A perfect summer movie, and a celebration of the hard work it takes to make a perfect summer movie happen.

Watching Roadrunner feels like engaging in a kind of collective mourning, a desperate bid to understand a man who meant so much to so many, even if we never met him. For those of us who cared about Tony, whether through the television or a recipe, this is essential viewing.

With a haunting Brad Pitt performance at the center of an existentially arresting personal journey, Ad Astra feels like the boldest, most considered major studio movie we’re going to get for a long time.

The World’s a Little Blurry is an honest depiction of what it’s like to be a teenage girl. What makes that successful portrayal even more moving is that this particular teenage girl’s life is so untypical to begin with. Although the film runs long, it’s hard to point out any scene that could be cut, because every moment adds to the collage that is Billie Eilish’s world.

What’s so inspiring about Better Man is that it represents the culmination of such a smart collection of choices, ones that add up to create a true portrait of an artist.

The bluntness of its messaging proves to be a bit of a detraction, but the fact remains that Where the Crawdads Sing is a heartfelt, and gorgeous picture, the kind which major studios used to make all the time, and now feel like a bit of an endangered species.

It is as much a celebration of song and contemporary dance as it is a call to action about the need to embrace our humanity and connect with others. Quite simply: it’s a joy.

Although "Wuthering Heights" remains a deliciously horny film, it does summon a certain degree of pure romance, especially in the few moments when its leads are able to see past their misunderstandings and actually connect.

Though clumsily paced and in need of a little more structure, Soleil Moon Frye’s Kid 90 is an achingly personal insight into what it means to truly understand and connect with your past, disguised as a documentary about the perils and pitfalls of childhood stardom in the blossoming age of technology.

Although the changes to the source material are guaranteed to polarize some Stephen King fans, Pet Sematary bucks the remake trap of simply paying homage to an iconic piece of horror. Instead, it makes drastic changes to the plot so it can ultimately go more complex with its themes. That’s a hell of a trick to pull off. Sometimes, different is better.

It’s easily one of the best animated films of the year, and one of the most assured, endearing works of del Toro’s filmography.

It’s a striking debut, and the kind of outing that will invariably leave audiences wanting to see more from Lynch behind the camera in the future. But Lucky is a showcase for Stanton above all things.

Wolfs is classy, smart, fun, and engaging storytelling, a solid film that plays great in a full theater and could have offered audiences a nice grown-up night at the movies.

It feels special, like a kind of prized trinket, a sun-dappled sexual fantasia, chased by the specter of death in pursuit of a life of leisure. The Jesus Rolls is a touching and singular work, a louche fantasy.

While Don’t Worry Darling isn’t perfect, the only baggage it deserves to be saddled with is the baggage of attempting to tell a story with an obvious twist in our twist-numbed culture. For in the end, the real twist is this: even in 2022, true equality between men and women still feels like a fairy tale.

As entertaining as the film is – and boy, is it ever – there is still a feeling that Supersonic could have delved even deeper, as there are glaring omissions to the story.

Nuts! manages to create a fascinating, thrilling portrait of the weirdness of industrial-age America that’s as side-splitting as it is deeply haunting.

Baumbach uses this twisted reunion as a brilliant funnel for all of his world-building — and it’s quite a story, broken down into multiple sections, no less. Yes, he goes nuts with the exposition, but there’s little offense here considering, well, that’s exactly how it would go down in reality.

Watching brilliant actors face off over issues of idealism, pragmatism, and maybe occasionally faith makes for captivating viewing. Conclave even dares to make it a little fun. Which might be its most subversive element.

The Humans is magic.

Historical weightiness aside, Hamilton is simply fun.

Saint Maud is a fantastic and gripping debut from an exciting new talent in the genre. Hoisted by a tight script and dynamic performances, it’s a standout title that deserves its heaps of praise.

The Best Summer is a must-see for music fans — or anyone charmed by the bittersweet beauty of remembering the past.

Everything is dandy until it’s not and that’s what makes Hot Summer Nights such a stirring and vivid presentation. The stakes are real. Those stakes are what elevate the film from being strictly a chewy exercise in nostalgia.

McQueen’s focus is on the community, not the individual; his focus is on the party as a whole and the optimism and community it engenders. Films about the unabashed celebration of Black joy and success are few and far between, which makes Lovers Rock all the more remarkable.

Babylon slowly builds up its wackadoo cartoon version of Hollywood to tear it down at its foundation.

Sound of Metal is a film about loss and grief, and what we do with ourselves when our lives change irrevocably.

The real horrors presented by the film are all internal, about what can happen to a person if they repress too much of themselves over time. There are ghosts, but they’re the ghosts of potential happiness and fulfillment. And those ghosts haunt us like none other.

Having empathy for your characters often means giving them opportunities for growth, and Burnham thankfully never loses sight of the belief that things truly can get better if you want them to.

Mixing horror movie imagery with honest, heart-wrenching human truths, Bayona has created a dark, coming-of-age masterpiece.

There’s grace to be found in The Beguiled, and delicacy, but what’s most interesting is the brutality and power that seethe beneath the surface.

It’s all too appropriate that at the center of Honor Among Thieves is a message about the value of found families, and how strong and powerful those relationships can be. That underlying sweetness, the incredibly game nature of its cast, and again, an emphasis on fun make this a film worthy of the brand, one that might even inspire some new converts to discover the adventure possible on their own tabletops.

It’s a movie that deserves our attention, if only for the elegiac peace of its narrative, and its reminder to appreciate the small things in life. Because they sometimes matter most.

Kuso is a hallucinatory, scatological, grotesque, and occasionally hysterical work of utter mania, the kind of wild cinema that cuts through the noise of all safer, more marketable filmmaking.

Synchronic splices together science fiction, heart, and humor to create one hell of a potion, one you’re going to soak up as soon as possible.

Whose Streets? humanizes Ferguson, but not for the benefit of skeptics. It’s a rallying cry for those who understand their pain and those driven by that same pain to affect real and lasting change.

The slow build of Da 5 Bloods leads to as powerful a finale as any you’ll find in Lee’s arsenal. And it’s one that should hit rather hard as it arrives in the middle of a summer where race will be discussed at volumes.

True Romance is for the most part a delightful relic of its era.

Ti West’s X is a strange and wonderful return to form for the indie-horror phenom, an ode to the life-altering magic of cheap and dirty horror pictures. 13 years after his breakout hit in the genre, Ti West has added another great horror film to the canon.

The storytelling is great here, but it’s really the action where this movie shines. As with Prey, the secret sauce here is an almost Looney Tunes-esque approach: Buckets of red and green blood are spilled both due to the human stories as well as the Predator’s hunting, in inventive ways that prove thrilling right from the jump.

Approach 10 Cloverfield Lane on its own terms, let Trachtenberg and his top-notch cast (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Gallagher Jr., and a ferocious John Goodman) yank you into their world, and try not to sweat through your clothes.

It’s beyond playful. Wonderful and whimsical, for that matter. Fun to look at and completely immersive. It’s hilarious, heartfelt, and humane, as well. It’s even a tad sagely in its universally appealing lessons of manners, sympathy, and open-mindedness.

Horror Noire will also open doors for horror fans both old and new, while also reminding them that the can take these movies at much more than face value.

In a word, Another Round is intoxicating. Vinterberg elevates what could have been a mope-fest with a magnificently defiant tone and a powerhouse performance from Mikkelsen.

There’s a breathless sense of discovery and play that makes the film seem new, even as it’s tap-dancing through the imprints of so many sci-fi stories throughout the years. Simply put, superhero movies don’t often carry this sense of possibility anymore.

Beneath the layers of magical realism and dot-com satire, American Society feels personal and raw, capturing the real depth and range of emotions that a person of color is made to feel, living in a country where racism remains ever-present, especially now.

War for the Planet of the Apes is a formidable conclusion (if indeed it is) to one of the more well-considered modern series to date. This is a film of difficult, lingering questions and painful revelations.

With Sinners, Coogler confirms that he has a real talent for exploring and reinventing genres, while still telling a story that feels wholly original. There are a few points where characters make dumb decisions — much like real-life humans do — but execution-wise, the movie is quite the roller coaster, a ride worth taking.

Hush‘s madman makes himself visible and vocal to his prey from the get-go. As a result, Flanagan and Siegel both get to lay their cards on the table early, freeing up their characters to focus solely on how to outsmart one another.

It’s Hollyweird love letter material, but it’s glittered with Tarantino’s signature wise-ass attitude. Here he’s part historian, and part aging, experimental auteur.

Though he’s been accused of re-carving the same dollhouse-scale miniatures over and over again, The French Dispatch finds Anderson continuing to fill out his increasingly elaborate skill set.

Multiverse of Madness isn’t wildly unconventional in its story choices, but the fun it has exploring the possibilities of this narrative makes it a treat.

A lot of people are going to judge the film based on its success as a horror movie, and others will judge it as a political statement. Not that I think there’s a deficiency in any part of its personality, but I also think the panache with which it is both of those things and more — without looking to the history of genre or the future of civil rights for permission to say some pretty bold stuff — is why the film is a success.

Pixar’s latest has all the sweet, ricochet-fast humor of the original, the same brilliant animation and rich color, the same winning performances (complete with a few new scene-stealers), and the same simple, staggering emotional intelligence of its predecessor.

Simon Rex gives a virtuoso performance.

The Bone Temple once again pulls off the 28 Days Later trick of finding moments of grace at the end of the world, with enough beautiful moments to balance out the grotesque ones.

While she can slide, slash, and shoot with the best of them, Midthunder also imbues Naru with just enough character to keep us invested in her journey. For her, the fight against the Predator means more than just survival: It means validation for her own place in the tribe, the chance to prove her worth by defending her people.

This is a three-hour documentary whose only problem is that it’s not even longer. Whether you’re a lifelong genre fiend or someone who just sampled Midsommar for the first time and needs another fix, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched is an absorbing academic exercise in the pedagogy of folk horror.

If Raw is hardly subtle in its depiction of burgeoning womanhood, from the social to the sexual, Ducournau delivers the film’s parable with a candor that suits it perfectly.

22 July is a thoughtful, gutting achievement that you’ll likely never want to watch again. Greengrass’ approach here is graceful and deeply resonant, but it’s undoubtedly draining, especially considering you still have roughly two hours to go after the shootings that ignite the narrative

The execution of this story is almost uniformly perfect. Haigh’s script and direction are a clinic in careful and measured storytelling, favoring a delicate and devastating slow burn of a narrative over big dramatic moments and outbursts.

Incredibles 2 hardly shakes the foundations of what a superhero movie should be, but it’s a raucous crowd-pleaser that serves up enough mouthwateringly beautiful eye candy to delight kids and grownups alike.

Filmed in aquatic hues and bathed in nostalgic mid-century style, The Shape of Water is both a love story and a love letter to monster movies, musicals, and classic cinema. Del Toro’s affection for the genres – and for the magic of film in general – is clear in so many charming and not-so-charming touches.

It’s one of the most arresting, affecting science fiction movies of the last few years, and certainly one of the best films to see release in 2018 thus far. It’s ambitious and haunting, which makes its international streaming release all the more tragic.

Rich Peppiatt’s feature debut spins the freewheeling cinematic language of Edgar Wright and Guy Ritchie into a fun, heartwarming, and suitably raunchy celebration of the Irish language.

Mank‘s definitely a film-tailor made for cinephiles; it’s a dense, complicated work with a screenplay as labyrinthine and mired in inside baseball as Kane‘s. But as a stylistic exercise and a work of craft, it’s one of Fincher’s most exciting in years. There’s hardly a false note in the cast, the costumes, the production design, or the score. And the Wellesian flourishes are an interesting stylistic move for a filmmaker usually known for his cold, crisp exactitude.

What They Had is an indie drama of a familiar cut, delivered so well that you’ll forgive its smaller inconsistencies.

The middle school dialect takes a backseat to the ingenuity on hand. It’s quite clear that the masterminds behind Sausage Party really thought this one out, examining this world long enough to have the most fun in it.

Hawke is too committed for Toller’s humanity to not shine through. It’s a layered, transformative performance, his gritting, introverted Toller bearing no traces of the rambling, loose-limbed Hawke of Richard Linklater’s canon.

In many ways, Thunderbolts* feels like a breath of fresh air and a notable step forward for the MCU as a whole, which is pretty remarkable given that this is a cast of characters where the literal point is that they’re the scraps left over from past Marvel adventures — loose ends left adrift.

Gunn keeps throwing enough inventive kills and comic-book antics at us (aided by the wildly disparate skills sets of our antiheroes) to keep the R-rated mayhem from getting too repetitive.

Paramount+ should have thrown this movie a theatrical run; it may more or less amount to an 86-minute pilot episode for the new series that’s coming soon, but it’s also one of the funniest movies of the year.

Lucy and Desi feels like a critical watch for anyone working to carve out their own corner of the incredibly difficult entertainment industry, particularly young women. In Poehler’s hands, it’s a worthy testament to two pioneers whose stories began with a date and a dance.

Perhaps the film’s most striking quality is its restraint. Thematically and stylistically, it’s a film of quiet medium shots, long takes, and clear but evasive words. Every choice is tiny, but humane and usually deliberate.

Beyond the gross-out humor and music video homages, there’s a sweet and emotional story about finding family in the world where you’d least expect it, and the strength that can be found in friendship.

In making a light, easygoing, heartfelt teen rom-com with a gay kid at its center, Berlanti and company have made a top-tier example of a familiar form with one essential and very important difference.

As personal as some of this material feels, it feels like a real collaboration of artists, all enabling Cooper to tell a heartfelt story with universal scope. Cooper’s not one of our finest filmmakers, but like Alex, he’s getting better with each effort. And whether you’re talking about relationships, comedy, or life itself, effort counts for a lot.

It’s an aesthetically addicting experience that capitalizes on these seasonal feelings, offering an unlikely escape with the press of a button.

One wonders whether Fincher sees something of himself in The Killer — a man obsessed with process and precision, constantly tamping down the emotionality that he fears might violate the perfectionism he’s sought his whole career. In this way, it’s a perfect match of director to material, with a phalanx of great artists at the height of their powers aiding him in that mission.

It’s not the savage darkness of Okja that lingers most after it ends, or even the political allusions. It’s the story of Mija and Okja, trying to make sense of a frightening world where good people and animals alike die each day, and the only thing that can usually prevent this from happening is more money.

Patton tells a tighter, less well-heard, and necessary tale of being gay in an era where that could still destroy a career (which to be frank, is still an issue that should be better addressed…), nestled carefully within a re-read of an oft-maligned horror sequel. He’s a deeply appealing subject.

Eight Days a Week will be of most value to die-hard and casual fans of the band alike, but it’s also a reasonably effective primer on them for anyone who might not yet be initiated.

Unlike in some of the filmmaker’s past work, however, Youth foregrounds the performance over the spectacle; Keitel turns in some of his finest work in years as the aging, fiery Mick, and Caine delivers a performance composed of untold multitudes.

Becoming Led Zeppelin is a fascinating look at the creation of one of the greatest rock acts to ever exist. Led Zeppelin were truly a band where each of the four members played a vital part in its success, and that’s on full display throughout the film.

Roma is both visually and emotionally arresting, grandiose and intensely intimate all at once.

The performances, like the film, are rich, layered things of tremendous feeling and complexity. The characters, like the film, are imperfect but well worthy of cherishing.

This new Lilo & Stitch manages to capture the real emotion embedded in this story, while also nailing all the fun that comes from an agent of chaos discovering he has a heart.

Sharper is an incredibly entertaining entry into the canon of Apple Originals. While it might not have the threshold of darkness or intensity that classify it exactly as a neo-noir, this film is a thoroughly enjoyable mystery. While these characters here might be lying and cheating their way to victory, Sharper comes out on top on its own merits.

Mission: Impossible knows exactly what it needs to be: a fun and chummy thrill ride that’s always self-aware. Fallout follows that agenda, while also revisiting its more severe roots. It’s a sequel in every sense of the word, reintroducing not only familiar faces, but styles, themes, and motifs of past films.

Doctor Strange lacks the bloat that’s made other recent, blockbusting superhero films fall flat. It doesn’t lean too hard on the considerable talents of its stars, nor does it waste their talents. It keeps a brisk pace, but doesn’t rush. It gets weird, but not too weird. And if all else fails, it’ll make your jaw drop from time to time.

This is a film predicated on voyeurism, and while it’s arguably another big ol’ starefest from Refn, the viewer’s patience is earned with unquestionable tension made all the more palpable by its troubled protagonist.

It’s moving stuff, even if Kore-eda threatens to dilute his themes by overindulging in them. Shoplifters overstays its welcome somewhat as the third act rolls on, with an epilogue that seems to exist only to absolve characters that don’t quite deserve it. The empathy is admirable, but one wishes for a touch more restraint, especially in the wake of such an emotionally devastating climax.

The most important thing is that it’s funny and charming in all the right ways, a slight but sweet meditation on the viability of long-term relationships.

It’s a breakneck conclusion to what’s been a breakneck restart.

It's easy to imagine Tom Cruise watching F1 and seething with jealousy. Because the racing sequences look like they were as thrilling to shoot as they are to watch.

Let the sheer power of cinema shake you to your core — movie stars and summer blockbusters are so back, baby.

There’s murder, exploitation, and cunnilingus galore. What more do you expect from a collaboration between Leos “Holy Motors” Carax and Sparks?

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is another magic trick that shows it takes the right alchemy to make something flourish, even if it takes years of experiments to determine the right combination.