Gyllenhaal’s extraordinary direction, paired with exceptional performances from The Lost Daughter’s lead actresses, culminate in a perfect storm that yields an astute portrait of the painful expectations of womanhood.

Two does a pretty solid job of putting its audience into the shoes of a couple who finds themselves surgically connected against their will and, naturally, it isn’t pretty. It is full of confusion and terror and adrenaline. I only wish the stakes could’ve been somehow raised to avoid a flat final act, but hey, you can’t always stitch up what’s broken.

In its unapologetic leaning into tropes, stellar casting, idyllic locations and occasional venturing off of the beaten path, A Castle for Christmas does something totally underrated: It gives us exactly what we want this holiday season.

As is, Don’t Look Up is an exhausting and meandering “What if? But also, what now?” If the world really is going to end in my lifetime, these were 145 minutes that I’m never getting back.

Whatever it’s trying to say, France rewards those who are willing to take the journey without a promise of clear resolution.

It’s possible for cinema to weave this many themes and concerns together into one cohesive film. The Unforgivable simply doesn’t.

There’s a good movie baked into Being the Ricardos’ 131 minutes. It’s about 90 minutes long, maybe a little less. The remaining 41 minutes comprise an Aaron Sorkin movie, and like too much cream in a beautifully fried donut, they weigh down the total package with needless fat: Talking heads, flashbacks and archival footage.

The nun horror subgenre is a particularly difficult one to master because it is so overdone, and it inherently engages with so many ambitious themes. If you’re brave enough to tackle it, you’d better be sure you’re bringing something special to the table and, with it, have something substantial to say.

If knowing Stigwood’s name unlocks a particular chapter of film and music history, then the documentary is a fun and often funny reminder that they’ve frequently been one and the same.

Guided by Fabietto, the movie takes its time. It watches. It breathes. It captures life with a clarity even Sorrentino’s best efforts haven’t quite—which makes it his best effort to date.

Ridremont succeeds in crunching bones and raising hell, all with a seasonal waft of cloves and corpses from behind a wishgiver’s crooked smile. It’s chilling, teeters between moral stances and is a hellish-jolly greeting that should please horror fans in the mood for merriness gone malevolent.

Even with effective individual scenes, Silent Night fails to launch; it sets out to deceive its audience, but only really ends up deceiving itself.

Equal parts captivating and cringey, writer/director Nathalie Biancheri’s Wolf flounders in the face of articulating its own thesis.

Shoot it loud and there’s music playing; shoot it soft and it’s almost like praying: Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story pumps the classic for exactly that, classicism, by milking the musical’s dynamics for maximum expressiveness. Its romance? At its most tender. Its dance? At its most invigorating and desperate. Its songs? As if “Maria” or “Tonight” needed another reason to stick in your head, they’re catchier than ever.

Licorice Pizza is more than just a movie. It’s a delectable, playful, sentimental reminder of what it means to be young, as well as an embodiment of what it feels like to grow up.

Concise and crucial, Writing with Fire adeptly and urgently conveys the necessity of journalism—especially in places that actively try to suppress its reach.

A film jam-packed with melancholy, powerhouse performances, and told with a somber, realistic storytelling structure that is at first jarring to the senses, but ultimately pays off. But I would be remiss to let you go without noting that this movie is also ridiculously fun.

The Summit of the Gods’ complex storytelling and convincingly lovely vistas make its philosophical case well: Whether you’re risking it all to get to a peak, to get to the bottom of a mystery, or to create a painstaking piece of animation, you’re lucky enough to have something you love.

Everything I’ve been asking for from a Resident Evil movie? Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City accomplishes.

On film, The Humans is more Thanksgiving-appropriate than ever. No preludes, no gifts, no tinsel. Just you and your family—or, worse, you and yourself.

Still, House of Gucci would not be what it is without the sheer weight of Lady Gaga’s portrayal of Patrizia, a woman who wants to “have it all” and then some.

Though Smith’s charisma and charm are appreciable, it simply adds an artificial sense of pleasantness by way of steering clear of thornier issues. The end result feels less like a documentary film and more like a devotional favor.

For those who wish to unravel the power dynamics inherent to sex, society and sensual pleasure while experimenting with what we as individuals are comfortable engaging with, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is a masterpiece that stimulates emotionally and philosophically.

Though director Reinaldo Marcus Green finds winning performances away from his lead, the milquetoast script serves the tennis patriarch a soft lob—one without potential to inspire or excite, and one that’s constantly reminding us that we already know how it ends.

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.

Jones suffuses slow-burn tension, disturbing visual elements and murky folk horror into a film that’s foundation rests on creeping uncertainties—making The Feast pleasantly obscure and occasionally quite upsetting.

I can’t remember another movie throwing such a competent cast under a bus so badly. How they turn out and how they could continue in the mythology is just iced in service of a reunion that doesn’t land, coupled with a ghoulish use of technology that is downright uncomfortable to watch.

What wants to be a James-Bond-derivative blockbuster ends up being more like The Hitman’s Bodyguard, an unintentional pastiche with somehow even lower stakes. Yes, it’s possible.

Home Sweet Home Alone doesn’t bear any aesthetic beyond “existing.” It is obligatory when it needn’t be. It will undoubtedly get a sequel.

Experiencing Branagh come full circle with Belfast is like getting an invitation to observe an artist come to terms with his roots. There’s the expected nostalgia, but also the graceful observation of the wisdom and clarity acquired with the power of hindsight.

Julia, with all of its intimate, personal and professional accounts of her character and her rise to fame, is an interesting movie: Thoroughly enjoyable, brimming with things to say, constructed in a manner that ducks pretense for relatability.

Procession feels like the surest execution of Greene’s voice.

Far more interested in unpacking the pervasive misogynistic sentiments in Kosovo than the actual war itself, the film is pointed in its chosen observation, but appears remiss of broader political engagement.

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain can’t quite live up to its magnetic subject, but it’s still a warm celebration of a renegade artist and revolutionary forbearer of the funny cat video.

The movie doesn’t take itself too seriously and, thus, it makes for a fairly entertaining movie night despite its flaws—just don’t expect anything more than your typical B-horror fare.

A Cop Movie is artistic activism at its finest, carefully treading the line of fact and fiction in a manner that illuminates rather than obfuscates.

What could have been a cogent critique of the parasitic nature between the uber-wealthy and the labor they exploit is instead an overly muted (and eventually weakly meta) version of a tale that’s been told a thousand times before.

It’s worth watching at least once for the spectacle of the vibrant colors and great performances, and to be introduced to real historical characters, even if audiences must look far from the film to figure out what they were actually like.

For all its flaws, the film interrogates the limits of a biopic. And what better subject to do it with than the most beloved media fixation in recent history?

A forgettable sci-fi with standout elements—making the most of what he’s got left, even if it’s not enough.

Against a lean genre construction, Cummings sputters and apologizes and screams at people and breaks things—vaping constantly—less a force of nature than a flesh-and-blood body half-failing to contain the whiny forces of nature within. His performance is a miracle of control and timing, focused by how little control Jordan has in his life, how poorly timed everything seems to be.

If Eternals had merely been an enjoyable ensemble one-off—an Ocean’s Eleven or Knives Out of the MCU’s very own!—that could have been delightful. But there’s no real magic, Marvel or otherwise, happening here.

Antlers is a film that, not unlike most of its ilk, wants to be an overstuffed analogy for hot-button issues first, and a horror film second. Unfortunately, it can’t seem to get either right.

Things like a film’s cast, script or direction can keep us interested and giving a damn—but all of those elements fell flat in this installment.

Last Night in Soho culminates as a chic and dynamic expression of Edgar Wright at the height of his powers.

Army of the Dead is a film full of pleasant surprises, but Matthias Schweighöfer, playing a German safecracker with a hair-trigger for impassioned speeches about locks and bolts, is perhaps the most pleasant surprise of them all.

After establishing the characters with such elegance and grace, the movie proceeds to nudge them toward an endpoint that is beautifully shot but curiously chilly, lacking the catharsis of something more old-fashioned.

At times, the throwback goofiness of Ron’s Gone Wrong can be amusingly quaint, but more often the film is humorless, sentimental tripe that couldn’t find its point if it had a dozen B-bots giving GPS directions.

Particularly when it comes to charming lead performances and superficial cameo appearances from Megan Fox and Sydney Sweeney, Night Teeth delivers formulaic fun without much for viewers to sink their teeth into.

Feliciano’s effort is particularly marred by hackneyed tropes. Whether it be that Latino fathers operate out of the same withered copy of a machismo manual or the simple assertion that kids simply “need a father,” Women Is Losers certainly won’t win over those yearning for something new.

As far as COVID movies go, 7 Days is certainly in the top tier of that still nascent subgenre—whether that’ll be true this time next year, we’ll have to wait and see.

Ridley Scott directing a grand, riveting medieval epic that doubles as an analysis of gender dynamics might be unexpected, but The Last Duel manages to effortlessly combine Scott’s action sensibilities with an empathetic thread between the past and present.

Like Green’s first 2018 Halloween reboot, this is a badly overstuffed film that largely ignores the inherent strength of what should be its central story—three generations of Strode women, facing down The Boogeyman—in favor of random, gratuitous action scenes and endless subplots.

Though [Hamaguchi's] highly anticipated Drive My Car distills these musings in a slightly more meticulous manner, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy cuts to the chase in a way that’s quaintly quirky—and never dull to watch unfold.

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.

As directed by Rachel Fleit, in her documentary feature debut, the movie is an unflinching look at what it is like to live with a degenerative disease that attacks the spinal cord and brain. But it’s also a look at a woman who has a fractured relationship with her mother, was never quite comfortable with her fame and struggles with anxiety and depression.

What begins as a straightforward story of two artists creating different projects ultimately turns into Hansen-Løve’s strongest argument for the inextricable nature of life and art yet.

What is a fishing community if restrictions deny their catch? The world continues to change no matter what anyone does. Camilleri understands that dilemma and puts it on film with humble clarity.

Saad’s is a bleak film, as claustrophobic and oppressive as the unyielding blue that smothers each frame, and brave enough not to sacrifice honesty on the altar of catharsis.

Particularly paired with Cruz’s knockout performance of a woman whose life endures the legacy left by the trauma of her family’s unresolved past, Parallel Mothers is a deeply political example of what is lost when we have forgotten—and what is achieved when we fight to remember.

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.

Though it remains true to the first part of the text’s unhurried pace and detailed world building, Villeneuve’s adaptation feels overlong and void of subtext.

Bleak and crisp and cold as an Icelandic waterfall, Lamb is a movie with a sheepheaded toddler in great knitwear, the vague looming of something sinister and a filmmaker that can’t seem to wrangle it all.

With a gentle touch, Sciamma crafts a profound, easily digestible film that takes heavy themes and makes them bite-sized. She looks at the way we speak to one another, and to ourselves, at every age, and how these conversations are inevitably dulled in the schism between a child and their parent.

Time melts beyond its tangible limits when watching Memoria, resulting in an audiovisual trance disorienting in its peculiar placidity.

No Time to Die is neither lean nor mean; it’s a hard-working attempt to reconcile the Bond rituals with a series-finale emotional weight that these movies have been accumulating (with mixed success) since 2006.

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.

In amplifying the diverse voices of American children through the film’s radio vérité subplot, C’mon C’mon proves that kids have some pretty insightful advice to impart, if only we’d just listen.

It’s easy to find yourself so wrapped up in the austere unease of Campion’s first feature in over a decade that one might fully overlook the obviousness laden in Peter’s opening words, and uncertainty as to the film’s overt approach to its subject material is recurrent.

Unfortunately, There’s Someone Inside Your House is a considerably more rote endeavor in mass-market horror filmmaking—competently shot and staged, but decidedly familiar, it displays none of the emotional nuance or attention to character detail we’ve associated with Brice in the past.

The film becomes a wry showcase for the director’s evolution as a creative who has been refining an unparalleled style for over two decades, with a sharper humor but without the more deeply felt pulse of films like The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox or most recently, and most effectively, The Grand Budapest Hotel.

While Chase, Taylor and Konner figure out a way to give us a half-assed rundown of the gangster rise-and-fall we saw again and again in the series, they couldn’t figure out how to make that into any kind of satisfying film—let alone one worth its references to the gangster canon and let alone one that has anything at all to say about the race relations in Newark during its setting.

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.

By way of candid humor, a magnetic performance from Rex and Baker’s careful attention for authenticity, Red Rocket is a sympathetic profile of a porn star past his prime.

As a standalone film, The Souvenir provides Hogg with the means to articulate and meditate on her past, creating a work that is bleakly beautiful and enchanting all on its own.

Vortex, while visually captivating, only functions as a window through which to look at death detached from the beauty of life.

Joel Coen’s Macbeth lacks risk, ingenuity and, most importantly, reward. For those who seek a safely satisfying rendition of the lean Shakespearean tragedy, this latest execution will surely suffice.

Though Drive My Car reaches a significantly less smoldering conclusion than Burning, it channels a similar feeling of catharsis. Though certain things are still left unsaid or incomplete, the tension they create—or shatter—conveys just as much as simple words or actions.

I could dig into any number of the movie’s unfortunate choices, bad decisions or downright detestable elements—sprinkling in faint praise like, hey, the Tony-winning Platt might be acting through five layers of bullsh*t, but he can still sing—and I’d still never capture all the reasons Dear Evan Hansen fails.

Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World is as indecisive as its endlessly curious heroine, but it is an invigorating, exceedingly kind portrait conveying that the journey is just as—if not more—crucial as the place we end up.

German director Maria Schrader almost achieves that sweet spot with I’m Your Man, but gets a little muddled in her storytelling in the last minutes. That doesn’t take away from her subtle and mature study of loneliness and intimacy via technology.

Titane is not just 108 bloody minutes of bodily mutilation and perversion, but of blazing chaos inherent in our human need for acceptance. Ducournau has wrapped up this simple conceit in a narrative that only serves to establish her voice as one which demands our attention, even as we feel compelled to look away.

Since Kenneth Gorelick isn’t actually interested in being separated from Kenny G, Lane’s real task becomes imbuing the aggregate with some stakes. And she crushes it: Listening to Kenny G gives you all your need-to-knows so that you can take or leave the titular musician as you see fit.

The carnal Catholicism which permeates the film is at this point to be expected from the 83-year-old Dutch filmmaker—but equally so is the film’s ability to utilize eroticism as a vehicle to examine pain, paranoia and power.

With all the elements on hand to achieve something of note, The Starling disappointingly reduces the complexity of loss, grief and forgiveness into a birdbrained fairy tale that is more than happy to bypass reality in order to make a featherlight point.

The weary and plodding story putters along the redemption arc’s curve, losing faith even in itself along the way.

Most of Best Sellers’ problems have to do with structure instead of performance, so there’s not much that Plaza and Caine can do. They’re stymied by the writing and constricted by the direction.

By story’s end, I was happy to spend time in this original story that treats younger audiences, and the horror genre, with respect.

Ghostland is a movie and place borne from nuclear disaster, populated with the denizens of countless B-movies and the spectres of whiplash Hollywood careers.

Early on, the self-deprecating stuff takes on a studied air, and in the final stretch, the filmmakers seem to think they can shock-cut and rug-pull their way into something resembling psychological horror. The weirdness isn’t really weird enough to pull this off; it’s all the self-indulgence without much oddball pleasure.

Eastwood’s been riding off into the sunset for decades now, and Cry Macho’s creaky, lackadaisical hat-wave is a feature-length parody of a golden oldie.

When it simply allows us to join the pulsing masses and empathize, eye-level, with the plights of the individuals that comprise them, A La Calle captures the power of the people.

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.

It’s clear both The Card Counter and First Reformed are cut from that same cloth, though the latter sticks the landing better than the former.

Duplass and Morales play their parts with honesty and grace; they write those parts and the drama between them with straightforward understanding of the complications of remote associations, and the total package is then presented straightforwardly. There’s no other way for screenlife to present itself. But the film loses nothing in that straightforwardness, neither authenticity nor humanity nor Morales’ appeal as an actress-turned-multihyphenate.

It would be a stretch to call Kate a modern Western, but it has a certain gunslinger sensibility that mitigates any self-conscious edginess. There’s even a modicum of poignancy as Winstead fights her personal battle through increasing bodily disrepair. Despite the existence of so many movies like it, Kate tires you out on its own terms.

Familiar pieces playing a familiar game to familiar ends won’t make Martyrs Lane anyone’s favorite horror movie, but it’s put together well enough to offer comfort and intrigue in small doses.

Beauty from tragedy is the foundation of Come From Away. An enduring message for us all.