Thanks to Cruise and Kosinski’s unfashionable insistence on practical filmmaking and their refusal to lean too heavily on computer-generated visual effects, their sequel plays like a throwback in more than one sense. But the era that produced the first film has shifted, and “Top Gun: Maverick” is especially poignant in the ways, both subtle and overt, that it acknowledges the passage of time, the fading of youth and the shifting of its own status as a pop cultural phenomenon.

With its chilling evidence of fetus-centric policies in practice, Birthright shows Big Brother in action, and at his most misogynistic.

In Lemon, Bravo and Gelman find a transcendent absurdity in the mundane that’s awkwardly enchanting. It’s more tart than sweet, but deliciously weird nonetheless.

Grafting the buddy picture onto the framework of the classic political thriller, director Jang Hoon also manages to find time for lighter moments of human comedy, and those seemingly disparate elements are deftly navigated by Song and his fellow fully dimensional characters.

What makes Monkey Shines special--beyond Romero's cinematic lucidity and sheer storytelling ability and the talent of his cast and crew--is the ambivalent responses aroused by monkey Boo as Ella.

Though its theme of the corrosive influence of unimaginable wealth is not exactly news, "All the Money" benefits, in much the same way that Scott's similar (and underappreciated) "American Gangster" did, from the director's expertise at bringing pace and interest to stories he cares enough about to sink his teeth into.

You may long for a more disreputable, less buttoned-up telling, but there is something about this one’s sleek, streamlined conventionality that feels both appropriate and pleasing.

Women Who Kill is delightfully specific in its approach to its characters and their community. It takes a familiar theme of romantic comedies — the fear of commitment — and gives it new life by adding a morbid element to the mix.

This is an unusual venture, both charming and serious, that goes in more directions than anticipated, including more than a touch of magic realism.

This gripping exposé of the dark side of the commercial dog sledding industry, particularly as it pertains to Alaska’s annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, is a horrifying heartbreaker.

Gadot and Pine give great pillow talk, and their easy screwball rhythms provide not just levity but ballast: They ground a movie in which time, for all its malleability, always feels like it’s slipping away.

Craig reveals himself as perhaps the most generous actor to have inhabited the role. And not only toward the rest of the cast, but toward the very idea of Bond itself. Craig sets Bond free from the prison of forgetfulness that has previously trapped him like a caveman in ice, though the price is steep, and it remains to be seen if future installments can continue to pay it.

Starting from a single key insight into human behavior — the natural compulsion to compare oneself to others — White has spun a funny, empathetic and surprisingly grounded comedy that itself defies obvious comparisons.

The result, unusual in a documentary involving the police and the public, is a film that does not advocate for anything but the truth, one that aims to show what happens on both sides of an issue rather than coming down in favor of one or the other.

So much of Ruthless People goes so far that maybe it was inevitable that the film makers would pull up short and make this half-sappy compromise--cynicism with a smile--as compensation for their previous audacity. A pity. A lot of the rest gives you something better: full-bore, shameless, gut-clutching laughter.

Hollywood Shuffle is boisterous, out-at-the elbows movie making, an uneven series of skits, really, rather than a consistent whole. But there are wonderful comic moments here, alongside ones that droop from having gone on too long. And pervading the film is an unquenchable air--of optimism, even of community, which uses comedy to address some grievous inequities.

Although “Dark” eschews overly graphic depiction of the more horrific physiological aspects of MND and barely touches upon the financial toll the illness clearly takes, this is as real a human story as it gets.

This is a beautifully shot film whose visuals work well with its philosophical approach to life and relationships.

It never succumbs to making poverty a graphic ornament.

Bening has done a remarkable job of capturing Grahame's look and her breathy way of talking, insuring that her performance is real and using it to explore still-relevant issues of aging, glamour and relationships.

An enigmatic, if perhaps hopeful, epilogue caps this sad, strange, at times weirdly poignant portrait.

Messy and ungovernable at its strongest, Lafosse’s film is a story of heartbreak and real estate and, not least, money, viewed from within the still-smoldering ruins.

The series has been with us since 1962 and, like many another old timer, tends to repeat itself. Yet, every once in a while, it pulls in its stomach, pops the gun from its cummerbund, arches its eyebrow and gets off another bull's-eye. The newest, Licence to Kill, is probably one of the five or six best of Bond.

The film is a stirring salute to human ingenuity.

In divisive times, Pig and his friends, who consist of maybe a dozen drawn lines apiece, provide much-needed laughter in the tradition of the great Warner Bros. cartoons.

Made with care and conviction as it explores this unexpected relationship, "Our Souls at Night" understands both what changes in people as they age and what remains the same. It covers quite a bit of emotional territory, and it covers it well.

The fact-based story, which is allowed to quietly unfold in a series of extended takes, has been stripped of all artifice, especially in regard to the pared-back performances of Harewood, a British actor with regular roles on “Homeland” and “Supergirl,” and Findley, who starred in Ava DuVernay’s 2012 breakthrough feature, “Middle of Nowhere.”

Cocoon is a sly and salty bit of wish fulfillment that, by its tremendous close, has its entire audience wishing along with it. The combined energy it generates is probably enough to raise the Titanic.