These jackasses up there on the screen are breaking bones, facing fears, and throwing their bodies against anything they can think of because they find a joy in it. There’s joy amongst this fellowship of freaks, and they’re sharing it with a worldwide audience that’s faced mostly melancholy for far too long.

In a lot of ways, Top Gun: Maverick is the platonic ideal of a film sequel, constantly in dialogue with the original project, and committed to growing and expanding upon that source material.

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

Sacha Jenkins' doc is a warts-and-all examination of the funk-punk superstar, refusing to editorialize his sins and successes."

Waititi’s witty script and colorful supporting role as Adolf Hitler are the obvious comedic highlights of Jojo Rabbit. But the film only works because it manages to nail its balance of tones.

With a jukebox parade that will invite viewers to inevitably sing-along to classic earworms, How Can You Mend a Broken Heart is the Bee Gees documentary you’ve been waiting for. It’s a fitting tribute to their unending love for each other.

Running the gamut from grotesque to goofy to genuinely scary, Alison Klayman has assembled a compelling and tight look into the inner workings of modern politics in the Trumpian key.

As with most Duplass-produced films, Rainbow Time perhaps ambles a bit too awkwardly into its ending. But, if it weren’t already clear, this is a messy movie about messy people, unique in both its character dynamics and worldview.

A celebration of Rudy Ray Moore, the creative process, and black creativity, Dolemite Is My Name is an absolute joy to watch.

Like in fighting, there are some movies of a certain caliber, which excel because they know exactly what kind of movie they’re meant to be. Road House is definitely a fun watch — because it doesn’t punch above its weight class.

It’s a dizzying, sadistic feature, and may well be Aronofsky’s most biting work since Requiem for a Dream, but it’s also concerned with some deeply painful and humane material. Where that film aimed for repulsion of a literal bent, however, Mother! is far more concerned with horrors of the allegorical variety.

While not particularly subtle or probing, The Invisible Man manages to do what many of our greatest horror movies have done before it: address a real-life, everyday nightmare in a heightened, bracing, and even cathartic way.

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.

Sisters is made of pure, frenzied comic momentum.

We waited literal years for a Bob’s Burgers movie to hit screens, and it’s here, and it’s a whole lot of fun.

Lady manages two remarkable achievements at once: Delivering both a slice-of-life narrative, rich with cultural details, while at the same time telling a galvanizing, even inspiring story about what it takes to activate a person towards speaking out for real change.

Berg offers a visceral experience that overwhelms with startling humanity.

When it keys into Mamie’s horrifying experience, and the way she refuses to retreat from it, Chukwu and Deadwyler pack a wallop.

One of Eastwood's most pleasing character studies since Million Dollar Baby.

In one sense, here’s a sequel to a ‘90s classic that trades heavily on audiences’ appreciation for that previous film. In another, here’s a film that uses that fact in service of an insightful, affecting commentary on how there’s no choice in life but to either move forward or to not.

Out of an act of war, Jolie has created a film of real compassion.

Brigsby Bear offers a touching and daringly unconventional reminder of how no approach to filmmaking is inherently bad with the right mind at the helm.

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.

Hidden Figures might not be as groundbreaking as the women whose story drives it, but like those women, it does what it does very well.

A Star is Born isn’t a new love story, or even an especially unique one. But it’s a traditional love story told supremely well, and sometimes that’s exactly what audiences go to the movies to see.

Anyone who’s ever been to a great concert knows that it’s the very rare movie that can fully capture the transcendence of live performance. Hit Me Hard and Soft gets damn close thanks to the dual perspectives of its directors: The artist at the peak of her abilities, and the observer in awe of what he’s witnessing.

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.

Whether or not the film fully lands will come down to how much you’re willing to give yourself over to its theatrical world. Like the immersive artform it’s examining, Madeline’s Madeline is frequently truthful and sometimes indulgent.