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.