While a bit too enamored of the foreshadowing built into its premise, Tanne's impeccably acted two-hander examines the Obamas through an infectious, talky script loaded with keen observations, not unlike the appeal of its subjects.

There’s nothing especially revelatory about the scenes where Anette sits in the country home that now feels more like a prison, wondering how her life got to the point . . . But her response to said feminine mystique is demented enough to make this a wild and satisfying ride.

Where The Covenant most shines is in the riveting intensity of both its performances and its action.

D’Apolito covers a staggering amount of ground here, much of that possible because of Lewis’ special brand of candor.

There are plenty of plot devices to keep the audience on its toes, and Reynor is the epitome of a 21st century lovable antihero, so fashionable these days. He’s hard and grizzled when needed, but soft and playful as well.

Even if Wolfs is a light affair in the end, it’s a smashing good time, confidently told and unpredictable, with two charismatic leading turns that are nearly even upstaged by Abrams.

Mockler transforms the material into a solid thriller with an edgy vision of millennial lunacy, sketching out a psychopath unique to the viral video age.

As Love Is All You Need goes through the motions of drawing its central couple together, Bier delivers nothing more than a well-made, strictly middlebrow entertainment with a bittersweet polish that's easy to enjoy and forget in equal measures.

While the pace is spotty and not every joke lands, “Good Boys” manages to be adorable and twisted at the same time.

This is an important and compulsively watchable portrait made by someone who understands the brute power of broadcast media and the people who make it for all the world to see, but it can only afford Mike Wallace with a little moment of truth, and the satisfaction of playing his part in the greater continuum of things.

No matter how contrived or hackneyed things get, Buckley’s voice always breaks through the clouds like some kind of divine revelation. And that voice only gets more powerful when Wild Rose finally gives it something to say.

Another World succeeds in captivating on the sheer strength of its caustic tone, which offers a sustained performance of ice-cold contempt quite unlike anything Brizé has tried before.

Stevenson’s spin on The Omen can tie its borderline NC-17 terror to a multi-decade genre legacy suddenly feasting on noticeably improved visual artistry and a narratively satisfying revamp of stale IP.

Fans of the director’s late-period work (particularly his last completed effort, the rapid-fire diary film “F for Fake”) will find it thrilling to return to those unpredictable, garrulous recesses, no matter the bumpy ride. Welles continues to contemplate storytelling, Hollywood, and his own troubled career by transforming these obsessions into a marathon of creativity.

Boundaries breaks no fresh ground and sags into conventional story beats on autopilot, but it’s rewarding enough to hang with these characters and roll with their mudslinging.

A loose, caustic look at the Vietnam war through the prism of black experiences, Da 5 Bloods wrestles with the specter of the past through the lens of a very confusing present, and settles into a fascinated jumble as messy and complicated as the world surrounding its release.

Three Identical Strangers does a solid job laying out a story that’s both remarkable and repulsive in equal measures.

Hustle may not be the greatest redemption story ever told about second chances, third careers, and the hard work of triumphing over your worst tendencies, but the film holds fast enough to the courage of its convictions to feel like it’s got skin in the game.

It’s a visceral look at the veteran experience and the kinds of loss we can’t easily describe or process, and the isolation that comes with that.

The Dig resists the the kind of obvious triumph that would overtake a lesser film. Whether it’s a mere whiff of romance, the memory of a loved one passed on, or the encroaching consequence of a nation readying for conflict, there’s a bittersweetness to “The Dig” that lingers just as much as the facts of the story.

King Coal goes deeper into the cultural roots of the opioid crisis, looking at a region both devastated and nurtured by “the King” and asking what a future without it might look like.

Always legible, sometimes reductive, but never condescending, Pemberton’s film offsets a lack of complexity with an abundance of clarity.

If earlier segments of Middletown suggest that we’re building to something revelatory, the latter half feels a bit like a train that chugs on aimlessly after passing its destination. It’s a pleasant ride. It just lacks a little edge.

If you want your del Toro weirder, Frankenstein might not be your cup. But if you want a period monster movie that’s solid, almost oaken in its sturdiness, you don’t need to knock on wood to assure that del Toro is keeping the innermost essence, the soul of cinema, alive at least.

The vibes are immaculate from the start and only grow more so as the characters gradually start to become as detailed as the world that “The Holdovers” constructs around them.

Watching the couple embroiled in a drama that’s less romp and more mystery is a worthy treat for any Hepburn/Tracy fans.

While the film’s time-loop premise does engage with the usual themes of appreciating every moment and the preciousness of life, it also ties the concept to the scientific method in a way that feels fresh and interesting.

The film has just about enough going on around its anti-hero to sustain the interest and land its punchline, and there are signs Liman (a Cruise veteran since “Edge of Tomorrow”) is solving the enduring problem of making a Cruise film that’s not wholly about its leading man.

For better or worse, Kandahar is a throwback to the kind of Tom Clancy-inspired geopolitical thrillers that used to be a bi-weekly occurrence in the 1990s.

No matter how absorbing its individual scenes, however, The Hateful Eight is often hindered by Tarantino's confidence in the material. For every gripping sequence, there's an abrupt development or undercooked throwaway line.

The documentary works because of its expansive timeline and creative casting choices. While Liese herself is not trans, and it shows, she approaches her subjects with utmost respect and sensitivity, placing the kids firmly in charge of their own stories.

As lucid and intense as it is underwritten, his second crack at the Maywan District murders might be much less nuanced than his first, but this riveting thriller still manages to amplify its subject much louder than Krauss has been able to before.

Even if nobody was asking for “Den of Thieves 2,” it might be time to start crossing our fingers for “Den of Thieves 3.” Frankly, I’m even more excited for “Den of Thieves 7.”

Kill It and Leave This Town is almost oppressively personal at times. Hideously seductive as it can be, the movie is so isolated inside the contours of Wilczyński’s mind that it’s hard to imagine what audience might exist for it. Then again, what beauty is there in this world that isn’t alive in our heads — if nowhere else — and trying to escape?

Even though the story involves legitimate issues surrounding sexual identity and the boundaries of monogamy, its humor only goes surface deep. For the most part, the endearingly silly plot amounts to little more than sight gags and off-the-wall asides.

Set in a barren juvenile detention center, the movie works as a grueling coming-of-age story, linking it to the likes of "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days," even if it lacks the same lasting appeal.

At nearly 105 minutes, Microbe and Gasoline runs out of steam in its second act, but the majority of this sweet, sensitive ride is a real treat.

Every beat of the film might be obvious, but that doesn’t detract from the enjoyability of watching an indelible young heroine like Lara Jean figure out her own life and just maybe fall in love in the process.

In a crumbling empire where common sense has been eroded by ideology, and the political will to solve a problem can’t hope to compete with the ghoulish impulse to profit from it, creating a new business sector might just be the only kind of healing that the richest country on Earth can afford.

It’s hard to imagine a more crystalline look at the suppleness of someone’s self-identity (and the moral dilemma of someone else choosing to overwrite it) than Ed Perkins’ Tell Me Who I Am, a documentary so harrowing and horrific that it can only bear to scratch at the surface of its remarkable story.

It’s flecked with murderous black humor, told with all the subtlety of getting run over by a car, and generally sees Indian society as a giant rooster coop where servants either kill their masters or spend their entire lives waiting in line to get their heads chopped off.

Like all of Shinkai’s films, the richness of the light coats everything it touches with such an evocative hue of nostalgia that the plot only puts a damper on things (and there’s a lot of plot here).

Bird is not Arnold’s best film — how can you top the cross-country raptures of “American Honey” or the final synchronized dance to Nas in “Fish Tank”? But it’s certainly her most ambitious in terms of willingness to stretch her creative reach beyond the social-realist-only confines of some of her early work.

For all of the film’s strange omissions, and its struggles to thread the needle between appealing to children and trying to show them how wild our world really is, this passionate and beautifully shot film is worth celebrating for how clearly it conveys the raw truth of that idea.

Lowe finds ways to make it all feel if not wholly original, at least quite fresh. You’ve heard this story before, but you’ve never seen it quite like this.

The arc of time is long, but it bends toward justice, The Eyes of Ghana argues, and movies can help bend it a little further.

Stan & Ollie salutes an under-appreciated comedy duo while exploring the hardships of fading into the limelight; appropriately, the movie itself is rather forgettable even as the actors deliver brilliant performances in every scene.

Overlong and unfocused in parts, Salles' adaptation nonetheless holds together about as well a movie can when the odds are so heavily stacked against it.

Ghost Town Anthology lacks the human touch it needs to satisfy beyond its symbolism, but if Côté’s 96-minute curio takes far too long to thaw, it’s never more spookily enthralling than in its final moments.

Changing the Game goes beyond those dehumanizing headlines to show the real people affected by harmful anti-trans policies or lack of any meaningful legal protection.

While it’s far from a definitive study of her achievements, the film brings the painter back to life in a manner sure to initiate further study from fans and novices alike.

Given the saturation of the found footage horror genre, Cordero's approach delivers a much shrewder alternative that goes beyond the power of suggestion by rooting its otherworldly fears in authenticity.

Whereas “Creep” suggested that the annoying man-child is scarier than you think, Creep 2 shows just how much scarier he gets with age.

Despite the understandably emotional and deeply personal nature of Plan C’s work, Tragos’ film remains startlingly clear-eyed and concise, letting the stories she shares from abortion organizers, healthcare ambassadors, doctors, clinic workers, and patients speak for themselves.

Though hardly a singular achievement on par with its precedents in the filmmaker's career, Results shows the first indication of Bujalski's ability to tell stories on a larger scale.

The Half of It has lofty aims for its version of the classic tale — which it mostly achieves, albeit without much fanfare.

It’s perfectly entertaining, using Barker’s inventive tropes to tell a solidly gory nightmare, but it’s a pale vanilla shadow of the original.

King Jack, while unabashedly a coming-of-age story, is even better as a portrait of masculinity in crisis, of how its passed down from one generation to the next, and how that process might best be interrupted.

Expensive but never fancy, and solid enough to emit a faint whiff of sophistication, this entire project is powered by the same eccentric confidence that allows Branagh to play Hercule Poirot like a neutered Pepé le Pew.

It offers a striking contrast to other visions of modern Israel and Jewish identity. It may be the wildest vision of ultra Orthodox Judaism ever, but it’s not an empty provocation.

Monsters University, the latest Pixar offering, charms in an excessively familiar way that illustrates a troublesome eventuality: Pixar has lost its edge.

Chalamet, a heartthrob unafraid to tackle unglamorous material, so embodies the tragic struggles of a drug-addled young man it’s a wonder he made it through the production, while Carell’s melancholic eyes absorb every detail. It’s a haunting two-hander that allows their talent to tower over everything else.

Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown has a moody, romantic tone, especially in the second half.

While even the movie’s best moments are derivative enough to deserve that kind of mix-and-match categorization, Welsh shoots the whole thing with such a knowing sense of time and place that its age-old story of revolt can feel like it’s happening for the very first time — like it’s now or never, and there’ll be no going back once the sun comes up.

There’s no outright preaching, no plea to condemn or sympathize either way. What unfolds is far more complex, morally speaking, even if the bones of the narrative and how it’s shot are deliberately pared down.

While Maiden is satisfying on its own, it’s tailor-made for a remake that can dive deeper into a story that has so much life left in it.

This slick and involving sequel finds Adonis continuing to work through the weight of his father’s death in the ring, follows all the familiar motions revived with Creed. But in the context of this resilient franchise, the movie hits each beat with the calculated precision of its tireless fighter.

How you view her and her lies is meant to say something about you. What it says about Dolezal is left more open to interpretation, as Brownson spends so much time close to her subject that it’s nearly impossible for the filmmaker and her work to not humanize her.

Although most of Endless Cookie is cheerfully comedic, it also very much lives up to the “political” descriptor Seth aimed for in the opening.

It’s a touching scenario, and one so well-acted and laced with superb special effects that even its more obvious beats cut deep.

Blurring the lines between past and present, Memory Box floats in and out of two parallel stories, never quite allowing either one to take hold. As the focus shifts from daughter to mother, the audience is caught in the middle. Much like memory itself, the threads never fully coalesce until the very end.

Told through the lens of three girls as they grow up in a rural town in the Guerrero mountains, Huezo’s film is a murky, mesmerizing look at what it feels like to come of age in a place where young women have a target on their backs, and where the adults are as powerless as the children.

Unlike Baron Cohen’s work, André seems to invite his targets to crack up with him, and they’re more than happy to oblige. Bad Trip is an extension of that all-inclusive approach: It’s a blunt instrument of absurdity, but that’s also what makes it so much fun.

It tells a simple but epic story against the backdrop of a well-realized fantasy world, it does so at a measured pace that provokes the imagination rather than pummeling it into submission, and it stays on course by leveraging spectacular action (highlighted by several blistering pirate fights and a PG-rated kaiju brawl) into an effective fable about the perils of inherited prejudice.

Neither surprising or groundbreaking in any particular way, the movie gives us what we want and leaves it at that.

It's a touching story that would seem altogether familiar if weren't also loaded with urgency.

Gallner and Weaving’s erotic chemistry, which begins at a simmer but quickly reaches a boil, helps smooth out the lumpier patches in Carolina Caroline that comprise the film’s middle section.

For all its otherworldly beauty, “Utama” could benefit from slightly more robust dramatic beats to complement the hyper-sensorial experience that imbues in the spectator, especially in addressing the displacement of Indigenous communities across the Americas and beyond.

It has everything a growing horror freak needs: extreme violence, tons of nudity, vampires, mummies, and apocalyptic bedlam. The movie is slyer and smarter than people give it credit for, and absolutely gorgeous-looking.

Subtitled "a musical adventure," the actor-director's love letter to some 800 years of Neapolitan expression probes its subject with a wide romantic outlook.

No film about the utter demise of a supposed utopia — a real one, to boot! — and the utter infallibility of human beings should be this fun, but we’re lucky this one is.

When this thing moves — and, wow, does it ever — it offers one of the best examples yet of what Netflix bucks can buy. It even makes off with upped emotion (including that engendered by shining a brighter spotlight on the wonderful Farahani and Bessa), a new dimension to the always-evolving Hemsworth, and proof that the action franchise can capture old thrills with new stories.

The Dardennes have been the reigning kings of social realism for years, and tell these sort of morality fables on autopilot, but they’re such precise storytellers that even a minor work like “Young Ahmed” manages to deliver tense showdowns riddled with real-world connotations.

Before You Know It doesn’t balk at quirkiness, but it never uses it as a crutch or the only way to process the story.

Although a lot of the film feels like a breathless box-ticking exercise designed to Include Every Pertinent Fact, the chemistry between Turner and Mari leads to a relationship rarely seen in cinema: a platonic friendship between an older man and a younger woman born of mutual respect.

Faya Dayi is a film that invites the mind and soul with its visual grandeur, and keeps the viewer engaged with a tension and mystery that seems to be lurking beneath its surface. It’s familiar yet foreign — a world one must at once surrender to, yet be careful to not completely lose oneself in.

If there is one lesson that “Halloween Ends” — hell, that this entire trilogy, this entire franchise — easily imparts, with blood and guts and terror to spare, it’s that horror never really ends. It just takes a different shape. This story surely will, too, but for now, it’s concluded in fine fashion.

While Mouret can’t resist the desire to tie it up into a neat little bundle, just like some of its less inventive genre peers, Love Affairs still manages to end in an unexpected way that feels just right — unwilling to settle on a tidy outcome, and open to the possibilities of what could happen next.

To watch terror become desperation become despair is wrenching, more so because this puts names and faces to events the rest of us are fortunate enough to read about while sitting on our couches.

In posing substantive questions about the nature of romance and relationships, it’s smarter than virtually any American studio romantic comedy of recent years

Visually, emotionally, and spiritually, the film is embalmed in an antiseptic sheen. As such, despite its formal rigor and effective, economic approach to storytelling, “Stonewalling” is hard to connect with.

Much like the music, Lords of Chaos is frequently unpleasant but oddly compelling — not least because Åkerlund ensures that the film never takes itself as seriously as its subjects did.

However afraid she is to let things get too serious, Miller Rogen is powerless to erase the emotional undertow that carries this story forward. All of the pent-up animosity her movie doesn’t know what to do with becomes its greatest asset.

Emotionally honest and algebraically stylish, Maio Mackay is a filmmaker the entire industry should watch in the coming years. But her latest purple-hued feature demands the attention of hot, tattoo-having, “Buffy”-loving, “Charmed”-binging, queer horror fans right now.

Barker's screenplay demonstrates a conviction that its genre can command great importance, allowing it to transcend the easy shocks associated with the exploitation movie experience and create an entirely fresh rhythm.

It’s not clear where else the series has to go — both in terms of the character’s journey and the fact that Finland only had so many geopolitical foes in the 1940s — but if the story ends here, our journey with Aatami will have been a satisfying one.

A hypnotizing historical and spiritual epic that’s immersive in a way that few decades-spanning stories successfully pull off.

Regardless of who it sets its sights on, How He Fell in Love tells a complete tale without being tidy, fitting for a tale representative of love’s fickleness.