There are laughs aplenty in this lawless, arbitrary, mythological Old West, but a feel-good yarn it ain’t.

Thanks in part to McKenna-Bruce’s performance, How to Have Sex never feels exploitative. She gives Tara a sharp emotional intelligence.

David Oyelowo plays King, and there’s no denying he brings a charismatic forcefulness to the part. This is particularly true in his speeches, which begin calmly, rooted in reason, and then whip up into a righteous fury that he struggles to contain and barely – just barely – does.

If Fury Road wound its way, through much pain and violence, to a vision of a new “green place,” Furiosa leaves us in a place of tension, one caught between mercy and wrath, hope and despair. It’s the rare prequel that nearly feels necessary.

As a narrative, Thunder Road doesn’t entirely cohere—various plot strands involve Jim’s ex-wife, his daughter, and his partner on the force—yet Cummings remains riveting, never letting you get an easy fix on this troubled, troubling character.

Garner gives a remarkable performance, especially considering she has very little dialogue with which to work.

Koepp’s fairly straightforward screenplay doesn’t take us in many surprising directions, so the film’s pleasures lie in Kravitz’s jittery performance (she’s working in a similar vein to Claire Foy in Soderbergh’s other recent psychological thriller, Unsane) and the experimental filmmaking that’s usually going on in the corners of a Soderbergh production.

In Miss Bala, sexism doesn’t take sides, but is rather a harrowing, pervasive, dehumanizing force that even turns fashion into a weapon.

This is a movie that has the courage of its own convictions, but also the playfulness to wear them lightly on its ridiculously embroidered sleeves.

The movie is a collection of ghoulish creative impulses (some of them gorily sadistic, as when a character is trapped in a room of barbed wire) rather than a coherent story.

Shiva Baby has a comic claustrophobia that almost makes you choke, so intense is its depiction of familial/traditional walls closing in on its main character.

Priscilla is one of Sofia Coppola’s “moments movies” — stories told not necessarily via plot, but via the textures, sounds, and accessories that combine to create an indelible 30 seconds or so, seconds which say as much about a character and their experience as endless pages of dialogue could.

The Painter and the Thief tells a remarkable story of artistic understanding, one which Rees gives a clever, two-part structure.

Kaufman’s last film as director, the stop-motion Anomalisa, was a meditation on misery that comforted viewers, if not itself, with its astonishing artistry. i’m thinking of ending things, while arresting in its own way, offers no such consolation. It’s depressing in form and function.

Writer-director Alex Russell, making his feature debut, offers a creepy, Talented Mr. Ripley-style character study that doubles as a meditation on celebrity and authenticity.

Considering this is a remake of a superior 1997 Norwegian film, director Christopher Nolan doesn’t create anything nearly as inventive as his Memento, but at least Insomnia is expertly conventional.

At its best, the movie is a destabilizing look at family as a big con. Yet the chemistry between Rodriguez and Wood never sings, which becomes a problem as the movie shifts to focus more on their relationship.

Just when I was about to nod off, Top Gun: Maverick jostled me awake with a fresh approach to the sort of blockbuster entertainment that the original movie managed so expertly. Faint praise? Maybe. But also higher praise than I ever expected to be giving.

This is one of [Hitchcock's] significant works, accented by wickedly effective insert shots and a handful of strong performances.

This ranks among the most mercilessly creepy children’s films I’ve seen.

In the end, After Yang is less interested in excitedly speculating on the inner life of its title character than it is interested in what we homo sapiens do with the lives we’ve been given.

There is pleasure and poignancy in that adventure, even as it grows, but I was content to immerse myself in the seemingly hand-sketched, watercolor-hued opening sections.

A tender miracle, Tender Mercies presents itself as a parable—though one of those tricky ones where you’re not quite sure of the takeaway. The biblical allusion is apt, because the movie is faith-soaked, yet not sopped. Immersed in religion, it nevertheless resists pandering to either touchy religious audiences or scoffing irreligious ones.

Returning director Chad Stahelski not only gives the fight sequences the time and space they deserve (while thankfully also pulling back on the gun fetishism that had begun to take over the series), he and cinematographer Dan Laustsen bathe the proceedings in a color scheme that could be described as “nocturnal menace.”

I’m sure there’s a definitive explanation, but Enys Men strikes me as a puzzle that’s more enthralled with its individual pieces than any picture they might complete.

McCraney has a background as a playwright, which may explain why High Flying Bird mostly consists of a series of zippy conversations. Each one is overstuffed with so many ideas—not just about sports, but also sexuality, faith, economics, and history—that the characters don’t quite register as flesh-and-blood figures.

With The Card Counter, Schrader offers another self-flagellating portrait of a man who’s experienced—and enacted—great sin, struggling to perceive anything akin to divine grace.

Near Dark boasts one of the horror genre’s most unique milieus.