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.