Funny Pages has all the bells and whistles of a Safdie joint, from the hustler caught in a hellish loop to the frenetic coda set to rest by moments of painful introspection.

Promare is a visually stunning, narratively anemic and predictable blockbuster.

Once again, Bekmambetov has delved into new possibilities of digital filmmaking, capturing the complexities and anxieties that have become inextricably linked to our reliance on technology.

More akin to the similarly Affleck-starring Gone Girl than Fifty Shades of of Grey—or if we’re using Lyne’s filmography as a reference, more akin to Lolita than An Indecent Proposal—Deep Water is a sweat-inducing psychological scheme that is constantly aiming to intrigue and titillate.

The few insecurities in the filmmaking, which stick out in contrast to his Russian works, are easily overlooked by how masterful other scenes are and the impressiveness of the imagery.

Paired with My Policeman’s agile writing and affecting direction, the undeniable chemistry between Styles and Dawson feels like a shining cherry on top.

Nimona is a legend for the freaks and the queers, a story told in figures, archetypes and tropes. Nimona understands that villains are often made villainous for their bodies and identities. Nimona embraces queer coding and turns it into a subversive power fantasy.

The visceral thrills and quiet abominations of the journey are enjoyable, and worth the watch for Hathaway’s circling of McKenzie like a shark smelling preemptively spilt blood in the water; that is, until she realizes she’s a little more dangerous than her usual prey.

With Werewolves Within, Ruben further proves his skills as a director who knows how to walk that delicate line between horror and comedy, deftly moving between genres to create something that isn’t just scary, but genuinely hilarious.

Abigail is a brutal, bloody blast.

It’s a film about pettiness couched in maturity, and a brilliantly merciless take on the comedy of manners.

It would be inaccurate to say The B-Side only scratches the surface of Dorfman, but this lovely portrait takes pains to adopt her mindset, finding the beauty that pervades an artist’s life. As a result, Morris is offering his own kind B-side—not better than the main work, but a delightful alternative take.

Urchin more than occasionally looks like and has the immediate feel of a Ken Loach film, with its long lens scenes of Dillane interacting in real locations with figures who, as in the best of Loach, could be either non-actors or performers convincingly masquerading as them.

It’s a fascinating spectacle in large part because Nolan isn’t especially Malickian at all (though at least that frame of reference might temporarily ease the overworked, underbaked Kubrick comparisons).

Though the film can at times feel long-winded—a common predicament when transitioning from shorts to features—it is a heady and hypnotic parable for the irreparable ecological harm humans have committed, while insisting that it’s not too late to connect and reconcile with the land that nurtures us.

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.

Kirk’s film is a surprisingly lyrical and quite gritty, intimate thriller, one that makes the best of its unorthodox choice of performers to tell a story that is equal parts tender and savage.

With its unflinching and painstaking execution of such grim subject matter, Foxtrot is certainly not an easy watch, but an ultimately rewarding one.

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

Does it push the sponge forward? Probably not, and that’s ok. There’s something timeless about Bikini Bottom remaining as it is, with spin-offs and new series serving as the appropriate playgrounds for new outlets of storytelling. Sponge on the Run lovingly splits the difference, but doesn’t take anything away from what many know and love.

Rise of the Guardians is definitely fun, and definitely worthy of a holiday outing to the theater.

It’s a humble exploration of a fascinating and untapped community, reminiscent of great cinéma verité documentarians like Frederick Wiseman.

The small cast, capsule setting and slow-burning yet scintillating story are efficacious in their sparse simplicity, leaving ample room for carefully crafted ambiance and performances to arrest the viewer with mounting dread and anticipation.

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.

Rather than being concerned with historical authenticity (Sandy Powell’s costumes are gorgeously anachronistic), Lanthimos gestures towards an emotional reality that posits the lover and the loved as soldiers, capable of being a casualty in what each party believes is a greater cause. What a blazing and burning feat of melodrama.

What’s most compelling about Poser is the titular concept it seeks to unravel, one of deception and contrivance that epitomizes the ultimate sin in expressive art.

Telling the story of a sexy-but-dangerous lodger, whom our heroine suspects may be Jack the Ripper, Hitchcock builds upon clues and doubts, while making Ivor Novello’s character increasingly intriguing.

The Florida Project is spattered with profound sadness, with moments of externalized, violent frustration at presumed helplessness, at practically being born into all this. To what degree you believe Baker to be condescending or patronizing or exploitive is up to you, but the film’s bursts of light, its idea of what caregiving looks like when caregiving is a privilege, is handled with sensitivity.

Theatre of Blood is a classic revenge story in the Grand Guignol tradition, following a single mastermind as he hunts down and messily dispatches all who have wronged him in ironic fashion.

Newman has pretty serious filmmaking chops: She shoots action cleanly, coherently, with an eye for the poetry of a well-executed suplex and the brutality of a back alley brawl. Her strongest work, though, is seen in her characters and in her lead.

Ozon’s film grafts aesthetic pleasures with danger, and gets closer to the core of teenage romance as a payoff.

Sallitt’s work is a character portrait, or perhaps more aptly a portrait of a friendship, and while he focuses on Mara and Jo growing apart, its clean, cauterized treatment of the characters might isolate some viewers, since very little actually happens onscreen aside from talking.

It’s (relatively) small, sincere and funny, and has more than your usual MCU allotment of post-credit bombshells.

While 3 Faces explores the social position of women in Iran through oft-whimsical encounters as Panahi drives across northwestern Iran with actress Behnaz Jafari (also playing herself), No Bears feels much more darkly prophetic, seemingly aware of the filmmaker’s encroaching imprisonment.

Comprising hardcore and doom metal, à la Isis, Electric Wizard, and Doomriders, Bliss is more metal than most of the metal records released in the last five years. The substance beneath the slaughter is a happy bonus, and a reminder that even the ugliest horror movies can have more going on under the hood than one might think.

This is the most engaging and emotionally effective Moore doc since Bowling for Columbine.

Pleasant and contemplative, Close to Vermeer chronicles an exhibit of a master that both civilians and historians know startlingly little about, considering the profound impact he’s had on the craft of painting.

Digging into the art world’s juicy guts and suturing it up as a compelling, ambitious sci-fi noir, Crimes of the Future thrills, even if it leaves a few stray narrative implements sewn into its scarred cavities.

The Bob’s Burgers Movie is a family recipe that warms the heart, griddle and soul.

A movie completely in the addictive thrall of cinema, unhealthily enamored with the act of creation itself, Arrebato is an unnerving and enthralling fetish empowered by its hedonism: Drugs, sex, beauty, nostalgia and a disillusioned disaffection with them all.

Similar to how the characters are there to serve Anthony, Colman, Gatiss, Sewell and Poots are there to serve Hopkins. The stage belongs to him. What he does with it is something special, an unmissable performance from an actor with a filmography loaded with them.

The obsession of Alpha’s mother with her daughter’s health is never played for shock, but presented with conflict both internal and external, a trial encountered as a result of genuine love.

Thanks to Trier’s visual flourishes, and the carefully constructed script co-written with frequent collaborator Eskil Vogt, the many metaphors of the handsome edifice connect brilliantly to the emotional turmoil of its occasional inhabitants.

Despite doubling as a plausibility-straining endorsement for the battery life of Apple’s iPhone, Dickerson’s claustrophobic survival thriller proves itself a technically proficient, expertly paced affair.

The strength of ensemble’s performances can’t be overstated, especially that of Woodard and Hodge—she one of the greatest actors of her generation, he on the path to becoming one of the greats of his own.

Served Like a Girl manages to inform the audience about its important subject matter in an always engaging way while also telling an entertaining story with as many twists and turns as one might find in a fictionalized counterpart.

Without slackening its tension, Black Bag sometimes resembles a bitter comedy of manners, which are apparently also kept in the black bag for certain stretches. These are people who like to tell each other what they find irretrievably boring, especially if it’s each other, whether or not they’re even telling the truth about their disdain.

Sick of Myself reminds us to question the ulterior motive and points out the inherent narcissistic intent behind the urge to “tell your story,” both within ourselves and in others.

Moss’ creation is more than a sentient pile of parts with a fresh coat of mortuary makeup: It’s a savvy, gross, black-hearted gem with a humanity all its own.

Even with its last act problems, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is an effective return to the cautionary tale that is Panem.

Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie is a visually clever, character-redefining film for the strongest of animated smart gals, Sandy Cheeks.

Cult favorite director Don Coscarelli knows which way to twist the knobs and navigate through the static of mindfuckery that follows.

This being a Steven Spielberg joint, The Post can’t help but gradually bring heavy emotional tension to the film’s forefront, easing us moment by moment into a fairly manipulative yet exhilarating finale. None of that should come as a surprise: “Manipulative but exhilarating” might as well be the director’s calling card.

Yuasa doesn’t care much for substance, so beyond the film’s surface charms there’s not much to hang onto. But those surface charms are substance enough. Colorful, madcap, and surprisingly sweet, The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl is the best nocturnal romp you never had, and a dizzying reignition of rom-com formula.

There’s nothing adorable or convoluted about this collision of worlds. The Other Side of Hope makes room for jokes about bad restaurants alongside stark monologues about the horrors of Syria. It operates in an atmosphere of constant conflicting emotions.

Zauhar’s filmmaking style has matured along with her characters. Where Actual People took us on a fast and loose misadventure from New York to Philly, This Closeness is controlled and taut, displaying immense restraint and intention.

You might have heard about ISIS using spiffy, Hollywood-style propaganda videos to attract new recruits, but City of Ghosts breaks down how nefarious and well-organized this operation is, as the members of RBSS point out the ways in which ISIS took clear production lessons from Hollywood to make their videos as attractive to impressionable youth as possible.

Del Toro’s fables are always beautiful but sometimes irregular in connecting their artistry to fully cogent characters and themes. With Frankenstein, he has the freedom to reconstruct a story and motifs he knows by heart into a movie that’s intimately familiar with the soul of the original material, but reaches the conclusions on its own terms.

The Lost City might follow conventional genre beats, but an expert cast with a stellar sense of humor and fresh writing leads to lots of laughs and a romantic adventure that turns out to be a diamond in the rough.

That Buffalo Girls makes its stand as an empowering journey of perseverance and champion’s spirit, rather than a reflection on the larger societal underpinnings is not to its detriment.

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.

Field creates a creeping sense of cancellation from the inside, an indictment of the damned that won’t budge an inch (and not without some scorn for the whims of cancel culture baked in). For as tyrannical, ruthless and selfish as its subject can be, TÁR isn’t so shallow as to suggest simple solutions outside of the obvious.

Queens of the Qing Dynasty is a unique film with a distinct voice, a brave example of queerness existing beyond sexuality at many different confluences. Though the follow-through is not as dynamic as I’d like, and the duration sometimes drags, the film takes big swings.

As the film takes a turn into what it’s really about, A Wounded Fawn reveals that there’s something much darker and stranger than a by-the-numbers killer-in-the-house tale at work here, and what starts as familiar quickly becomes one of the most memorable horror films of the year.

Greg Kwedar’s sensitive, joyous Sing Sing does more than simply dramatize the workings of the RTA program, it incorporates participants into the very fabric of the film’s DNA.

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.

This is a film that aims squarely at respecting its source’s established fan base, and cares little for casualties who can’t hang on through its grindhouse paces.

Brats is an ’80s-infused trip down memory lane mixed with savvy insight, revealing interviews and deft directing.

Thanks to a persistently effective sense of atmosphere and a great cast, these elements coalesce into a compelling, often unpredictable horror story, and announce Zarcilla as an exciting genre voice to watch.

The sensation of the film, on the other hand, is suspicion, the relentless and sickening notion that nobody can be trusted. Whether the thrumming electronic soundtrack or Rodríguez’s photography, composed to the point of feeling suffocating, Chile ’76 drives that anxiety like a knife in the heart.

Neptune Frost is a powerful film, clean and digestible while it traffics in metaphors and deploys poetry and philosophy.

While Megalopolis might appear gift-wrapped for the cynic, then, if you meet it with any kind of goodwill, you may see in its unabashed rejection of nihilism, defiant unorthodoxy, and complete lack of artistic insecurity exactly the kind of challenge cinema needs right now.

It’s a pulse-pounding, tightly wound thriller that sticks its predictable but nevertheless effective ending in order to provide a satisfying genre retread.

The tone has more of the edgy, joyfully nihilistic streak present in something like Heathers. Tack on some legitimately brutal deaths, and you have a very effective modern black comedy/horror hybrid in the making, enhanced by an evocative score, crisp cinematography, lively camera and appropriately grungy soundtrack of early ‘90s classics.

Even for the uninitiated the tunes prove to be well presented and peppered in ways that drive the narrative forward, and everything from grand dance sequences to moments cuddling on a couch are done in convincing and effective ways.

While the visual and thematic richness of Night in Paradise could adequately carry the film on their own, the wry comedic tone that often infiltrates even the darkest exchanges between characters enhances the overall emotional payoff.

The artistic intention behind Inspector Ike is clear and executed with precision and affection, which counts for far more than a lot of money being thoughtlessly thrown at a passionless project.

Wheaton is the film’s first exceptional element. The second is Stevenson’s restraint.

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.

Anatomy of a Fall may not reinvent the wheel, but it’s still one of the most sharply made courtroom dramas in recent memory.

It isn’t graphic by any definition, but all the same, it isn’t for the squeamish. Instead, it’s for the punk rockers. Come for Gallner’s palpitating lead performance; stay for Rehmeier’s thoughts on what your dinner choices say about you.

Tenet is basically a series of heists—smaller puzzle boxes within the larger one—which means while the viewer may not understand exactly what’s going on big picture, they will find the immediate action briskly paced and compellingly presented.

As impressively exhaustive as it is as a work of history, Dawson City: Frozen Time plays even more affectingly as Morrison’s most direct love letter to cinema: as a tool not only for recording history, but also for capturing between-the-lines truths that history books can only graze.

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.

Their Finest is a joy to watch, if not for Scherfig’s direction than for Arterton’s leading performance, a mixture of affronted gumption, feminine stoicism and vulnerability that adds up to towering portraiture.

Though an ensemble of Angelenos fills out the film as it barrels to pretty much the only conclusion it could have, Ambulance is about as tidy as a Michael Bay film can get.

Army of the Doomstar prioritizes well-earned sentimentality over grisly comedy, and balances the film’s heart with the best animation of the series to date.

Though Coppola may be singing a familiar song, it rings with clarity and purpose, and unlike most biopics, it does not outstay its welcome.

Never sugar-coated or saccharine, Youth (Spring) shows the full spectrum of our experiences.

The movie is more nuanced than I anticipated and while it doesn’t completely get into the psychology of why, as Robbie puts it, America lost its mind over Beanie Babies, it is a cuddly, enjoyable and often humorous edition of the American dream gone awry.

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.

Shot entirely from the perspective of Chernov’s lone camera, 20 Days in Mariupol is a demanding and visceral watch.

The Vigil hopefully marks a trend where Catholicism no longer reigns supreme in the world of horror and filmmakers of all creeds can continue to play with decades of generic expectations.

What [Gandbhir] presents is stark, horrifying, and infuriating on multiple levels.

In pure plot mechanics and interpersonal dynamics, Splitsville resembles any number of Woody Allen movies, double-hinged on the capriciousness and endurance of love.

It’s torture-forward, funny, preposterous, imaginative and puts into practice what the franchise should have learned a long, long time ago: There is no reason to reinvent the saw blade.

Though so many trans stories investigate the ramifications of trauma, 20,000 Species of Bees adopts the warm embrace of a summer breeze.