It’s certainly the most youth-friendly and playful blockbuster superhero flick to come along in some time, a saccharine but winsome lark that also works in some heartwarming messages about the need to accept love from other people. Also, Zachary Levi flosses in a superhero costume, so that’s fun too.

There’s so much heart throughout Theater Camp — it also doesn’t overstay its welcome, landing at a tight 94 minutes packed to the minute with visual gags and quick comments you don’t want to miss.

A Complete Unknown manages to avoid the worst of it not just with its focus on a set time period, but more importantly with its acceptance of the fact that for a figure like this, we’re never really meant to understand the full scope of the man he is. Because it doesn’t matter if we understand Bob Dylan or not. We just need to appreciate what he did.

Perry’s kinetic style and Moss’ explosive performance transform it into something that feels more authentic than actual history.

Raiders!, as a documentary, is much like Zala and Strompolos’ film in that it’s rough around the edges at points, but so utterly sincere that it’s hard to deny after a while.

The Nice Guys spends nearly two hours treating Crowe and Gosling like a pair of piñatas, beating them mercilessly and unapologetically, and it’s watching them crawl out from underneath and towards some form of redemption that makes the film a genuine smash.

Though Colossal does occasionally waver, most often due to its recurring tendency to hastily discard characters before their stories feel complete, it’s also a genuinely touching film that works phenomenally well for the most part, bolstered by the lingering sense of regret that hangs over the film’s funniest and most wrenching sequences alike.

While the stakes are never less than serious and the tone never wavers, there’s still a playfulness to many of Monkey Man’s fight scenes that makes them thrilling to watch — and to generate excitement for whatever Patel might choose to do next.

Despite its considerable charms, Ant-Man and the Wasp is decidedly not a must-see event. In fact, it sometimes feels less like a movie than an episode of an ongoing superhero TV series. But it’s a really, really good episode of that series. And it’s the perfect antidote for the gravity of Infinity War.

Despite existing within the auspices of a predictable subgenre of indie film, Paddleton manages to affect and delight in surprising ways.

Hunter Gatherer is by no means perfect, but it leaves an impression that will linger for days to come, as images of Ashley and Jeremy continue to haunt the mind. Hunter Gatherer is that rare film that sneaks around the corner and smashes headlong into the viewer.

For as well-intentioned as Jarecki may be, The King starts with a conclusion and works backward from there, and the results are more than a little tenuous.

Somewhere You Feel Free is a beautiful musical tribute to one of rock’s greatest figures, gone all too soon. Just don’t expect to learn too many deep dark secrets about the man in the process.

It may not have the sharp edges of a classic ’40s noir, but del Toro’s softer touch invites us in like one of Stan’s credulous marks.

For a film that takes such pains to position itself within the feminist tradition, Belladonna of Sadness has a bad habit of lingering on the body of its protagonist, coming across as more pornographic than progressive, more exploitative than revolutionary.

Alone is exactly what it sells — a taut, hot-wired survival thriller. With its gaunt storytelling, meaty characters, and high-stakes action, the film delivers on all fronts.

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.

It’s winning enough that you can spot its flaws and still don’t really care. Much of that is due to Kaling’s script, and particularly her writing for Thompson, who gets a role worthy of her dramatic talents, and her oft-underused expert timing.

Weird is an unapologetically ridiculous and over-the-top romp that’s sold by people who are completely, sincerely, and unfailingly committed to the bit on every level. It’s not particularly groundbreaking or subversive, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s smart (or so silly it’s smart), expertly executed, and genuinely funny.

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.

It helps that Hilditch has Jane in the central role. Along with Carla Gugino’s turn in Gerald’s Game, Netflix has two of the strongest performances in any King adaptation to date.

At two hours, it can drag, and the mid-budget nature of the thing can leave it feeling less than ambitious. But there’s just enough inventiveness here to make it stand out in a packed field, and to cement Prince-Bythewood as a director who can handle bloodshed as adeptly as character.

With its wacky space shit, off-kilter gore, creepy atmospherics, and hammy breakdown, most of which happen all at the same time, Colour Out of Space is, inarguably, one hell of a trip. It’s just not a trip that everyone is going to enjoy taking.

While one wishes the beats were a touch more oiled, the film’s strengths reside outside the confines of narrative.

Berlin Syndrome isn’t a sensational film; the emotions on display are warped and scarred, but rooted in identifiable desires. In some ways, this makes their impact that much more ingrained.

The Day Shall Come remains a riveting watch, though, if only for Morris’ deft, lightning-fast pace and the cast’s mastery of his language. ... The problem is that the film’s humanity is often eclipsed by its big-picture message and satirical edge.

Though the plot might feel a bit overly complicated, given the level of Serious Business being discussed in serious tones by these characters, it never drowns out the key emotional connection. There’s nothing seismic here, just a colorful, enjoyable yarn by one of the best cinematic confectioners around. One with some real heart to it.

Louder Than Bombs is a ghost story disguised as a domestic drama.

Unfortunately, the 99-minute run time on Norwegian zombie drama Handling the Undead feels infinitely longer, and lands more as a meditation on grief than an intriguing entry into zombie cinema.

Despite a striking production design and the strong performance by lead actress Niamh Algar, the narrative familiarity of the second half and restrained climax let the film down.

If you’re looking for a reinvention of the biopic formula, there are plenty of films this season to set you up. If you think there’s still room for the traditional ‘true-story’ drama, Lion proves these stories still have a little life left in them.

What happens throughout The Miseducation of Cameron Post shows exactly why conversion therapy needs to be banned. It’s emotionally abusive, and is harmful to the vulnerable LGBTQ youth population.

Even if Rocketman is one of those films where you walk in knowing almost exactly what to expect, it still manages to wham, glam, and occasionally elate.

The Little Hours is reasonably entertaining, but it hints just enough at something deeper that it may well leave you wanting.

Cronin gets that the Evil Dead franchise doesn’t have to be limited to one wisecracking, lantern-jawed battle with the forces of darkness; the Book of the Dead, and its ability to turn those you love against you, is enough to hang a film on if you do it right.

The whole movie is affecting, so much so that Pennywise doesn’t even matter. In a way, he’s more of a McGuffin to the real horrors at hand, from parental abuse to violent bullying to the unnerving revelation that life has only just begun.

Highlighting the reciprocal nature that many musicians share with their fans in unprecedented fashion, the film’s raw and authentic approach is as engaging as Charli herself.

Director Kay Cannon‘s perspective is the film’s biggest asset, as it freshens up the traditional formula’s inevitable focus on love, consent, and orientation in ways that maintain the sub-genre’s trademark raunch.

Green Book means so well, and admittedly, it just gets by on its leads and its good humor.

Boy Erased finds its best stuff when it matches the unabashed earnestness of Jared, and of Hedges’ performance. The film isn’t so much preaching to the converted as begging the ones who aren’t yet to finally come over and stand on the right side of history.

Splicing DNA from Heathers, Lord of the Flies, The Invitation, and a host of other influences, Reijn has crafted a shrewd horror comedy that gives the virtual circular firing squads of our modern online lives a real body count.

Fortunately, the fourth and final installment of the series, The Trip to Greece, packs plenty of pathos to match its sights and silliness.

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

Sprawling and ambitious, flawed yet admirable, failure and success concurrently reside in every minute of Tenet. A technical feat but a narrative dud.

As a parade of exaggerated neon-soaked atrocities, Climax is certainly never boring, but it often strains credulity where it aims to provoke genuine discomfort. It exhausts where it should provoke.

The Birth of a Nation is one of the most confident writing and directorial debuts in recent memory.

The Death of Dick Long offers its share of amusing dark comedy, but the film leans too much on Alabama stereotypes and inherently stupid character decisions to advance the plot.

It’s a sequel full of more that still feels like less.

Patriots Day sits right on the line between exploitation and tribute. The star power is dicey, and the action relentless, but Berg means well and likes the people in his recount.

With a spooky atmosphere, retro feel, and a creepy performance from a horror legend, The Mortuary Collection is a perfect movie for stormy nights at home and best enjoyed over a big bowl of buttery popcorn.

The Monster is worth watching for Kazan and Ballentine.

In a climate where far too much entertainment passes itself off as “resistance” for making empty gestures and landing easy punchlines, this is at least a step toward a more honest and open look at what America has always been, what it really is now, and what it’s going to take to make it live up to even a fraction of its dream.

Though this film is more complicated than the now-standard holiday fare you could find on Hallmark or Netflix, Happiest Season is also charming, more intelligent than the average romantic comedy, and bolstered by an excellent lead performance.

Dayveon’s muted, largely allusive storytelling takes a backseat to tone and place throughout, and Abbasi demonstrates an assured command of both.

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

Star Trek Beyond is a vast improvement from the sloppy Into Darkness, bringing it on par with the excellent ’09 reboot in terms of sheer quality and chemistry.

Told mostly in shadows, this is a story of broken trust and haunting guilt. Ahari uses one of the genre’s oldest tropes to remind us that it’s in confronting our demons that we gain the power to overcome them.

Berg offers a visceral experience that overwhelms with startling humanity.

Lamb takes on the ominous, warning air of an old fable, the kind of pre-Grimm fairy tale meant to threaten the gullible with punishment for transgressing against the natural order of things. And in that respect, it’s a mighty debut, one worthy to see what else Jóhannsson has to offer.

Between its continuous insistence on broad humor and its lack of broader context about the industry period in which Paige came up (she was among the first womens’ wrestlers in WWE to break out when the division gained traction after years of public degradation), Fighting With My Family ultimately reveals itself as a shallow take on a genuinely fascinating story.

Cohen still has it in fits and starts. That “pedo radar” from Who Is America really ruffled feathers. He’s a performer of chameleonic qualities; see his immersive, anarchic turn in The Trial of the Chicago 7 for a nice contrast. But applying his talents to a sporadically funny, 90-minute SNL political cold open of a film is a little bit of a bummer.

The Meddler is a delightful film with an emotional honesty that can be traced back to the real-life mother of writer/director Lorene Scafaria. Perhaps if Scafaria trusted the strength of that truth an inch or two more, it would be enough to avoid distractions along the way.

What’s clear in Perkins’ second feature is that he’s clearly become aware that his talents as a visual storyteller outweigh his skill with narrative. He’s leaning into that, and while it might make for a more “difficult” film, it’s ultimately a more satisfying one.

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.

To have seen a disaster movie before is to have seen The Wave. But if there’s not necessarily anything remarkable or new about the film, Uthaug finds ways to make the familiar immediate, with a fraction of the money usually involved.

There are a couple hiccups that prevent the movie from elevating to the classic status of your Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fictions.

This is the kind of film that follows you home, that makes you scared to enter a dark alley or go in the basement.

Angela Robinson, who wrote and directed the film, has managed to take what could have been a tawdry or salacious look into Wonder Woman’s naughty roots and give her real-life characters – and their genuine love for each other – the same amount of respect that any vanilla, monogamous heterosexual historical figure would receive.

As a political or journalistic statement, Richard Jewell does have the unfortunate tendency to come across like a rant. But that does not greatly detract from the film’s rich biography of Jewell: Here’s a man that was perhaps doomed to be part of an inquisition.

Vivid is a good word at large, here. There’s a freshness and energy to American Animals.

A lot of fandom went into this, but Popstar is relentless to the point where it eventually becomes plodding.

As a teller of tense, personal stories about communities in crisis, Farhadi is an absolute master; but with Everybody Knows, he falls just a bit short of the greatness people have come to expect of him.

If anything, it’s nice to see Sandler doing something he loves in an environment he’s comfortable in and do it with such sincerity. But hopefully in his next dramatic venture, he’ll go for a three-pointer instead of a lay-up.

For a first-time feature, Hall’s approach to the material is surprisingly nuanced and sensitive. There’s a matter-of-factness to his presentation of these characters’ respective dramas that feels honest and true, if a little unencumbered by formal ambition.

If you want to see a nuts-and-bolts look into the banality of evil, with a curiously strong Daniel Radcliffe performance at the center, Imperium fits the bill.

While the connections Knappenberger draws between private and government corruption are sometimes belabored, they’re also accurate, and a stark reminder of the increasing popularity of “bought” news.

It’s exhausting, but it’s also frequently effective. It’s surface-level with its emotional beats, but a number of them still land, largely thanks to the continuously all-in performances of the series’ endlessly patient stars. It’s an event that advertises itself as an event in every way, while somehow still managing to justify the immense hype around it.

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.

It’s less an attack on big business (though such sentiments are certainly present) than a call for a rational assessment of proven facts. If it does occasionally dabble in hero worship of its subject, it also makes the effective case that somebody has to keep showing up when nobody else can be bothered.

One of Sometimes I Think About Dying‘s strongest qualities is that Fran’s emerging bond with Robert isn’t presented as a saving grace — instead, it’s just one potential opportunity to pull her out of her comfort zone.

As with so many Laika films, you’ll come for the breathtaking animation, and you’ll leave both enchanted and surprised by the big, beating heart beneath it.

To commend The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is reasonably easy. Here’s a film that’s pro-science, and sheds new light on a world that Western audiences don’t normally see. But it’s all so dramatically meager and obvious as well.

Millie Bobby Brown is captivating as the quirky Enola, a confident, young woman raised outside the patriarchy by her feminist mother. Brown dives headfirst into the role, and her bubbly charisma is a dynamic change from the quiet strength of Stranger Things’ Eleven.

Fukunaga’s direction is crisp and assured, if occasionally languid, and the script creaks under the weight of its myriad responsibilities to both its star and franchise. But it hits where it counts, and sets up a new chapter for the saga, a blank slate upon which the creatives that come next can paint a new vision for 007.

Just Mercy is incredibly effective at what it sets out to do: change hearts and minds about capital punishment, bring more awareness to the brutality of killing other human beings in the name of the law, and highlight the racism and other issues of structural inequality that lead to the high margin of error in death penalty convictions.

Beatriz at Dinner has an ear for the microaggressions that tend to constitute so much modern racism, and these moments tend to play better than the broader attempts at cultural commentary.

Grim and gritty are words this movie firmly rejects, instead leaning into the human side of everyone involved, even its villains. There are a few choices that work less well than others, but the end result is a movie that doesn't sacrifice its titular character in service to franchise-building. Instead, it focuses on celebrating the values that Superman himself has embodied from the beginning.

As it lurches into its second act, Before I Wake begins slavishly following the beats of its studio horror contemporaries, (mostly) abandoning its nuance for rote investigations into the cause of the phenomena and horror set pieces that defy the previously established logic of the dream manifestations.

If you’re a diehard fan of Cronenberg, you’ll still enjoy his latest, even if it doesn’t exactly break the mold of eXistenZ or his other fleshy experiments.

The film’s success rides on the shoulders of Hawkes, and for the most part, it works.

The fundamental disconnect behind Massive Talent, besides its deliberately shaky tonal shifts, is that it feels like a career corrective for a man whose career shouldn’t need one.

As a reintroduction to the cinematic universe after a year off due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s definitely worth a look. Here’s hoping more Marvel flicks take inspiration from this one: shrink their scope, focus on the characters, and get the action right. And for God’s sakes, give us better third acts.

Last Days in the Desert explores Jesus in his most mortal phase, and McGregor’s exhausted performance is essential to its success.

There’s no linear path to being “okay,” or to overcoming grief, and Band Aid is ultimately as much about how people have to do these things on their own as it is about a couple doing it together.

Concrete Cowboy is visually engaging, and might appeal to younger teenagers (its R-rating is primarily for language). But anyone already familiar with the dynamics of summer-vacation character-building may find it unsatisfying—even unconvincing.

If the Avatar universe is going to be James Cameron’s preferred delivery method for visual spectacle on this scale going forward, then, let’s face it — by then, we’re all going to be itching for our next trip to Pandora.

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.