A magic realist fantasy, a ghost story, a love story and political allegory, Atlantics packs a deceptive amount of complexity in a gauzy, slender film.

This is the sort of film that will divide audiences between those who will have their hearts torn out… and those who will want to tear out their hair.

What makes Marriage Story so profound and affecting is its tenderness. Although there are points where one character’s choices puts the other into serious difficulty, Baumbach doesn’t demonize Charlie or Nicole, and never ever asks us to judge either of them.

There are some very funny lines in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, much of it predicated on the outwardly ludicrous meeting of profound cynicism and hope. Lloyd’s character arc is well handled by Rhys (The Americans), and the denouement is one only a Scrooge could call humbug.

There’s a lot of dubious explaining in the last act, a sure sign that a movie hasn’t done a very good job explaining itself.

The film is gentle, subtle, patient and wholly authentic. What makes it essential is not only in its ability to create a drama that’s real, harrowing, haunting, and hopeful but in its ability to keep playing in our heart long after it’s over.

A preposterous mess of romance-with-secrets, generations-old closet skeletons and revenge, The Good Liar is the kind of fragrant dramatic cheese that Sidney Sheldon would have squeezed an ‘80s network mini-series out of. But the never-before-paired screen couple of Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren consume this cheese like so much scenery. There’s nothing like actors with gravitas slumming, all bemused smiles and droll delivery, even as the material descends clunkily into unintentional comedy.

It’s on the track where it finds traction. The events of the various races, reflected on the faces of characters whose lives revolve around the outcome, tell a story all by themselves.

The Cave may be the saddest, most infuriating chronicle of the ghastly ravages of war on a country’s most vulnerable citizens —children — ever made.

Synonyms free-wheeling episodic structure can grow a tad wearying, but Mercier’s aggressively kinetic performance and Lapid’s take-no-prisoners dismantling of the Israeli macho mystique — or French hypocritical superiority — are, in the best way, outrageous.

On the sliding scale of war movies, Emmerich’s Midway is obviously no prestige film like The Hurt Locker or Saving Private Ryan. It belongs more to the school of the original Midway, with Tora! Tora! Tora! as its exemplar. Tell the story of a battle, offer up some sketched-out characters, played with aplomb, add a dash of soap opera and fire when ready. On that scale, for what it’s worth, Midway is a much more solid piece of entertainment than the Pearl Harbor directed by Emmerich’s fellow master-of-disaster Michael Bay.

The result is a work stiff with pointed talk and chance encounters, little of which feels original. The acting, while variable, often has a stilted, recitative quality, as if the characters, rather than family members, recently met at a script readings.

This is some of De Niro’s most moving work in years. His performance full of anxious misfit energy, where his often-parodied grimaces, tics and haunted gaze feel entirely correct.

In some reality where it came without baggage – and where it didn’t have to be a bloated two-and-a-half hours to accommodate its relationship to a classic – Doctor Sleep could stand on its own as a decently stylish popcorn thriller.

At times, it feels more like an elevated made-for-television movie. In spite of this, the film is affecting and moving. The formidable British actress Cynthia Erivo does great work here. The script doesn’t give her much range, but Erivo gives us a woman whose determination and humanity shines, presenting a hero for her age… and ours.

A decent, fast-moving nod to the spirit that originally made the Terminator movies a permanent part of pop culture.

In evocative and understatedly emotional scenes, carried out with a mature grace by Banderas, we come to a connection of how we get where we are, and what holds us back from what we dream of becoming.

A work of sublime sweetness and beauty.

It’s bonkers and a hell of a film. And even better, with The Lighthouse, Eggers establishes that he’s more than a one trick pony. He’s a true original, auteur and clever filmmaker who isn’t interested in pandering.

A good script can sometimes be held hostage by the performances. Harpoon relies heavily on the strength of its three leads to carry not only the film's suspense but also the characters’ internal hypocrisy. The leads here do not let the script down.

As entertained as the audience is throughout, you don’t leave the theatre undisturbed.

What redeems The King, beyond the excellent performances, is the way the film gets around to asking questions about making war. Why go to war and who benefits is part of the story here, which leaves it in an interesting place.

Norwegian director Joachim Rønning (who co-directed Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales) offers nothing unexpected here, in what amounts to a complicated exercise in paint-by-numbers movie-making.

Ozon’s film evolves less as a procedural story than a character study.

There isn’t a moment in Zombieland: Double Tap that takes itself the least bit seriously. The gags often seem made up as it goes along, but they have a high “hit” ratio and the looseness of the whole affair means there’s no pressure to impress.

A conceptual mess if a somewhat engaging one.

As the movie flips through familiar Bourne/Bond tropes, the dialogue by David Benioff, Billy Ray, and Darren Lemke, feels clichéd to the point of parody, with lines like “It’s like The Hindenburg crashed into The Titanic!” Or, “I think I know why he’s as good as you. He is you!” Only, let’s be honest, not as good.

This is one of those animated features that veers way towards adult references for the parents in the room, while creating occasional mayhem in the pursuit of short-attention-span theatre. The latter fails.