This one is no scarier than running out of ink in the middle of a midterm exam.

Enola Holmes isn’t a revolution or revelation that is going to forever alter the course of cinema, but it is enough of a charming and cheerful change to give Netflix a new franchise.

A Quiet Place: Day One is a surprisingly tender and moving film that uses the franchise’s alien apocalypse to tell its own, very different story.

No Time to Die may not be the worst James Bond movie ever made, but it’s in heavy competition as the dullest one since Octopussy.

The kids make stunning debuts, but their accents are thicker than porridge, rendering a good 90 percent of the dialogue so unintelligible that it might as well be in Swahili. Some subtitles are provided out of necessity, but not enough.

Another eccentric example of style over content, The Double stars creepy Jesse Eisenberg in two roles, when one is always more than enough.

The beating heart of the film, this performance is further evidence of what a gift Foxx’s late career shift to supporting parts has been for filmgoers.

I think you’ll find it as fresh, original and breathlessly exciting as I did.

It’s not quite enough to completely undercut what had been an engrossing and well crafted chamber play of a movie, but it does leave you with the profound sense that all of these characters, the angels and the devils, deserve better.

See it and prepare to be stunned and exhausted at the same time.

The director’s vision is so dark — and Mr. Crowe’s grumbling, sour-stomach persona so much like a Tums commercial — that you don’t care much what happens to him or his ark, which looks like a big barge with a stove pipe in the middle.

Crimes of the Future is a load of crap. I would like to find a more civil way to describe even a sick and depraved barf bag of a movie like this one, but it defeats every reasonable attempt to try.

A free-wheeling ride through the best of the actor’s filmography.

Beautifully acted, sensitively written, carefully and economically directed, American Woman is the best film about the gradual but triumphant empowerment of an abused woman I have seen in this age of distaff political enlightenment.

The perfect actor with the perfect part at an ideal moment in his career, Domingo doesn’t simply embody Rustin, he liberates him.

The unfolding action is never farcical enough to make the film satirical or outright funny, but it’s also never imbued with enough historical gravity to truly matter.

Watching Avatar: The Way of Water is like binging a season of television all at once, not because you don’t want to stop, but because you know that if you do stop you’ll never pick it back up again.

This one is too close for comfort to "The Road" to inspire much fresh or original thinking.

The juxtaposition of tone, theme and content in the narratives fails beyond the basic ideas. This leaves the capable Gyllenhaal to do little more than scream and rant hysterically.

Halloween addicts just want more — and so do I. Unfortunately, this one doesn’t deliver the goods with any new ideas or fresh suspense. It just lays there, like leftover pumpkin.

The writing (by Todd Stephens) and direction (by David Moreton) are untidy, but the film gets along on its own sweetness and sincerity before everyone removes the masks and realizes it's O.K. to be who and what you are in life. [10 May 1999]

Haywire makes no sense whatsoever, which should come as no surprise. It's the latest brainless exercise in self-indulgence from Steven Soderbergh, whose films rarely make any sense anyway.

Although it’s a sick and depraved menu, director Mimi Cave’s direction, for the most part, strives to be different—and succeeds.

Whether you are already familiar with both or you just got to know about Sparks thanks to Edgar Wright’s The Sparks Brothers documentary, Annette is everything you’d imagine from a collaboration between Sparks and Carax, for better and worse. This is a film that is as overindulgent as it is earnest, but flaws and all, it is worth the wait.

Several aspects of this sad, grim story remain a mystery, but I am pleased to report that for the most part, Chappaquiddick catalogues the facts and eschews the sensationalism. The result is a film of integrity and disclosure, a controversial chapter in American history that substitutes clinical accuracy for Hollywood embellishment, with an impressive attention to detail and an admirable respect for suspenseful narrative.

Playing the cello is such a pleasant change of pace that he (Walken) eventually grows on you, scene by scene, proving for the first time since his role as Leonardo DiCaprio's troubled father 10 years ago in "Catch Me If You Can," that he really can act. He - along with the rest of the elegant cast - keeps A Late Quartet in tune when it threatens to go flat.

Instead, we just sort of soak in the despondency, like lukewarm water in a half-filled hot tub. While sometimes touching, the results of this noble experiment lack dynamism. Eventually whatever is fresh about the approach is undercut by a familiar will-the-man-child-finally-grow-up trope that has made some of Apatow’s lesser films feel insular and self-indulgent.

Sovereign is an ambitious, above-average action thriller with the extra bonus of being a thought-provoking civics lesson.

A cynical, polished and deeply disturbing look at the kind of camera-ready liberal dreamboy who gets elected in 60-second sound bites, it is one of the most important films of the year.

It roars and ignites and hits the ground running.

A structurally messy but emotionally effective coming of age movie that gets a lot of it right. High school is an ordeal only the fittest can survive.

Don’t miss Tom at the Farm, the latest controversy in the oeuvre of acclaimed French-Canadian actor-writer-director Xavier Dolan, who has been labeled the “enfant terrible of queer cinema.”

The movie is so clueless and time-warped it could be comprised of outtakes from "Father Knows Best."

While Marvel metastasizes as a movie brand, the irreverent Guardians of the Galaxy franchise has become a healthy off-shoot. There’s something loose-limbed and unexpected about this series.

Flawed but bittersweet and enjoyable, this film may be the final chapter in a colorful and illustrious life.

What emerges is time pleasantly spent with a slice of life that examines a romantic détente between two cultures. Like smoke from an Egyptian hookah, the melancholia lingers.

One can easily imagine a version of this film that is a two-hour eulogy, not just for Chadwick Boseman but for the film that Ryan Coogler had intended to make with him. Instead, it’s both an affirmation of his legacy and an assurance that, though it might be difficult, life will go on without him.

The movie piles on one damned thing after another, often turning a truly original life story into a Rabelaisian soap opera replete with powdered wigs and violin concertos.

Fitting In, which was inspired by McGlynn’s own experience with MRKH, is a sweet coming-of-age story that doesn’t sugarcoat the complicated nature of Lindy’s struggles. It examines preconceptions of gender and sex with frank warmth, and Ziegler’s considered performance is open-minded and unafraid, especially when scenes call for her to confront her sexual shortcomings.

The latest calcified bore by Sofia Coppola is less pretentious than "Marie Antoinette" but every bit as inertly stupefying as "Lost in Translation."

For fans of the first film, it’s more of the same, and for any casual horror viewers who are up for a funhouse thrill this October, it’ll do the trick.

Every generation gets a new one, and this time, replete with computer graphics and singing mice, Kenneth Branagh has created a live-action fairy tale that pulls out every stop and spares no expense.

I found the whole thing pokey and plodding, but there’s no denying the fact that even when sitting through Mr. Holmes seems numbing, Mr. McKellen is a force so powerful he’s his own reward.

The script is breezy, but neither of the two leads have the heft or charm to carry an entire feature-length film - separately or together.

Mr. Arestrup gives a full-bodied performance as the film’s most intriguing character, who blurs the line between senile irascibility and out and out malice.

Sensitive performances, mature and self-assured direction, and understated writing make Keith Behrman’s Giant Little Ones an emotionally involving, above-average coming-of-age story with a profound impact and mercifully few clichés.

It's uneven, but its optimistic message-lost causes can find strength through friendship and bonding-is contagious.

Remakes are odious, but Speak No Evil, while thoroughly unneeded and unasked for, is an Americanized remake of a 2022 thriller from Denmark that services its original material well, thanks mostly to a sprawling, contradictory and totally galvanizing centerpiece performance by James McAvoy.

Despite its protagonist, voiced by British actor Stephen Fry, the film feels oddly disjointed, as if there’s not enough story to sustain 90 minutes of beautifully-made stop-motion and hand-drawn animation.

Bring plenty of Kleenex. A nickel pack won’t do.

Kaluuya, who grew up on a council estate in Camden, clearly has a personal stake in The Kitchen. The actor has previously written short films, but this marks a solid debut feature for him that is stronger for its adept comment on the British class system.

This is a movie that’s back-loaded to the extreme: all of its action takes place in the last 20 minutes. Not that Leigh would ever be confused with Tarantino, but it would have been considerably more engaging to have started with the main event and moved backwards to how we got there.

Another truthful, intelligently calibrated and fully committed performance by the remarkable Lucas Hedges following this year’s previously acclaimed "Boy Erased" rewards the sensitive, pulsating and intimate family drama Ben Is Back.

It shouldn’t happen to a dog — or to an audience of dog lovers.

A saucy, twinkling star performance by Michael Keaton make this one of the must-see entertainments of the year.

It is a visually enthralling, high-gloss commercial for state power and repressive constructs. This is a product precisely tooled to be what the global marketplace demands of entertainment that is this expensive to make—a win for capitalism that will leave many filmgoers who found a powerful reflection of themselves in the original film feeling like they’ve lost something important and essential.

Sensitively directed by Francis Ford Coppola’s granddaughter, Gia Coppola, it’s a film about a familiar subject, but with a heart as big as the Vegas strip and a style of its own that holds interest from start to finish.

This film is too long for a documentary, and only a true Sidney Lumet fan is likely to sit through nearly two hours of it undistracted. Still, it’s a fascinating exploration of how a great mind worked by allowing the quality of his scripts to determine the style of each film—including not only the inner life but the camera, the clothes, the entire visual approach.

Writer-director Nicholas Tomnay knows how to make maximum use of plot twists that keep an audience on its toes, and Nick Stahl is a skillful master of how to move the gore with exactly the right pace to exude charm in spite of his character’s ongoing toxicity.

The result is a twitching convulsion of vicious drivel passing itself off as a movie, which can be best appreciated by the kind of people who dig "Showgirls," the "Saw" franchise and Spike Jonze-Charlie Kaufman flicks.

Holy Spider, a grungy Persian noir from Tehran-born and Copenhagen-based filmmaker Ali Abbasi, celebrates the humanity of that killer’s victims, and of Iranian women in general. It also shines a harsh and unforgiving light on a patriarchal society that refuses to do the same.

The actors are so exemplary that it is difficult to imagine this is not a documentary. They might not be household names, but they will be.

Causeway is a disappointment, but the thing you take home is Jennifer Lawrence’s nuanced performance as she shows every shifting emotion and contrast in the life of a woman soldier searching for definition who doesn’t feel at ease in either world—war or peace.

At its core, the drama is a character study. It gradually reveals the impact these two contrasting characters have on each other, excavating the past to unlock the repressed Claire and reveal hidden depths below the flamboyant Beatrice’s surface.

Carefully directed and gorgeous to look at, with haunting performances and maximum suspense.

It’s anyone’s guess whether the amazing Mr. Redmayne’s most prestigious performance will go down in the archives as Stephen Hawking in "The Theory of Everything" or as the tortured, androgynous woman trapped in a man’s body in The Danish Girl. But it’s a sure thing that he’ll be nominated for another Oscar.

He (Gordon-Levitt) can act, and there’s a possibility he can also direct, but there’s no evidence in Don Jon that he can do both at the same time.

Despite an avalanche of misguided raves, Renée Zellweger as the greatest entertainer of the 20th century in a film called simply Judy is nothing more than another gimmick. You won’t get the real deal here, no matter which gushing hysteric you read.

The film is charming and warm-hearted, much like Paddington and its sequel, and the onscreen delight is infectious.

Mr. Redford doesn’t look like Dan Rather, but displays the same dedication to — and respect for — journalism that he brought to the role of Bob Woodward in "All the President’s Men."

It’s not perfect, but when it works, Byzantium towers above all of the romantic vampire slobber we’ve been getting lately. I fear that Dracula is watching from some moldy crypt somewhere, nodding approval.

We know about Anne Frank's diary and Paul Verhoeven's masterpiece "Black Book," but director Martin Koolhoven has shed new light on what happened in Holland with a powerful and touching film.

As scripted, documentary-style fact-based dramas go, it doesn’t get much better than this.

The One I Love, Charlie McDowell’s debut feature, can’t decide what kind of film it wants to be. Atonal and aimless, it zigzags clumsily from mood to mood, without any clear direction.

With enough terror to satisfy modern audiences and enough underplayed plot movement to save it from conventional biopic trajectory, Harriet holds interest and invites respect. It is still not the great Civil War epic it could have been, but it’s solid enough to work, and Cynthia Erivo’s valiant and committed performance is a wonderful achievement.

Kingdom provides a rock-solid foundation for a new series of Apes films, leaving the titular planet with its most interesting status quo to date.

Neither another bland biopic about a self-destructive artist nor an historical scrapbook about a country in the grip of slavery, Black Butterflies is a dark, moving depiction of the life and death of a brave rebellious, idiosyncratic woman who made significant strides toward changing the world around her and paid a heavy toll for her passion.

The plot may be formulaic, but there’s nothing predictable about Ben Affleck’s commitment to the role of Jack, or the subtlety and sincerity with which he plays it.

I guess it claims to demonstrate how repetitive and routine the lives of professional assassins can be (yawn), but in my opinion, movies about them have an obligation to be juicier and more consistently fascinating than American Star.

The intelligent script provides rare insight into character development and the meticulously layered performance by Macdonald give the film a credence and balance that touches the heart.

The movie is full of joyous, unexpected things to applaud.

I think everything about the movie is too subtle and real to appeal to the "Batman" demographic, but for mature audiences who have forgotten how to smile, it takes up where "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' left off.

The theme is nothing new, and the film has no shortage of clumsy biopic clichés, but sometimes we need to see the simplicity of humanity at its best. On that score, this movie delivers in spades.

Depraved, delirious, and downright stupid, Last Night in Soho is two hours of amateurish drivel by B-movie director Edgar Wright (Baby Driver, Shaun of the Dead) that pretends to be half-retro Swingin’ Sixties comedy and half-horror thriller.

The effect is genuinely creepy, but do not even think of seeing Buried if you suffer from claustrophobia.

Leave it to screenwriter Alice Birch—who has brought Normal People and The Wonder to the screen, among her other credits—to adapt Hunter’s delicate brush strokes into a fully-realized painting that leaves an emotional and philosophical impact.

From Ireland, Mr. Malcolm’s List is a lavishly photographed romantic period piece with a cast of enchanting unknowns that attempts to be a colorblind Jane Austen social satire. Its failure is nevertheless lovely to look at and worthy of attention.

The heart of the film derives from the fact that the more they all get to know each other, the more they all mature and their differences blend. The title comes from a lesson in Huckleberry Finn—that a lie is good if it helps others, the way Huck lied to save Jim from the slave traders.

Best of all, I applaud the director's triumph of intimate terror over preposterous puppets and noisy computer-generated effects. In The Bay, the mayhem is both fresh and thrilling.

They came in fleeting glances, befuddled smiles and odd-timed pauses that the iconic pair share with each other before the movie shuffles them from one frenzied and inconsequential story beat to the next. In such stolen moments, you sense the depth of a friendship so profoundly felt and so deeply comforting that you think to yourself, I would follow these guys anywhere.

Hack director Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) is lucky to engage Cruise’s box-office appeal for a tale that otherwise would never have seen the light of day.

The best thing about Last Flag Flying is that Ethan Hawke is not in it. Otherwise, it’s business as usual, and the business is excruciating to get through.

Helen Hunt is a good actress with an Oscar on her mantle and practically no ability to choose a decent movie script based on quality or entertainment value. She’s been absent from the screen far too long, so it’s a pleasure to welcome her back, but not in a labored, amateurish charade as bad as I See You.

While Vengeance doesn’t always rise to the level of its ambitions, it is admirable to see Novak spit acid towards the privilege systems that make careers like his possible...But by repeating the same reductive and representational mistakes of the media it so pointedly criticizes, Novak’s film unwittingly becomes yet another part of the problem.

A sweet, honest, well-acted and carefully constructed little film that truly lives up to its title.

It’s a true story so strange it makes you wonder what other untold chapters of World War remain.

It's when the music stops that we run into problems. For starters, there are so many questions left unanswered.

What an extraordinary thrill to leave a movie exhilarated instead of drained, sated instead of empty, rejuvenated instead of depressed. It's a magical experience.