With This Place Rules, Callaghan has captured who America actually is on a larger canvas, and while the manner in which he paints lessens its impact, who we are underneath it all is where it finds slices of grim truth all the same.

M3GAN might just become the Malignant of 2023. It doesn’t have a twist, but it is a weird, bonkers movie. Director Gerard Johnstone knocked it out of the park with his second film. It’s not traditionally scary, but it is existentially scary. As the world makes greater strides in AI and robotics, these kinds of scenarios become more terrifyingly possible. Luckily, you have the strange image of M3GAN twerking or driving an expensive sports car to make you giggle past the discomfort.

Especially compared to the 2015 adaptation, A Man Called Otto is a clunky update that often feels like it's full of cartoonish characters, with poor music choices, and cloying sentimentality. But when Forster and Magee pull away from these eccentricities, the story of Otto and Marisol is often a thing of beauty, and wonderful friendship that is lovely to watch grow.

The 2022 Matilda takes the narrative and world of a child and puts it on an adult’s terms. It completely misunderstands why so many children around the world adore these stories - because they were written for them and not their parents. Stick to the original 1996 movie folks, don’t be the boring witch.

If written well and with the same care as its direction, this could have conveyed a sense of more genuine tragedy. Regrettably, for all the ways the performances try to eschew convention for a bit more substance, it is a losing battle from start to finish.

It may be Cooper’s best historical film, and perhaps that’s because there’s a distinct melancholy to it that is etched into the bones of Virginia’s finest—just like Poe.

Scare Package II: Rad Chad’s Revenge suffers from the same issue as superhero media in the last few years, as it demands some homework to be done so you can follow and maybe enjoy the story the movie is trying to tell. That won’t be an issue for hardcore fans, but Scare Package II: Rad Chad’s Revenge still didn’t find a way to make the franchise more widely accessible.

Fans of Mackesy’s book will be utterly delighted to see that the hand-drawn illustrations translate beautifully to the screen without losing any of its neat-yet-messy aesthetic. Because the lines are literally pulled from the pages of the detailed original work, the movie feels less like a short film with a progressing story and more like a moving book.

The Apology is a dreadful story told horribly. It fails to understand its own protagonist, underestimates character development, and ignores the rules it establishes for itself.

Babylon is often pure mayhem, but it’s the beauty of life and film itself underneath that makes this one of the best movies about movies this year, and one of the best films of 2022.

In three hours, Cameron turned this Avatar nonbeliever into a viewer who can’t wait for a new sequel every two years. Avatar: The Way of Water truly feels like a fresh start for this series, as Cameron and his team address the weaknesses of the first film, improving the script and characters, while also creating one of the most extraordinary experiences one can have at the theaters.

Even though the brutality is seemingly never-ending, we never dull to the constant barrage of pain—both physically and emotionally. Yet when Fuqua and Collage aren’t focusing on the cruelty of this world, the film stops dead, lumbering through the motions, complete with derivative choices, characters, and dialogue.

For all the ways that Darby and the Dead tries to give its abundantly safe story some life, it can’t break free of a narrative hellbent on dragging it to the grave.

For all its many structural flaws that could doom a lesser work, it manages to break free when it counts. Though Hunt won’t become a paragon of action cinema, the moments where it lets loose still pack plenty of potent hits.

This deeply personal project for Junior is wildly unpredictable, not unlike Senior's approach to storytelling. Not only does this make it more captivating, but realistic. Sr. is aesthetically polished, but Smith and Junior are, like all of us, messy in their unique way.

Oppy’s origin story and her adorable, human-like qualities will surely attract a wide audience, but the vulnerability and passion of the engineers are what makes this documentary special.

It strikes at the core of what makes us human, our hopes and fears and the relationships we invest ourselves in. It is community as art as activism in one giant loop, filtered through the gaze of a woman so unflinchingly tireless in her efforts that you cannot help but be on her side.

It’s the refreshingly modern and tender depiction of intimacy and pleasure that will stay with me. After years upon years of sex scenes that are steeped in the male gaze or are shoehorned in to attract the money of horny youngsters who have no real interest in the story, it’s about time we treat sex with the tenderness, openness, and grace that it deserves on film — and this is exactly what Lady Chatterley’s Lover does.

While being far from perfect, Violent Night is just too fun not to revisit, which means it can become a new holiday classic in the years to come.

It is via a willingness to push beyond the headlines and discover something more about humanity that 2nd Chance reveals a deeper sense of the truth behind its scandalous story.

It is not only one of the best animated films of the year, but it's one of DreamWorks' best, and one that will strike a chord with moviegoers of all ages. It's equal parts exciting and hilarious as well as earnest, it never feels like it is talking down to anyone.

Aside from The Mean One himself, there was too much not to like in this film.

While The Leech starts out sturdy yet simple, feeling more like a psychological thriller than anything, when it takes a leap into the full-fledged spectacle of horror, it is worth getting lost in along with the characters.

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio shows that if you’re going to adapt this story yet again, it’s best to bring something exciting and new to it, as well as put some of your own personality into it.

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.

Since a creature feature lives and dies by its monster, Troll has the clear advantage of conjuring a magnificent beast from Scandinavian folklore. Of course, that might not be enough for viewers looking for something fresh to watch. Even so, Uthaug ultimately succeeds in developing a movie that’ll most likely please fans of giant creatures.

On the heels of Girl on the Third Floor and Jakob’s Wife, Stevens continues to prove that he is one of the best indie horror directors to emerge into the mainstream. He has a deft understanding of the genre and is keenly aware of when to dole out jumpscares, visual cues, and just the right amount of gore to delight horror lovers who favor psychological thrillers just as much as bloody horror.

As rich and exciting as this new world is, the characters and script that have been thrown into this scenario are fairly banal, full of tropes and platitudes that we’ve heard countless times in this type of film.