire landscape.

Berg’s documentary is at its strongest when it focuses on the musical legacy that Buckley was so concerned about that he would leave behind, and less so when it tries to delve deeper into who Buckley was as a person.

It’s the movie’s efforts to make this as digestible as possible for the audience through its light-hearted tone and simplistic dialogue that render it a movie you watch on Netflix with your parents and probably never think about again.

The movie hangs on the nuances of Cantor's performance, but it never seems to come together.

Though the themes in Atropia are more subtle than one might hope and expect from a war satire, and the film could benefit from more focus, Hailey Gates successfully draws intriguing parallels between war and the entertainment industry that will have you looking at both in a whole new light.

Dark Nuns doesn't reinvent the wheel. If you're seeking out an exorcism film that's going to shock you and be vastly different from what you've seen before, you're going to be disappointed. But what Dark Nuns does have are two central characters of the like that we don't often see.

Drag makes the most of its fairly simple conceit.

There are a lot of fascinating ideas Green is throwing into Opus, and it's obvious that this is a fully realized concept that he's worked on for years; not only in the script, but in the extra work he's done in fleshing out this world. Still, we don't see enough of that work come across in the finished product, and the ideas here come off as muddled, failing to connect with the audience beyond a superficial level.

If you come solely for the comedic stylings of four powerhouse actors, Mountainhead will certainly win you over if you don't take it too seriously. But should you expect a scathing takedown of Big Tech's best and brightest, the movie will act largely as a reminder that watching a bunch of rich guys spout off ignorant crap inevitably gets old and adds nothing to the conversation.

Watchmen: Chapter 1 is a compelling curiosity, but never matches the power of its source material, and, if anything, should make people turn to the graphic novel instead of checking out yet another adaptation.

Despite solid directing, effects, and production design at various points, The Kitchen doesn't explore its futuristic dystopia nearly as profoundly as it could.

It's not the Sandra Hüller movie you might have hoped for, and Sisi & I never communicates any particular reason for us to perceive Sisi through this boring outsider's perspective. But even if the movie doesn't come to a clean point, it maintains a certain grandeur.

It is a somewhat decent movie hampered by so many preventable oversights and missteps.

Tarot is a pretty forgettable horror movie. Dull characters, a basic plot, and very little to say with its themes render it a fairly unmemorable experience.

War Machine does indeed struggle to stand out in a crowded subgenre of alien invasion movies, but it also does enough to likely satisfy action and sci-fi fans. There are glimmers of brilliance with Ritchson's surprisingly nuanced performance in the lead role and at least one truly great action sequence, but just about every other aspect falls into "just fine" territory.

It's content with being simply silly when it could have been so much more. Still, Doin' It will make you laugh out loud throughout its runtime, and Lilly Singh shows that she has what it takes to succeed on the big screen.

Oh, Canada is a more reflective work from Paul Schrader with plenty on its mind that still falls short of his best works.

Ash feels too familiar, which is disappointing coming from such an idiosyncratic filmmaker like Flying Lotus. This material feels like it's too derivative to be effective, but the video game-like atmosphere, bonkers direction, and reliable cast make it far more watchable.

[Bartholomew] gives us insights into her character more naturally than some of the occasionally forced dialogue, showing us glimpses of her increasingly fractured mind through an embodied performance. Even when the film doesn’t fully capture the spirit, the spell she casts gets awfully close.

The film does pull out all the stops for the finale but, for nearly every moment it stands tall in this conclusion, it also stumbles and falls in the getting there.

Nice Days doesn't execute its emotional or comedic beats with the same enthusiasm, but the pulverizations are still bountiful — there's plenty of bruised and bloody aggression to save the day.

Where the script falls short, Norton and Dunne pick up the slack and carry these characters through to the finish line.

Greedy People is somewhat tonally amiss, but not long enough for the experience to self-destruct. It's a fine working backward whodunit from the inside out.

The Friend's heart is in the right place, but it can't get out of its own way.

Love Me has its flaws. But the cast is endearing, the robots are cute, and if you enjoy a romance movie, you won't be disappointed in this.

Kiss of the Spider Woman is yet another decent adaptation, but even Condon's visual panache and scale can’t quite elevate this story to greatness.

As entertaining as Until Dawn is, it’s fairly light in most regards, other than the kills. While the characters in the game had more time to have intricate connections to one another, these five are fairly one-note.

In spite of its faults, Vanessa Caswill's latest directorial effort offers a pair worth rooting for and winning romantic leads, proving that Monroe and Withers have what it takes to captivate audiences in a genre that they haven't previously been linked to.

Pretty Lethal is at its best when it’s a straightforward film about bloody fights and survival. This isn’t the most complex concept, and when the movie tries to include unnecessary details, it stops the narrative dead in its tracks.

It features terrific performances from Roberts and Garfield, but even they are not enough to save the film from being too muddled and morally ambiguous for its own good.

While it’s a cozy and enjoyable enough watch with decent performances, Good Grief is too middling to be memorable, sticking to an overly sentimental tone despite its best moments having more edge and bite to them.

Spaceman is a rocky journey, but in times like these and thanks to Sandler’s performance, it’s often worth the trip.

The Choral offers a unique look at WWI, while struggling to maintain balance between its compelling lead and somewhat lackluster storytelling with its other subplots.

While All of You features powerhouse performances from Brett Goldstein and Imogen Poots and some sharp, witty writing from Bridges and Goldstein himself, the film aims high but lacks clear stakes, making this love story difficult to invest in, with underwhelming sci-fi further muddling the heartrending, but ultimately unfulfilling romance.

While G20 doesn’t always rise to meet Davis at her level, it’s a performance that elevates even the weakest beats, giving audiences a satisfying, if uneven, ride.

There are more misses than connections in the third act, and for its title, it's never really vicious enough despite the blood and gore to come. Still, it'll keep you on your toes as it's cutting off someone else's.

This movie wants to get in, get the job done without complication, and get out before it overstays its welcome. On that front, The Rip is solid enough to earn a mild recommendation.

With beautiful visuals, an interesting plot, and a middle that some might even say makes up for its beginning and ending, Grafted is worth watching and Sasha Rainbow is a horror filmmaker to keep an eye on.

The film does show that Gomes is capable of making an authentic period piece and a stunning documentary, but the attempt of trying to do both at the same time has led to an unusual experiment that will leave one scratching their head.

Like the title character himself, Jay Kelly is a film that has good intentions, but doesn’t have the follow-through to make good on those promises.

With heartfelt and emotional performances by the cast, See You When I See You is a stirring tale about survivor's guilt, grief, and reconnecting in the wake of tragedy. Though the film hits on all emotional notes, there's one crucial setback that holds back an otherwise moving story.

If a movie is going to give us a man reuniting with his dad and them coming to love each other, then it needs to give them the freedom to really hash it out and explore the consequences of their estrangement. Looking Through Water only skims the surface.

Beyond the ‘90s references, Y2K is an underwhelming, but mostly entertaining movie that never quite goes as far as it should with its concept, comedy, or the relationships between its characters.

Laxe is aiming to shock the audience, and in that, he succeeds, but the final product suffers as a result.

It’s never as deep as it thinks it is (or has the potential to be), but as long as you go in simply wanting a nasty, gorgeous, unhinged ride, you’ll leave the rollercoaster satisfied — and probably a little nauseous, too.

There are successful elements in the script, certainly, but there are also several frustrating moments that simply needed another draft to work the knots out. All that said, it's a successful foray into sci-fi territory thanks to a willingness to stretch the subgenre's established rules, making for a fun murder mystery that keeps audiences guessing.

The Luckiest Man in America is a strong story when it sticks to the facts, and Hauser is undeniably an excellent choice for this role, but the film really presses its luck by taking such huge liberties with the facts.

Holder's wayward romantic indie chases meaning through quiet reflections that navigate hardship somewhat cleanly. While it's a delightful representation of Brooklyn's playground, scenes flow through motions like a wandering observer.

As a ridiculous tale of a celebrity trying to make himself matter, Sacrifice is quite a bit of fun, but any attempt to make a larger point falls flat, just like so many films before it.

Even with striking visuals that offer compelling depth and beauty to Minahan’s overall look, the film’s inability to keep a consistent pace and tone, or even establish its primary focus through its leads undercuts its biggest, most poignant messages.

Is The Mandalorian and Grogu the worst Star Wars film ever made? Far from it, as there is much fun to be had here. Is it the best in the franchise? Also not the case, as it could very well be the most forgettable and inconsequential entry the franchise has produced yet.