With beautiful cinematography and quiet, contemplative performances, there’s no denying how captivating The Delinquents is at the outset. But as the film progresses, it seems to lose sight of itself. Even with a runtime that exceeds three hours, the ideas and characters explored in The Delinquents are incomplete.

In the end, Killers of the Flower Moon is like a puzzle—each creative piece does its part to form the complete picture.

The quiet soulfulness of Buckley, Ahmed, and White makes for a banquet of slow cinema, one that haunts more than shocks in its parsing of love, lust, and longing.

Simply as a technical spectacle, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is a dazzling achievement, capturing the sensation of seeing the pop goddess’ sold-out concerts in all their enormity and intimacy.

The film is fun to watch and occasionally illuminating, but is over-packed and barely touches on the problems of scammers, the murky world of “influencers,” copycats who engage in dangerous or harmful behavior, or the infinite regression of people filming their reactions or their friends’ or children’s reactions to what they are watching.

For its near-miss moments, the inside-out approach of The Mission results in a richer film than one might have expected from reading the summary on a streaming menu.

While the settings may indeed be beautiful, every frame here has been location-scouted and dressed to a fare-thee-well that sucks all the life out of every image—the viewer might also rest easy at the near-certain prospect that The Unfortunate Events will be conveyed as antiseptically and tastefully as possible.

Clocking in at 51 minutes, the film is all mood, all rhythm, with a kaleidoscope structure and undulating ever-shifting visuals in a constant state of flux. It's not a "story" so much as a tone-poem collage about technology, knowledge, innocence/experience, and the potential end of the world.

Here is a cornucopia of aesthetics, not for all but definitely for some, that will remind you that not every type of film has been made yet.

Dear David is branded content—uninspired and hollow to a fault—and perhaps that’s even more disturbing than a five-year-old internet ghost story.

Dark Harvest misses many beats necessary for a fully realized narrative. And yet the concept and its action-driven execution make a fun watch with some laughs of incredulity.

Through interviews with women on all sides of the issue, “Plan C” paints a well-rounded picture of their operations but struggles with where to direct its focus.

Instead of gradually winning over the viewer, The Mill tests your patience. And instead of achieving a poignant fury, the film's inspiration runs out of energy, long before Howery’s Joe decides that enough is enough.

If anything, the horror element of this horror movie is the weakest part, but Totally Killer is spry enough to remain enjoyable throughout.

The film captures a little bit of the flame of the original, particularly when it allows itself to be funny. It works really well as a comedy, almost of "manners," although manners aren't really in sight.

Every scene, effective but long in the tooth, is built on the entertainment value of these oddball figures, sorta like “Tiger King” but less gross and exploitative.

I Am a Noise, beginning with Baez actually consulting a voice coach as she prepares for what will be a “farewell tour” (it was undertaken in 2019 before COVID hit the world), is a coherent, cohesive, and sometimes jarringly frank portrait.

Mister Organ gives good reason to think that Farrier has never encountered such a narcissist before, which makes this film significant as a ruthless cautionary portrait, however much it may be a visceral flashback for others. If you know anyone with Michael's aura, if someone makes you feel like this unforgettable movie does, this is your sign to run.

She Came to Me is beautifully performed and directed with great charm, unexpected wisdom, and sweetness.

Whatever promise the “V/H/S” horror anthology franchise started with is barely present in V/H/S/85, a low-energy potboiler that promises to transport genre fans back to the analog past for some reason.

Somehow, the film’s 1674 is more convincing than its 1969, and the ideas being worked out in that brief segment are more compelling than the ones that make up the core narrative. But then it’s buried, and it doesn’t come back. Pity, that’s one time when resurrection would have been helpful.

This is a deceptively brilliant piece of work, a reminder of the refined, undeniable abilities of its creator.

The Exorcist: Believer is a pretty good movie that's so stuffed with characters and not-quite-developed ideas that you may come away from it thinking about what it could have been instead.

Foe stumbles rather spectacularly by leaning more on melodrama than logic and choosing cliche over originality. Aside from rehashing tropes and offering some laughably bad moments, the film accomplishes little.

Unlike Hannah, this movie has a great relationship with its appendage—it knows when to use it for gross-out body horror humor or a bit of drama that cuts to the core.

There are some disappointing choices in the film's directing, but Castillo's performance should make a lot of those easy to overlook for anyone who stumbles upon this one in their streaming algorithm.

Saw X returns John Kramer to the root of his mission, showing people the error of their ways and asking them what it truly means to be alive. A few severed limbs along the way are just a bonus.

The movie has its own unique life force, and such confidence that if you're tuned into its wavelength, you'll forget to speculate on what will happen next.

Rich in atmosphere but short on substance, director and co-writer Gareth Edwards’ film has the look and tone of a serious, original work of art, but it ends up feeling empty as it recycles images and ideas from many influential predecessors.

Story Ave is a portrait of an artist as a young man, a not-quite-coming-of-age tale, a narrative of escape but not abandonment. The outlines of the movie’s story are familiar, but Torres has resourcefulness, energy, and imagination to burn in how he tells it.

There are some nice lessons about confidence and teamwork, a more-funny-than-scary villain, and impressive guest stars voicing minor characters, including Kristen Bell, James Marsden, Lil Rel Howery, and Kim Kardashian (as a pampered poodle social media star) and her children.

While the killer with a heart of gold trope works to varying degrees, mostly because of Manganiello’s unvarnished presence, the thematic heft of The Kill Room is enough to make it an intriguing and entertaining early work.

Muzzle is filled with intriguing aspects not explored meaningfully. There are so many different threads, themes, and plots, even Scotch-taped together in the hopes it will come together. It doesn't.

Rhys Darby is perfectly cast as the wholesome, dopey time traveler in Relax, I’m From the Future, a sci-fi comedy with a modest sense of humor but tangled message to share with humankind.

The film might have benefited from a lengthier treatment and more exploration of all the themes at work. As it is, "Barber" is a fairly rote crime drama but a fascinating glimpse of a world in transition.

While “Creation of the Gods I” is not yet a personal, let alone essential, series, you can see glimpses of the epic that director Wuershan has arguably been working his way up to since “The Butcher, the Chef, and the Swordsman,” his wildly uneven, but occasionally disarming 2010 breakthrough.

Although it attempts to tackle the heavy theme of generational trauma, it too often forgoes the more insightful aspects of its family drama in favor of an overly trite twilight romance.

The Storms of Jeremy Thomas, about the career of one of the most important film producers of the last 50 years, is one of Cousins' best and most entrancing films.

This family isn’t picture perfect, but the way De Filippis tells their story is pretty flawless.

The web spun by The Origin of Evil arguably features one twist too many, but the viewer is in for more than a pound by the time it happens. Largely thanks to Calamy’s rock-solid performance.

What follows is a movie that wants to be a teen movie and an allegory for the immigrant experience but never wholly coheres.

There are many points where Expend4bles feels less like a legitimate continuation to a franchise that has been quite profitable to many involved and more like a cheapo television pilot that was mercifully scuttled before it could air.

It’s more of the same, without any discernible improvement in quality, despite the massive technological leaps over the past two decades.

The opening moments of the first act are rendered as the film’s best, as No One Will Save You continues to fall apart due to a frustrating lack of narrative context.

The best parts of Morgan Neville & Jeff Malmberg’s The Saint of Second Chances are like hearing stories from a good friend over beers after a game.

This isn't a bad film by any means: it does a creditable job of convincing us that Penn's heart is in the right place (as an activist) even when the execution is sometimes impulsive or clumsy; but it lacks focus.

It’s an admirably vicious piece of work when it wants to be—although arguably could have gone even further and more frequently.

It’s almost more like a companion to some of the most popular books of all time—not an explainer or even piece of historical trivia about their execution. Instead, this documentary reveals how even the most complex spy fiction can have a foundation in the relationship between a son and his father.

This wickedly funny, blood-soaked portrait of a decaying tyrant hits streaming on the week of the 50th anniversary of Pinochet’s coup against President Allende. Larraín offers no false hopes about eradicating the ideologies that allowed it to happen and last. Instead, he warns that evil never truly perishes—it just transforms to poison new minds.

As he impresses by nailing each facet of the Western genre on the page and behind the screen, White's strongest suit is his consistent straying from any cynical territory. He doesn't try to aim for the same traits that made "Black Dynamite" a hit, nor does he try to be as outrageous as other Western parodies.

By playing with formalism, using faux documentary, and cranking out hedonistic scenes of excessive drug taking and partying, Yates aims to blend “Erin Brockovich” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.” But the director’s filmic language never offers quite enough sex, quite enough excess, quite enough of capitalism’s depravity. Pain Hustlers just doesn’t know how to commit.

While Cassandro is not a winner, Williams and his cast put up enough of a show to make things interesting.

In capturing Hardison's breakthrough as a model to her trailblazing as an activist, Invisible Beauty is profoundly inspiring and thoroughly adoring.

The exceptionally talented Richardson does her best with a woefully underwritten character.

Not dunking on social media teens is a refreshing angle, enough to make you want to care about their inevitable deaths. But the movie's by-the-numbers horror will make you feel otherwise.

If there’s a note of reflexive nostalgia in the proceedings, that inevitably has to do not just with the man at the film’s center but with the era that produced him, a time when magazine and print journalism could take writers and make instant celebrities and hugely influential cultural figures out of them. That day is long gone, but Radical Wolfe makes a strong case that it’s well worth remembering.

Adil and Bilall clearly care about the story they’re telling, but their penchant for maximalism (they list “La Haine,” Malcolm X,” City of God,” and “JFK” as touchstone films) ultimately betrays the most emotionally affecting moments in Rebel.

The Holdovers is a consistently smart, funny movie about people who are easy to root for and like the ones we know. Its greatest accomplishment is not how easy it is to see yourself in Paul, Angus, or Mary. It’s that you will in all three.

Four Latinx-themed horror segments of variable quality are sandwiched between a modestly amusing wrap-around story about a haunted traveler, simply called “The Traveler.” It’s not enough, despite some amusing performances and effects-driven thrills.

A Haunting in Venice is the best of Kenneth Branagh's Hercule Poirot movies. It's also one of his best, period, thanks to the way Branagh and screenwriter Michael Green respectfully adapt the source material (Agatha Christie's Hallowe'en Party) while at the same time treating it as a chance to make a relentlessly clever and visually dense "old" movie that uses the latest technology.

For a movie so driven by music, it’s unfortunate that its final number is somewhat of a mess, its lyrics weaker than the performances that led up to it. Tense situations quickly resolve themselves, and everyone in the makeshift group conveniently has a part to play. I only wish it felt more like music to my ears.

Even when the courtroom scenes fall into overly familiar visual patterns, Foxx adds tension, frivolity, and a sense of rigor, elevating The Burial from its common bones to a stirring, distinctive comedy with high re-watch value.

While this documentary doesn’t rise to the level of his masterwork “Exterminate All the Brutes,” the pain and anger, resolve, and courage that Peck captures in Silver Dollar Road make it a complex, intense document of the persistence of Black existence in a world hell-bent on erasure.

While Yu doesn’t always balance the zany physical comedy and earnest family drama she aims for, and D’Angelo’s script is packed with far too many threads, the film works largely thanks to the irrepressible charm of star Sandra Oh.

It’s a daring, long film that sometimes feels too chilly and self-indulgent, but it builds to a series of scenes that hit like a punch.

Green continues to establish herself as an insightful chronicler of the minor yet devastating terrors of violent masculinity that many women endure everywhere they go.

It’s a relatively concise, no-nonsense, short (100 minutes) comedy that reminds us that even when we think we’re playing the game, the opponent has a different rulebook.

Del Toro always brings it, and this is actually one of his more intriguing performances in a long time, but one consistently wishes that it was in a movie that knew what to do with it.

A twisted genre experiment that plays with sexuality, classic genre tropes, and general lunacy, it’s half a movie, but it’s so committed to its rebellious tone that it makes for a hell of a half.

There's an overall lack of thoughtfulness in The Nun II regarding scares, and Chaves is vehemently loyal to oversaturated tropes. The movie starkly neglects creativity and, in turn, lacks effective fear.

The main reason that Jawan doesn’t deliver more than what Khan’s previously delivered is because its creators seemingly included every masala-style sub-plot that they could think of.

The cake part of the story feels imposed, a problem since it is the film's organizing principle. It is a tribute to the two young actresses and the supporting cast that this caring friendship survives the artificial cakebarring.

A Million Miles Away is an inspiring movie based on an inspiring story told in an inspiring way. It’s a tale of literally astronomical success in the face of daunting adversity, and it’s important as a reflection of hard-won representation.

This second sequel is escapist in a next-level way: it escapes from drama as well as life.

Although Rotting in the Sun isn’t revelatory about how little those in the higher echelons of society think about the tribulations of average people, the movie’s forceful way of expressing it achieves its presumed goal: to punch up and mock the fools.

Eventually, the lack of werewolf-related carnage is the least concerning thing about My Animal.

This cool, unhurried movie is firmly anchored by a spectacularly modulated performance by Caillee Speeney.

As it is, The Good Mother starts with a gunshot and ends with a whimper.

It’s not always clear what the movie is trying to say, but even its misfires are more interesting than most because of what Reeder and her stars bring to their characters.

The friendship between bear and mouse is truly touching and where the film's real heart beats.

Make no mistake, The Equalizer 3 is hot garbage.

This film is in conversation with existential issues of meaning and with contemporary concerns about the failures of institutional authority, though is not always clear what he wants us to think about it.

It’s disarming and lovely to see a spiritual growth parable rendered in Anderson’s jewel-box style. His delivery here is not willfully eccentric but gorgeously centered. Form underscores content in "Henry Sugar" in a most delightful way.

This is a movie that gleefully wallows in the ooey-gooey muck of its insane premise. Similar to “Cocaine Bear” and “M3GAN” (but not quite as successful), Slotherhouse knows exactly what it is and revels in increasingly hilarious violence.

Salvador's movie wants to penetrate something elemental in the viewer; if you can give in to its vision in good faith, it might just do that for you.

Here is a film so devoid of thrills, excitement, or purpose that it seems to have been custom-made to play in empty multiplexes during the traditionally dead last weeks of summer.

The resilience in Scrapper is a type of lived creativity, an imaginative space where Georgie—and her father—make up their own rules and their own world. This is an amazing directorial debut.

Foumbi’s Our Father, The Devil manages to take overused themes like trauma and grief and imbue them with every facet of their respective meaning.

It is a stunning mood piece that takes pride in its stillness and slow pace, ultimately delivering a tale of intimacy, searching, and quiet strength.

There's a sweetness to this story that reflects Adam Sandler’s real-life love for his family.

Given that she’s one of the greatest actresses of her time, Mirren naturally finds ways to reveal glimmers of humanity in her portrayal of former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. But the artifice of her physical transformation too often smothers her, resulting in a stoicism that makes her an elusive figure.

You might find yourself forcing a laugh during one weak sequence to pretend this is all supposed to be fun.

The Dive feels routine, a soggy journey from point A to point B that doesn’t do anything interesting enough to make it stand out in the dog days of summer.

The problem isn't that this is a faith-based film aimed at a specific market niche (some of the greatest films ever made focus on spirituality). It's the project's bland vision.

At first, it seems Carpet Cowboys, the debut documentary from co-directors Emily MacKenzie and Noah Collier, intends to merely tell the unsung story of this niche industry and the quirky artists, businessmen, and scientists who earn their living working in it. But the filmmakers use it as a launching pad to chart the deconstruction of the American Dream.

Co-written by Seligman and Sennott, Bottoms is fun and silly in all its chaos. The two have created a ridiculous world where the overdramatic high school drama is not always supposed to make sense, but that’s part of the appeal.

This is the kind of movie Piaffe is: one that mostly poises its absurd surreality at the edge of what’s plausible in contemporary everyday life until it moves into unprecedented physical mutations.

Director Neill Blomkamp’s Gran Turismo, a crowd-pleasing, genre-bending sports drama, approaches wonder with an odd tepidness; it maneuvers around any modicum of character development by taking all-too simple routes and swerves away from formal experimentation, opting instead for simple enjoyment.