Simran might put Ranaut front and center, the film proves once again that in Bollywood, screenplays that truly serve an actress’s talent are still woefully hard to find.

Despite its shortcomings, “John and the Hole” shows enough restraint and thematic sophistication to indicate strong potential for Sisto behind the camera.

Neither the deficiencies of Thorne’s script nor the made-for-TV feeling of Taylor’s direction ever fully obscure the enduringly relevant principle they exist to serve: Science will always keep inching forward, but it’s society’s job to ensure that bringing life into this world is a happiness worth the heartache of living in it.

While director Sam Fell continues the stop-motion brilliance of Peter Lord and Nick Park’s original, set pieces and winking homages are given primacy over character stakes leading to a somewhat grating emotional ride.

It spreads itself too wide and too shallow, and leaves us wishing that we might have seen more of the journey that has come to define Jones’ adult life: The path to starting a family of her own.

As is clear from the very first scene, and made all the more so by the very last, She Rides Shotgun is Polly’s movie at its core, and Heger’s face — a detailed portrait of love and loss, its colors all the more radiant by how they run together when she cries — is expressive enough to make it a movie worth watching even when it feels like one we’ve already seen a number of times before.

As a coming-of-age story about a 15-year-old forced to reconsider her place in her family after finally recognizing their place in the world, “A Chiara” can be vague and heavy-handed (even at the same time). As the final layer of a mosaic that renders Gioia Tauro a microcosm of the modern world . . . it’s hard to imagine a more harrowing or distressingly unsettled finish.

Blitz creates a rousing show of strength in the face of horrific civil strife, and there’s an undeniable power to how McQueen revisits the most visible chapter of his country’s history through the eyes of someone who’s so frequently been erased from its pages. If some of the movie is hurt by its failure to bear his imprint, that only serves to remind us just how valuable his imprint has become.

It doesn’t always fit seamlessly together, but it’s far more entertaining than that might lead on. This is a spirited and sweet spin on classic material that deserves kudos for its balance of necessary updates and affection for the old ways. Mostly, it’s a reminder of what’s actually worth considering and critiquing: the final product. This one is good.

The story works wonderfully as an idea, but Kore-eda never quite manages to infuse it with the same depth of feeling his main character goes through.

Whether Girl Most Likely intentionally satirizes its upending of conventions or suffers from a half-assed screenplay, the resulting hodgepodge at least livens up a clichéd premise.

Basic yet enraging ... it shines a harsh light at one of the greatest evils of our time with all the panache of a "Dateline" special.

Sometimes Souleymane feels like he’s sprinting through a race with no finish line, and sometimes he’s running into an unmovable brick wall. The film exists in the space between those opposing outcomes, and its contradictions become its greatest strength as it depicts the endless exhaustion of navigating a system that doesn’t care about you nearly as much as it claims to.

Despite its refined palate and dashes of local flavor, The Feast remains empty calories — haunting only for how it seems to admit as much in the very last shot.

A potent but emotionally diffuse coming-of-age drama in which everything — even faith, even love — has the potential to be as exploitative as the deforestation that continues to eat away at the soul of the Amazon.

Musicals are meant to be big, expansive, overstuffed, emotionally rich, so consuming that the concept of singing and dancing about it make all the sense in the world. Just as “Wicked” starts hitting its highest notes, it’s over. For now. For another year. And not for good.

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.

It’s only in the film’s final moments that Diana realizes the power of the team, but “Nyad” would have felt just that much deeper if the film itself recognized it earlier. There’s more to “Nyad” than Diana, and there’s more to this story than swimming.

Princess is an arresting and taxing film experience, and although Ezer’s execution and vision are clear-eyed and she’s portraying experiences that still (tragically) occur in the real world, it’s difficult to wonder what the film itself is hoping to accomplish.

The vague but vividly rendered All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt runs a little drier every time writer-director Raven Jackson loops back to squeeze another drop of meaning from the textures and traditions that connect a Black Mississippi woman to the place where she was born (and vice-versa).

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

There’s something ineffably beautiful about such a purehearted folly, even if a Herzogian drama about the making of Loving Vincent might have more to offer than the film does itself.

Green has made a slavish, sharply executed bit of fan service elevated by Jamie Lee Curtis’ transformation into a badass grandmother back to finish the job.

As exercises in pulp go, this one yields a solid workout.

They mix like Fireball and water, but the odd couple nonetheless shares a sensational chemistry, building on the base amusement of seeing Oh let her extension-laden hair down and Awkwafina crimp the straight-man character into weird new shapes.

A pulpy slice of pie from deep in the heart of American nowhere, Evan Katz’s Small Crimes is far too convoluted for such an admittedly modest thriller, but the film ties together in such a perfect bow that it’s tempting to forgive all of the knots it took to get there.

The always-understated director never mines the domestic situation for excessive melodrama, instead opting to step back and wryly examine the three leads’ contradictory impulses.

Before its messy climax, Skyman works well as a tragicomic look at the nature of extraterrestrial obsessives. After a random expert opens the movie by explaining that such true believers are “looking for something science can’t prove,” Myrick digs into the psychological factors driving that desire with enthralling results.