Behold the craven exercise in hollow nostalgia that is Ghostbusters: Afterlife.

It seems more likely that this is a film about discoveries rather than statements, with the camera following people and then abandoning them to seek insight elsewhere, by looking into things rather than merely looking at them.

For the most part, So Late So Soon is a moving and thoughtful meditation on the inevitability of aging and mortality and the unstoppable lure of the creative process.

C’mon C’mon is the kind of movie that invites reflection. It’s not building towards a larger cinematic event or full of explosions. It’s a sincere drama about relationships, told from the perspectives of different members of one family.

Jagged rides the wave of that excitement, but avoids opportunities to explore deeper below the surface.

Of all of the things Tatiana Huezo captures in Prayers for the Stolen, her first narrative feature, the terror of the night is most unnerving.

Berry’s Bruised is a familiar comeback tale relying on the inner-city motifs of 1990s hood films to deliver a melodramatic, barely coherent prestige vehicle with very little to say about MMA itself.

The game of wits between Phil and everyone else is a chilling one to watch, and it’s exactly the kind of end-of-the-year movie to finish things with a bang.

King Richard is half sports movie, half biopic. As such, it hits the sweet spots and sour notes of both genres.

Maggio’s film is also deeply moving in how it illustrates the ways in which a single life can have an eternal ripple effect throughout the generations, seamlessly blending Parks’ voice with those of the modern day photographers who carry on his legacy.

It draws together a first-rank cast of character actresses and actors, most of them over 50, then mostly fails to invest the material with the invention and snappiness needed to invigorate it and make it memorable, as opposed to merely agreeable.

A film that is a somewhat uneven journey, though one that proves to be ultimately rewarding in the end.

This is an unrelentingly gripping and often disturbing film that dares to visualize (with taste and restraint) some of the vilest behavior the species is capable of, and take full measure of the psychic damage it inflicts on innocent victims.

Cusp, with its dreamy imagery of golden sunsets and thunder-y twilights, empty Dairy Queen parking lots, and birds taking flight, is a mood-driven piece of work, sensitive to landscape and environment, and the girls' casual comments about rape (just one example) stand in stark contrast.

On the whole, “Julia” won’t be the most groundbreaking meal you’ve ever had, but you’ll leave the table comforted and satisfied, in a state of bliss that Child would very much approve of.

As well-paced and cleverly deployed as all of the slapstick is here, it's hard to watch Jeff get slammed in the head or Pam step on Legos without wincing more than we laugh.

In the meantime, this movie means to make us notice the marvelous in the everyday, in much the way that a great James Schuyler poem does.

Mayor Pete has a compelling subject, but it's most gripping when it’s trying to secure your curiosity, not just your future vote.

JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass is an exhaustive and sometimes exhausting documentary, a film that can sometimes feel like it’s so packed with information and detail that Stone has lost the path through this dense forest of conspiracy theories. At its best, it reminds one how tightly Stone can assemble a film like this one as he makes a convincing case that some things about the assassination of JFK don’t add up.

To be honest, the cynic in me thought “Paper & Glue” was going to be a piece of fluff that would make me roll my eyes at the notion of this type of art having an effect on society at large. But the film turns out to be a lot sharper, more pointed, and more poignant than its subject matter may imply.

I wanted to root for and care about the world of “Night Raiders,” but I never felt like Niska and her daughter said more about themselves than their predictable behavior advertised.

In recalling his youthful days in an insular neighborhood in the titular city, Branagh has made a film that’s both intimate and ambitious—his Roma, if you’ll forgive the inevitable comparison to Alfonso Cuarón’s recent masterpiece.

Yes, some of it looks cheaply made and a few too many of the jokes will thud for parents and children, but it’s such a big-hearted film in every scene.

It flourishes as a modest picture, an acute character study of men and women picking up the pieces of a patriotic ideal that seems to have failed them

Some moments are sweeter than others, but overall, this cookie cutter rom-com has nothing more or less than what its subgenre demands.

With its coming-of-age and its historical context, Beans concerns ideas of pain and conflict, but it’s too timid to really engage those ideas, to honor their discomfort aside from how horrific discrimination is (a few scenes of the family being ambushed by racist Canadian citizens are upsetting, but played too directly for tears).

It takes prodigious comic gifts to make a loathsome, pathetic character so mesmerizing that you enjoy watching him dig himself into a hole for 90-plus minutes. Jim Cummings, the star, editor, co-writer, and co-director of The Beta Test, has those gifts.

Hanks does his considerable best with Finch’s revelations and confrontations, but the writing lets him down.