Thanks to Gosling—playing his role like his schmuck detective from The Nice Guys accidentally found himself in a Mission: Impossible—the film breezily flits between a savvy behind-the-scenes pastiche and a committed action rom-com.

If there’s one apt element Seinfeld and company bring to Unfrosted, it’s that they knowingly treat it like a bunch of silly bullshit.

Execution isn’t the problem here—the acting, direction, editing, set design and costuming are all done well enough. It’s that these elements add up to something that doesn’t feel subversive at all, just vaguely aware of itself.

It’s unclear whether Frank actually wants to make sense of his subject’s complexities, but regardless, Remembering Gene Wilder doesn’t succeed. Its center remains unknowable, conceivable only in brief flashes.

Hathaway, who produced The Idea of You, provides a solid center to the film, with the steamy romance plot coming second only to Solène’s character development.

Overlong and overstimulating, the entire film is like a giant, immersive eyesore.

It’s solid, and at its best it’s an impishly entertaining little thriller. But all the talent in the world can’t overcome the feeling that there is more here to be mined, if only Humane had dug just a little deeper.

The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Past beautifully observes how the ridiculous mundanities of being alive are some of the most difficult.

Challengers surprised me. It’s a grandiose, propulsive, erotic follow-up to the dull, Tumblr-core emo of Bones and All, and I found myself enthralled by Guadagnino’s latest, in which three of our hottest young actors convincingly, tantalizingly explore alternating dynamics of power and sexuality

Arachnophobes beware: Infested is the best spider-centric horror movie since Arachnophobia.

If watching Rebel Moon—Part One was over before it started, Part Two is a miserable exercise in unearned hubris.

Abigail is a brutal, bloody blast.

Writer/director Chandler Levack finds uncommon honesty in this Canadian video store employee and those he chafes against, even if the coming-of-age story eventually falls into some of the more palatable pitfalls its strident star would rail against.

Blood for Dust is a satisfactory interpretation of American hardships and making ends meet, one that’s been done plenty better and worse elsewhere.

Writer/director Minhal Baig’s ‘90s coming-of-age drama is one of realistic warmth, rumbling hopes and roadblocks jutting up in front of children whose very existence is defiant.

The power of Fouéré’s performance echoes across the film to its gruesome, tragic ending – further supporting evidence of the past’s grip strength on people of any generation.

For Ritchie, though, the stolidness is an experiment and, in The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare at least, a reasonably effective one.

Buried under Yannick’s aggression and chafed emotions, he’s wanting for the basic need of being understood. This side of Yannick enhances Dupieux’s critique with a casual observation: Art is freeing, and without it, we’re doomed to lonesome misery.

As much as I delighted in the whimsy, chuckled at the art-house ambiguity and applauded two men’s depiction of how taxing it is to be a woman, I couldn’t get past her pain and suffering.

Going against the grain of a cultural landscape desperate to pretend like the COVID-19 pandemic never happened, Hammel dives headfirst into her exploration of the specific ways the universal experience of lockdown drove us all insane.

Arcadian isn’t a time-waster, but its execution is too rote and unimaginative to warrant its existence as another addition to our post-apocalypse glut.

Sting is sweet, silly and savage in sectioned bursts, but fails to pull everything into an intricately woven web of creepy-crawly terrors.

A fresh take on how our hyper-connected world observes catastrophe would rightly pick at this scab. But Alex Garland approaches this modern hopelessness with impersonal detachment, dreaming up an empty war filmed for no one.

Baghead is moody and atmospheric enough (if low on scares) for about the first hour.

The First Omen is an exceedingly successful first feature, and an invigorating film within a genre’s increasingly limp mainstream.

As a newsroom drama, Scoop succeeds with its taut presentation of the negotiations and the egos at play when executing an interview of this caliber.

As is, the film balances its talkative side with its gory side nicely. Wanting more isn’t the worst feeling a film can leave you with.

Hopefully if they make a second installment in The Tearsmith series, those behind it will dare to step a little further outside of their self-imposed genre restrictions.

Though still a damning portrait of a country that has delivered its poor to the free market, The Old Oak is a comparatively gentle, reflective and even tentatively hopeful work.

It’s a funky, janky, raw piece of autobiography, masquerading as the only thing the film industry makes anymore: A superhero movie. The riotous and weaponized result is everything the corporate use of the Joker isn’t, and everything it could be.

The Greatest Hits boasts a compelling and original high-concept plot, but, as can be the case with high concept plots, this leads to much of the film’s first act being occupied by exhausting exposition.

A Different Man is a major work—even as it shapeshifts from Cronenberg to Kaurismäki, developing into new territory at every turn, Schimberg never loses sight of his central questions: What makes us who we are? What does it mean to be a good person in this weird but beautiful world, surrounded by other people?

Compounded with dull plotting and a truly uninspired protagonist arc, Dogman is a curiosity of a comeback film that only makes you consider the virtues of director jail.

At no point does Godzilla x Kong skimp on the kaiju action, but despite—or, perhaps, because of—this Titanic overabundance, it never quite feels big enough.

As movies about a Liam Neeson character marinating in regrets before punching and shooting his way out of immediate danger go, this is a pretty good one, by which I mean at one point Neeson smokes a pipe while driving a car. It’s also Lorenz’s best as a director by a fair margin, a movie that feels inspired by Eastwood and old Westerns, but not beholden to them.

Femme acknowledges its tropes and clichés; the film never soft-shoes the important part they play in its structure. What it does with them, though, feels fresh. Revenge is often ill-advised, even nihilistic. Femme’s revenge is a stamped guarantee of self-destruction.

Life for today’s young’uns is frankly terrifying, even if they aren’t literally living inside a horror film, with overarching threats to their future dotted by day-to-day micro-threats. In its unassuming way as real-world fantasy, Weston Razooli’s Riddle of Fire is sensitive to these plights, and casually rejects didactic allegory about them.

Free Time, writer/director Ryan Martin Brown’s debut feature film, is so funny precisely because we all know this guy, and on some level, we can identify with his directionless struggle.

A return to form for writer/director Ivan Sen—an Indigenous Australian filmmaker whose 2013 movie Mystery Road, its sequel and its miniseries spin-off all deal with similar subject matter—this cold-case thriller hacks through its genre clichés and Christian symbolism early so we can appreciate its charming, somber core.

Even though the films feel tonally different, this new Road House is exactly what you’d hope for from a new iteration of an ‘80s classic: A lot of fun and excitement without any real consequences.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire doubles down, fully committing to its existence as a cynical nostalgia raid masquerading as a movie.

Sleeping Dogs winds up playing like a low-rent Saw sequel without the elaborate traps or gore. It’s all bad cops and worse twists, turning the fragility of human memory into a cheap trick.

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.

Thanks to its commitment to the ‘70s made-for-TV bit, ever-escalating stakes and nervously swaggering lead performance, the ratings ploy from Hell finds substance inside its shtick.

As a character study, it repeatedly points out contradictions in Chisholm that it refuses to interrogate for fear it will come off as critical. The result is a hagiography with some obvious holes, something that a better film might try to balance.

A frequently heartstring-tugging inspirational dog movie that does little to excel beyond acceptability yet manages to not be a complete drag to watch.

Irish Wish reaffirms that Lohan still has command over her acting talents.

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.

While it’s admittedly beguiling to gain access to Kahlo’s innermost thoughts and genuine feelings, her diary has long been available to peruse, making Gutiérrez’s approach safe and somewhat stale.

Keaton seems to take another hitman part as an opportunity for contemplation, a decision that leaves Knox Goes Away feeling like someone hollowed out a DTV thriller in hopes of finding existential despair in the empty spaces.

The challenge of a film like The American Society of Magical Negroes is that the joke rarely goes beyond the single line premise for the movie, missing the opportunity to offer a biting analysis.

Monkey Man is the kind of action movie I want to see more of, and it gives Patel the chance to turn himself into the kind of action star he wants to see.

Well-acted and competently told, One Life arrives in the wake of two of the most formally and intellectually rigorous examples of cinema yet made on the Holocaust, and it can’t help but appear a little flimsy in comparison.

Films like these can hew toward positivity without scrubbing the script of risk, but Glitter & Doom risks next to nothing, except perhaps the Indigo Girls’ dignity.

As a fantasy, Damsel convincingly transports us into the lair of a dragon that is often stunning and always intriguing.

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.

A horror movie so derivative that it becomes uniquely terrible.

The tactile world Glass has crafted is just as immersive and erotic in its design as it is physically between her two lead lovers.

It will entertain children, and it will inspire another sequel. Call it DreamWorks zen.

Though it takes place within the familiar thematic ground of terminal illness and fathers and sons, that willingness to take emotional risks, alongside the finely-drawn characters and beautiful performances, makes Bucky F*cking Dent a deeply lovely movie. His first film may have been a dud, but 20 years later, Duchovny the writer/director has finally proven himself a force to be reckoned with.

The movie’s messages about not treating women as second-class citizens and the power of female solidarity are all delivered with convincing sincerity, yet they are also as dated as the 1920s setting—it feels like Wicked Little Letters is fighting a battle that was won decades ago.

Despite Sandler’s powerful sincerity, Spaceman misses the joke.

Thomas Cailley blends traditional French social realism with one major element of science fiction (humans turning into animals) to create a dystopian drama that focuses on a small, character-driven story in order to evoke a vaguely environmentally conscious message.

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.

For those who haven’t, and for those torn on whether it’s worth venturing forth to the multiplex, consider Dune: Part Two a compelling two-hour-and-forty-six-minute argument in the “for” column.

A multimedia extravaganza of frozen idiocy, Hundreds of Beavers is a slapstick tour de force—and its roster of ridiculous mascot-suited wildlife is only the tip of the iceberg.

History of Evil has something to say about the sad state of our nation–-and where it’s headed should we continue to regurgitate the same racist bile—it just doesn’t justify the means before its end.

With Drive-Away Dolls, Tricia Cooke and Ethan Coen channel their influences and experiences into a tight, satisfying, humorous road movie. A knowing and humorous tone never loses its flair, with an artistic touch and commitment that makes you buy into the jokes in the first place. It is a refreshing comical experience threading together the absurd and the authentic.

Veteran Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan returns to Anatolia, a place he previously explored in his Palme d’Or winner Winter Sleep, in About Dry Grasses. Although Winter Sleep is both more explicitly interested in exploring class dynamics in rural Turkey and more literary than About Dry Grasses (Winter Sleep is an Anton Chekhov adaptation), these two stories could be taking place side by side.

Morgan’s feature debut is as stunning, diabolical and boundary-pushing an emergence as any filmmaker could hope to achieve.

The film highlights the resilience of its subjects and mobilizes us to reflect on persistent racist immigration policies.

Players is entirely watchable, offering up some laughs and some elements that may be considered romance in the age of Tinder. But if you’re looking for that cozy feeling of warmth after watching a genuinely good rom-com, however, Players doesn’t quite play ball.

Land of Bad is middle-of-the-road war movie gobbledygook.

Helmed by veteran music video director Dave Meyers and co-written by Lopez and Matt Walton, the visual album is, first and foremost, dazzlingly romantic. It is also minorly self-reflexive, gratifyingly excessive, ham-fistedly and lovingly referential, and gleefully riding the pendulum between the nostalgic warmth of a well-designed movie musical and the cool uncanny valley of a contemporary digital sci-fi.

At times, the movie’s pleasingly jumpy visual scheme and nostalgic 2003-era cheese threaten to form an alliance and make Madame Web work in spite of itself. After all, the movie, even or especially in its worst moments, never gets dull (or weirdly smug, like its sibling Venom movies). It also never fully sheds a huckster-y addiction to pivoting, until it’s pretty far afield from what works about either a superhero movie or a loopy woo-woo thriller.

Penned by David Koepp, who previously wrote Soderbergh’s tight and thrilling chamber piece Kimi, Presence is a darkly comic and slow-burn genre film that presents as both a haunted house tale and an exploration of a strained family dynamic—shown entirely through the perspective of its ghost.

The aim is to deliver something that’s both a gripping throwback and a shockingly timeless exploration of human terror. Happily for horror fans, the film mostly hits the mark, and becomes a must-see genre film along the way.

Ana may be attempting to climb the class ladder, but the movie moves between classes with a freedom that feels weakly imagined.

Marmalade is the kind of just okay, middle-of-the-road, nearly inventive but still mostly derivative indie that at least has the decency to be only 90 minutes.

The Monk and the Gun, the sophomore effort from Pawo Choyning Dorji, is centered on people feeling the full brunt of this experience for the first time. Set against the backdrop of 2006 Bhutan, The Monk and the Gun is a light but well-delivered political satire about the country’s first democratic elections following their king’s abdication.

While there is a literal amount of truth running through the semi-autobiographical Suncoast, its glossy, uncertain cutesiness is as fake as Ron DeSantis’ height.

Despite solid performances and hints of daring brilliance, Lisa Frankenstein feels disposable because its winks and nods downplay its uniqueness—not to mention that we are in the third decade of being perpetually awash in nostalgia for and satires of the 1980s.

Ghostlight is a comedy in a loose sense, a tragedy in another, and a redemption song in yet one more. More succinctly, it’s a Thompson film, meaning it gently, tenderly unpacks and embodies every single feeling its characters might have about their situation at hand.

It’s everything a teen horror movie should be—messy, bloody and even steamy at times—but doesn’t add much to the slasher clichés we’ve seen before.

For a cool $200 million and this cast, I would have gladly taken less marketing mystery on the front end and more rigor in the actual story.

In making its characters physically confront their heartbreak, Handling the Undead becomes one of the saddest, most contemplative zombie movies ever made.

It all comes together to make The Promised Land a stirring historical epic that balances its grandiose framing with something surprisingly grounded and genuine. A bountiful harvest indeed.

Orion and the Dark is the most Kaufman-esque children’s movie you could possibly imagine, replete with oodles of existential anxiety, a metafiction narrative and a surprisingly emotional payoff.

This is a striking introduction to Donaldson’s unflinching eye.

Between the Temples is covered in these sores, full of stories that are funny from the outside and will be funny when told with hindsight. And it is funny. But it’s the honesty, our understanding of the how and the why behind these truthfully conveyed pains, that lodges Silver’s film in your heart.

Fans of female-led body horror such as Titane will dig She Is Conann for its delicious violence, gender-bending “badassery” and surreal aesthetic. I only wish Mandico’s dedication to story or character development were as strong as his barbaric heroine.

Once the documentary has made its easy point, it doesn’t have much else on its mind aside from making it again and again. For some, that’ll be eye-opening enough, but I don’t think they’re the people who’re watching documentaries about rap lyrics.

The documentary gives faces, names and histories to those affected by the residential schools—and looks, bracingly, towards a future where healing is possible.

Filho is self-reflective, not self-obsessed, and his clear-eyed stance is crucial to the anti-vanity he brings to his examination of his childhood home and youthful obsession.

DuVernay has already documented history with projects like Selma and 13th, but Origin is her most daring feat yet.

Through its deeply flawed cast and Peter Pan-esque world caught in stasis, Maboroshi communicates the suffocation and silver linings of being trapped within a particular point in time. Part elegy and part celebration of the past, it makes for an evocative, unusual ghost tale.

Avilés is more concerned with the shape and sound of childhood, and across the 95 minutes (which covers one evening in the lives of this disjointed cast), she offers a nuanced take on the disparity and complication of being young in a world built to amplify grown-up problems.

If you love slashers, and love the language of slashers, it’s inevitable that the charms of In a Violent Nature will reach you. Eventually.