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.

V/H/S/Beyond is the most cohesive, best arranged, and most creatively complementary V/H/S yet. Here’s hoping we get a bundle of found-footage mayhem like this one every Halloween for the foreseeable future.

With a cast that takes wildly different approaches to characters we already know from film and TV, and a camera that never slows down, Saturday Night is chaotic in wildly enjoyable ways. The lead-up to the historic premiere of SNL plays like an extended 90-minute climax.

Like a human turned into a creature of the night, Salem’s Lot kicks off with a strong sense of identity that slowly gives way to mindless vampire nonsense.

Terrifier 3 is a bounty of practical effects riches that cannot be denied, but its storytelling is scattershot in ways that hold the sequel back.

Although Apartment 7A's chills are mild, this decades-late Rosemary’s Baby prequel gets by on atmosphere and strong performances.