Some will argue that all of the themes of “undertone” don’t connect, but that’s a feature, not a bug. This is a film that doesn’t feel the need to explain itself. Nightmares rarely do.

While it looks beautiful, and Thomas Newman’s score does a lot of heavy lifting given the lack of dialogue, there needed to be more actual storytelling beyond a few key beats of new life and tragic death.

What makes “The Wrecking Crew” worth seeing is what the cast and filmmakers do with the material. Simply put, this movie is better than its synopsis suggests, though not good enough to entirely overcome the familiarity of the component parts and the alternately jokey and sentimental tone (which is harder to pull off than studio executives seem to think).

The Moment is something different, a big swing into the mockumentary genre satirizing the pressures of pop stardom and the struggle for creative control. It doesn’t always work, but Charli xcx, as ever, throws a wild party.

It’s a nightmare parable about mortality, grief, faith, and the fragility of the flesh, made by one of the most fascinating filmmaking teams in American cinema, the Adams-Poser family.

Gans’ sequel delivers more of the same, so it likely won’t impress anyone who doesn’t already enjoy getting lost in the fog.

The hair-raising narrative content notwithstanding, the movie doesn’t create much emotional traction.

The film’s strengths lie squarely with Foy, whose performance is restrained where it should be and revelatory at some moments you don’t expect.

A lot of thrillers are exciting but empty. “In Cold Light” is thrilling but very full in unexpected and complicated ways.

Unlike previous iterations of music stars struggling to make it to the spotlight, “Clika” lacks the electricity and the excitement of watching a performer bring the house down.

Purely on a craft level, “Mr. Nobody Against Putin” is skillful and engrossing, never more so than when it captures wrenchingly painful moments in people’s lives with a detachment that keeps the focus on the subjects rather than shifting to Talankin.

By the halfway mark of the screen-popping and kinetic but ultimately tiresome and borderline dopey AI thriller “Mercy,” I found myself yearning for a wireless mouse so I could log off.

Night Patrol is far from perfect, but it’s got a certain something that pulls you in. The bleakness of its worldview is matched by the integrity of its filmmaking and performances. The life it depicts is not sugarcoated. It’s drenched in blood.

While there’s no new ground to be covered—Elizabeth’s captors were long ago brought to justice—it’s still a journalistically thorough and fascinating look back at the story, highlighted by present-day interviews with Elizabeth, her little sister Mary Katherine (who witnessed the abduction) and Elizabeth’s father, Ed Smart.

That “Deepfaking Sam Altman” is earnest and curious and full of fun thought prompts ultimately makes it more frustrating than a flat-out bad movie would have been.

Despite an overall unsatisfying resolution to these inquiries, the ideas that the film prompts, coupled with Foster’s nuanced performance, make for a compelling enough character study.

Shuffle is admirable work from Flaherty, shining a light on the greed that mostly fuels these so-called wellness centers and the addicts who, unfortunately, get strung along. But I couldn’t help thinking he was biting off more than he could chew.

Sound of Falling operates like a ghost story, complete with a haunted house, but the ghosts aren’t supernatural. The ghost is history.

These moments have a tactile intimacy that’s incredibly powerful, placing these ordinary people in an almost timeless continuum of seemingly ordinary behavior that becomes extraordinary in memory, or through the eyes of a camera.

Thankfully, Studio 4°C’s sumptuous animation and sound design still make “All You Need is Kill” a vivid and worthwhile do-over.

Joe Carnahan, the director of gritty cop flicks like “Narc” and “Copshop,” is back in his wheelhouse with the effectively entertaining The Rip, the rare Netflix original action film that actually plays like something you’d want to see in theaters.

The film clearly has a lot on its mind. But by the end, you still might not know what it was, even though the hurtling camerawork, jagged edits, brutal physical confrontations, and bone-rattling sound design will send you home feeling like you’ve had an experience.

If there’s one misstep to “The Bone Temple,” it’s the ending, which features a cameo that alters the tenor of the picture’s emotional hostility.

The Israelis in "Holding Liat” are perfect subjects for a documentary about wartime trauma that hopes to reach beyond partisan enclaves.

All That’s Left of You, a multi-generational Palestinian epic, is the kind of accomplished, immaculately rendered film that’s indicative of a director who’s learned much and is ready to seize more.

Through the ending and postscript, which leave you unsure how to feel about what you’ve seen but eager to discuss it with others, this is a nostalgia trip of the best kind.

Magellan, about the titular Portuguese explorer, clocks in at a relatively tidy two hours and 45 minutes, making it practically an ideal starter picture for those curious about Diaz’s work.

A by-the-numbers sequel that mostly ignores the stuff that made its predecessor stand out in exchange for formulaic would-be thrills.