If The Drama is effectively a one-gag movie, there’s no denying that its gag is a good one, or that Borgli — a hyper-online shit-stirrer whose salable provocations, combined with his sometimes not so salable ones, continue to position him as an A24-friendly Lars von Trier — milks it for all that it’s worth. Possibly more.

Fascinating ... Delpy’s ability to believe in both her audience and her wild story remains compelling throughout the film, even as it careens through tropes and tricks and genres with increasingly off-kilter speed.

Women Is Losers is an infectious and auspicious debut.

While this nasty film seems headed toward a conclusion where the rich win and the status quo is maintained, that’s abruptly shattered by a violent climax that assures that no one on either side of the divide is left without a bloodstain.

Odenkirk seems decidedly checked out: he, along with almost every other actor in the cast, approaches the material with a complete lack of energy, which can pass for an acting choice to represent Hutch’s exhaustion but slowly begins to resemble a boredom with this character.

Trevorrow, like so many directors given the responsibility of delivering a straightforward blockbuster designed to satisfy bottom-line expectations, struggles to find the balance between silly and serious.

Dupieux's utterly zany slice of narrative subversion transcends that singularly goofy premise to create one of the more bizarre experiments with genre in quite some time.

The film rockets toward an ending that’s somehow both sewed right up and blown wide open. Since neither interpretation really satisfies, it dilutes much of the creepy power that has come before. Instead, Bull’s script offers answers no one asked for.

For all its promises of an inside look into the Dalís’ lifestyle, the film never does much more than document it.

It may not resonate as anything deeper than a modern satire of the idea that father knows best, but it leans into its high-wire act with the fearlessness of a movie that knows just how fraught it can be to connect with anyone these days.

Domestic violence is one of the primary engines of tension, yet the film doesn’t know how to tell the truth about abuse without making light of it or mining it for artistic effect.

Those Who Wish Me Dead might be missing the extra gear required to make it as much of a touchstone for contemporary audiences as the likes of “Executive Decision” or “The River Wild” are for anyone who was saw them in the ‘90s, but watching this kind of film claw its way onto screens at a time when it seems so outmoded is enough to make you happy that it hasn’t been completely killed off yet.

The result is a fun, explosive, and surprisingly thoughtful action movie that manages to thread the needle between the pyrotechnics of vintage Jerry Bruckheimer and the softer, more forward-thinking demands of contemporary multiplex fare. It may not be as raw as “Bad Boys,” but it’s more human. It may not be as operatic as “Bad Boys II,” but, well, neither was “The Ring Cycle.”

Mendes’ likability (and relatability) almost mirrors Amanda Bynes’ Hollywood reign during the “She’s the Man” and “Sydney White” days. Upgraded is essentially “What a Girl Wants” meets “Devil Wears Prada” with a dash of “Emily in Paris” camp. The combo makes it one of the easiest rom-coms to digest as of late.

A bigger, more confident sequel might be just what this franchise needs to enjoy a peaceful transition of power — and to make good on the full potential of a Hollywood action movie that meaningfully tries to iterate on John Wick instead of just copying his moves.

For all of Ferrara’s reckless abandon — and Dafoe’s unimpeachable commitment to artistic exploration — Siberia becomes increasingly unable to instigate our own journeys of the soul; seldom has the collective unconscious felt so inaccessible.

Paranormal Activity 3 hardly adds anything new to the situation; instead, it pretends to fill a gap while basically just heaping on one calculated "boo!" after the other.

It’s good enough to be dangerous, and bad enough to demand better. It’s going to turn the world upside down and make us all hysterical in the process. For better or worse, it’s exactly the movie the Joker would want.

That problem: Does it feel real? Not yet, and not even movie star turns and rapping birds and the very best of intentions can bridge that divide. For now, “The Little Mermaid” exists outside of the very world it so wants to be a part of, one already so lovingly rendered in its predecessor, “real” or not.

Parker and Kohli both give excellent performances, but the majority of Next Exit is hard to distinguish from the standard road trip dramas that pop up at Sundance every year.

Benjamin Millepied’s Carmen is stretched across a few too many borders to ever feel like it’s standing on solid ground. And yet, it’s undeniably exhilarating to watch one of the world’s most accomplished choreographers team up with one of its most virtuosic composers (Nicolas Britell) for the kind of aggressively unclassifiable movie that would never exist if not for these two artists reaching beyond their disciplines to create it themselves.

It tries to have some bite to its will-they-or-won't-they scenario but ultimately winds up toothless.

There’s something much bigger afoot, something truly subversive and new, but The Retreat resists digging into that, instead leaning on its (admittedly, badass) leading ladies and their inspiring ability to kick butt. We love to see it, but we’d really love to see more.

Apple's first narrative film is a breezy historical biopic that plays like BlackKklansman for math nerds, but it's too stodgy to add up.

Welcome to the world of white people problems, ground zero for the strain of American comedies that Apatow does best. But does he really?

Cruella is lousy with incredible costumes (from Oscar-winner Jenny Beavan, who should absolutely be back in the awards mix with this one) and needle drops that run the gamut between hilarious and too-on-the-nose, a riot of sound and color and delight that partially obscures the darkness at the film’s heart.

Park makes a noble attempt to suffuse the meditative soulfulness of Takeshi Kitano’s “Fireworks” into the propulsive genre tropes established by more recent (and more Korean) forebearers like “A Bittersweet Life,” but he just can’t find the same poetry in that silent pain as he’s able to produce from the screaming kind.

There are sparks of chemistry between Ryan and Duchovny that feel reminiscent of better rom-coms, although none quite matching the films that Ryan is most known for.

While V/H/S/99 is a far cry from the original, it still manages to be far more fun than it has any right to be. By connecting its horror vignettes with trippy stop-motion sketches instead of a unifying plot device, it crafts a viewing experience that essentially amounts to an Adult Swim programming block for horror fans.

Sure, the jump-scares are wild; the beatings are bananas; and at a certain point, you have to laugh. But Ben deserved better than a cage so primitive and a better owner might’ve really let him run free.

That McNamara has written a truly new spin on Adler’s novel is genuinely refreshing, but the lighter tone and greater reliance on actual romance between its leads makes what’s to come all the harder to swallow.

All you’re left with is the echo of what was better before. You watch only able to wish Weaving was given more to work with than this, or, at the very least, greater room for her iconic scream to rattle you once more.

The film makes a great case for Quaid as action hero, Midthunder as romantic charmer, and Berk and Olson as being ready to step out of their horror-centric background.

The film’s best moments are hollow and derivative, as borrowed from better fictions as any of the names that Alice takes for herself.

There are late bloomers and then there those who never bloom at all. Unfortunately for Lisa Steen’s feature debut “Late Bloomers,” the film doesn’t open up in time to blossom into something great.

Betts’ adaptation never loses its sense of humor, and the multiplex flair it brings to such a sensitive subject — its wry, politically inclusive approach to illustrating how burying America’s heartache without a headstone only guarantees that the pain will continue — allows for a verdict that feels damning and hopeful in equal measure.

A straight line could be plotted through the feature which, despite its imaginative storytelling structure, still manages to hit all of the big moments in Steinem’s life.

The mildly amusing Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is further proof that even the stalest whiff of brand recognition has become preferable to originality. Only part of the blame for that belongs to the studios, but after cannibalizing themselves for much of the last 20 years, Hollywood has clearly eaten their way down to the crumbs.

At heart, it’s a story you’ve seen countless times before — often told on a much larger scale. And yet it’s amazing how far you can go on the strength of some evocative production design, a few clever dashes of sci-fi world-building, and a goofy script that isn’t afraid to err closer to “Pillow Talk” than to “Before Sunrise.”

God Help the Girl doesn’t quite succeed in convincing the viewer to toss conventional character development out the window, it still has its moments.

If this sounds like American Sweatshop is trying to have it both ways, that’s because it is. It wants to titillate, and to judge. To show, and to tell. To enrage, and to pacify. Combined with the by-the-numbers direction and unremarkable cinematography, the overall effect is of an after-school special about how social media is bad for you — which it probably is, to be fair.

Hodge sells it, just as he sells the rest of an otherwise chintzy film, a Lifetime movie-like drama that falls short of engaging with the many thorny issues it dramatizes.

Get Away works better on paper than as a visceral entertainment experience, as its raison d’etre of subverting folk horror expectations sometimes feels more like a screenwriting class exercise than a fully immersive world.

Admittedly lovely and heartfelt, Norwegian Wood is also hollow.

“Force of Nature” generates just enough mystery never to be boring, but not enough interest to elevate it above its modest trappings.

Jones clearly has valuable insights about being a Black woman in entertainment and has the chops to tell a captivating story. What any of that has to do with the sex industry is a total mystery.

To the Wonder renders the familiar terrain of romantic dysfunction on a grand scale. Malick haters may not change their tune, but at least they can admit that To the Wonder maintains a consistent thematic focus.

Silas Howard’s new film is nothing if not well-attuned to the difference between the purity of sharing the right values and the messiness of actually living with them.

It manages to offer more heart and more laughs the second time around.

Political only by implication, Zero Bridge works in a larger sense as a story of universal longing.

There is a tendency to overly explain things as opposed to letting Ginsburg’s words flow, but if you’ve enjoyed the previous looks at the notorious RBG, this is a new one offers a different angle to her remarkable story.

Weitz and Orton mean to question the individual’s role in a mass atrocity, but the abstract nature of their ideas never squares with the rigidity of their storytelling. As a result, Operation Finale doesn’t feel ambiguous so much as it feels like it lacks a point of view.

Russo-Young insists upon Before I Fall maintaining the courage of its convictions, and she gets her way — the movie takes a while to get off the ground, but when it lands, it lands hard.

It's a pretty experiment with no apparent results, but plenty of marketability.

A distinctly uneven but imminently watchable theatrical showcase in which cinematic and stagy devices go head to head with no clear winner.

It’s a whole lot less scary or fun the second time around.

While Baena and Brie, who wrote the film together, don’t exactly flip the script on this seemingly well-trod subgenre, the duo (plus a star-packed cast) certainly add some spice to it.

A taut and stylish thriller that manages to draw fresh blood from some very familiar territory.

This whirling vortex of dysfunctional friends and acquaintances feel like an unfocused and self-absorbed melange of frustration. It’s a parade of broken people, connected only by their fruitless pursuits of happiness.

The film serves as more of a primer for the uninitiated. But even for the initiated, it could contribute to ongoing discussions on how to dismantle the American racial divide that is deeply entrenched in our national psyche.

This is a movie that sling-shots so far past self-parody that it loops all the way back to something real.

Since 2005's "A History of Violence," Cronenberg has ventured beyond the grotesque allegorical interests of his earlier movies, a shift that has led some longtime fans to assume he has softened up. As an enjoyably peculiar anti-capitalist indictment, Cosmopolis proves otherwise.

Jason Bourne adheres to an existing format so robotically that it never manages to surprise or engage for longer than the occasional passing moment.

The script is half-baked and rushed, too much of a collage of other, better movies, and too coy to embrace its trashiness or ever go beyond PG-13 levels of horror.

It’s entertaining enough, but this is a story that doesn’t feel real, mostly because it isn’t.

Victoria & Abdul is an otherwise benignly toothless, pleasantly glossy affair, but it does force us to confront one tricky question: When treating a subject as fraught as British imperial rule, when does a film’s benign inoffensiveness become offensive in and of itself?

The Last Shift is told with a light touch that allows the film to sneak up on you, and even its most painful moments are softened by heartrending solidarity.

The stifled quietness of “Strangler” leaves us wanting more, for better or for worse.

Menkes will often admit that many examples might be the result of unconscious choices — a particularly useful and astute notation when dealing with films directed by women, plenty of which contribute to the same gendered way of shooting — but rarely engages with the possibility of a different intent by the filmmakers whose work she is unpacking.

Freaky Tales is Boden and Fleck’s attempt at applying their studio lessons learned circa “Captain Marvel” to something supposedly more personal, but this film just ends up only repeating that one’s most grating tendencies.

More blatantly an exercise in style than anything on par with the director's crowning achievements, and suffers to some degree from the predictability of its premise.

Poyser doesn't do anything we haven't seen before, but the familiar ingredients are done just right.

Blisteringly cool one moment and ridiculously silly the next (much like its high school heroine), this punchy and propulsive late summer surprise is able to capture the way we live now because it displays such a vivid understanding of the reasons why we live that way.

Eternity does what it can to leverage its heady concept into a heart-stirring tale of love and longing, but the world-building — or lack thereof — invariably gets in the way of the emotion that Freyne is hoping to generate from it.

Even as The Keeping Room plays with formulaic ingredients, it manages to combine them into an eloquent portrait of gender, race and the constant march of time without overstating any of its potent themes.

There was more to Bonnie and Clyde than 'Bonnie and Clyde,' but The Highwaymen falls short of making the case that the good guys had the better tale.

Pitched somewhere between outrageous satire and sincerity, the movie has a tough time finding its priorities, but it’s endearing to watch it try.

One of the greatest comedy sequels ever made.

Hyams delivers a remarkably satisfying action-thriller hybrid that constantly pushes ahead. It's one of the best action movies of the year simply because it keeps hitting the right beats.

A mawkish coming-of-age story that marries Sundance vibes with a soft punk spirit, Peter Livolsi’s The House of Tomorrow never manages to flesh out its skeleton of quirks, but its heart is definitely in the right place.

The movie amounts to a tame, forgettable doodle, as if designed to imitate the scruffy Duplass movies that Naima worships; for Shawcat, however, it’s a promising step in a new direction that suggests a far more confident artist than the one she plays onscreen.

Much like “Les Misérables” before it, “Les Indésirables” is a series of riveting setpieces that are strung together with a mess of exposed wires, and much like “Les Misérables” before it, “Les Indésirables” can be easy to forgive for its contrivances because Ly’s anger is so palpable, his vision so viscerally lived-in, and his widescreen cinema so capable of galvanizing suffering through spectacle (a mixed blessing).

Macdonald has crafted one of the most riveting rise-fall-redemption story arcs in documentary format in recent memory, with Galliano himself as his unreliable — but never less than compelling — guide.

While there’s nothing egregiously cynical about the film’s nature or design, its forensic tone belies the familiarity of its evidence, and its subject has already been too well-excavated for the sincerity of Monroe’s efforts to shake off that signature true-crime stink (the pungent stench of a once-proud medium that’s been left to rot on streaming).

This soulful and deeply satisfying film — a fitting swansong, if ever there was one — makes a compelling argument that change is always possible, and that the path we’re on is never as narrow as the highway makes it look.

I couldn’t help but try to read a bit deeper into how these characters rhyme with each other, especially since Egerton is so game to go nuts, and Theron — ever the reliable action star, radiating strength through a clenched vulnerability — is as human as he is cartoonish.

Despite tackling our crazy times, The Oath somehow winds up not quite crazy enough to assess them.

Even if The Spine of Night struggles to align its overarching story with the anthology-like shape that it takes, it’s still rare and rewarding to watch a film that makes so few bones about what it wants to be.

Transitioning back into a scripted dynamic after his quasi-documentary performance excursions with "Bruno" and "Borat," Baron Cohen loses none of his edge, combining slapstick inspiration and social commentary into a hilariously provocative blend.

Rather than developing Roman’s conundrum, Roman J. Israel, Esq. settles for a prosaic character study laid out in painfully obvious terms, with a tacked-on twist in the third act just so that the story can find some way to end.

While there are a few truly moving detours along the way . . . Uncle Frank fumbles through its fairy-tale finale so fast that it sours everything that came before.

Most of the movie is spent on overfamiliar ominousness that does little to advance the plot, which is all the more frustrating because Chase has clearly assembled the ingredients for a richer horror experience than the cheap gruel he ends up serving here.

While it struggles through some awkward plot twists and clunky tangents, The Midnight Sky never loses grasp of the chilly atmosphere that inspires every moment; if only it there was something fresh about that.

A clever, high-concept dark comedy that uses the moral clarity of “The Twilight Zone” to see through the veil of modern cynicism, Happily jackknifes into the murky waters between #RelationshipGoals and #BodySnatcherVibes as it skewers the assumption that something must be very wrong with anyone who’s too happy for too long.

Visually scrumptious and slickly told, Creative Control illustrates the power of groundbreaking technology while also indicting its extremes.

Yes, Waititi’s sugary fantasy unearths an endearing quality in the most unlikely places. But in the process, it buries the awful truth.

A singular, hypnotic, and formally unbound psychodrama that’s staged between a Lady Gaga-like diva (Anne Hathaway) and the only person who might be able to quiet her demons (Michaela Coel), this talky chamberpiece of a film is almost entirely confined to an unheated barn somewhere outside of London, and yet it grows to feel as vast as the synaptic gap that stretches between literalness and metaphor. A wound and its memory. A pop song and the person who wrote it.

The expectations of the genre provide a framework for Work It that both delights (so many dancing montages! all of them fun!) and confounds (a chemistry-less romance). When it dares to break those boxes, however, things get miles more interesting.