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.

Doin’ It is more of a fling than one for the books, but it’s a fun one, nonetheless.

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey illustrates a principle endorsed by many legendary directors: Casting the right leads will get you ninety percent of the way to success.

Prisoner of War may sometimes deliver what you hope for, but it’s an otherwise sloppy outing for Adkins, who by now should expect more from himself and his audience.

The Summer Book is a haiku of a movie, conveying profound thoughts about time, memory, loss, and nature through a simplified, meditative, cinematic language of exquisite images and gentle music.

Watching Coppola land on his head and then pick himself back up again and point himself at another brick wall is ultimately strangely inspiring.

Though some elements read forcedly wedged in for thematic potency, “Plainclothes” feels seductively alive when Lucas and Andrew are alone together—either under the warm lights of the movie theater, where their shadows betray them, or as their hands touch the other’s body inside a lonely greenhouse.

Lurie is especially good at the narrative and character elements of the practice and game scenes, using them to move the story forward and build to the kind of resolution we look for in underdog sports stories with compelling emotional stakes.

This film is still catnip for horror fans and may even give those who don’t love “TCM” yet further appreciation of one of the most influential films ever made, of any genre.

It’s a bit of a tropey mess, but the intent is clear: to have fun. And while the fun-having of the filmmaking itself translates well to the screen amidst a few genuine laughs, “London Calling” is mostly stale.

By making a film that says there is no complicated legacy to Riefenstahl, Veiel’s uncomplicated approach, supported by Riefenstahl’s own words, is strongly rendered into a direct, inarguable slashing of Riefenstahl’s importance.

At a time when it seems like women’s representation seems to be regressing, the intention of the film feels more timely now than when the film ends in 2019, before the pandemic, and the fondness for dating apps starts to wear off. But it was the user experience of the film—where its simplistic narrative design leaves no surprises and plenty of shallow characters—that felt unsatisfying.

There isn’t a single moment of this film that borders on belief as it winds toward a cheap, bloody final freakout that is tepidly filmed in a way that makes you wonder if Tipping believes the horror he’s selling.

It’s also, crucially, a deeply humanist movie. Anderson cares about these characters deeply. Bob’s frustration becomes our own, as does his concern for Willa. So many “films of our moment” have felt angry or cynical, but Anderson’s movie transcends that by being human and even offering optimism. It’s not one loss after another. It’s one battle. Keep fighting.

Director Raoul Peck, no stranger to connecting the past to the present as he did with “I Am Not Your Negro,” collaborates with the Orwell estate to retell the story behind the man who gave the world 1984 and Animal Farm and explore the themes Orwell illustrated in those works to current events to show how Orwell’s warnings have gone unheeded through the years. The result, “Orwell: 2+2=5,” is an ambitious work that is provocative but sometimes convoluted.

As a comedic confrontation with the inevitability of aging and death, it’s no “Jackass Forever.” But it’s funny and a wee bit poignant, and the main trio has the good taste not to ask us to feel too deeply about three guys whose chief appeal is that they’re miserable and petty and witheringly sarcastic and don’t try to hide it.

The main appeal here is the chance to spend time in the company of superb actors who all wear their characters as comfortably as an old silk robe.

A birth-to-death character study, “Train Dreams” is a meditation on the beauty of everyone and everything, how we are connected to both the earth and those who walked it before us.

If the movies have already made growing up seem like hell, director Alex Winter’s dispiritedly cynical but rousingly comical “Adulthood” reminds us that there’s always a tenth circle to that inferno.

Judging by this documentary’s easygoing approach, Altrogge wants to use his film as a full-spread story on Clemente. The decision pushes Clemente the man into being a mere memory.

For its lucid interpretation of the current global moment without surrendering to paralyzing despair, “Happyend” settles among the most unmissable films to hit U.S. theaters this year.

Rabbit Trap, a supernatural drama about a young couple haunted by a creepy child, revels in the tropes and tics of a few decades’ worth of British folk horror.

Everything about “The History of Sound” is restrained to a fault—until it’s about the music. And then it bursts with passion and pure emotion.

It’s one of those movies that reminds us that great drama and comedy can come from the most unexpected, ordinary places. We all have a place like Green Lake.

Like a lot of other stuff in this movie, it actually transcends the clichés of the genre while acknowledging those clichés as containing kernels of truth.

It’s a character-driven drama populated by sketchy characters who are mostly compelling thanks to the movie’s strong ensemble cast and Haugerud’s typically sensitive direction. So unfortunately, the suggestive power of Johanne’s journey fades as the movie slowly heads to its inconclusive finale.

Looking Through Water wants to tell us about the importance of uncluttered connections to the natural world and to each other, but too often it ignores its own advice.

It’s flimsy and forgettable without tension or investment to inspire.