As an exploration of post-traumatic stress disorder in US war veterans, the psychological thriller Jacob’s Ladder was ripe for an update. As a piece of enjoyable ’90s shock schlock, it maybe should have just stayed where it was.

The tone of “Brittany,” and its emotional impact, reminds me of Amazon’s other heartfelt winner, “The Big Sick,” which netted Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon an Oscar nod for original screenplay. Colaizzo should get one, too.

Driven is a lot like a DeLorean: Looks great, but moves slow — if it even moves at all.

This is a raunch-com that goes for — and gets — stunned laughs.

Linklater, a director who usually earns his sentiment, just can’t get the tone right. “Bernadette” is supposed to skewer the norms of family, suburban life and motherhood. While Bernadette should be a creature out of Wes Anderson, Blanchett and her director opt for “The Addams Family” instead. Nothing about it works.

This humorless, sadistically violent wreck has not a single satisfying second. It does, however, have more than 50 F-bombs.

Disney, take note: This is how to do a winning live-action update of a cartoon.

Love, Antosha manages to be both a deeply sad farewell and a fascinating introduction.

Luce is a taut, extremely watchable movie, though the dialogue could loosen up a touch.

The Rock is funny and charismatic in “Hobbs & Shaw,” and his bro chemistry with co-star Jason Statham is a joy. The pair slinging vicious insults at each other is almost vaudevillian — it would make a decent live tour. And then there’s the rest of the movie.

This is the kind of movie that gives art-house movies a bad name. Seeing as it’s about lobotomies in the 1950s, it is also ripe for “ice-pick- through-the-eye” jokes about the pain of watching it. But I would never stoop so low.

I think what Tarantino is going for is brazenly manipulating historical events to suit his style, and turning a well-worn genre on its head. But in so doing he’s made an everything bagel of a movie: Part satire, part bear hug, part fictional bromance.

Action flick machismo suffers an identity crisis in Stuber.

Although this version is some 30 minutes longer than its predecessor, anyone looking for new story twists or, say, an inspiring backstory for the antelope that gets eaten, will probably leave disappointed.

It’s one of the year’s sweetest films.

Director and writer Riley Stearns’ mediocre comedy aims to be a roundhouse kick at traditional masculinity, but doesn’t manage to take it down in any deep or insightful way.

Midsommar is no slouch on chills, but they creep up slowly, like a bad trip from one of the Swedes’ festive glasses of hallucinogenic tea, and are leavened with an occasional dash of humor.

The satire’s so meta that its whiny protagonists threaten to eclipse the joke.

You can see director Jon Watts and the filmmakers struggling to replicate the magic of their first film. But its charm came not from an overabundance of jokes, but from turning Spidey into a school hallway hero whose biggest challenge was girls. Jetting off to Venice, Prague and London and busting up landmarks brings it more in line with the rest of the overly dense Marvel Cinematic Universe.

If you’re a Fab Four fan like I am, that setup itself sends you into an existential tizzy. But it makes for a likable, quirky movie that’s British writer Richard Curtis’ (“Bridget Jones’ Diary”) best work in years.

Annabelle Comes Home is so low stakes it’s barely a movie — more like a very special “Brady Bunch” episode in hell.

Tremblay is charming as an eccentric kid marching to his own tune, but the film’s attention wanders like a goat separated from its herd.

This re-imagining of Chucky’s origins manages to be both crazier and more level-headed than the original, in which the doll strolled around Chicago talking like a gangster from “Guys and Dolls.”

The scrappy striver narrative may be an overly familiar one at this point, but director Tom Harper (the BBC’s “War & Peace”) gets a terrific performance from Buckley as Rose chases her dreams while living the kind of turbulent life that has always inspired the best of country songs.

Even with a title this generic, there’s less to Murder Mystery than meets the eye.

Plus One is the latest evidence (see also: “Always Be My Maybe”) that the romantic comedy is making a long-awaited comeback, with some overdue modern tweaks.

Even with a cast this lovable, The Dead Don’t Die falls short of the killer zom-com it could have been.

Does it tug the heartstrings? Absolutely. Is it funny? The funniest of the quartet, in fact thanks to a weird new character. But Pixar, like its former funder Apple, has conditioned audiences to expect more than a nice little movie. We want to be amazed — not subscribe to Apple TV+.

A cautionary tale for the age of reboots, “International” takes over from a perfectly good comedy film series, and turns it into witless, generic space debris. It is the “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” of “MiB” — but somehow the aliens here are even worse.

Kaling’s script addresses issues such as sexism in the #MeToo era, ageism and racial prejudice in her disarmingly light and sneaky way.

It has no real reason to exist, other than to be a passable option for parents whose children are too young to handle PG-13 fare and feels like it.

Pretty far-fetched even for a franchise about rare genetic mutations that allow people to read minds and shoot lasers with their eyes. It’s not bad, just crazy.

Domino, though, is the dregs: This thriller may be randomly set one year in the future, yet it’s hopelessly regressive — a parade of lame stereotypes that feels directed by an out-of-touch Old Hollywood old guy (De Palma is 78).

Ma is a much more enjoyable ride than the even more preposterous “Greta,” which got lost in undeserved self-seriousness.

The whole movie is indistinguishable rubble.

The Poison Rose doesn’t aspire to transcend any clichés, and judging from the flagging energy level of the actors, everyone involved knows it.

Q Ball is a moving and dynamically shot portrait of the Northern California prison’s basketball team, which is sponsored by the NBA champion Golden State Warriors.

It’s one of the funniest movies of the year.

Freddie Mercury may have had the better voice, but it’s Elton John who gets the better movie. Rocketman, director Dexter Fletcher’s trippy new biopic about the flamboyant rocker is braver, deeper and more enlightening than last year’s slobbering piece of Queen propaganda “Bohemian Rhapsody” (which he also partly directed).

Massoud and Scott make a live-action “Aladdin” succeed on a different level than a cartoon can — as a teary romance. “A Whole New World” is more moving than the original.

With stakes so high, the movie should pack a punch. But while it keeps its eye on the stars, its feet never leave the ground.

Zoey Deutch is fine in a non-demanding role as the requisite starry-eyed female student, and Danny Huston (“Wonder Woman”) gives us a softer side as Richard’s weepy best friend. But this is, at its core, a one-man show, and given the uncertain future of Depp’s career (being axed from the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, for example), it might also have been titled “Johnny Says Goodbye.”

Hogg (“Exhibition”) sets The Souvenir in the 1980s but shoots her subjects with the long-armed reserve of a period piece; the ivory-complexioned Byrne bears a resemblance to 18th- and 19th-century European portraits glimpsed throughout.

The John Wick action series doesn’t get bogged down in such silly trivialities as character development, plot, dialogue, morals or any of the usual rubrics most films follow. Instead, these fun flicks are just loosely connected, extremely violent fight scenes starring Neo from “The Matrix.” And why the hell not?

In a time when climate news is near-uniformly depressing, this is a nature documentary that pays loving and hopeful tribute to the complex web of life — and it won’t scare your kids.

A loony con-job that comes up short on being convincing.

Poehler isn’t quite cynical enough to pull off a comedy in which, to paraphrase “Seinfeld,” there’s no hugging and learning, but Wine Country could have been improved by keeping its emotional scenes more in reserve — like a high-end cabernet.

Still, Poms mostly patronizes older people as it turns them into punchlines. Be regressive! B.E. R.E.G.R.E.S.S.I.V.E!

Being obvious nostalgia bait for children of the ’90s, director Rob Letterman’s film has no right to be as good or well-crafted as it is. The plot takes major twists that come as legitimate surprises, and seeing those old cartoon characters plopped into our world rendered in CGI is enormously satisfying.

Would it have been tacky to visually play up the connection between Tolkien’s harrowing experiences on the WWI battlefield and his depiction of Mordor in the books? Perhaps. Beyond the briefest of allusions, Karukoski tastefully leaves that to the imagination. But this — like much of the film — is a tastefulness that induces sleepiness. Tolkien’s estate was not supportive of this film, understandably: The legendary author’s work is memorial enough.

At stark odds with the director’s earlier work is the color palette of this one — that is to say, the film is nearly devoid of it, a haunting wash of multilayered grays. This is one Shadow that deserves to be in the spotlight.

The script is garbage, the voice acting is wooden and the songs are as infectious — and deadly — as the Mister Softee jingle.

It’s blessed with an ace comic foil in Theron, who out-snarks Rogen in scene after scene. The duo makes a terrifically fun on-screen couple, with the kind of zingy banter (thanks to Dan Sterling and Liz Hannah’s screenplay) found in black-and-white movies pre-dating the term “rom-com.”

At a certain point, the pattern of Knoop’s reticence, then acquiescence to Albert’s masquerade becomes slightly repetitive, but JT LeRoy still gives a compelling inside look at the head-scratching hoax that succeeded, in part, due to musty notions of what a hot shot writer ought to look like.

It’s as sprawling and pulse-pounding a fight as you’re hoping it will be.

It’s a harrowing tale that deserves a much better movie than this insipid junk.

The movie’s one saving grace — so to speak — is Raymond Cruz (Tuco from “Better Call Saul”) as a priest turned shaman. He, at least, injects a little wry humor into a film that otherwise bored me to tears.

I only wish the Little laughs were bigger.

Elisabeth Moss is a primal, predatory force in Her Smell, a female-centric spin on the classic debauched rock star story.

The race for worst movie of the year is heating up. You could even say it’s hotter than hell, now that Hellboy has taken the lead. This awful, disgusting, unfunny, idiotically plotted comic book flick offends the senses as much as the rankest subway car on the hottest summer day.

Although mostly routine, Pet Sematary is intermittently scary.

Ultimately Unicorn Store shows little appeal beyond, perhaps, a young-adult audience with a very high tolerance for glitter.

As actor pairings go, you couldn’t hope for better than Oscar winner Sam Rockwell and nominee Taraji P. Henson. So why is The Best of Enemies such a slog?

With hero flicks getting as weighty and self-important as “The Handmaid’s Tale,” it’s a relief to watch one let its hair down. These gloomy films could use more exclamation points.

The film manages to be both hopeful and devastating — and recommended viewing for anyone who subscribes to the facile notion that abused women should “just leave.”

Those flight sequences — first suspenseful, then euphoric — take you back to the classic “Dumbo” as much as they do to classic Burton.

Meet Moondog — a movie character you’ll want to punch in the face.

The races of Trading Paint, however, are as exciting as a Ford Taurus trying to parallel park.

Us is more expansive and messier, a Rorschach blot of a movie, riffing on primal fears and a raft of ’80s references. Is it a pointed cultural take or just a gleeful scare-fest? It depends on what you choose to take from it.

It’s Schoenaerts, one of this generation’s finest actors, who makes The Mustang a moving look at human potential for redemption and rehabilitation.

The movie is smartly paced, and Sprouse (“Riverdale”) and Richardson make for one of the more adorable pairs in recent films. You not only want what’s best for them, but believe it can actually happen.

The drama is a crude blend of history and pulpy romance, with maudlin performances from the two leads.

If Wonder Park were a carnival attraction, it would be the merry-go-round. The animated movie has animals, relentless positivity and the most predictable journey ever. You must be no more than 4 feet tall to ride this one.

Salma Hayek, as their vengeful ex-boss Eva Torres, is fun to watch as she plots to outwit them time and again, but ultimately, there’s no one here to really care about.

There are some zippy chase scenes and shootouts, and tension throughout. But the characters — especially the lethargic Affleck — make for more of a C-Team than an A-Team.

Panahi, who defied a filmmaking ban from the Iranian government to make this, is a director always worth supporting.

There isn’t a moment of I’m Not Here that didn’t have me fervently wishing I wasn’t here.

Sebastián Lelio’s remake of his 2013 Chilean movie “Gloria” is, indeed, a glorious celebration of Julianne Moore at her peak.

What’s said to be Marvel’s most powerful superhero ever is served Melatonin by Larson. There is precious little texture or detail, ups and downs, or emotions of any kind in her performance. The character, even when kicking ass, is a total bore. Such as it is, the film’s best moments are provided by Jackson and a hilarious cat.

Both boys are good, and Kyle MacLachlan gives a tender turn as Franky’s gay dad. But the sheer amount of issues shoved in here is overpowering.

Moretz, meanwhile, acts like Little Red Riding Hood talking to her conspicuously hairy grandma — impossibly naive, and therefore dull and unbelievable. She’s a solid actress, but she shines best in indies or in parts with real edge. Greta is a camp-fest.

There are two things that make the flawed Mapplethorpe worth a watch: Matt Smith’s dedicated performance, and a reverent inclusion of so much of the artist’s work.

Apollo 11 is foremost a tale of technology and humanity. It’s about a country that needed a figurative lift, and got it with a literal one.

There’s also a broader commentary here on the treatment of women, both in arranged marriage and in testosterone-heavy thrillers. Apte’s character stays largely an enigma throughout, but her palpable frustration with the men and culture around her — plus the chance to vicariously visit Goa, that jewel of an Indian seaside getaway — makes The Wedding Guest worth an RSVP.

Although the film is about Paige’s unlikely rise to TV stardom, what grabs us most is the eclectic Knight family running a scrappy professional wrestling gym on a shoestring. It might be the biggest missed reality-TV show opportunity ever.

If you’re looking for a poverty-porn fix, Donnybrook ought to hit the spot. If not, you’ll likely find this a pointless exercise in gratuitous violence that imagines itself deep because it’s got an opera-heavy score.

By the end of this derivative, heartless mess, you’ll conclude that a garbage dump is exactly where writer-producer James Cameron’s new project belongs.

Instead of smarts, we get farts. The movie is packed with gross body and sex humor, reductive characters (the gay assistant, the boss who should be fired) and delusions of insight. And Henson’s likable performance is so overblown, it could be sponsored by Red Bull.

Cold Pursuit is stark and refreshing, like taking an icy swim with the Polar Bear Club. A jolt. The movie makes you want him to stay around for a while longer.

The movie is hysterical, and at just under 90 minutes, the gag never wears thin.

It’s almost impossible to resist The Lego Movie 2 for its continued everything-is-awesomeness, even if it does fall back on the trope of playthings terrified of being relegated to the storage bin.

Do not see this movie if you like children, dogs, hands or Hungarian folk music. The Prodigy, the latest in a long, increasingly lousy line of bloodthirsty kid movies, might spoil all of the above for you.

Cohen, so good in 2015’s “Brooklyn,” is chilling as the shark-eyed Varg (who has been linked to hate crimes in France in recent years), and Culkin brings just the right amount of eye-twitch to Aarseth, who seemingly enjoyed making grandiose proclamations of “evil” and donning corpse makeup rather than actual criminal activity — yet did little to stop out-of-control followers.

Overall, Miss Bala is a misfire — but its leading lady is No. 1 with a bullet. And that’s a beautiful sight to see.

Writer-director Steven Knight mixes a tried-and-true James M. Cain formula with a clever digital gimmick worthy of Christopher Nolan, but some of his dialogue is overripe to the point of rot.

Cornish, who hasn’t directed a film since the excellent 2011 teens-versus-aliens movie “Attack the Block,” has created a movie with the goofy charm of 1980s kids adventure flicks, such as “The Goonies” or “The NeverEnding Story.” It’s gentle — and almost completely bloodless.

The film tries to be clever by going meta: Once again, it’s rooted in Mr. Glass’ conviction that superheroes are real, and it repeatedly name-checks comic-book tropes that are reflected, languidly, in the movie’s own plot. But in the end, all it really reveals is a onetime visionary’s glass now half — no, let’s go with mostly — empty.

It’s a quiet, slow burn but one that stays with you.