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.

Although it all may veer towards a cliched representation of British-ness, Fiennes and Mulligan’s leading turns as Brown and Pretty are charming.

A war epic between the people and the state, it sprints through a grassroots resistance movement like a brushfire: Blinding, dangerous, all-consuming.

As wacky as it all sounds (and there are certainly punchlines to appreciate), Escobar’s creation can be shockingly moving.

By the time the movie reaches its poignant, beautiful conclusion, I defy anyone to have a dry eye. CODA is about letting go and letting your loved ones soar.

The epicenter of the film lies in its characters’ sexualities, from discussions about the unique struggle of gay Asian invisibility to refreshingly candid conversations regarding the minutiae of their sex lives.

Bros says many of the right things, often loudly and directly, as it reblazes an already well-marked trail towards normative convention.

Just give yourself over the utter weirdness.

Hagazussa is further distinguished through a patina derived from David Lynch and Panos Cosmatos—slow, deliberate, perpetually unsettling. The film takes its time, but it drags the viewer along the way toward a mind-shattering oblivion.

What is most puzzling about Ammonite is its dedication to playing up the ridiculous, misogynistic leanings inherent of the time while simultaneously diminishing the groundbreaking work and strong personalities of both women.

People don’t always want Goldilocks movies, but amid the melodramas and rom-coms, the IP blockbusters and action movies, Fremont’s easy flow and small scope provide the same reassurance (and opportunity for projection) as a small, optimistic piece of paper.

For Zodiac Killer Project to work, it would have to be coming from a filmmaker who is fully ready to admit their own culpability in continuing to fuel the worst aspects of the genre they intended to exploit. That kind of brutal self-admission would have taken a great deal of courage, but Shackleton can’t quite get there, even if he comes close at times.

Eastwood, still so earnestly attuned to the mechanics of personal guilt and faltering systems, finds timelessness in that growing unease.

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 all the technical achievement on display, as impressive as it is that you could recast a main role in so short amount of time, All the Money in the World is disjointed and frazzled.

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

Friendship feels custom calibrated to give Robinson the best possible debut as a cinematic leading man. It’s not just a vehicle for one comedian, though; it’s a timely commentary that, in its own way, slightly deflates the pop sociology notion of the male loneliness epidemic—an idea that basically excuses the anti-social behavior of men who won’t or can’t try to make friends with each other.

Ladkani’s camerawork is agile and sleek, and the editing is super-sound, so even with a complicated web of crime, corruption, socioeconomic tension, multiple languages, blurred-out faces and folks who operate in the dark, it’s easy to follow.

It’s the thought put into the writing that leads Promising Young Woman astray: The movie knows what it’s about, but waffles over how to be about it. The ferocity Mulligan funnels into her performance hints at the story that could’ve been—merciless, cool and vividly stylized. But her ruthlessness, her “no fucks to give” demeanor, isn’t matched by the picture surrounding her. She realizes her promise as Fennell struggles with her own.

González-Nasser offers glimpses of what might make the work rewarding enough to stick with, and, with it, how elusive those feelings must be.

M3GAN’s most impressive feat, at the end of the day, is that it gives us cinematic sickos exactly what we want without sacrificing greatness in the process. And yes, what we want is a breakdancing, murderous doll. Is that such a crime?

Mickey 17 is in no way a revolutionary follow up to something like 2019’s Parasite, but it’s an entertaining, well crafted ride.

This repetition of old themes might suggest a filmmaker out of ideas. I’d argue the opposite: Happy End is a movie that’s fully alive, no matter how chilly it is. And its calm is a kind of rage, methodically cataloging the crimes and misdemeanors of a family that’s seemingly above consequence.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train continues to prove the power of animation and how it can make the story of a boy slashing up demons with a katana about more than sleek fights, but also about how violence affects its characters.

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.

Nine Days marks Oda as one of our most exciting new directors, a filmmaker possessing an innovative cinematic mind with a heart to match.

It never quite rises to pedigree of Your Name, but it certainly asserts its place in Shinkai’s oeuvre as his most challenging film to date.

Infinity Pool’s inspired critique of this crowd is fierce and funny, its hallucinations nimble and sticky, and its encompassing nightmare one you’ll remember without needing to break out the vacation slideshow.