Retrograde, bloated, and formulaic. It's also consistently sincere, energizing, and charming.

It is somewhat refreshing to witness a May-December romance from an older female perspective and both leads pour their hearts into their roles.

A long-winded but engrossing kidnap thriller.

Alas, it also contains many of the same inherent flaws as most movies of this type, and not even the genuinely good and powerful aspects on display are quite able to overcome the more troublesome elements.

Ever the fierce competitor, Molly has found a way to rule in a male-dominated world. If only Molly’s Game had let her win in the end on her own fascinating, complicated terms.

A cheapo “Seven” knock-off that one would be tempted to suggest is beneath the talents of everyone involved, but they knew what they were getting into when they read it.

The actors never once seem engaged with the material beyond the surface. Thus, Crooked House feels as lifeless as the corpse at its center.

The film has a lot going for it. Besides the gorgeous, burnished look supplied by cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi, Cooper gets a range of fine performances from a topnotch cast.

One only has to go into his latest effort, Happy End, for a couple of minutes to realize that the old Haneke is back with a vengeance.

Filled with insincere wackiness and sappiness, Father Figures never quite figures out whether it wants to be a raunchy, zippy road movie or a more dialogue-driven dramedy. Despite having no personality of its own, this movie just yearns to be recognized at all.

A gaudy, overstuffed piece of blockbuster trash.

Alexander Payne's Downsizing starts with an intriguing "What if?...", the launch-pad of all good sci-fi stories, and very quickly devolves into a bland story about a nondescript khaki-wearing guy who learns to care about the less-fortunate.

The best thing I can say about it is that it’s not another retread of its predecessor.

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

The Greatest Showman, directed with verve and panache by Michael Gracey, is an unabashed piece of pure entertainment, punctuated by 11 memorable songs composed by Oscar- and Tony-winning duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.

The movie is, of course, beautifully made. Anderson’s visual style is remarkable. Shooting the picture himself, reportedly, with the collaboration of lighting cameraman Michael Bauman, he frames in a Kubrick-inflected style but cuts with a Hitchcock-influenced one.

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.

This big, splashy blockbuster is perplexing because it's full of loosely-connected incidents that are rarely character-driven, or even narratively intelligible beyond a point.

“A good movie is never too long, and a bad movie can never be too short.” That famous quote from Roger Ebert helps me explain why the Canadian indie comedy Sundowners, though it runs only 97 minutes, felt to me like it lasted 14 hours. Longer than “Lawrence of Arabia.” Longer than “Shoah.”

The film has a good comedic rhythm, and there's a rambunctious bickering energy in every scene. It's often quite funny. But Permanent feels like a short film stretched to feature length. It never quite rises above the level of its premise.

Tone is a revealing element for this project, which it borrows from the B-movie, apocalyptic seriousness of a later “Transformers” sequel. One of the movie’s biggest surprises is then that it has outtakes, which even include poking fun at how easily the intimidating alien’s costume head can fall off.

The filmmakers over-extend themselves to solicit empathy for their doomed protagonists. Youth is so unbearably nice that I eventually wished it were remade by misanthropes.

The movie is grisly and its sense of humor is mordant, but it winds up communicating a heartbreak that’s pretty straightforward, all things considered.

Just like the titular vehicle, the movie sputters along toward its intended (and entirely predictable) destination. Even having tremendous actors like Sutherland and Mirren in the front seat can’t enliven this vacation.

Pullman is always great to watch, the Montana landscapes are gorgeously captured by cinematographer David McFarland, and there are a couple of action set pieces that spark.

What is truly amazing about this film is how thoughtfully Ferdinand questions male gender expectations.

Writer/director Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a sprawling, incident- and character-packed extravaganza that picks up at the end of “Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens” and guides the series into unfamiliar territory. It’s everything a fan could want from a “Star Wars” film and then some.

My most basic litmus test for whether a comedy is working is whether it makes me laugh. I groaned, maybe, but no chuckles emanated from me or from my lone fellow patron.

Feeling like a director’s cut that would play best for people who already know her, Big Sonia is a feature that could have very likely made a deeper impact with the succinctness of a short film.

All of the personages in this slight movie are relatively one-note. It’s a shame that actors as searching and scrupulous as Strathairn and Keener are so ill-used.

This is part of the movie’s problem. Aside from it being another how-I-made-out-in-an-“exotic”-locale narrative. The film means for us to delight in Jay’s flouting of conventions.

It is a formally gorgeous piece of work, the kind of film that exudes confidence in structure and tone, and it contains some of the most striking, memorable imagery of the year. Don’t miss this one.

Only 90 minutes long, the film feels intimate and yet at the same time vast. It has a relaxed pace, but an intensity of focus.

This is all fascinating stuff. But you pretty quickly get the sense that Buirski either doesn't find it interesting enough to let it stand on its own or else is afraid audiences will rebel against too many bare-bones elements.

Many of the year’s best films feature female protagonists who are resolved to live on their own terms, and My Happy Family ranks right alongside them.

All of which makes I, Tonya such a wonder. Not only will it make you think about Tonya Harding again, it will make you do so with unexpected sympathy.

The director called this “mayhem porn,” a designation and ideology fitting for the latest from indie director Mickey Keating, Psychopaths. This is an active, obnoxious test of an audience’s appetite for blood and how long they can go without novel ideas like purpose or plot.

You may think that you, the viewer, have it bad by the sixty minute mark, at which point you probably won't care who is inevitably going to backstab who. But just think of the poor subtitle translator who had to agonize over dialogue so leaden that it took the joy out of a word that's as joyfully outdated as "swindler."

The Dancer clearly needed a better task master behind the camera. There are too many scenes of Fuller physically and mentally suffering for her art as she questions if what she does actually qualifies as dance.

Amateurish horror-comedy.

Throughout the film, you can see Hawke trying to bring resonance and truth to a movie that is plotted like a “Crank” sequel and has dialogue that sounds like it was written by a teenage boy. Watching the actor fight against the deep flaws of the film he’s in is almost more interesting than the plot itself. At least it’s more entertaining.

The movie also falls back on a lot of boogity-boogity docu-clichés. Skittery editing, ironic music cues, that sort of thing.

Too often, Kane and Koury don’t seem to trust entirely what they have, and they needlessly pad Voyeur with miniatures, re-enactments and an overall light, playful tone. It all seems at odds with the story’s fundamentally disturbing — yet gripping — content.

The acting is good all around but that, too, improves in the quieter moments. Monroe, best known for her work in “It Follows,” is tough and committed, and Jennifer Garner’s portrayal of a mad housewife sprinting to a meltdown is acute, even if its does require her to tamp down pretty much all of her engaging life-positive qualities.

One thing that’s fascinating in the story’s second half is the amount of expertise and effort that’s expended on searching for Alyosha.

Kaurismäki makes these bigots look ridiculous, but he also takes very seriously the damage they do, and the movie’s finale takes that into account.

There is a lacking critical quality to the story as it goes along, touching upon the film’s many idiosyncrasies but leaving them alone.

The Shape of Water doesn't cohere into the fairy tale promised by the dreamy opening. It makes its points with a jackhammer, wielding symbols in blaring neon.

Turgid even in its brightness, overwritten in a way that does nothing to camoflauge its first-draft quality, jaw-droppingly overacted by all but one of its central cast members; it’s a Woody Allen disaster that elicits both a cocked head and a dropped jaw.

The mode of this short movie is naturalistic. There are interviews of people in voiceover, but not a lot of talking-head footage. The perspective is of an observer sauntering through the town and then thrust into the middle of a fearsome but exhilarating spectacle.

A saccharine stab at a new holiday perennial that tries to fuse the classic Yuletide yarn with a “Shakespeare In Love”-style literary origin story and manages to let both of them down, not to mention a performance by Christopher Plummer as Ebenezer Scrooge that deserves a much better showcase than the one provided here.

I’ve been trying to think when there was a historical drama I found as electrifying as Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour. It may have been Steven Spielberg’s “Munich,” which topped my 10-best list a dozen years ago.

I had some minor quibbles about Coco while I was watching it, but I can’t remember what they were. This film is a classic.

Far and away the best movie of the year.

The film’s clever editing (credited to Klinger and Geraldine Mangenot) jumps back and forth through time in intriguing, sometimes intoxicating ways, and even when the drama flags there’s always a stunning image to stare at.

The blurring of that line between performer, reality, and fiction adds another layer to “Jim and Andy” that Kaufman would have adored. And Carrey likely does too.

But don’t be fooled! This is not Oscar bait at all. Roman J. Israel, Esq. is the kind of horrendous hot mess an actor makes directly after he wins the Oscar.

Anyone who has ever circulated, even peripherally, in any comedy club scene, will recognize all of it. It's a quick-flash study of both frenzied activity and crushing ennui.

Uniformly strong performances help ground the story. Tremblay, who showed instincts beyond his years in the devastating 2015 drama “Room,” provides both a sweetness and an intelligence to his 10-year-old character that make him accessible even when he’s wearing an astronaut helmet to hide his face.

The most pleasurable part of watching this Nora’s story is seeing how the males in her life have to make room for her, and do some learning themselves.

An ambitious but occasionally uneven animated film.

A feature debut that might have its heart in the right place but can’t quite manage to smoothly blend the spiritual with the silly without a few Biblical hitches here and there.

A typical Hong character performs the same actions over and over again, with minor, but noticeably different results.

The movie is well put together, enough so that if you’re not entirely tired of its clichés, it might constitute a tolerable entertainment. I’d rather watch “Double Indemnity” for the 15th time.

This is melodrama of the highest order, which is a compliment, for melodrama is not a bad thing. It is part of some of the greatest works of art, and in the right hands, it can elicit an ennui-shattering response from the audience.

If the film is a potluck stew of half-cooked notions, it's at least a tasty one.

A well-intentioned documentary that makes the puzzling miscalculation of upstaging the Armenian Genocide with “The Promise.”

As the film goes from profound life experience to profound life experience, stuck between gathering information and growing art from its themes, the documentary proves to be more noble than notable.

I was also so disturbed by this film that I felt I had to rewatch certain scenes just to confirm that the emotional exhaustion I experienced while watching it wasn't just a personal preference, but rather a problem I had with what Iwai and his collaborators do in the film.

No Stone Unturned at times veers close to a rant. It's clear that Gibney is going for something along the lines of Errol Morris' "The Thin Blue Line," which also used stylized re-creations, but the pieces don't fit together as neatly here.

It’s like a surreal, extreme version of “Bad Moms.”

With his best film since “Wrong Turn 2,” Lynch channels that national anger into a stylish, smart, propulsive gore-fest set in a corporate America that takes no prisoners. But when did it?

One salutary feature of this sharply observed film is that it does not feel compelled to make Seyi in any way magical: he cannot transcend the sump of addiction and corruption in which he allows himself to sink.

Also similar to "Carrie," it works best when it stays specific, grounded in this one woman's singular experience.

The good news is that I found the sequel better than the original — the writing sharper, the jokes fresher and smarter, the comic interaction between the lead characters consistently engaging.

Branagh, the actor, comes through unscathed. Branagh, the director, not so much.

A Gray State captures much of this in one real-life tale that’s as unsettling as it is precisely of-the-moment.

The insights offered from the almost two-dozen show biz luminaries are not always commonplace, and Gottfried is always an interesting screen presence, even when he’s far removed from his persona.

LBJ captures a tumultuous political era and one of its most profanely colorful leaders with a good deal of insight and emotional torque.

For better or often worse, It Happened in L.A. has a vision.

Until her plight becomes emotionally engaging during the film's creepy finale 20-30 minutes, watching Most Beautiful Island is an unproductively unpleasant experience.

There is nothing in this expertly-drawn character study that attempts to solve the mystery of Jeffrey Dahmer, because life rarely hands us those answers.

It’s that graceful humanity that keeps Last Flag Flying from descending into melodrama. It dips a few too many times to stand with the filmmaker’s best work, and a few asides into “wacky old person behavior” are regrettable, but this is another solid dramedy from one of our best working filmmakers.

Blade of the Immortal required the hand of an experienced director, and they don’t get much more experienced than Miike.

There are conflicts in Princess Cyd, but they're on a low boil. One of the pluses of Cone's approach — if you're open to it — is you are sometimes confronted with your own preconceived notions about people.

A nuanced and sensitive exploration of the many ways rape affects a person's life.

It is also one of the better solo directing debuts by an actor in recent memory. Hardly a false step is taken by Greta Gerwig in her semi-autobiographical script that centers on Lady Bird’s final year at her rather progressive Catholic high school.

A Bad Moms Christmas has the shoddy look and frantic feel of a slapped-together, cash-grab sequel, because that’s exactly what it is.

This is a close-but-no-cigar movie, but so enjoyable for the most part, and so modest in its aims, that its disappointments aren’t devastating. I’d watch the first 90 minutes again anytime.

The sheer musicality of Félicité signals Gomis’ refusal to be pigeonholed into any category of filmmaker.

Where Maya Dardel really works is when it sticks to being a character study.

Of course, all films, good or bad, are good or bad in their own way. I don’t know, though. All I See Is You seems extra-uniquely bad somehow.

The fact that it was made by her nephew, actor/filmmaker Griffin Dunne, gives it a warmth and intimacy that might not have graced a more standard documentary.

This is not a terribly plot-driven movie; indeed, at two hours and twenty minutes it’s rather a ramble.

Rather than indicting the church itself, Betts seems more interested in exploring what drives these girls on the brink of adulthood to pursue such a rigorous spiritual quest—and what prompts some of them to abandon it.

While I can't exactly recommend seeing Jigsaw, I can tell you that it's fun to watch. I just don't think it's the kind of fun the filmmakers' planned.

A tricky movie, but not in a way that’s dishonest. Its first feet are in the school of miserablist realism, and while director Lee never abandons his things-as-they-are approach, he tells a love story by letting magic in at unusual angles.

The Work asserts that the collapse of emotional barriers feels like an exorcism, and that life’s true labor involves facing and contending with the blues inside us all. Prison blues doesn’t only belong to actual prisoners.