Both the artist Lil Baby and the film about him pursue a deeper gratitude and respect for both this rap star specifically and the genre itself.

Throughout the picture, Bernstein interacts with genteel folk who quietly deplore what they see as the American perception of art and art-making.

Though it doesn’t break new ground, Hive still reminds one how urgently significant it is to honor the unique fighting spirit of women, and how much cinematic joy seeing that spirit flourish against the odds can bring about.

Wicked: For Good really sings where it counts: with the emotional ache of the fractured friendship at the story’s core.

A well-produced, visually impressive, character-driven fable about the man who would be king.

Les Misérables is a gripping experience, tense and upsetting.

This is a likable, funny diversion, and sometimes more than that.

John Wick breathes exhilarating life into this tired premise, thanks to some dazzling action choreography, stylish visuals and–most importantly–a vintage anti-hero performance from Keanu Reeves.

If all of the dots don’t connect, that feels almost intentional, a way to create a personal connection with the viewer that may be different than anyone else’s. Some will struggle with the lack of cohesion; for others, it will be the best thing about “Mother Mary.” Both are right. And so is Mother Mary when she says these metaphors are exhausting. More movies should be exhausting.

It can't quite seem to get out of its own way. It is intelligent and sensitive and assembled with a great care, and worth watching just for its images of the jungle.

The movie practically sparkles in scenes at Melanoff’s candy factor, where the rainbow motif is woven throughout the space and even onto Melanoff’s commander jacket, which is topped off with candy buttons and cupcakes on his shoulders.

This is Owen Kline's first feature, and he knows this world—the world of comic book obsessives and hopeful comics artists—very well. Nostalgia is probably at work in the film—somewhere—but it's buried under layers of grime and bitter disillusionment.

A good old-fashioned melodrama, albeit with a quieter touch.

This sounds very dark. But I Used to Go Here, grounded by a beautiful performance from Gillian Jacobs, treats its subject light-heartedly, while still managing to be honest.

A coming-of-age drama that’s as beautiful and brutal as the remote, rural landscape of northern Iceland where it takes place.

Whether it's the wealth of meta-cinematic references to both Shetty's and Khan's other work, or the evolving romance between Khan and Padukone, or the handsomely mounted action, or the occasionally excellent songs, Chennai Express always has something up its sleeve.

That heartfelt element translates into the benevolence of the adults in this film—Perlman is especially big-hearted, no surprise there—not to mention Tsang’s obvious affection for her troubled protagonist. Together, they imbue “Marvelous and the Black Hole” with enough warmth to overcome its practical limitations. Talk about a sleight of hand trick.

The Luckiest Man in America is good follow-up viewing for “Quiz Show,” a drama about the 1950s quiz show scandals that prompted congressional investigations and led to reforms in the television industry. It’s also an example of how to make a low-budget movie that immerses you in a long-gone world and the minds of people who lived in it, while maintaining a tight geographical focus on a small number of characters.

Quickly and convincingly, it becomes its own funny and fast-paced phenomenon with its own modern-day charm.

The Archies celebrates its protagonists’ character-defining youth by letting them be cute, doofy, and mostly self-absorbed.

Holland’s film manages to get under one’s skin on the whole, remaining a compelling watch throughout in spite of its rambling feel.

This recent The Secret Garden both respects and admires children’s imagination as its young characters discover their own way to grapple with loss, isolation, and loneliness.

Our Time Machine leaves you wanting a whole lot more, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

It’s a tick too long and has a section that’s far too expository for a film that’s at its best when it leans into surreal nightmare logic, but this weird movie works its fear factor in unexpected, creative ways.

Captures why Chris Farley mattered, even if it does sometimes gloss over a few of the reasons our friend is no longer with us.

It’s all weighty, serious material with huge stakes — emotionally, culturally and financially. But Roach, working from a script by Charles Randolph, finds a tricky balance of portraying these events with a sprightly tone while crafting a steadily building tension. Bombshell is both light on its feet and a punch in the gut.

The film is not just a glossy period piece; it’s an emotional story about human resilience, one that’s sadly still too familiar almost a century later.

In the current economy, Monopoly makes a more appropriate board game upon which to base a horror movie, but for what it is, Ouija is better than expected.

Betsy Brandt gives a compelling performance as the title character whose spirit is slowly breaking, a woman of the arts faced with a painful and personal manifestation of ambiguity.

Although the relationship at the heart of We Broke Up may be messy and complicated, Rosenberg ties all of the story’s elements together into a neat, bittersweet package.

The sheer too-much-ness of Alienoid could have easily been wearying, given its many tangents and supporting characters. Thankfully, writer/director Choi Dong-hoon confirms his hitmaker reputation by balancing over-inflated set pieces with disarming screwball comedy and delightful character actor performances.

South Korean horror-mystery hybrid The Wailing crosses that line several times, but somehow remains effectively atmospheric.

What Happened features some of the best concert footage and musical performances in recent music doc memory, even if it never quite answers the question in its title.

Condon’s “Kiss of the Spider Woman” is a reminder of what a great on-screen musical looks and feels like.

Despite its missteps, this is Baker's best-directed film, judged purely in terms of how economically he sets up and pays off each mile marker in the story, often getting in and out of a scene with two or three elegantly choreographed but unpretentious shots.

The film works most of the time, largely because its subject is such interesting — and warm — company.

This is one overstuffed horror movie recipe, with a dash of “The Exorcist” and a spritz of “Ghost” among its tasty ingredients.

R100 is, consequently, a comedy that tries to alienate you by suggesting that escapism is futile, all things inevitably devolve, and nothing inherently means anything.

Breaking is a tragedy that only opens like a thriller. From the beginning, Breaking is about justice.

Documentary films often find their value in taking us to places that are challenging, even painful. Farewell to Hollywood offers the rewarding difficulties of that type of filmmaking, along with additional challenges that stem from questions about its own ethics.

A film that is a somewhat uneven journey, though one that proves to be ultimately rewarding in the end.

It is with a zippy touch and a number of questionable directorial choices—Sorkin is still a much better writer than director—as well as an immersive, pressure-cooker structure that is never less than enthralling, that Sorkin implants his aforesaid signature style into Being the Ricardos.

The theme is present in every frame. Gilford's affection for the characters is clear. I'm happy to have met them, to have been welcomed into their world for a short time.

Ghosts and spirits appear, and weird things are indeed summoned, but Brooklyn 45 is really a meditation on grief and the unfinished business of war as experienced by a group who struggle with adjusting to peacetime.

Listening to these people grapple with Proust’s work and relate it to their own individual lifetimes of experience is often fascinating.

Al Maysles, a great fixture in the New York film scene and an influence on several generations of documentary filmmakers, was a keen, understanding observer of human nature and behavior from the 1950s up until his death last month at age 88. Iris and another recently completed film, “In Transit,” will stand as testaments to his unique talents and contributions to the documentary form.

The main reason that Time to Choose feels different and has value is that it actually offer solutions and hope.

Gabriel isn't a perfect movie, but it's a great reminder of what movies can do, and used to do often, until American movies decided to concentrate mainly on spectacle and franchise building and leave characterization to TV.

Even with a shaky conclusion, the swarming warmth of Riegel’s direction and the meditation of her writing results in a film that displays the fleeting, volatile kind of love that forces you to grow - the kind the greatest songs are written about.

Not a call to action, River instead contents itself by being a sensational reminder of where it is we all come from.

What “Scream 7” should have or at least could have been, “Faces of Death” effectively digs deeper into the themes that the Ghostface franchise has only been flirting with recently, particularly the impact of becoming not just numb to online violence but weaponized by it.

Eklund wastes little time getting to “the good stuff” as the film’s slasher works his way through the employees at the camp and the people who have come there to learn about the power of positive thinking.

A documentary that manages to be jaw-droppingly provocative and genuinely endearing — sometimes at alternating points, and by the end kind of all at once.

It’s the quasi-gothic scenario that’s amusing here, and it’s as fraught as it is straight-forward. That and a perverse sense of humor puts “Amelia’s Children” over the top, though it’s never quite ha-ha hard enough to be satirical, nor sincere enough to be campy.

Retrograde is about many things, but it's really about the faces. The cameras linger on the faces, allowing the expressions of suffering, tension, nerves, and desperation, to take root.

While the film is an informative tale of international politics, it’s also a warning sign and rallying cry for action back home.

Close to Vermeer is a gentle, thoughtful documentary, populated by knowledgeable individuals like Vandivere, experts at the top of their fields who have maintained their passion and love for the subject.

Unless you’ve a vested interest in New York City or, like me, you were born and bred within its confines or in its neighboring shadows, The World Before Your Feet may seem like a hard pass for you. But this well-made and intriguing documentary isn’t about New York so much as it is about an unusual idea seen to fruition.

It’s an auspicious debut from this up-and-coming filmmaker, who once worked as a receptionist for J.J. Abrams’ production company, Bad Robot.

As for the fights: There are plenty of well-choreographed battles in The Final Master. The award-winning choreography eschews wire work, keeping the action sequences squarely on the ground.

It's often said that when you're presented with conflicting accounts of an event, the one that seems most plausible is probably correct. The movie seems to align itself with that sentiment.

Even at 74 minutes, “Family Portrait” sometimes feels like it would have made a stronger 20-minute short film. It’s stuck in that space where a filmmaker has too many ideas for a short but not quite enough meat on the bones for a feature. And yet, a mastery of tone here makes that criticism fade in memory—kind of like how we pick and choose what we remember from family gatherings.

These character arcs play out in subtle, naturalistic ways, with restrained performances that underline the tension between the film’s polite surface and unsettling subtext.

Like most films of its type, “The Final Chapter” is utterly ridiculous in every possible way but unlike a lot of them (I am looking at you, “Underworld”), it at least has a healthy sense of its own absurd nature that comes as a blessed relief. And a couple of the action bits are gloriously goofy to behold.

While I admit I would have preferred a documentary about the people who have passed this tradition down from generation to generation, director Ricky Staub’s fictional feature serves as a worthwhile introduction.

Still, you can’t fault a family entertainment extravaganza too much if it actually goes out of its way to integrate the ensemble of a fairy tale in an Old World European setting with a diverse array of supporting players. Branagh deserves an extra bravo just for that. And we mean it sincerely.

A beautiful portrait of the man himself, still going strong at age 76, as well as a critique of the art world that has ignored him (and others) because they don't "fit."

This is a movie so strange, bizarre and so unclassifiable that as soon as I was done watching it, I contacted my editor to see if deploying the phrase “batshit crazy” would be acceptable.

The film can be smothered by the obligations of its plot, but it's still beautiful and original, extremely funny, and sometimes very moving.

Engrossing and a little moving. And Isaac is a very winning and effective messenger of Peter Malkin’s heroism and humanity.

Barrese follows his mother everywhere. She bikes to teach her classes, and there's lots of thought-provoking footage of her lectures and small conferences with students. These are some of the best sequences in the film.

Thankfully, despite its creators’ general fussiness, The Truffle Hunters is good enough, if only because guys like Carlo and Angelo are more charming than they are eccentric.

Did I mention this movie is a comedy? It is, and a very sure-footed one, although the style does take some getting used to.

It's impressively staged, especially considering the low budget, and contains a number of action beats that put their high-priced Hollywood competition to shame.

The film is high-strung, nervous and slightly chilly in the New York scenes, but once the action shifts to the beaches of Venice, it slows down considerably, and fittingly.

The most important lesson from The Social Dilemma is that we should question everything we read online, especially if it is presented to us in a way that reflects a detailed understanding of our inclinations and preferences.

The end result may be little more than an exponentially more expensive version of those cheapo Syfy channel movies, but at least it has the good taste to be exponentially better as well.

At times, Sicario is a deeply satisfying, intense examination of a war with no rules of engagement, driven by a spectacular performance by Benicio Del Toro and typically mesmerizing cinematography from Roger Deakins. At other times, especially in its middle act, Sicario can be frustratingly self-indulgent.

Even though Wetlands is absolutely, brutally unrelenting in its depictions of bodily functions and searching adolescent sexuality, it’s also an inventively sharp, briskly edited, spectacularly-acted post-adolescent coming-of-age story.

Limbai captures all of this in a direct, unforced, and restrained manner that makes its points about the need for reform to social services without becoming overly strident.

It’s smartly crafted, well-written, and strongly performed. I’m not sure it works as social media commentary, but it undeniably clicks as an entertaining thriller about someone who thinks the Insta-world is shallow enough to hide her sociopathic behavior.

In Jakob’s Wife, the classic vampire theme is looped into an insightful and often very funny commentary on marriage and the limitations placed on women.

The movie hits its cinematic stride, as it happens, when events are at their worst. The Promise is drenched in production value and replete with ravishing shots of sunrises and sunsets, but it’s in the scenes of fleeing, of battle, and of horrendous loss that the film is at its most effective. The depiction of the savagery inflicted on Armenia is bracing.

It might not always gracefully connect its plot dots, but “Tomorrow” is almost always watchable.

A humorous if occasionally horrific pitch-black satire.

Thankfully, Jodo’s latest is also way too weird to be hagiographic. It’s indulgent, absurd, frustrating, and more than a little gross. It’s also idiosyncratic and funny enough, and in ways that Jodo’s fans will probably love.

It takes prodigious comic gifts to make a loathsome, pathetic character so mesmerizing that you enjoy watching him dig himself into a hole for 90-plus minutes. Jim Cummings, the star, editor, co-writer, and co-director of The Beta Test, has those gifts.

Whatever "Breaking Bread" lacks in artistic ambition, it makes up for with its good heart, sincere intentions, and, most importantly, all of those luscious images of food.

Fair warning: If a romance about beautiful, miserable people is your least favorite indie subgenre, this may not be your cup of tea.

There’s more than enough to like here, including a great ensemble, the best performance from a living legend in years, and, again, a message that feels depressingly timely.

It is the compassion the film has for its characters that is the film’s true grace.

With music by Qween Beat, Kiki shows the new generation of the ballroom scene, their care for one another, their awareness of the struggles ahead, their determination to be themselves, against all odds. They are scared, but they are strong.

The sensibility behind “The Strangler” is sufficiently unusual and stalwart.

Ozon has a ball poking fun at a corrupt justice system that shuffles one criminal to the next crime-out-of-convenience and imagines how public opinion would fashion Madeleine into a feminist symbol.

Ultimately, For Madmen Only is essential for comedy fans and historians. It’s something that anyone interested in theater as a career or even anyone who does improv comedy on the weekends should check out on VOD.

Whether his film is lush or rolling in the muck, it always has a tactile quality that makes it accessible, which is also true of the performances from his (mostly) well-chosen cast.

While the wind goes out of its sails a few times along the way, this is a ravishingly photographed, old-fashioned man-against-the-elements adventure epic propelled by human-scaled heroics.

In recalling his youthful days in an insular neighborhood in the titular city, Branagh has made a film that’s both intimate and ambitious—his Roma, if you’ll forgive the inevitable comparison to Alfonso Cuarón’s recent masterpiece.