3 from Hell has moments of abject horror, but fans of Zombie’s autumnal provocations will be rewarded with his most earnest and laid back nightmare yet.

Can You Keep a Secret? doesn’t elicit warm laughs so much as heavy sighs, even though the film has some zippiness — there’s a slapstick spirit to the movie that doesn’t shine because the jokes are plain, the couple is tough to root for, and the general tension behind this weird situation is on the lazier side of rom-com premises.

Half-nifty, half-cheesy.

If you’re a maven or even vaguely curious there’s a lot of production value to be derived here. The human story that the filmmakers want to drape over their atmosphere, though, never quite connects.

Fessenden’s prickly sense of humanism makes a considerable difference in Depraved, his engrossing take on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and maybe his best movie to date.

It isn’t until deep into “Moonlight Sonata” that you start to realize how many patterns Brodsky has woven into the fabric of this tale.

For me, One Cut of the Dead is good enough. It sometimes surprised me while I waited for a payoff that Ueda basically delivered, even if he and his collaborators never made me involuntarily leave my seat.

A fascinating and sometimes frustrating film.

Hustlers as a whole is a blast.

A wonderful ensemble, a brilliant director, and a genius screenwriter all get together for The Laundromat, a film they clearly took very seriously, but that they never figured out how to make entertaining to an audience.

Chained for Life is more than a polemic. There's a free-floating absurdist mood established, humorous and self-referential, allowing space for the audience to not just feel, but think. This is no small feat.

If Tartt’s book is about grief and the sudden trauma that can derail a life’s trajectory, Crowley’s film feels like it doesn’t understand either of those things at all, merely using them as exploitative decoration on a beautiful but shockingly hollow experience.

With remarkable grace and compassion for his characters, Baumbach portrays divorce as a great equalizer, turning us into versions of ourselves we didn’t expect to become.

It’s far from the disaster it could have been given the tonal tightrope it walks, but it’s also closer to a misfire than we all hoped it would be. Believe it or not, the “Hitler Comedy” plays it too safe.

Rian Johnson’s Knives Out is one of the most purely entertaining films in years. It is the work of a cinematic magician, one who keeps you so focused on what the left hand is doing that you miss the right. And, in this case, it’s not just a wildly fun mystery to unravel but a scathing bit of social commentary about where America is in 2019.

It sometimes feels Scrooge-like to come down on a sweet and simple film like this one, but kids can get bored too. And they will here.

A film that feels like a sumptuous beach read on a lazy sunny afternoon.

This movie’s dry, facts-first approach does not have the capacity to pull it off.

Waves is unexpectedly ambitious and confident, the work of a filmmaker in complete control of his talents and using them to challenge himself. This is a deeper and more profound film than your average character drama, a masterpiece that’s hard to walk away from without checking your own grievances and grief. The ripple effect continues.

It’s a deeply personal and very moving film, anchored by the best work of Antonio Banderas’ career.

Parasite is unquestionably one of the best films of the year. Just trust me on this one.

"Unnecessary Roughness” is a more apt title for the scuzzy serial killer procedural Night Hunter.

By the time Edie and Jonny make it to the top, we can almost see their souls expand to the farthest reaches of the truly spectacular vista.

As Danica, the head witch, draped in a bright-red gown with matching lipstick, Rebecca Romjin gives a very perverse and funny performance, all icy intimidation and glamorous power.

With a running time clocking in just over two hours, Promise at Dawn often plays like a truncated miniseries, with scenes moving along too quickly for their emotional peaks and valleys to reach their fullest expression.

This is the kind of film that explains itself too early and then has nowhere to go except into rote, B-picture thrills.

There’s a nagging aura of “meh” encircling the proceedings.

The commentary in this film has more affection than insight.

Some of the symbolism has the feeling of being laid on top of the narrative. It feels imposed, especially when it goes from subtext to text. You can see it coming from a mile away. But Ms. Purple works because of Chu's performance.

While it’s ultimately a bit too self-conscious to provoke the existential dread and true terror of the best films like it, it’s still an impressive accomplishment thanks to Eggers’ fearlessness and a pair of completely committed performances.

It Chapter Two can be a sprawling, unwieldy mess — overlong, overstuffed and full of frustrating detours — but its casting is so spot-on, its actors have such great chemistry and its monster effects are so deliriously ghoulish that the film keeps you hooked.

This documentary does a fine job of capturing what made her special.

As social commentary, Joker is pernicious garbage. But besides the wacky pleasures of Phoenix’s performance, it also displays some major movie studio core competencies, in a not dissimilar way to what “A Star Is Born” presented last year.

Farrant’s confidence as a storyteller — along with Rapace’s full-bodied performance — enrich the story and guide it toward its delicately bonkers premise.

Along the way there’s a scene of a secret meeting in a parking garage that’s more realistic, maybe, than the shadowy one in “All The President’s Men,” but not nearly as gripping. This problem persists throughout.

Before You Know It shifts seamlessly from quirky to sad to mysterious to wacky to surreal within just the space of a few days, so much so that you’d never know it’s director Hannah Pearl Utt’s feature filmmaking debut.

It's a disappointment when so much goes unexplored, when the film bows to the demands of a cliched plot driving the story forward.

Fred Durst’s The Fanatic hates fans. It hates actors. It hates tourists, shop owners, and servants. It really, really hates autistic people. And it hates you. It’s a movie that thinks you’re an idiot, someone who won’t see through its shallow provocations, illogical behavior, and vile misanthropy.

Falling Inn Love may look and sound like a lot of other movies, but you could never confuse it for being dishonest.

This is one of the year’s best films.

Most of the jokes in Tone-Deaf are variations on this gag: Harvey is a sentient fossil while Olive is an entitled brat. “Fine People On Both Sides” might have been a more apt title for this dud.

Some of the choices strain credulity and the biggest name in the piece, Josh Hutcherson, feels miscast, but this is a film that kept me uncertain of what would happen next and affirms Gan as an interesting young filmmaker to watch.

Although Friedkin was notoriously grandiose at certain stages of his career, he comes across as mostly calm, self-deprecating and centered here, at least when he's concentrating on the nuts and bolts of moviemaking.

Is American ready for a feel-good movie about a toxic, conservative talk show host who learns to listen? Maybe, but Frank Coraci’s Hot Air is too shallow, sloppy, and unfunny to lead the cause, basing itself off the nation’s divisiveness as if it were a wistful set-up for ideological kumbaya, all while being afraid of starting a tough—and true—conversation.

Jawline works gently, slowly, presenting its subject and sub-culture with not just affection but sympathy, a sympathy very close to tenderness.

Vita & Virginia wastes the talents of four people — its two subjects and the two women that play them. It is a deeply frustrating movie, a film that not only can’t find the right tone from scene to scene but feels disjointed in individual moments too.

For either newcomers or fans, the documentary’s cradle-to-grave, talking head approach too readily threatens to take the zip, romance, and funk out of a fascinating subject who would be nothing without those very elements.

Only the commitment from the always-solid Michael Ealy saves it from being one of the worst movies of the year, although just barely.

At its best, López’s movie has that del Toro signature style, and she also proves herself a deft director of children, another element she shares in common with the Oscar winner.

The best thing that can be said about the script, penned by acclaimed playwright Alice Austen, is that it never sounds written. Most of the dialogue seems as if it were improvised by the film’s remarkable ensemble, particularly when scenes of prolonged verbal altercations reach Cassavetes-level decibels.

There's about half a movie in Overcomer. The other half or so is a pretty half-hearted sermon. Neither half is particularly worthwhile, and the whole is cheap, cheesy, and, to put it charitably, churchy.

Far from being just a simple comedy about fitness and weight loss, Brittany’s journey includes the healing and forgiveness it takes to really meet those goals.

The sleepy, dopey action bonanza Angel Has Fallen is disappointing, and not just for the reasons you might expect.

Because it is the first film to be released by Higher Ground, the production company formed by Barack and Michelle Obama that signed a highly publicized deal with Netflix, American Factory will no doubt find an audience far larger than the typical documentary focusing on the contemporary labor movement.

The film is charismatic and thrilling enough to bypass its shortcomings.

The Divine Fury does sound like fun, especially given that, in the film, demons tend to catch fire as they’re exorcised. There’s also a climactic fight scene involving a scaly demon-man. And a ton of dead air, boring asides, tedious backstory, and other unnecessary narrative padding.

Driven is an odd or maybe ironic title because that man, Jim Hoffman, has a very un-driven demeanor, coming across as disarmingly impromptu, maybe some goofy charm.

In the end, What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire? feels less like a complete piece, and more like the start of something searching for its perfect form without an ideal end in sight. Considering the country’s current political landscape, it seems fitting.

The fact that director Ben Berman is making a documentary would make this concept quite unsavory, that is, if the entire enterprise weren’t so damn dull.

As “Las Hurdes” blurred documentary and fiction, this film blurs what we traditionally expect from animation. As for why to tell this story, it’s all really there in an opening discussion about the impact of art and what is gained from dissecting it vs. just experiencing it.

A tremendously absorbing film, a documentary that plays like a first-rate thriller hinging on key issues of the Cold War and African decolonization.

The laughless mess of Sextuplets proves that Marlon Wayans still has a big obstacle in the way of his comedic greatness — himself.

Not even the most devoted of Mandy Moore fans would mistake 47 Meters Down for a good movie by any means.

This is a purely sensationalistic cinematic experience that paradoxically encourages reflection and contemplation.

It’s a privileged perspective with nothing to share for the rest of us.

Blinded by the Light, at its very best, captures the experience of being a fan, the pure exhilaration of it, and the sense of your vision opening out to vistas beyond your horizon.

While the premise eventually grows thin and the jokes turn repetitive by the third act, the chemistry between the movie’s three stars is both lively and substantial enough to keep the antics enjoyable.

As magnificent as the movie looks, sounds, and feels, this cut expands upon and unpeels the movie’s weaknesses both as story and meditation on Vietnam.

I didn’t laugh a whole lot while watching Adam, but I was never less than wholly engaged, and by the end, I felt grateful for having seen it.

The goofier and more random the movie is, the better it is, and it certainly gets goofier and more random as it goes.

Sama owes much of the authenticity and visual panache of This Is Not Berlin to his cinematographer Alfredo Altamirano. The DP’s nervy, panoramic compositions heighten the precise production design of various multimedia art pieces and an assortment of impeccably choreographed street protests.

A plainly affable romantic comedy that’s not too powerful with its romance, and certainly not its comedy.

Affleck's acting style has always been understated to the point of barely existing. It's why he was riveting in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” in particular. Affleck drifts, he floats through dialogue, he doesn't have words at his easy disposal. This works well for him here.

I’d have an easier time accepting the trite, asked-and-answered conclusions that director Muye Wen and co-writers Jianu Han and Wei Zhong lead viewers to if they were more adept at tugging at viewers’ heart-strings.

This is an inspiring film, a funny and informative feature whose subjects were creative kindred spirits I’d never seen onscreen before. I realized that I was being represented here, and my unreconciled shame morphed into a sense of liberation.

This is a Sad Rich People movie, no more so than a lot of American films dating back to the dawn of cinema, but it's no "The Leopard" or "The Royal Tenenbaums" or "The Great Gatsby" or you-name-it.

What gives Socrates its special distinction are the precision and excellence exhibited in all major areas of its making, from direction, writing, editing and cinematography to the two standout performances by young actors that anchor its drama.

Wang and Zhang's film ends with an explication of a new “two child” policy, a celebration of the one-child-policy’s overall success. The propaganda for his policy is as cheesy as that for the old one. A sense of dread as to how this policy will be enacted intermingles with a strange feeling that a true reckoning with the old way is still very far off.

Cliches aside, there's something at work in The Peanut Butter Falcon, something eccentric and exuberant. Nilson and Schwartz's devotion to the details of Zac's world highlights Gottsagen's funny and intelligent performance, giving the film an authenticity it wouldn't otherwise have.

I am here to tell you that you will be shockingly entertained. Dora and the Lost City of Gold manages to ride a fine line between being true to the characters and conventions of the series and affectionately skewering them.

Full antihero equality will only be achieved when women are permitted to carry a crime drama by being so charismatic that viewers would consider following them into hell rather than give up the buzz they get from watching them be bad.

Thanks to Øvredal’s visual flair and visceral dedication to the monsters of Guillermo del Toro, clearly a major influence on the “Trollhunter” director’s bittersweet approach to the field, this satisfying though far from innovative dish boasts comforting flavors throughout.

Playing Banks over the course of more than a decade, Hodge consistently makes the movie compelling, even when it veers toward a safe, faith-based uplift.

I have eaten stacks of pancakes that were less syrupy than The Art of Racing in the Rain.

Diane Kruger is as inscrutable to us as she is to her fellow Mossad agents and the asset she seduces in The Operative, a solidly crafted if forgettable espionage thriller.

When a comedy is made about a real-life topic that is no laughing matter, it had better be funnier than Sameh Zoabi’s Tel Aviv on Fire. The premise is a richly flavorful one, but the execution is as bland as unseasoned hummus.

Watching La Flor is like being on the last legs of a road trip with a group of people you’ve grown increasingly alienated from. Look at the happy artists, they’re having fun playing with themselves; good for them, can I go home now?

The movie does gain in stature just by letting Cage be Cage. When he’s riding in a car right after his release, Frank rolls down the window feeling a breeze on his face. Cage puts on that “shine sweet freedom” expression he used at the end of “Con Air.” If you’re a fan of the actor, this is a moment when all is right in the world.

Piranhas generally succeeds whenever it leans into its hangout vibe. The teenage gang isn’t particularly memorable (names and personalities are eschewed for rowdy homogeneity) but their collective energy can be fun to watch, especially because it allows Giovannesi to document youth as currently lived.

The three lead actresses also produced the film, presumably because there are not enough good roles for women over 35. They need to look a little harder.

Luce is the worst kind of provocateur; it tosses out all manner of outrageous ideas and then, like those pathetic dudes on Twitter, it yells out “DEBATE ME!” As soon as you accept the challenge, the film folds like cheap origami. And this film has a lot to toss at you.

With Love Antosha, there’s now a coda to Yelchin’s story beyond somber headlines and obits. There’s an impression of who he once was to those who loved him and a sense of how we might remember him having heard their stories.

The acting and filmmaking are so much more imaginative than the script (which also falls into the rookie trap of mistaking a lack of humor for seriousness) that in the end, this feels like a dry run for something deeper and more daring.

The film is filled with brutality from start to finish, over its grueling run-time ("The Nightingale" feels much longer than it is). The Nightingale has already caused controversies at festivals, where people walked out, outraged at the multiple violent rape scenes.

The film has a grounded, jovial quality especially whenever we see images of Wilkes and Maisel from previous years; it's sometimes like a low-key comedy about one man's quirky mentor and buddy.

Great hero stories leave the viewer feeling inspired by the potential within the human condition. This one will just leave you depressed.

It’s only in the final third when the fight choreography gets a little too incoherent that you realize you don’t give a damn about anything that’s happening, and you start to wish Hobbs and Shaw were given a story with a little more meat on its bones. But by then you probably won’t care.

Honeyland is both an immersive experience and an undeniably gorgeous reflection on our relationship to nature.