Corsage is not a great movie, but it’s good at detailing one woman’s circumstances. It doesn’t browbeat us with meaning, which it had every right to do, but instead attempts something humbler.

The seeds of our destruction have already been planted by us; they simply need a little water and and sunlight to grow. And the more that Leave the World Behind pokes at that notion, the more you fear that this isn’t a thriller. It could be a documentary with movie stars.

Even as the story builds to a final mano a mano, the movie is less invested in a win-or-lose outcome than in taking you along for the ride.

Pfeiffer is a knockout; she’s the sexiest presence in movies today and an exceptional comic and dramatic actress, to boot.

A lighter-than-air comedy than runs on pure fizz.

Until an ending that flies ruinously off the rails, A Simple Favor is raunchy fun that offers an unexpected take on the twists and turns of female friendship.

Fury of the Gods makes for dandy spectacle, its digitally rendered catastrophe the match of any such competing big-screen visions of doom. But it somehow marries the pending apocalypse to a blithe spirit, and the cognitive dissonance never gets drastic enough to ruin the good time.

As something that seeks to confuse and delight you in equal measures, this is seven courses of absurdity, served with a side of tongue in cheek from a trio who know what they’re doing, even if you’re not always sure what that is.

Erupcja knows what’s it’s working with, and how to tap into something bigger than itself.

The interactions between the people may seem small in comparison to the wide-open landscapes and rolling hills. In the hands of everyone involved with this moving drama, however, they echo long and loudly nonetheless.

Free Chol Soo Lee is not a true crime documentary. If anything, it goes out of its way to avoid becoming one.

Nothing new here except model-turned-actress Bellucci. To call her noteworthy would be an understatement.

Elvis is an entertaining movie about the man’s sex appeal and a pretty good movie about his life, even as it never dials things back enough for anyone to catch a breath. Luhrmann’s zigzagging, triumphantly kitschy style suits his subject.

What makes this film unmissable, however, is the fact that we get Marianne’s story more or less in full as well. It’s a fleshing out of someone who was more than just a muse, more than just an object of affection for a notorious ladies’ man, a famous singer and an infamous bastard.

The fact that Shyamalan seems to be working out some issues onscreen doesn’t stop him from crafting a thriller, and one which goes about its job with steady determination in Cabin’s cryptic, superior first half.

No narrator, no talking heads feeding you insights, just the lady letting it rip on stage and off. What Volf, a French photographer now working on his third book about the acclaimed soprano, misses in perspective he gains in intimacy. His film fawns shamelessly and fumbles a few salient points, but it’s indisputably up close and personal.

You can be successfully creative or you can end taking a much more crooked path. As The Painter and the Thief so ably demonstrates, your life is worthy or compassion and consideration regardless.

Branagh’s performance is a triumph of ferocity and feeling that shuns Shakespeare the literary rock star to find the flawed, touchingly human man inside.

It’s a movie that stumbles every so often, overplays its hand numerous time, and relies on an oddball true-story premise and 1000-watt star power to pave over some of the rougher spots. It would also give you its coat if you needed it without asking, and the big takeaway from Roofman, we’d argue, is its emphasis not on sympathy for the “devil” here but a palpable sense of empathy for everyone involved. Given the scarcity of this particular quality today, that’s no small feat.

What truly makes this a movie worth searching out is the way writer-director Bernardo Britto’s sideways take on carpe diem sets the stage for its lead to rage, and somehow never lets the high-concept premise eclipse the performance at the center of it.

Joaquin Phoenix and director Gus Van Sant raise the bar when they use roguish humor and bruising pain to color outside the box.

You do not need a documentary to prove that the tour guide of No Reservations and Parts Unknown contained multitudes. Any viewer could see him mature and mellow out, or at the very least become more meditative, as seasons progressed. But Roadrunner, Neville’s portrait of the late, beloved Bourdain, would like to give those other sides a bit more screen time.

No one would blame you if you prefer your gothic-lit tales straight with no meta-chaser. Yet, largely thanks to Pugh, Leilo’s semi-experimental attempt at blending an old-fashioned melodrama with Media Studies 101 commentary never makes you feel like you’re watching something created in a dorm-session smokeout.

Eyes sees what it wants to see, but it's a riveting glimpse.

It’s a quietly radical take on the art of finding one’s voice, playing out both in front of and behind the lens.

While not as memorable as its predecessor, Futureworld ratchets up the camp, adding samurais, space travel and, most terrifying of all, an erotic dream sequence with Yul Brynner.

An aspirational immigrant story that hits most every mark of the genre, but flows and overlaps and grows dense in unexpected ways.

In the end, The Beach Boys is part an exploration of a family dynamic and a top view of one of America’s most important bands, with a soundtrack that is undeniably superb (a collection of songs released alongside the film is a must-listen).