The combination of Dahl’s bleak plot turns, from the offscreen death of Luke’s parents to a witch who lures the grieving young boy out of his treehouse with the promise of a pet snake, Roeg’s in-your-face camerawork and Henson’s creature effects make every second of The Witches unencumbered, gleeful torture.

Simon Rex’s performance as Mikey sweeps up everything around it, including the movie’s audience.

The movie’s strongest moments come when the action gets so ridiculous that the audience almost has to laugh, even as they’re wondering who’s going to die next.

Godzilla vs. Kong is a gorgeous, kinetic spectacle that’s so effectively big in its loud colors and ridiculous choreography that any screen outside of a multiplex feels too small for it.

As Sinners accelerates toward its climax, none of it feels wasted. Its action is explosive, and while Coogler’s vicious momentum can be visually disorienting at times, the adrenaline and the way he tethers each character to a distinctly spiritual question ensure that the movie’s strengths far outweigh its flaws.

Babylon marries bombast and tragedy in one fell swoop, embracing Chazelle’s hubris as an artist by letting him insert himself into the cinematic canon, while he’s endeavoring to earn his place there at the same time.

Through the alien beauty of its visuals, Andrewin’s hidden-waters-run-deep performance, and its increasingly tense atmosphere, Tragic Jungle casts an unsettling spell.

Untitled Horror Movie is the kind of finely tuned exercise that benefits from the chemistry of its cast, the managed-expectations feel of its storytelling, and a firm awareness of the kind of low-stakes entertainment so many of us might appreciate right now.

The brightly rendered details and Mulligan’s full-throated performance accessorize a film that ultimately might not be as groundbreaking as Fennell thinks it is regarding gender roles and heterosexual dynamics. But there’s an undeniable satisfaction to her brutish approach.

Not everything Miranda and Levenson try with this film works, but even at its messiest, the movie is always meaningful.

Nightmare Alley is straight noir, a stylish and dark work about lies and liars. And in our current theatrical moment, its slow drama is a slightly harder sell than the latest Marvel movie, but no less of a dazzling spectacle.

It’s likely the best Manhattan mayhem film since Cloverfield, and it’s also a downright excellent Hollywood blockbuster, if an entirely unexpected one.

Athena is arguably a style-over-substance movie, given how little time and attention it devotes to the personal drama underlying its politics. But in Gavras’ hands, the style is also the substance, with a restrained classicism giving way to baroque staging as each long take accelerates. Scenes build in ways that feel both narratively inevitable and visually prophetic.

It’s bold, dazzling, introspective, and occasionally disturbing, which makes it a fitting capper to not only the new film series, but to the Evangelion story as a whole.

This isn’t a movie about car chases and explosions, it’s about the squirmy but satisfying feeling of watching justice done, and it’s a pleasure to watch the pieces fall into place.

It’s a lot to take in, but it’s joyously and creatively rendered, a fantasy epic brought to life in vivid color and with all the visual creativity a fantasy fan could want.

The Lion King shed its lush animation for a more photorealistic world, which prompted many (us included) to wonder if the hyper-realistic CGi caused some of the heart to be lost from the story. The Elephant Queen, on the other hand, works with just animals and narration to create an evocative tale.

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

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.

The Blackening is a strange movie, and often a very silly one. But the creators can at least boast that they’ve put something on screen that horror fans don’t see often, and won’t be expecting.

The film seesaws between being a persuasive argument for standing up for what’s right and simply being an actor’s showcase.

The Summit of the Gods isn’t a joyous film, and it isn’t a dreamy one. But it does feel like a remarkably insightful meditation, both about what it would really be like to fight your way up Mount Everest, and about why people keep taking up the challenge

Lightyear is so clearly calibrated to be something more: a thoughtful meditation on the passage of time. And on that level, the film never hits as hard as it’s meant to.

Barker’s obvious care and respect for his subject makes Sergio stirring to watch. But as Craig Borten’s script leans more and more on romance, the film flounders.

The film is, in the end, Hawkins’ to own. Her eyes — and her posture, her voice, her jittery movements — defy any show-stealing, and lend a solidity to a film that might be a little flimsy otherwise.

The biggest reason The Wailing is a must-watch for It Follows fans is that the directors and writers in both cases treat sexual violence like a forest fire that devastates everything it touches.

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

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.