A coming-of-age drama that’s as beautiful and brutal as the remote, rural landscape of northern Iceland where it takes place.

Writer-director Sebastian Gutierrez is the latest to tackle the rich implications of Bluebeard in his film Elizabeth Harvest, bringing a modern horror-sci-fi sensibility to the story. The horror is already implicit. Gutierrez makes it explicit.

Sticky racial politics aside, there are a few inspired moments in Madeline’s Madeline, and most of them belong to the fiercely talented Helena Howard.

For all of its breezy charm, what makes “Guernsey” an often frustrating experience is the fact that the story uncovered by Juliet is exceedingly more interesting than the one she finds herself confined within.

This movie is a remarkable feat that requires a strong stomach to sit through. I was unaware, prior to seeing it, that it’s based on a true story, and the movie’s coda was that much more powerful for me as a result.

A solid hangout movie as well as a band-of-buddies film — genres that tend to revolve around young men. It's also a movie that deliberately blurs the line between documentary and fiction: the main characters are all real New York skaters who are playing characters who are very close to themselves in real life.

Sporadically, one can see the movie that Slender Man could have been, but it disappears like the title character’s victims.

The end result may be little more than an exponentially more expensive version of those cheapo Syfy channel movies, but at least it has the good taste to be exponentially better as well.

Director Ken Marino’s contemporary tale of intertwined lives will still disarm you eventually with its unabashed cheeriness and generous spirit.

BlacKkKlansman presents racism as a dichotomy between the absurd and the dangerous; the film’s intentional laughs often get caught in one’s throat.

The movie never entirely convinces us that its heroine has the capacity to kill, although her pain and loss are conveyed with skill by Fishback.

Cocote, filmed entirely in the Dominican Republic, is filled with such images, seemingly unconnected to one another at times and yet when placed in collage they create a powerful and visceral experience.

Never Goin’ Back would make a good drive-in movie, if drive-ins were still a thing. It’s breezy, benignly outrageous, equal parts grotty and sweet.

This is a safe, sometimes synthetic story of two people in pretty settings finding a way to overcome their history and connect to one another, the beats all scheduled as conventionally as in the interchangeable comfort food movies on the Hallmark Channel.

It’s a promising start, but one that ultimately doesn’t quite deliver. The movie’s plot feels scant, as if it’s only skimming the surface of what it’s like to be a child who has no one to trust or turn to in this world.

Because Disney wants your money, of course. I don’t begrudge their need for greed; I just wish they hadn’t given us yet another movie built on the pseudo-psychological cliché that adults need to reconnect with their childhoods in order to be better adults.

Given that conversion therapy is still inexplicably legal in 41 states, Akhavan’s film of acceptance and optimism feels as urgent as ever.

The only thing preventing me from dubbing this one of the dumbest movies of any type that I have ever seen in my life is the fact that I am not entirely certain that something as shabbily constructed and artistically bankrupt as this actually qualifies as a movie in the first place.

Director and co-writer Susanna Fogel has trouble achieving a tonal balance between the comedy and the action, which only grows increasingly glaring over the course of the film’s overlong running time.

As in Farhadi’s films, the success of this kind of drama depends not on its thematic depth but on its surface execution. And every aspect of the execution on display here posits Jalilvand as among Iran’s most assured directors to have emerged in this decade.

But the movie is best of all a showcase for Dyrholm’s full-fledged interpretation of Nico, who is distinctly removed from the poppiness anyone might have for her earlier work, whether it's the "Velvet Underground & Nico" or her solo record "Chelsea Girl."

It has a couple of interesting ideas, a certain degree of style and one impressive performance but never manages to pull them together into a cohesive or satisfying whole.

The film is a disappointingly empty experience.

It’s a B-movie with a blockbuster attitude, and not in a fun way.

One of the film’s advantages over the book is that it brings in the testimonies of many other people — from friends and fellow ex-hustlers to Hollywood historians and insiders — all of whom support Scotty’s veracity while adding additional perspectives of their own.

This is neither the most cinematically entertaining nor the sexiest topic ever examined by what amounts to a Code Red warning sign of a public service announcement. But Dick and producers Amy Ziering and Amy Herdy know the value of focusing on a compelling collection of human subjects who generously relive their first-hand agony.

Outlandish as its action often is, The Captain is based on a true story. Schwentke’s film, though, has an allegorical/satirical axe to grind, and it more often than not frames the narrative in dark archetypal terms.

While Puzzle adheres to a bit of a formula in depicting her character’s path of self-discovery, it’s filled with vivid details and lovely grace notes along the way.