At face value, Lady Chatterley’s Lover works well enough as a love story: It’s sweet, moderately sexy and sticks pretty religiously to Lawrence’s compelling story. But for a film based on a book that scandalized thousands, it will undoubtedly leave its viewer wanting more.

It’s light on the satire, and heavy on the fairy tale rules and aesthetics. There’s still plenty of charm to go around, and it’s ultimately a fun experience, but it undeniably avoids the original movie’s strongest aspects in favor of sincerity.

Nanny seeps into your pores, stings like salt in a throbbing wound and doesn’t require what some horror fans might—conversely—wish appeared.

It’s not a great film by any means (I’m mixed-positive on Farrelly comedies, generally), but Ricky Stanicky does succeed in fashioning a fairly consistent number of gags that got a rise out of me even if the narrative, especially as it careens into the third act, feels like a one-note joke that’s getting stretched a little too far.

Though Green may alienate some audiences with choices nowhere near as terrifying as William Friedkin’s original, something about the film’s heart endears beyond another exorcism retread satisfied to follow the same blasphemous beats.

The performances themselves are the film’s biggest highlight, the songs having been given entirely new arrangements for the occasion.

Posley balances Bitch Ass’ moral dilemma with clever, exuberant filmmaking.

It’s to the film’s credit that its writer-director resists pretty much every one of those conventional impulses, steering his breezy but meandering story in unexpected directions, letting it simply develop into a character portrait of two emotionally polarized individuals.

The movie’s lack of a clearly defined villain might alienate some genre fans; so might the lack of an easily trackable metaphor. Others will find it a relief. Never Let Go is a horror movie more interested in what it can evoke than what it can state or even imply.

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is a standardized comeback that moderately succeeds in balancing tradition with reinvention. The film doesn’t kick your door down and challenge your Beverly Hills Cop fandom—Molloy knocks politely on your door and shows you what you want to see. It’s a humble nostalgia bomb à la Live Free or Die Hard, one afraid to upset the apple cart and detrimentally one-note. But Eddie Murphy’s still Eddie Murphy, and that’s like sneaking in a cheat code.

With its crisply likable leads mixing it up with pleasingly chewy gangster stereotypes, it has the consistency of a good candy bar.

There’s nothing exceptionally freaky outside one or two practical effects of bodily implications, and yet Good Madam still finds nationally significant ways to summon societal fears.

While its larger ideas never fully find their feet, The Queen of Black Magic lights a fire beneath the soles thanks to its continuous flow of gags—eventually developing into an almost Hellraiser-esque carnival of punishment.

Mountainhead promises and delivers a takedown of those tech bros who now rule our society, although there are few genuinely schadenfreude-derived smiles to be had in the exercise.

While West’s sleazy ‘70s slasher remains one of my champion horror titles of 2022, Pearl is more like giddily deranged add-on downloadable content that makes for an unexpected bite-sized treat. Kudos to the accomplishment, and it’s an ax-swinging slice of bad-vibes hoedown kookiness, but there’s a particular substance missing that X oozes.

Clocking in at barely over an hour, What We Left Unfinished feels a bit unfinished itself, and its compelling premise will leave history buffs, media scholars and those simply looking for a good yarn about lost art wanting far more.

The feverish Knocking puts together a fittingly upsetting portrait of lonely instability through its simple premise, visually inventive first-time director and physically invested star.

Death of a Unicorn may not be much more than another peg in an era of eat-the-rich cinema that has certainly become oversaturated in this form, yet time and time again its reflection of our times feels befitting.

Bell and Allen employ big ambitions in a confined area, treating stranger-danger paranoias with an elevated supernatural presentation that’s frightening—maybe a bit overlong—but undeniably effective.

Even in its over-the-top finale, Nobody never quite reaches the bloody ballet of Wick, nor the depth that franchise’s odd underground world offered, which dulls the tip of its action.

Overall, Last Breath is an exciting, fun, and immersive watch that does justice to the heroic stories of Chris Lemons and the crew members that raced to save his life. It is action packed, visually exciting, and sure to please diverse audiences seeking authentic, heartwarming excitement.

While Wyrmwood: Apocalypse might be described as a brains-off zombie flick that’s best when at its most insane, it’s certainly not braindead. Engines rev as zombies breathe toxic-colored fumes, homemade outposts defend against hungry undead outside, and horror-action excitement ramps almost with a vivid, videogame cinematography that’s escapism through extreme, baddie-brutalizing violence.

As an exercise in suspense and genre mimesis, Burial is exceptional. But Parker slacks on the details that function as musculature for the film’s core entertainment.

On a scene-by-scene basis, though, They Cloned Tyrone is well-crafted entertainment, buoyed by its three major performances.

The Smashing Machine is sensitive, texturally rich, and technically strong. But the melodrama of Mark Kerr—the real one—was somehow more potent when we saw it unfiltered.

Grant packs plenty into Torn Hearts’ double-barrel approach, and assures herself as a director who knows her way around a joyfully dark midnighter romp. It’s a sinister and fork-tongued tune that holds a nutty tempo, sure to delight audiences who are into hootin’ and hollerin’ at some honky-tonk horrors.

Battle of the Sexes projects a breezy confidence—the movie’s a little too smooth and polished, eschewing the grit of real life—but Stone conveys her character’s growing anxieties with such care that King emerges as an immensely empathetic, resilient figure.

It’s only in Dayveon’s final act that plot contrivances begin to wander away from Abbasi’s carefully calibrated realism.

Ultimately, Sanctuary’s psychology—which I found a bit muddled at times—is less persuasive than the artistry of shifting, gendered dynamics between Hal and Rebecca, and less enthralling than watching Abbott and Qualley play off of one another.

Bolstered by a sharply competent central performance as well as darkly intoxicating shots of an ancient city, Zeros and Ones is an act of artistic abstraction that is mostly rewarding in its ambiguity.

A River Below is pure investigative journalism.

I had a good time with Bullet Train. I didn’t hate Bullet Train. I just think that I’ll begin to forget Bullet Train, and in remembering that I’ve forgotten it, I will resent it because I’m an easy mark for crime films and an easy mark for action movies—including but not limited to cheeky R-rated action-comedies

Coster-Waldau and Greis-Rosenthal have a fierce chemistry and passion that coats every conversation they have with one another, whether it comes from a place of love or, later, of disdain. They push each other to their limits in nearly every scene, upping the ante with each glance and loaded word.

What truly makes Sitting in Bars with Cake work are the standout performances from Shahidi and A’zion.

By laying off the action-movie gas pedal, Plane makes Butler, performing in his native Scottish accent, more warmly likable than he’s been in years.

Poe’s steady hand keeps the balance between realistic teen drama and the crime genre, allowing its examination of melodrama surrounding betrayal, rule-breaking and power-grabs to breathe true.

Stand-up comedian and actor Esther Povitsky stars in Drugstore June, a coming-of-age crime story where social media makes for a dangerous weapon, boredom an impetus for a full-scale detective investigation, and youthful delusion an impressive decoy for charm, depth, and dimension.

The Velvet Underground will leave one less acquainted with the band with an incomplete picture in mind, but it’s unfair to say that the film is only for true enthusiasts. Instead, Haynes is interested in capturing a mood: A feeling of creative interconnectedness, of change, innovation and of a revolving door of people and art that will never again be replicated.

This closely choreographed chaos, paired with a harsh soundscape that gives off an anxiety-inducing underwater effect, ushers us into an enigmatic story of a family on the brink of unraveling.

For kids, this won’t matter much, and Lyle is good enough that it may well have staying power at sleepovers and family movie nights for years to come. It is, however, disappointing to see a film with oodles of potential fail to stick the landing, especially when the right moves are obvious.

A paranoid thriller that sneaks in its character study so stealthily that it takes a while to realize who is actually being studied.

Stewart and Erskine, on the other hand, are doing work so lived-in, so much more shaded than the nagging wife/girlfriend figures that typically orbit male immaturity narratives, that it’s hard not to wish the movie were about them instead.

Between sufficient scares and a puzzling yet promising narrative that takes shape in a wild fever that matches the intensity of the nearly feral antagonist, the story is vast and threaded smartly into a wearable piece of dread. The more granular writing, however, can be lackluster and the dialogue comes off cringeworthy in several spots.

In movies like these, heartfelt relatability and comic setpieces (or even just consistently funny dialogue) form their own odd-couple symbiosis; Buffett’s movie feels more like a super-lo-fi Bridesmaids without enough of the aesthetic tradeoff that should come from ditching that movie’s generic glossiness.

If Extraction 2 isn’t necessarily smarter than its predecessor, maybe it’s somewhat less stupid. Its self-conscious action craft puts a little bit of brain behind all that performative brawn.

While Lawrence and Henry imbue each scene they share with oscillating doses of humor and melancholy, the final product feels somewhat strained and stunted, particularly in its investigation into the hellish reality of actively trying to heal.

Emergency’s ensemble sustains its premise for far longer than it should be able to, maintaining the nuanced balance of commentary-thriller-comedy whenever the script becomes too interested in just one ingredient of its complex cocktail.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice acts as something of an inverse to its predecessor: Whereas the first film follows a relatively simple throughline of small-town domesticity coming crashing down under the sudden cognizance of life after death, its sequel is defined by an excess of storylines, all vying for their claim to a meager slice of the 100-minute runtime.

Street Trash is having a blast as it turns most of its characters into puddles of goo, and that’s all you can really ask of it.

What remains so compelling about O’Connor is that she actually used her popularity to challenge powerful institutions well before anyone else was even remotely comfortable with doing so.

If Catherine Called Birdy falters at any point, it’s during the film’s conclusion.

Put simply, V/H/S/94 is almost less an anthology than it is a vehicle for a single, deliriously creative segment from director Timo Tjahjanto, which dominates the entire center of the film. All the other segments simply orbit this central anchor, caught in the inexorable pull of Tjahjanto’s demented imagination, which manages to give V/H/S/94 at least 30 minutes in which one cannot look away.

The movie works in its moment. It seems to know that an obvious, crowd-pleasing helping of franchise nonsense at least needs to have some kind of meat, however synthetic it may secretly be.

When it’s best, The Seed is covered in slop and prone to psychedelic “romance” sequences where actresses writhe under and between the creature’s endless tissue flaps. It’s obscene and artful, on a budget that proves “doing it yourself” can still be provocative.

See for Me positions itself as an unfair tale of “easy target versus evil men,” but highlights its strongest material when valuing people beyond their disabilities.

Margaux is younger adult horror with an edgier attitude and pops of twisted comedy, which helps distract from digital effects that look like they might actually be from 1999’s Smart House.

While its minimalist approach keys into creepy unknown anxieties about our extraterrestrial neighbors, Duffield’s signature dose of emotional heft floats away into the clouds this time around.

Those unfamiliar with the director’s penchant for narrative opacity might find Music falling on deaf ears. For those up for the challenge, there are splendid moments of visual poise to soak in, but little to actually take away in terms of tangible storytelling.

True to its small, sometimes nearly microscopic, scale, The Adults draws a perfect miniature portrait of a highly specific demographic: People obsessed with doing bits, making up songs, and perpetuating their own inside jokes who nonetheless never turned to a life in the performing arts.

Companion becomes a gleefully silly, crowd-pleasing techno-romp, a Turing test valentine for those still learning to better love themselves.

As much as director James Mangold’s cinematic interpretation had going for it prior to pre-production, it’s a pity it only seldom succeeds—largely due to the decisions made way back before Darren Aronofsky was attached to helm.

Don’t Move’s protagonist may be rendered inert, but the film retains just enough energy and menace to spare.

The insights are lightweight, but there’s a genial warmth to the film’s outlook that’s hard to dismiss. Quiz Lady is pure formula, but sometimes you’re reminded why that formula worked in the first place.

The hateful stance that property is more valuable than certain people’s lives, for example, is still very much with us. And Final Account demonstrates that it takes all levels of cooperation—including the most passive—for tyranny to thrive.

Dead Men Tell No Tales doesn’t rewrite the rulebook for the franchise or the genre as a whole, and is wholly predictable from start to finish, but the likable characters—Thwaites and Scodelario have more natural presence and mutual chemistry than Bloom and Knightley—creative action set pieces, and Depp finally being put in his place in the franchise creates a fun ride that’s instantly forgettable. You know, like the ride itself.

The Leech is a seedy, nefarious and scrappy morality tale that excels on the backs of its big-swinging performers.

With its impeccably framed wide compositions, immersive long takes, and a cross-cutting narrative style that touches on the work of Matthew Barney—or, in a considerably more mainstream vein, Christopher Nolan—The Challenge feels like avant-garde art more than anything else.

Elemental may not rise to the heights that Up soared to, but the ingredients of Elemental combine in ways that are both satisfying and even moving.

Blended with its 2000s plot points are the expedience, blunt dialogue and noirish venetian-blind shadows of a mid-to-lower-tier 1940s genre picture – with Affleck affecting a ragged, lummox-y dignity in the lead. If this doesn’t sound actually good, well, Hypnotic is a modest picture; that’s part of its appeal, if applicable.

This sentimentalization plagues so many nostalgia pieces aimed at ex-kids, though at least a movie that ultimately pushes its luck and stalls out befits the high-rolling teenagers at its center. Most of Snack Shack is a winning scheme.

Of the Poirot trilogy, A Haunting in Venice is undoubtedly the best crafted and most enjoyable film to watch.

As a showcase for its leads, it’s delightful. All it’s missing is a touch of honest-to-goodness gravity to keep the story anchored.

While it’s a fine story, Chevalier would have been more interesting and relevant if it had suited up and rode more bravely into the fray of history, ready to expose why Saint-Georges’ music was kept silent for so long.

If it’s no longer surprising that Sandler is a good, steady actor, it’s still fun to find out he can find new ways to play to the cheap seats.

The charm of the living memorial comes across quite earnestly, magnified by the sweet performances of Phillips and Dexter Fletcher as her husband, Val.

A charmingly unambitious, ultimately enjoyable step down of a sequel: A controlled expansion where novelty fades to reveal technical prowess and contempt starts peeking out behind familiarity.

In truth, this isn’t a movie about understanding why—a question that desperately wants an easy answer to a complicated problem—but about understanding Bourdain. Appreciating him. Mourning him. To that end, Roadrunner succeeds once the mythologizing dies down and we see the person inside the romantic.

Tragos and her brave, badass subjects spend almost all of Plan C zipping through explanations of a constantly evolving abortion landscape.

As can be said of its real-life subject, Val is moving, inspiring, funny and fractured. It’s a look at the man and an expansion of the myth, revealing just as much as it continues to obscure.

Trap is a sturdy and fun little thriller despite its third act stumbles; a lean, simple story that taps into what one could glean is Shyamalan’s fear of being a bad father to his own daughters.

It’s not all brilliant or profound, and it’s certainly not all well-worded, but it’s always thoughtful.

In a film that inevitably asks its lead to shoulder some heavy weight for it to work at all, Ridley takes on the task with an assured capability. May other films take this one’s lead in giving her some real, meaty work.

Although Downsizing is often thoughtful, funny and poignant, ultimately it really is just another movie about a middle-aged white dude pondering his insignificance—with the added demerit being that he learns valuable life lessons thanks to a marginalized woman of color.

While Scout’s Honor may only anger and dismay the audiences that watch it, it’s still a brutal depiction of the foundation of violence, ignorance and apathy which the entire country is built upon, and of the perpetrating parties who continue to profit from it. In that way, Scout’s Honor is as American as apple pie.

Blue Giant is a somewhat tropey story that captures its characters’ big feelings, and its incorporation of live combo recordings contributes something unique to the steadily growing canon of musical anime. While not quite the feature I would’ve expected from Tachikawa after Mob Psycho 100, it’s a strong next step in the director’s career.

In its loopy, beguiling, occasionally befuddling way, Three Thousand Years of Longing feels like it’s trying—and sometimes failing—to sum something up about Miller’s own history of loving strange movie magic.

It’s a piercing portrayal of culturally specific nerd rage in Tomine’s comics; on film, it’s a little talky, and could’ve used more Ghost World-style moments of caricature, like that savaging of Crazy Rich Asians at the opening. But while Shortcomings doesn’t turn Ben into a misanthropic hero or excuse his often-terrible behavior, it does stick to the ethos he espouses early in the picture: This is a movie full of people who are flawed, and real.

For what it’s doing and for how visually appealing it can be, Dark Harvest delivers October ickiness with a crooked smile.

More than anything, it functions as a powerful encapsulation of the death of innocence in youth; a distillation of the moments when we come to terms with the realization that our parents may not be the valorous outlines we’ve built them up to be.

What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? is an apt, simple fable that feels somewhat hopeful for our modern world—one where evil wins, but love overcomes.

Mosquito State is a profoundly annoying film. Believe it or not, this is meant as the highest compliment.

Destined to be divisive, it’s a piece of modestly indulgent arthouse horror that is equal parts bewitching and belabored, but at least it has the good instinct to trim itself to a short runtime that doesn’t allow it to become genuinely grating.

Like the best Argentine cinema, Moreno merges perceptive but mundane psychology with prickling social critique, and even though The Delinquents’ thematic clarity borders on obvious during its 189 minutes, Moreno demonstrates such command over his characters and actors that The Delinquents remains calmly compelling.

Frankenstein Created Woman is an entertaining aberration in a series of films that have a tendency to run together somewhat, combining beloved tropes of the format–the laboratory sets and sci-fi rigmarole have never looked better than here–with a fresh take on this particular brand of mad science, which sees the title character looking inward, toward the primordial origins of what makes us human.

Goofball rockstars created a silly, schlocky haunted thriller with their friends, and that’s the vibe Studio 666 brings. If you’re a Foo Fighters admirer looking for a horror-comedy, you define the demographic.

What Influencer brings to the party lands with a softer impact in the messages it preaches, but that doesn’t prevent a twistier predatory narrative from snagging our attention like a buzzworthy viral sensation.

Throughout, Lears is all over the place. When To the End focuses on climate change deniers, it can be cathartically searing.

[Black] hands us a frenzied combination of action, comedy and criminal caper, patently absurd but well served by knowingly silly performances and solid jokes.