Like the imposing, unadorned structures of brutalism (think: Boston City Hall, the blocky public housing of the Soviet Union, modern additions to any university campus), it can feel at times intentionally ugly or rudimentary. But it’s also a breathtaking work that’s simultaneously maximalist and minimalist – a searing movie that’s poetic on a formal, storytelling, and thematic level.

Better jokes, better imagery, and two (!) inspired comic performances by Jim Carrey give this Sonic sequel an edge on its predecessors.

Barry Jenkins’ Mufasa is a strong, uncomplicated effort that should charm kids. The Moonlight directors involvement in a CGI-heavey Disney prequel caused serious film lovers to wring their hands, but the results speak for themselves: This is simply a lovely movie.

A good cast and Collet-Serra’s energetic staging elevate the kind of straight-down-the-middle entertainment Hollywood has mostly, sadly stopped bankrolling. It’s not quite Die Hard, but close enough.

Ford v Ferrari's James Mangold takes his hands off the steering wheel for A Complete Unknown, resulting in a Bob Dylan biopic that takes unpredictable turns. Rather than connecting the dots between how the world influenced him (and how he influenced it in turn), the film frames his enormous musical sea changes as personal drama for his peers. It’s formally straightforward, but its focus on the characters in Dylan’s life – rather than the musician himself, played by Timothée Chalamet – turn him into an enigma, for better or worse.

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is a fascinating idea with a lackluster execution, more interesting as a concept than an actual retelling of one of Middle-earth’s famous legends.

Despite its ferocious source material and lead Amy Adams, Nightbitch is a bloodless tale of maternal doldrums with little payoff.

Nosferatu is Robert Eggers' finest work, given how it both boldly stands on its own as a gothic vampire drama and astutely taps into the original texts — F.W. Murnau's silent classic and Bram Stoker's novel Dracula.

The finest adaptation of one of the most important comic book stories ever told gets the ending it deserves.

Jack Black will be enough to lure both kids and parents to the holiday comedy Dear Santa. But Black can’t carry the whole thing himself, and he’s eventually subdued by some deeply questionable story choices.

This sequel doesn’t merit a sing-along and does little to expand on what we already knew about Moana and her friends.

Too sweet to be sordid and too gross to be taken seriously, Ryan Kruger’s Street Trash makes a mess of its anti-capitalist message.

Wicked is a well-oiled machine in the hands of Jon M. Chu. This film adaptation epitomizes what modern movie musicals can and should be, embracing its source material while cleverly translating it to screen. Tear-jerking performances by Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo make the movie, playing to their individual strengths to bring to life the rapport between Glinda and Elphaba, who’ll go on to become the good and wicked witches of Wizard of Oz fame. If as many people love this film as much as I did, Wicked will undoubtedly immortalize the Grande and Erivo in movie musical history.

Frothy, self-aware, and straining for laughs, Hot Frosty is a cup of whipped cream with no hot chocolate.

The movie surrounds its mismatched stars with a whole lot of shockingly inconsistent special effects, preaching a sentimental yuletide message even as it looks like the height of soulless commercialization.

Gladiator II finds strength and honor in the well-worn armor of its predecessor. Paul Mescal is adept in the belabored-hero role, going toe-to-toe with not only the delightfully deranged Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger, but also with Denzel Washington, whose mercurial Macrinus practically screams “ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED” at the audience every second he’s onscreen.

Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom disappoints by stuffing its long runtime with dull and monotonous chatter, and not enough of the grandiose moments that inspire the newest character in the series.

A modest French sci-fi fable whose messages about letting go aren’t half as moving as the images surrounding them.

It’s not as delicious as its practically perfect predecessors, but Paddington in Peru preserves the series’ sweet-natured fun.

Using familiar characters to tell a new story with fresh gags and supreme animation, Vengeance Most Fowl stands shoulder to shoulder with some of Aardman’s best work.

A one-angle drama spanning centuries, Robert Zemeckis' comic adaptation Here is experimental in appearance, but highly conventional in approach.

A Real Pain is a hilarious and tender drama that shows us that truly living is the only way to honor those we've lost.

Venom: The Last Dance trips over its own tendrils and lets a boring, generic plot, and bad action distract from the surprisingly resilient central relationship between Eddie Brock and his symbiote bestie.

Blitz's piercing sound design can't make up for its bloodless depiction of World War II, its scattered sense of place, and its saccharine approach to overcoming racial hostility. Saoirse Ronan is captivating in the role of a single white mother to a defiant Black son trying to make his way back home, but the movie can't seem to balance her talents with its own timeline.

Smile 2 doesn’t quite match its sadistically effective predecessor in the scare department, because once you’ve seen one phantom doppelganger grinning like the Cheshire Cat, you’ve seen them all. But the movie works as a nasty portrait of the downside of music-biz fame, and it builds to an ending deserving of every crooked smile it earns.

Although it has some delightfully grotesque monsters, Mr. Crocket is a kids’-show horror spoof that isn’t ready for primetime.

While the bones of the story itself may not be particularly groundbreaking, what’s brilliant about We Live in Time is that it encourages us to find wonder in the everyday.

Despite its ultra-low-budget trappings, Hellboy: The Crooked Man is a fun, competent adaptation that offers up a healthy dose of Evil Dead-style supernatural action.