The film is intense, making for one of the sniffliest audiences in which I’ve ever been included, so viewer discretion is certainly advised. But with that kind of emotional power too comes the intellectual and statistical weight we need to enact change.

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.

Despite its third act problems, it’s safe to say that Deadstream has done for YouTube/Twitch what Unfriended did for Skype, what Host did for Zoom and what Paranormal Activity did for home security footage.

By applying our technocapitalist present to the kind of person that this reality inevitably creates, Fincher’s created a thoroughly entertaining look at a pathetic crook—all while delivering a self-deprecating blow to clockwork living.

Book of Love ends up being a surprising mix of sweet and salty, silly and sincere, that earns those coveted rom-com sighs.

With its team assembled, Joy Ride descends into a fearless and unpredictable romp packed to the brim with absurd and unapologetically raunchy humor.

With its traditions captured in delicate, sweaty vignettes by filmmaker Anna Hints, Smoke Sauna Sisterhood’s anecdotes fill your lungs and engulf you, until its women’s secrets drip down your body.

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.

Rather than clang with the innate savagery of the werewolf niche, Cummings’ command over his material gives the film a certain freshness. He tames the monster in the man so that the man is all that’s left, for better and for worse.

Violence, political strife, marital problems—the world keeps on turning, but Before, Now & Then explores what’s needed to hold steady through it all.

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.

What Maitland does do to separate his film from other docs that rely on that structure is weave dramatization into documentation, breathing life into the woeful stories and dashed dreams of men, women and children mailing their pleas for relief to Michael Brody Jr. at the edge of desperation.

Starve Acre is not one of those horror films that everyone going in blind will enjoy. It’s not a crowd pleaser or a popcorn thriller. It’s a steady, methodically engineered, beautifully realized meditation on the slow, persistent sting of grief, and a gentle unearthing of the things we bury deep in our souls.

Over all, the profound performances, the even-lit digital cinematography that gives the film a docudrama feel, and Moussaoi’s impressive voice as a first-time feature helmer turns Until the Birds Return into an engaging work on the universality of human nature.

While it flares up before fizzling out in its final moments, the view is admittedly entertaining and worth witnessing if only to relish in the thrill of its visual excess.

As a closing chapter in the tale of Hiccup and Toothless, The Hidden World ends this portion of the tale on a satisfying note.

Aside from the globetrotting and the drama, at the heart of all three To All the Boys movies is the charming Condor, who infuses the movies with validity and radiates happiness. She is a delight to watch—always and forever.

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.

When it adheres to this storytelling maxim, Jim Mickle’s gender-flipped remake of Jorge Michel Grau’s well-received 2010 horror flick, We Are What We Are, is a powerfully expressed, atmospheric gem. If only it didn’t flinch from time to time, seemingly unable to resist the temptation to make sure the audience “gets it.”

If you’re a Cage superfan, then you’re guaranteed to revel in the bounty of references to his filmography. But even if you’re not (though you will become one after this movie), this is an emotional, engaging, funny, riveting film.

Syms packs The African Desperate with pleasing ingenuity that facilitates its complex perspective; this is a film that must be sat with to fully appreciate.

Scanlen’s searing performance elevates The Starling Girl from just being a familiar story into something far more interesting and compelling.

Beast plays with enough restraint to sustain our doubts for most of its duration, its gentle and often lovely filmmaking lulling us toward false certainties about its underlying inhumanity.

Though its leisurely pace and sinuous storyline might test the audience’s patience, the Macedonian-Australian filmmaker packs his folk horror breakthrough with enough guts and gore to keep eyes fixed on the screen.

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.

Though the addition of “extras” like multiple locations, a larger cast of non-fodder characters and oh, actual dialogue, makes The Raid 2 much less unique a film than its predecessor, it still registers as a pretty vibrant entry into the Yakuza genre.

Directed by Anthony Fabian and written by Fabian, Carroll Cartwright, Leigh Thompson and Olivia Hetreed, Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris masterfully achieves every note essential in a captivating underdog story.

But even for a highly satisfied 30-year fan of Mission: Impossible as a Hollywood institution, this adventure is a little exhausting, and leaves Cruise looking ready to move on to the next world, even if he refuses to admit as much on screen. He’s a great actor and peerless movie star. Maybe it’s time to find another mask to put back on.

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.

Chicken for Linda! is a puckish film from directors Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach that gets at this question, using creative animation to portray a family coming to terms with an old meal and all the heartbreak that comes with it.

It never apologizes for what it is or what it wants to try and do, and that—along with the twists and turns of how the plot unfolds, as wild and nasty and unorthodox as it (and the performances that anchor it) can be—is worth the price of admission.

With layered direction that emphasizes quiet moments over outward emotion during scenes of tragedy, and soulful performances all around, The Art of Racing in the Rain is just the right kind of tearjerker with an injection of positivity that our understandably pessimistic society needs.

It takes a shock to the system to draw honesty out of an influencer, and Rotting in the Sun is absolutely a shocker. But rooting himself in the fabrication-friendly space of social media leads Silva, and his film, toward an earnestness that outmatches even his best work to date.

A lot of movies attempt to replicate the experience of a dream; this one situates itself right on the edge, whether ecstatic or delirious or stricken, of waking up.

Ultimately, fans of the previous two films will get all they crave from The Trip to Spain, which feels like something of a rarity in franchising: These movies have yet to fizzle out and lose their appeal or run out of creative space to explore.

A visceral expression of fear and longing, 1BR could be a new cult classic. With incredible performances, a solid twist and the possibility of a franchise sequel, 1BR aims high. The good news is the film hits most of its targets.

The movie is both a daring and empathetic deconstruction of Monroe iconography anchored by a beautiful performance from de Armas, as well as a miserabilist wallow in exploitation. Like its fictionalized subject, the lines between the two are sad, blurry and spellbinding.

The Woman King is confident of its indulgences—a few moments of melodrama, a natural but questionable romance subplot—because it earns them. It invests in its characters so that each new wrinkle feels meaningful. It may feel like an assemblage, but I could stand to sit longer in the beautiful space it cobbles together.

If the idea of killer jeans makes you crack a grin, and even if you’ve been disappointed by horror movies with similarly silly central conceits, it’s worth your time to try on Slaxx. You might be surprised how enjoyable this bootcut bloodbath feels.

Cop-supremacy pulp may be hard to revive with a straight face; the laugh-a-minute spoof, though, is momentarily and gloriously back.

Clara Sola remains rooted in a magical realism that gracefully grapples with the patriarchal limits imposed on women’s sexual pleasure, particularly when fellow women enforce them.

A tight yet thorough timeline of Wham!’s creation, meteoric ascension and then abrupt ending, Wham! uses the archival recordings of Michael and more recent recorded musings of Ridgeley to tell their story from their perspectives.

While informative and worth watching, it’s much more of a self-authored back-pat than a critical exploration of a career or the justice system at large.

With music that breathes new life to beloved songs with an emphasis on percussion and horns, and production designer Gemma Jackson’s luscious world building that borrows from various Middle-Eastern cultures as added pedigree, Aladdin is the rare remake that actually gives us a whole new world.

Ostensibly, Ema revels in the pulling down of walls, insistent on stripping away the artifice of civility and systemic conservatism.

Hamaguchi’s film – and the performance style of Omika, a Hamaguchi crew member moving into acting here – is too controlled to produce an anguished tragedy out of this material, but it’s too unsparing to offer an easy exit.

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.

If Aporia’s airiness gives the story a bit of distance from the world we’re living in right now, the film nonetheless does what good science fiction is supposed to, forcing viewers to bring the future conundrums it raises to their present.

The Civil Dead sounds like a buddy comedy on the surface, but Tatum and Thomas pull a bait-and-switch, with the film ending up much sadder than expected (while still quite funny) and even evoking elements of The Banshees of Inisherin.

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.

As a feature film debut this is a miraculous venture, one that feels glamorous and big while still relishing in the sparks that emit from talented actors finding new and interesting ways to fill an empty space.

An inspiring movie for young, old and everyone in between, I would be shocked if the movie’s final moments didn’t lead to a cathartic cry for every viewer. The beauty of this story is timeless.

Like the best “food porn” movies, Ramen Shop is an expression of authentic passion, the kind fostered by abiding connections not simply to food but to the people, places and times food recalls.

There are reasons we enjoy the adrenaline blast horror movies give us. Scare Me, which should be essential viewing as the Halloween season dawns, understands those reasons well and celebrates them with enough laughs and gasps to leave viewers choking.

Kingsman: The Secret Service may lack the sophistication of its peers, but damned if it doesn’t know how to have a good time.

The First Slam Dunk, with familiar characters, an innovative art style, and a narrative that’s helped structure an entire subgenre of anime, plays both sides of the court as it finds a delicate balance between flash and fundamentals.

Oxygen and Laurent’s performance rely on how human nature manifests in us all: With a desire to live, no matter the cost. And none of what is achieved in this claustrophobic mystery would be possible without Laurent.

While there ample missteps—a villain the audience doesn’t really care about, a lack of epic fights that brought the original audience to both the games and shows, and a predictable plot—the film manages to be a hell of a lot of fun, capturing the spirit of its source material as effectively as a well-aimed Poké Ball.

Hunted doesn’t exactly rewrite the original tale, but it doesn’t have to. It just has to have teeth, and Paronnaud’s kept those canines sharp and savage.

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.

Huesera may have needed more scares or a darker ending to push it over the top, but as is, it’s a thoughtful meditation on choice, love and the anguish of expectation, dressed in the clothing of a clear-eyed, anxious body horror.

The script is nowhere near as tight and the characters nowhere near as well-rounded as in Dunham’s previous efforts, yet this unpolished quality is what allows the film to exist in a realm of messiness that feels alluringly unfamiliar. In fact, the ideological murkiness of Sharp Stick is one of the most rewarding things about it.

Refreshingly devoid of a traditional plot and any forced conflict, Gloria instead studies how such a character can enjoy the ups and downs of life even after her family has left her behind.

Ralph Breaks the Internet provides a fun, family-friendly time at the movies. It may lack the nostalgia-fueled power of the original, but it has a potent power source of its own in the messages it conveys.

Visually, the film can be a bit rough around the edges, but at its heart it is built from the kind of pulpy sci-fi goodness that longtime series fans have likely been craving.

With a narrative that adheres to such universal themes, Merchant reaches beyond the film’s wrestling fan core audience and constructs an inspiring story everyone can enjoy.

A Quiet Place is an extremely compelling experience—but it could have been greater still.

Domont’s compellingly drawn portrait of entitlement, impotence and the amplified conservative values of the bros casting the bones of capitalism is a violent delight, filled with tough scenes. Yet, its unpredictable ending is such a triumphantly visceral showdown that the impossible is achieved: The excruciating intensity is completely worth powering through.

It’s a beautiful thing, Wright’s film, an act of historical tension made with the grandest of ambitions tempered by the most careful of portrayals—precise in its bloat and fearless in its fantasy—a reminder today of what makes for actual leadership in a world exhausted by flummoxed white men with sound and fury, signifying nothing.

In a world full of soulless, self-conscious CGI-rampant action flicks and superhero movies that seem like they were made by robots, Emmerich seems to really care about this movie. And that’s a trend I can get behind.

Despite achieving formidable scares and clever callbacks to the filmmakers’ debut Inside, a sinister specter of clumsy cultural engagement lingers in Kandisha.

Brian and Charles isn’t striving to be a technical achievement, and it works well as a thoughtful, sentimental, funny, uplifting buddy comedy. It’s quite a feat for a feature debut, and is guaranteed to leave you waiting for what Jim Archer will do next.

Rich with subtext and warring cultural iconography, it’s got body horror, religious doubt and enough delicious flesh to leave gorehounds completely sated. Colorful and bold, it’s a beautifully scary affair.

Does the experience improve under the influence? Possibly. Then again, Yuasa’s work is effectively intoxicating on its own merits, squiggly and colorful, animation off-kilter enough to send you on a cinematic trip so long as you let it wash over you.

[Chon's] work is haunting and flirts with delirium, but at all times feels urgently alive.

Intimately, quietly, painfully, In the Fade reckons with supremacist beliefs, centering that process on Katja, and on Kruger, who breathes life and humanity into a film that intentionally lacks in both. Akin’s movie is worth seeking out on its own merits, and his subject matter is urgent, but Kruger makes them both feel essential.

The Columnist argues that silence can be more violent and political than speech.

Maybe we know Hite only slightly better when The Disappearance of Shere Hite ends than when it starts, but because of Newnham’s rigor, we certainly understand her better.

After half a decade focusing on high-concept silliness, like the giant-fly tragicomedy Mandibles and the leather-jacket thriller Deerskin, Dupieux follows his more ridiculous impulses by letting the midnight horror anthology stay up until Saturday morning, blending gore and guffaws in an amiable, breezy comedy.

Built from the same little monster framework as stuff like the Gremlins and Critters series, Frankie Freako is an unapologetically weird, esoteric ride through a very particular kind of ’80s movie, complete with what feels like an absolute suspension of the rules of reality. That makes it, at minimum, refreshing, and at its best, wildly entertaining.

Undoubtedly, filmmakers like O’Connor wish to honor their subjects instead of idly speculating. Emily performs that complicated maneuver with casual ease, proving that for the right kind of movies, actors make the best kind of directors.

In The Endless, Moorhead and Benson show how sustained paranoia and foreboding can keep an audience hooked as effectively as special effects.

The heist-adjacent film presents a mesmerizing vision of New York that relishes in the city’s more intimate details while painting an overarching picture of those who survive by scamming one feckless schmuck after another.

This may not be Assayas operating at the peak of his powers, but there’s no use in denying the thrilling efficiency that propels the overstuffed yet nimble two hours of Wasp Network.

At such a brisk pace, I Really Love My Husband makes its point with admirable swiftness and sharpness, becoming an often quite funny tragicomedy of romantic disaster, illustrative of what happens when two people with deeply unrealistic expectations collide and rely upon a lack of communication to avoid conflict.

Though the connective tissue keeping the film’s story together often requires its thin characters to improvise or otherwise overstretch themselves from sketch to sketch—emphasizing their relative shallowness as short story subjects—the medieval absurdity at the heart of the comedy always lands.

The movie is an incessant interrogation of what our young people are becoming, what they want and what the rules are to get it, yet its humor and humility make it stand out as one of the better recent satires.

The many great scenes in Janet Planet underscore the frustrations of its few bad ones: Even an emotionally tumultuous childhood can be a lot more absorbing than the indulgences of the adult world.

While China’s propaganda department made sure the film was imbued with a definitive moral, there’s a subtle pleasure in a spy story otherwise intoxicated with its own smokescreen.

Mank might not nearly live up to its subject’s crowning achievement, but it’s still a dense and enjoyable cinematic rant that would make its central lout proud.

El talks about designing that elusive “one of ones” sneaker, something so special it can’t be replicated. Sneakerella definitely isn’t that, but as a tween musical full of catchy songs, the shoe fits.

Through its colorful cuts of animation and superpowered antics, it’s a family-friendly film that hones in on the greatest battle of all: parenting.

Told through a series of metropolitan vignettes, documentary filmmaker Elizabeth Lo’s Stray deftly weaves together a sprawling narrative of human and canine vagabond life on Istanbul’s city streets.

The “Eephus” pitch is an apt characterization for the film that now shares its name, an odd, surprising story about a baseball game with seemingly little to no stakes, that continues on for long after it should’ve already ended.

It’s not as sordid as it plays at, but Bone Lake is wickedly entertaining nonetheless.

Don’t confuse Becky for a smart movie. It won’t teach audiences anything valuable, or even new, about the disease of white supremacist ideology. It won’t leave folks holding hands in solidarity against racism and prejudice at a time when solidarity is like oxygen. It will, however, provide a brief burst of catharsis through the brutal slaughter of white supremacist ideologues, for whatever that catharsis is worth.

Fuller is in fine form with Dust Bunny, and with its goofy tone, and its unabashedly maximalist elements navigating between more subtle character beats, there’s a plenty to admire about this feature film debut from a well-established storyteller.

Fueled by Zellweger, Judy has the power to take you over the rainbow with Garland, past the bright lights, through the cold nights, and into the pure love between an icon and her audience.