In a vacuum, without the headlines, Don’t Worry Darling is a thoroughly compelling watch that reveals a strong filmmaker in Wilde and genuine star in Pugh.

Her recent film Sharp Stick was classic Dunham, with a focus on sex and drama in a way that didn’t connect with all viewers. This one, intended for a family-friendly audience, connects far more broadly. It welcomes everyone, even those unfamiliar with the novel, into its delightful, funny world.

Director Gina Prince-Bythewood delivers a solid and entertaining action-infused drama, digestible, unpretentious, and totally comfortable with itself.

We may never completely know the answers to all of Cavett’s questions, but Morgen’s film shows definitively that the sound and vision Bowie left behind, when writ large and loud on the silver screen, makes for an otherworldly journey of beauty, mystery, and transformation.

Ultimately, Blonde mirrors our surface-level conception of Monroe herself: beautiful but vapid. Its flaws lie mostly within the storytelling rather than the filmmaking, and it’s not a boring watch by any means.

An equally dreamlike and urgent act of radical archiving, Sierra Pettengill’s Riotsville, USA traces the origin of America’s militarized dismantling of social justice movements to a specific time and place.

OK, it’s an action thriller with a maximum of preposterous set-ups, fraught with a minimum of actual thrills. Lamely directed by Baltasar Kormakur, every scene is built on cinder blocks of tension, but the riotous screenplay is so silly and one-dimensional you find yourself laughing in spite of yourself.

Ford isn’t interested in a slick, high-speed thriller, and the action in Emily the Criminal feels grounded in reality. Plaza, whose dramatic presence is as compelling as her comedic skill, imbues the character with genuine vulnerability alongside her grit.

It’s a startlingly intimate experience, carrying the viewer from Diana’s engagement to the Prince of Wales in 1981 to her death in 1997, and Perkins largely focuses on Diana’s reactions to various circumstances. It’s easy to see her unhappiness, even when she’s putting on a happy face.

The high-thrills onscreen version, which adheres relatively closely to reality, is taut, exciting and will send viewers to frantically search Wikipedia for the rest of the story.

Things really have to be precisely calibrated for comedy to work amidst all of this vicious violence—blood pours from eye sockets, gushes from neck arteries, and spouts from nearly decapitated heads—but no such luck. Instead, a talented ensemble of actors must stumble their way through chaotic tone shifts and declarations of irony that feel both uninspired and cruel.

The film, which is like Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None told through an Instagram filter, is hilariously and cleverly of the moment, embracing the digital age and the types of people it has generated, although it may alienate an older audience. But to those it does speak to, it’s a genuinely fun watch that plays on our expectations of the murder mystery genre.

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

Ali & Ava is a gentle, emotionally-charged drama that doesn’t placate the viewer with unrealistic ideas about love.

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.

With Nope, Peele aims to make viewers afraid of the sky the way Jaws made us scared of the ocean. Horror thrives when it twists the everyday into something ominous, and Nope may have you scanning the skies for suspiciously still clouds.

Nothing wrong with a movie in today’s troubled winter of discontent that exists solely for the purpose of creating joy and good will, and Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris spreads them around like butter.

Persuasion is a wistful novel, full of longing and regret; those feelings are onscreen here, even if they’re delivered in a more modern style.

It’s a movie that resonates, particularly for those who felt drawn in by Owens’ novel, although certainly there will be viewers who find it trite or melodramatic. But this is a strong, satisfying adaptation that welcomes the audience into the marsh alongside Kya.

While this may be yet another potentially disposable action movie, it’s still worth seeing on the big screen at full volume if you can. The action is big and the stars give it their all, even if the dialogue leaves something to be desired.

Is it all too cute? Almost, but not quite. Fire of Love is saved by the joy of film craft that pours forth both from the Kraffts and Dosa.

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.

Ultimately, Thor: Love and Thunder does what a good superhero movie should do: it entertains us.

The Forgiven is not a journey every viewer will want to make, but it’s a rewarding experience to watch Ralph Fiennes play the emotional subtexts of such a complicated role with such power and nuance.

Elvis Presley never dies, but an unequivocally gripping, emotionally effective and quintessential movie about him still begs to be made. Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis is not the one.

Cha Cha Real Smooth is a ceaselessly warm film, full of characters with whom it’s a pleasure to spend two hours.

In the end, Pixar has made essentially a gritty prison movie for kids disguised as a large sci-fi spectacle.

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.