The first two movies are packed with “I can’t believe that just happened!” moments. The third one instead chains together a series of “Oh yeah, I’ve seen this before” scenes.

Fincher’s movie about movies seems to be about attempting to work within a system that’s encompassing enough to impose itself on fantasies and reality alike.

The film’s ultimate admiration of celebrity is only vaguely tolerable because its concurrent message of inclusivity is theoretically admirable — but must it be delivered by the likes of a thoroughly exhausting, irredeemably self-satisfied James Corden?

Whether strictly factual or broadly truthful in a poetic sense, its approach to queer history as coded, long-buried document is its most exacting facet. But as a story of science, hidden desire, and sparks re-igniting the soul, it’s a languid affair.

The result is a movie that interrogates Disney tropes but actually delivers on dismantling them.

Without spoiling either Max Cloud’s action or its comedy, Owen makes the running gag about Max’s macho bluster into some of the sharpest gaming criticism released this year.

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

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.

The current DC movie universe is always dark, but it seems that with a movie drenched in the neon aesthetic of the ’80s, they’ve finally found a way to dim even Wonder Woman’s light.

The ticking clock makes The Midnight Sky a post-apocalyptic survivalist space film whose narrative is so overloaded that the emotional weight offers zero gravity.

Part cheesy Hallmark movie, part community-theater production, part A Christmas Carol meets It’s a Wonderful Life, the special is a mosaic of holiday tropes — and that’s a good thing. The acting is over-the-top, and the plotline has as much subtlety as Dolly’s bedazzled platform boots, but its larger-than-life theatrical nature makes it even more enjoyable.

Though any Cage-free attempts at comedy fall flat, the action remains exciting, thanks in large part to Logothetis’ steady-handed, no-frills approach. Who knew putting together a bunch of gifted martial artists and letting them exercise those skills could take an action film so far?

In spite of a few nail-biting sequences, Run is more of a slog than a sprint.

Freaky boasts such energetic performances from the thoroughly game Kathryn Newton and Vince Vaughn that the horror-comedy breezes by in a pleasant, amusing way, no matter how reductive its central conceit gets.

Hillbilly Elegy is a prime example of a systemic failure, from script to craft to acting.

In Penny Dreadful, Green demonstrated an ability to alternate between seeming preternaturally confident and absolutely tortured, and that contrast is on full display in Proxima.

Remi Weekes’ feature directorial debut not only exposes the horrors of the immigration system, but mines survivor guilt for a clever, bone-chilling thriller.

Though the central idea is fun, everything that’s been built around it feels rote, if not totally outdated.

In The Craft: Legacy, the witches have no evil intent, only giddy desires and confident decision-making. This suggests witchcraft doesn’t invite trouble, regardless of how it’s used — it’s just power that can vanquish problems. The Craft portrays witchcraft as alluring, complex and consequential: in The Craft: Legacy, witchcraft is fashionable, quick to master, and easily renounced.

If anything, this version could have benefited from being weirder. Given that weird is territory Zemeckis seems to specialize in, The Witches’ relatively tame nature is a letdown.

It sounds ridiculous to say, but the Borat sequel is about as optimistic as a film about the current political moment can be right now.

Chalamet and Fanning do okay in Rainy Day, but Selena Gomez is the one who shows surprising facility with tart-tongued romance.

On the Rocks is her most accessible movie so far, with less hazy atmosphere and a sturdier, more traditional center: Laura is written by Coppola and performed by Rashida Jones with a directness lacking in The Virgin Suicides or Lost in Translation.

The charisma that was fully on display in Goggins’ previous work is firing on all cylinders in John Bronco — the role demands grins, winks, and whoops, and Goggins is a master at them all.

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

The entire 104-minute show is performed in a single “room,” so it comes down to the sheer strength of Schreck’s writing and performance to hold an audience’s attention. Schreck more than pulls it off.

It’s what James and Thomas bring to the table that makes this new adaptation of Rebecca worth watching.

Working with fellow directors Ophelia Harutyunyan and Suzanne Hillinger, Gibney has delivered a swiftly paced chronicle of history in the making, rich in both immediacy and uncertainty.