Mangold’s steady direction doesn’t quite live up to Spielberg’s signature flair, but this is a solid entry in the franchise, solid enough to even inspire interest in future installments.

Tickled unfolds like a bad drug trip, starting off with giggles but quickly descending into surreal horror.

Theron’s a perfect avatar for Cody’s irrepressible empathy for her subjects, wounded and loving in equal measure, and she’s hardly been more watchable.

There are several sequences where the comedy of Thelma really sings, but if the film was just a parody, it would maybe be a funny yet rough watch. Fortunately, its depth of feeling for its elderly characters elevates it to a strange hybrid that works remarkably well, with Squibb’s performance in particular bringing it all together.

Does Rebirth set up a promising new future for the franchise, as its title suggests? Not exactly — again, this feels very much like a stand-alone adventure. But it does prove that it’s still possible to tell a suspenseful and exciting stand-alone story within this franchise; while it might not quite match the original, it at least doesn’t lose sight of its most compelling elements. Dinosaurs might be dying out. But the audience’s desire to watch them gobble up humans will never go extinct.

Peele is a talented director of action as well as horror, and Get Out is always far from boring even in its more familiar scenes.

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.

As an allegory to civil war, it’s well-worked and deeply thoughtful. But overall, the film leaves a slightly bitter taste, and — perhaps purposely — lacks some of the final third conviction that McDonagh has achieved so often in his stage and film work.

Good Time is a film of trembling anxiety, and while the score and the Safdies’ terrific direction both aid this, it’s Pattinson’s outstanding performance that pins even the most outlandish occurrences to a deep sense of emotion.

While the filmmaker is very much the protagonist of this story, the personal touches included don’t overwhelm the story — and in fact add a certain sweetness, especially as both women face setbacks in their quest, and their friendship grows deeper.

Host is so clever, so creepy, and so effective. At 56 minutes, this is a lean and mean slice of horror, a fitting opening salvo for the spooky season ahead.

The film is more than an accumulation of shocking twists and surprises. It’s a tawdry but perceptive meditation on the ways that victims of abuse build walls to protect themselves from harm — and the great lengths that someone would have to go to knock those walls down.

It all leads to a cinematic experience that’s powerful, scary, disturbing, and often quite funny.

There's a confidence to respect in this film, as it tells a story which feels fresh within the established framework.

After similarly sumptuous but somewhat tragic films like A Fantastic Woman and Disobedience, Gloria Bell feels more life-affirming, more explicitly comic. In many respects it’s a beat-for-beat remake of Gloria, with only a few cultural details swapped out, but the tale translates quite well.

Armstrong’s dialogue flows like no one else’s, but there’s something just a little bit unbearable about listening to stupid people talk like they’re smart, and Armstrong doesn’t pull away from that aspect.

It’s a committed portrait of an artist, with White’s devotion to capturing Bruce’s soul almost overcoming the lack of physical resemblance… And you do eventually get used to that. For he’s not trying to be the definitive Bruce Springsteen, either — just a ghost of a man who was lost, and found what he was looking for in his music.

What makes The Princess so surprisingly fun is its commitment to a hooky premise.

For the majority of its runtime, Stronger manages to escape the traps that populate such films. It’s worth seeing, and worth your investment. Let’s just hope that next time around, Pollono and Green find a way to stick the landing.

Ultimately, The Substance isn’t saying anything new, but the extremes to which it’s willing to go make it unforgettable cinema.

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’s gripping stuff, especially since Goldhaber and Mazzei map out an endgame that’s maintains an intriguing ambiguity while still providing a definitive conclusion.

As both an utterly mad true story and as a document of the boundless reach of the cinema across borders and cultures and even ideologies, The Lovers and the Despot is wild, valuable viewing for all.

There’s a strangeness to certain passages of Sisters that bolsters it through its seedy saloons and cacophonous firefights, and it constitutes the best the film has to offer.

The way Right Now, Wrong Then yields different results, moods, and beats as the result of minor shake-ups in the opening scenes is beyond fascinating, often charming, and at times amusingly uncomfortable.

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.

For the band’s devotees, it’s a trip down memory lane and a true celebration of Metallica and their musical prowess. Isham captures an upbeat, positive energy from both the crowd and the performers, bringing the show to life as it happened rather than try to mask the shiny new surroundings with cinematic flourishes.

As many note throughout the doc, the best moments that film as a medium has to offer are found in the smallest details. And when you find something truly great, as with this scene, you can just keep looking and looking until you spiral into the same void on which the grisly sequence ends.