What Coppola accomplishes is less a magic act than an elegant threading of a needle.

Howard explores the life of the lyricist and the magic he brought to some of the most famous Disney melodies.

This film has a fire in its belly. But more importantly, it also has a heart full of love: love of life, love of freedom, love of Black people and culture, and love for its ferocious, complicated, brave women.

It’s enjoyable on the surface level, but it’s also a layered existential poem. It’s Wes Anderson at his most mature and magical — and at his most singular, in a way no one else can capture — especially not AI.

How to Blow Up a Pipeline is the rare movie that effectively weaponizes a radical political message by marrying it to conventional genre storytelling. It feels like a game-changer: the kind of movie that will inspire artists and budding activists alike for generations to come.

With stronger visuals than X, a phenomenal and ambitious performance from Mia Goth, but also an emptier and more meandering plot, Pearl loses the fun parts of Ti West’s pastiche. At the same time, it still delivers plenty of thrills and killer moments. It’s both a vividly painted nightmare and a showcase for its star.

Mars Express is the rare example of an animated feature that warrants an almost immediate rewatch upon completion, if only to appreciate the craftsmanship of its presentation. It’s a densely layered sci-fi story that’s light on proper nouns, but heavy on subtext.

Encanto is a masterpiece that makes the Disney musical-with-a-splash-of-magic formula soar.

As a crime thriller, Emily the Criminal is well-written and absorbingly paced, but it’s Plaza’s fearless work that makes it memorable.

The French Dispatch is probably the worst film of the director’s career. But even his worst effort is worth biting the bullet for.

Provocative in every sense of the word, the movie is equally capable of drawing viewers in with its witty study of sexuality and faith, and turning them away with its unabashed titillation. In this film, as in many of Verhoeven’s previous works, those two opposing forces are very much the point.

It isn’t what those people will think it is. It’s something better, more timely, and more thrilling — a thoroughly engaging war drama that’s more about people than about politics.

With this project, Rugna breaks plenty of horror rules and literally writes his own, turning his film into 2023’s most unnerving horror release — and a welcome revival for a subgenre that seemed like it was on its last spindly, clawed, wall-climbing legs.

The animation is gorgeous and crisp, and the script keeps its referential nature low-key. This could easily be someone’s first Bob’s Burgers experience, and it remains likable enough throughout that it probably wouldn’t be their last.

House isn’t all that scary, but it is weird in all the best ways, and nothing else looks or feels like it.

The movie, which chronicles the personal tragedies of Wilkerson’s life as she conceives and researches the book, is an awkward hybrid of these two approaches, neither of which fully succeeds. It’s a drama that wants to be a documentary, and it’s at its best when it’s just reeling off Wilkerson’s fascinating ideas at full flow.

Timid viewers who are normally averse to horror aren’t going to find much comfort or safety in this movie. But for longtime horror buffs, this feels like something fresh: a simple story, told in the rawest and most startling way, and given a face out of nightmares.

An existential mystery-thriller that vacillates between the farcical and the macabre, Taylor’s film isn’t just a rumination on the legacy of gentrification and the exploitation of minorities, but a poignant and darkly funny meditation on the power of one’s own choices and the necessity of cooperation in the face of oppression.

At its best, Children of the Sea steadily envelops viewers with curiosity, drive, and calmness. It’s a sensory concert.

Bottoms strikes a balance: It’s a playful satire, and it’s also exactly the sort of film it’s making fun of.

Like The Prince of Egypt or Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas before it, The Sea Beast ditches talking animals and funny sidekicks, but it can’t fully shake off its Disney influences. It’s a whole lot of well-animated beasts and water, with nowhere to flow.

If there’s one takeaway from Smoking Causes Coughing, it may be that: Life is short and illogical, and it often feels like one big joke that’s just a beat away from a punchline.

Catherine Called Birdy is the rare book-to-film adaptation that makes some huge changes for the better.

My Old Ass is about growing up — the joy, the pain, and those little moments that resonate with us far longer than we think they will — and Park smartly pulls it off by drawing on Elliott’s perspectives of both the past and the present.

If the Jackass crew, headed up as always by director Jeff Tremaine and star Johnny Knoxville, have dedicated themselves to anything, it’s staying young at heart. Their latest film is an uproarious, adolescent, and at times nauseating display of how time won’t affect your ability to have fun if you don’t let it.

This movie is drawing on some old, old tropes and familiar ideas. But it does it in a way that makes them feel as new, fresh, and exhilarating as young love itself.

Villeneuve has spent his career merging intellectual and philosophical queries with striking otherworldly images, but that duality is frustratingly imbalanced in his vision for Dune. The visuals are mesmerizing, but the world-building is flat.

With The Half of It, Wu has crafted a love story that tackles love in all senses, not just romantic, prioritizing not just who gets to kiss who, but what each character hopes and dreams for. They’re so well-realized that watching The Half of It feels like the beginning of a new relationship. It’s exciting, enticing, and filled with hope for what comes next — in this case, seeing what else Wu has up her directorial sleeve.