Zhou is fantastic as the schoolteacher-turned-rebel-leader; clearly not content to keep her head down, she’s always peering out of windows to get the lay of the land, even before she officially joins the movement.

It’s the performances that ultimately carry the film.

The Fall Guy isn’t perfect, but as a crowd-pleasing, romantic action comedy, driven by the magnetism of its stars, it feels like an increasingly rare treat.

The true revelation is Dyer. A fresh presence amidst the boys’ club of Stranger Things, she’s incredible here in a performance that ranges from understated drama to physical comedy.

There is no doubt the material is elevated by the interplay between Fey and Poehler.

Whenever the film settles on the two leads—who both melt into these real-world personas so thoroughly that Hannibal Lecter himself is soon forgotten—it becomes an intimate portrait of faith as a struggle, even for those at the very top.

This is a sad film, if beautifully observed, about a young girl learning that she won’t always be able to have her mom to herself—that, in fact, she never really had her in the first place.

Director Arthur Jones delivers a fascinating deep dive into meme culture, tracing how something like this can happen so quickly in our viral age.

Prince of the City mostly feels like a competent procedural, but it occasional startles with images of similar artistry.

In the fractured funhouse mirror that is Transit, contemporary France by way of World War II looks an awful lot like the United States in 2019.

Blow the Man Down snagged me right away with its bold, stylized opening.

What’s missing, in comparison to Nichols’ other movies, is an internalized angst.

Honest, incisive, and deeply sympathetic, Beach Rats is an intimate portrait of the cost that is paid when a teenager feels societal pressure to remain closeted.

What Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh did for Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, Burton and Taylor do for Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? They remind us that sometimes writing and directing must simply step aside and concede the power of performance.

Lee gives this familiar figure of vengeance a soft, singular touch.

Watching Pearl, the first movie I thought of was The Wizard of Oz. This is as if Dorothy got sucked up by a tornado and dropped down in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre—holding the chainsaw.

If Carney had wanted to dive into the darkness of this drama—and Hewson has the heavy eyelids to do it—he might have enabled her to give a powerhouse performance. This perhaps isn’t the great Flora and Son we might have wanted, but it’s the pretty good one we’ve got.

It’s often asked why battered women don’t “just leave.” Gaslight evokes the sort of psychological intimidation and cruel mind games that make it so much more complicated than that.

Shirley isn’t a masterful film, but it suggests that Decker has one in her.

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.

Bullitt earned its reputation for Steve McQueen’s lengthy car chase through the hills of San Francisco, and the sequence does have a gritty, low-tech authenticity. Yet there’s more to the movie than squealing wheels.

On the surface, A Quiet Place Part II is another expertly crafted and well-acted monster movie, much like its predecessor.

The silliness is as sharp and improvisational as ever, as are the impressions.

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.

Certainly The Phoenician Scheme still fits within what I’ve come to call “Wes Anderson’s restoration cinema.” It just does so more plainly, less poetically.

Bob Fosse’s half-confession about what a jerk he was to the women in his life may pull a lot of punches, but there’s just too much art on the screen to completely disregard the effort.

There’s joy in watching Cooper, for the most part, actually pull this off—including the gamble of casting an acting novice in the crucial title role.

There has been debate over the graphic depiction of violence in the film, which is sickening and unblinking. Still, the explicitness undoubtedly forces you to face the brutal trauma that was inflicted upon women in this particular time and place—indeed, has been inflicted throughout history.