Written and directed by first-time Danish director, Gabriel Bier Gislason (the son of Susanne Bier), it’s a moody low-key psychological affair, free of schlock and gore, and ultimately, more of a romance than a scare fest.

Sweetheart, a coming-of-age first feature from Marley Morrison, has a cozy familiarity to it.

The result is a quiet film that doesn’t push an agenda, doesn’t rush, doesn’t trade on sensationalized emotion, but leaves us space to engage with wonderful characters. There’s a feeling of intimacy and sense of connection, open-heartedness and good will that stays long after the movie ends.

Knock at the Cabin doesn’t send you home with a clever epiphany that has you rethinking everything you just saw. What he gives you is an ending that you never have to think about again. And a film to match.

You could think of it as a 98-minute ad for the Super Bowl, opening as it is a week before this year’s edition. These words do not sound like the description of the GOAT of movies. And 80 for Brady is not that.

Far from being mysterious and confounding, it rings utterly true as it captures both the beauty and fragility of young boys’ friendships, amid the storm of growth and social pressure.

This is arthouse vacation horror. As such, Infinity Pool scrapes closer to Spring Breakers than Hostel. But it's also science-fiction, and it's the science fiction that moves the horror beyond shock.

There’s more depth than meets the eye, and When You Finish Saving The World manages to be sweet and yet not sentimental, and with much to contemplate after the movie ends.

Ultimately, Shotgun Wedding seems like something from a different time, a time-waster full of tropes that exists to only to fill time with the odd boom and an occasional chuckle – and falls short of even that.

What we get is quite fabulous: a wide-ranging gem of a documentary, an utter delight that ends up being, in some ways, a life and times look at both men.

If Everything, Everywhere All at Once causes concern about the direction cinema is heading—all flash and edits and quirky perspectives — then Missing might leave some hyperventilating. But if you can afford the paper bag needed to keep your breathing under control, then you’ll likely find plenty to enjoy in this Google-approved thriller.

Writer-director Florian Zeller is aiming to go deeper here, and brings a lot of emotional and psychological complexity to the story. The film has depth and sincerity. Despite that and the excellent work of its cast —led by Hugh Jackman in a fine performance — the film stalls and falters midway through.

Nighy performs a considerable character arc with only the smallest of emotional reveals, as if tentatively exercising unused muscles of humanity and even joy.

Like the paradox of Schrodinger’s Cat, it’s probably best not to watch The Tomorrow Job. That way, it can both be entertaining and not.

The main takeaway here is that online abuse is not simply the ravings of twisted individuals, but often part of systematic campaigns of terror, designed to frighten and silence women in positions of influence and power.

It’s a stripped-down French legal drama, with a carefully controlled, expanding emotional impact, touching on matters of motherhood, gender, immigration and race.

The parade of post-punk artists and artistic legends is entertaining for anybody who’s ever followed that era’s art scene.

Door Mouse isn’t exactly noir for the ages, and it has story problems. But it moves, and as played by Law, Mouse is a dead-pan heroine I’d like to see again, backed by a bigger-budget.

Ernaux’s precise and thoughtful commentary connects the images to memories, discovering yet another harvest from the well-cultivated field of her autobiography.

Plane is a mild diversion that carries more baggage than necessary, a forgettable thriller pieced together from a collage of other films and ideas.

The film chronicles suicide in a surprisingly forthright and unflinching way, and it takes an unexpectedly long time to reach its foregone conclusion. Still, Otto’s sweet, sentimental tone is not unwelcomed in the depths of a winter dogged by troublesome headlines on all fronts.

Johnstone knows his way around dark comedy, and camouflages much of the film's humour in whimsical, sometimes uneasy, encounters between M3GAN and Cady. But in directing the film's most comedic characters — an overtly judgmental childcare worker, a nosy neighbour (Lori Dungey) with an unruly dog, and a schoolyard bully—he sets a tone that feels incompatible with the rest of the characters.

Although [McCartney] uses her personal connection to the studio as the premise, If These Walls Could Sing ends up being a worthy history of a building that, for more than 90 years, has seen and withstood changes in music and technology, and still retains the magic that came from what the Beatles accomplished there.

Narratively, the film’s last two thirds feel somewhat scattered, or perhaps “shattered” is a better word to reflect the catastrophe at the center of the story. The key to holding these fragments together, and avoiding making the movie’s grim turn unbearable, is the deeply fascinating performance of Vicky Krieps as Clarisse.

Christian Bale leads a fantastic cast in The Pale Blue Eye, a twisty atmospheric detective yarn with supernatural overtones and, for those who enjoy such things, an actual historical touchstone.

Director Halpern has described her film as a cautionary tale about the pursuit of excellence. And if Love, Charlie isn’t really that, it’s still a lively character study. What’s most interesting here is the glimpses of insight into Trotter’s unusual mind.

A mixture of social realism, melodrama, and road comedy, the two-hour-plus Broker isn’t Kore-eda’s best work. But it’s redeemed by the filmmaker’s signature deep empathy for his lonely characters.

Despite lacking the visual scope and timeline of Polley's earlier works like Take This Waltz, Away From Her, and Stories We Tell, Women Talking is her most accomplished film to date: An intimate portrayal of a group of people driven to the brink of rebellion lest they concede to defeat.

Better and more candid than anticipated yet still weirdly underwhelming, big-budget Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody achieves the filmmakers’ stated goal of shining a light squarely on the late American singer’s towering talent without camouflaging her also-towering struggles.

Ambitious in the sweep of history that it chronicles, it’s a sometimes entertaining, often sordid movie about movies in the earliest Hollywood era. At a running length of just over three hours, it both makes its point, and overstays its welcome.

At times, No Bears can come across as frustratingly convoluted, but Panahi is an artful filmmaker, who surprises us by breaking the rhythms of the film with disruptions, confrontations, and plot twists.

Despite what redemption there ultimately is, The Whale is a feel-bad movie. But in a movie marketplace saturated with homogeneity, at least it inspires you to feel something.

While The Way of Water could have easily lost an hour from its three-hour-plus running time, it would have been a shame to lose its most magic moments, the stuff that makes it different.

Despite the talent of the voice actors and the success of the previous franchise films, this fails to attract the attention that I think it deserves because it’s a shortcut.

A slave-on-the-run movie that uses every bit of its star’s modest acting ability and ticks all the award boxes, Antoine Fuqua’s Emancipation would be a shoo-in in a world where Smith was not banned from the Oscars for 10 years.

In terms of its setting and plot, The Eternal Daughter is quite spare. But what Hogg and Swinton patiently coax out of it is affecting.

It’s possible to leave the theatre unaffected only to look back at Empire of Light with affection. And it’s the movie’s ability to linger unnoticed until surfacing with a revised and unexpected understanding that is at the heart of movie magic.

There is plenty of opportunity to embrace the film for its wanton display of Christmas gone wild and a bleak reminder that despite charity being its own reward, the reward is not always worth the effort.

Ultimately, Spoiler Alert is earnest, emotional, good-hearted and edgeless.

Ignore the nay-sleighers. Violent Night is the counter-Christmas B-movie that ditches the ho-ho-wholesomeness of the season for a damn good, bad Santa.

The ideas are there. You can see why Baumbach would take this on. In the end, what we’re left feels like more of a sincere and heartfelt attempt than a successful movie.

Both complex and rawly immediate, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, Laura Poitras’s film about the 69-year-old photographic artist and activist Nan Goldin, is a great documentary and maybe the most essential film of the year.

Without having spent enough time to establish the background of the characters and their conflicted motives, Hunt leaves us bystanders to the mayhem.

Please Baby Please has one thing going for it: A chance to watch gifted actors do some daredevil freestyling. In moments, it’s almost enough.

There are too many cute influences, too many perfect musical numbers and even the physical rendering of the characters themselves belie the gritty human struggle that has remained at the core of this story for this to render the true story of Ebenezer Scrooge.

What draws us in is the inventive and luminous cinematography from Michal Dymek (with additional footage by Pawel Edelman and Michal Englert), using drone shots, fish-eye lenses and red and blue filters. Accompanied by an unsettling electronic score, the donkey-in-a-disco effect is trippy, a hallucinogenic projection of what it might be like to live in an animal’s consciousness, including its dreams and flashbacks.

The movie feels like a novel with well-developed characters weaved through the story without feeling like segmented excerpts from a more extensive work. The film's love story is made more palatable by casting two beautiful people as the leads. And Kajganich's script finds all the right words and tone to tell the story.

The documentary, Goodnight Oppy, is the sort of film you expect to see at your local museum or science center for school-age children. It’s a real-life Wall-E story, that’s easy to follow, full of emotion and Hollywood budget, and intended to elicit wonder and admiration for the National Aeronautics and Space Association.

Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, which won the coveted People’s Choice award at the most recent Toronto International Film Festival, is a warm and easygoing family drama and coming-of-age story based on the director’s life. But you’re out of luck if you’re looking for deep insights into how a boy seized by movies, grew up to be one of the most successful directors in Hollywood.

Is Glass Onion fun? Yes, it is. It's a lot of fun. More fun and more comedic than its predecessor. The twists resonate stronger than the original and are not as easy to see coming. Plus, the reveals (of which there are a few) resonate with the satisfaction of a game well played.

Director Sarin plays around a little with the candy-coloured palette, with lots of quick snapshots and backdrops (shot in Montreal and Mexico), giving the film a sort of photoplay episodic structure. But there’s little dramatic build-up.

It’s high minded stuff, but Iñárritu, has a knack for wrapping these ideas in movies that are well crafted and exciting to watch.

Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams is a study of a man who found his passion early in life and lived it with commitment.

She Said is about cracking the code of silence, and the flood that follows when it breaks.

Much like the nature of the park which Mickey calls home, the film is a glossed-over and superficial history.

Once again, [Pugh] brings a determined energy to her performance that almost compensates for the often unpersuasive, sometimes stilted, film built around her.

The Menu is the most entertaining ensemble film since Knives Out, and the most engaging horror-satire since Get Out. But no matter what comparisons and assumptions are made, The Menu will not be the movie you expect.

Wakanda Forever is far from a failure, except that where there should be excellence, there is a middling feeling of watching something spectacularly competent.

Deeper, darker, mordant, with a definite horror movie vibe, it is what you might expect from del Toro, a filmmaker who gave us Pan’s Labyrinth – essentially a dark fairy-tale wrapped in real-world fascism, as this is as well.

So, points for shoe-string filmmaking on several fronts. But however open-minded one might try to be, it’s hard to imagine how high, or how low, you’d have to be to recognize human beings in this grungy geek fantasy.

In its rambling pace, Causeway at times is reminiscent of Winter’s Bone, the 2010 movie that introduced Lawrence to film fans, and may still be her finest performance. In Causeway, the doctors aren’t the only ones wondering what’s going on inside her head. The audience does too, and she reveals it as slowly as she needs to.

The somewhat awkwardly titled documentary, The Return of Tanya Tucker: Featuring Brandi Carlile, turns out to be an accurate summary of a film that celebrates two women.

This is a thoughtful movie. Gray isn’t sending us out of the theatre with neatly tied-up threads. Instead the movie reflects on a time and place in history, one that should be in the rear-view mirror, but with issues and questions that are sadly still relevant.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is a platform for comedy as a burlesque of drama, with enough winks, pop references and silliness to keep the premise going. Funny stuff.

There’s a list of pros and cons for this stop-motion animation collaboration between Jordan Peele and Henry Selick that merit the attention it got at TIFF this past September. But sadly, Wendell & Wild is just not wild enough.

There is plenty wrong with Prey for the Devil, but despite cringy moments of profound seriousness around a rather silly conceit, I was on board. It’s been decades since an exorcism film left me feeling unsettled. Prey for the Devil’s tactics might be cheap, but they worked on me.

Most of the participants who knew Armstrong are dead and there’s something melancholy about realizing that the human being behind that voice is silent. What remains is a quality that Marsalis identifies as essential in Armstrong’s music, a gift which he was fully conscious of, conveying a “transcendent joy” through sound.

The film loses momentum as it settles into movie-of-the-week familiarity, detailing the activities of the Jane collective, some of which seem hardly credible, though historically accurate.

The Irish have struggled to find peace on a road historically paved with war. The little village in The Banshees of Inisherin seems a microcosm of the complexity of maintaining that peace, even among ostensible friends.

If Decision to Leave is indeed intended as an homage to a genre, mission accomplished.

Without being explicit, and by leaving the details up to us to intuit, Wells has given us a film that has a tonal delicacy yet a deep emotional core. It’s a beautiful debut film.

For a movie that’s supposed to take D.C. in a new direction, Black Adam sure seems like something we’ve seen plenty of times before.

So, Ticket to Paradise… see or skip? Easy. See as there’s lots to enjoy. Bouttier as the wise-beyond-his-years Gede is absolutely rubberneck-worthy, the scenery and backdrops are gorgeous if out of reach for most of us, and the film crackles with energy. But you’ll be watching movie stars at work, and you’ll never forget it.

Bolstered by superb performances by two Oscar-winning actors, director Tobias Lindholm’s The Good Nurse is a subdued, elegantly made true crime film about how a heinous crime spree was brought to an end.

Rosaline is a delight from start to finish, a brisk, bright-eyed, and inventive romantic comedy with constituent parts that probably shouldn’t work this well together but do.

Know from the start: Halloween Ends has some of the best kills in the franchise.

Brainy, talkative, full of ideas and questions about contemporary culture and human nature, writer-director Todd Field’s Tár is a character study of a talented, flawed character. It’s also a comment on cancel culture though it could be the other way around: a film about cancel culture wrapped around a complicated character.

Billed misleadingly as a “romantic thriller,” the film is neither romantic nor especially thrilling. The characters are enigmatic to the point of superficiality, the relationships largely transactional, and the action toggles between languid and frazzled over two-and-a-quarter-hours. But with some reflective distance, away from the snap judgment of festivals, Stars at Noon proves a pretty interesting film, if a sometimes confusing one.

All Quiet on the Western Front exists to make the viewer uncomfortable – infinitely preferable to what the characters endure.

Those living in Birdy’s fictional universe see her as an irascible (albeit endearing) nuisance, but in movie language, Birdy is a feminist out of time, and time is the device Dunham tinkers with most. Dunham faithfully recreates the era and then infuses it with an alt-mix soundtrack, presumably as a way of drawing the politics of then into the politics of now.

It’s a fantastic mix of the funny, the astute, the disturbing and the brainy in the very specific style of Östlund. It’s a pleasure to watch it play out.

Blind Ambition doesn’t rewrite any rules about documentary filmmaking, and it stumbles into the hokey at the very end. But if one subscribes to the adage that the story is the thing, then it’s hard to beat.

Amsterdam is full of quips, cocked heads, characters peeking around doorway frames, and a cast of single-purpose characters. It’s a rapid-fire onslaught of scenes, dialogue, and characters. Russell fans will cling to the belief that there is something at the end of this mess; others will likely give up early on.

Anchored by a superb performance by Emily Watson, God’s Creatures is a small, quiet film that packs a surprising punch.

Sosa, who shared cinematography duties with two other women, Judy Phu and Monica Wise, depicts a world of humble beauty, of sunrises and dogs and chickens and weed-strewn lots. With a measured pacing (the film was edited by co-writer Isidore Bethel), she has created a film that is more like an elegy than a simple chronicle of events.

Smile, the debut feature from director Parker Finn, twists the expectations of a common pleasantry into something grotesque. It's creepy but not new.

A rom-com it is. A typical rom-com it isn’t.

Walter Hill’s new film Dead for a Dollar is in some ways your grandpa’s Western, a big-sky drama full of horses, hats, guns, hairpin plot turns and an ensemble of colourfully drawn characters.

The Justice of Bunny King, which follows the story of a woman at odds with the system, is a showcase for the superb Australian actress Essie Davis.

This dull recreation of the animated film doesn’t strive for anything more than what was contained in the original version of this film and actually delivers less.

Though the emotional appeal of this story of resistance to brutal repression is genuinely moving, the documentary has limitations in both style and content.

Ana de Armas is magnificent as Norma Jean, her every expression and movement embodying the late star and suggesting countless hours of research and rehearsal. But the movie surrounding this possibly career-best performance is an overheated dud save also some genuinely novel camera work, notably in a threesome scene where intertwined bodies melt into a rolling taffy wave.

Gossamer thin in the plotting but playful and gorgeous to look at, it’s a warm message of midlife liberation.

Legacies don’t come more dazzling. Sidney is a fitting tribute.

The performances are mostly entertaining, the scenery is rich, but it has flaws in the story that make it difficult to accept in some places. It’s also these flaws that allow the audience to figure out the plot a little prematurely.

At two hours of repetitive heists and costume changes, Bandit grows bloated and progressively tiresome.

If it’s not original ground, Don’t Worry Darling is a visually arresting mash-up of The Stepford Wives and Pleasantville, with its plot about an idyllic artificial ‘50s with pampered suburban housewives religiously dedicated to their husbands and their cocktails, and hints of the decade’s dark side.

Although it’s not a life-affirming or audience-flattering parable, the drama feels refreshingly raw and adult.