Into the Spider-Verse really is the ultimate Spider-Man film in a lot of ways, the one that crystallizes the character’s moral philosophy, his life lessons, his arachnid athleticism, and his quirky sense of humor into one hugely appealing package. It’s pure dorky fun.

Zendaya gives an incredibly rich performance as Chani . . . Her mostly silent performance in the movie’s final scenes is really remarkable — all the more so because it grounds this epic story in the emotions of this one person. Watching Paul through her eyes shifts Dune from a hero’s journey to a cautionary tale.

Spider-Man: Far From Home is best viewed as the dessert at the end of an elaborate and overindulgent tasting menu. You’ve already eaten twenty-two courses, you’re totally stuffed and in no mood for more food, and then they bring out the cookie sampler with eight different kinds of homemade sweets and of course you eat it and you’re even more full than before but it was worth it because the cookie sampler is amazing.

The frame is filled with observed but uncommented-upon details . . . The film seems to exist in a real world populated by fully dimensional people.

The Last Jedi checks off all the boxes you want from a Star Wars movie, including one of the coolest lightsaber fights in the series’ 40 years, but Johnson is also interested in exploring new territory, including a consideration of the shadings and nuances to the Light and Dark Sides of the Force.

While Gray may have told basically this same story before, Ad Astra’s cosmic setting makes it even more poignant, because it puts into such sharp relief how small each of us is against the vastness of space, and how our time in that space is the most finite blip possible when compared with the totality of cosmic history.

Though Widows isn’t as exceptional as McQueen’s previous work, his style elevates it well beyond any generic big studio genre film. It’s a first-rate popcorn thriller that dazzles you and gives you something thoughtful and timely to chew on.

It didn’t knock me out with ingenious plot twists, bold cinematography, or groundbreaking editing. But it made me smile for 98 minutes. That doesn’t happen too often lately.

Beneath the (sometimes hysterically funny) gags, is a surprisingly thoughtful examination of the same issues that bubble through Joel and Ethan Coen’s more serious pictures; the folly of man, the nature of faith, and the terror of trying to figure out what path through life is the correct one to take.

Black’s general atmosphere of resigned melancholy fits perfectly with The Nice Guys and its portrait of sleazy 1970s Los Angeles, the ideal setting for a filmmaker interested in faded dreams and broken dreamers.

In this current era of spoiler-driven pop culture, films like Gemini, which place a higher premium on storytelling, performances, and character-building than on the “big twist” at the end, feel like an act of beautiful rebellion.

The film deepens the melancholic, existential notes from end of The Trip to Italy, and continues to evolve with its characters emotionally.

It’s also much more about what it means to create something that rejects the notion that Peter Parker needs to be the central focus of every Spider-Man story, even in the face of intense opposition. It’s also about notion that every sequel needs to spoon-feed the audience more of the same stuff they liked the first time around.

Every time one of these Avatar movies comes out, everyone jokes about how they’re gussied-up cartoons and people online joke about how no one cares about them. Then the film actually arrives in theaters and it’s epic and exciting and gorgeous and heartbreaking. Would I be interested in a James Cameron motion picture not set on Pandora? Absolutely. But after Fire and Ash, which really might be my favorite of the Avatar films to date, I’m also okay if he just stays on Pandora forever.

What a pleasant surprise that the movie is far funnier and more perceptive about this brutal, hilarious time in a child’s life than I anticipated.

I don’t think Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 quite matches the sublime pop silliness of the first film in this trilogy, but it’s easily better than Vol. 2, which had wonderful bits along with an overstuffed storyline. Vol. 3 isn’t exactly streamlined — it still runs about two and a half hours — but it is more focused on its themes and ideas, and on giving the Guardians the sendoff they deserve.

Director Evan Katz’s follow-up to 2013’s Cheap Thrills is a lean, mean neo-noir that addresses an age-old question: Do people ever really change?

Arrival is a smart film, but it’s not a cold or clinical one. Both the first and last scene brought me to the verge of tears.

All I can tell you is The Post is the first movie that ever made me cry about an abstract concept. And when it was over, I found myself particularly happy to see Meryl Streep’s name first in the closing credits.

Instead of observing its historical subject from behind a glass case, Jackie offers a piercing portrait of a woman’s psychological and emotional journey.

While A Star Is Born isn’t a perfect movie, faltering in its second act and rushing far too quickly into Ally’s rise to fame, it’s an undeniably mesmerizing one.

Dysfunctional relationships and bickering families are nothing new, but the raw emotion here elevates The Meyerowitz Stories above Baumbach’s previous work. It may slight some of its more compelling character relationships, but it’s still a bittersweet delight.

But the more I sat with the film, the more I found myself returning to the sequences that work (and I mean really work), and to the way all of Nope’s stories and characters collectively create a portrait of an uncaring entertainment business that’s constantly looking for new targets to chew up. It doesn’t even spit them out. Sometimes, it devours them whole.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One starts at iabsurd and only gets more bonkers from there. (The film openly jokes about how many times Ethan Hunt has gone rogue and still managed to keep his job as the world’s greatest spy.) But Dead Reckoning also passionately believes in those themes — and, above all, in Tom Cruise doing ridiculous things on camera for the amusement of his paying customers.

While many Marvel films, even some of the good ones, feel like small pieces of a larger story, Black Panther is an entire cinematic universe unto itself.

Set to an electrifying score by frequent Refn collaborator Cliff Martinez (which may be his best yet), The Neon Demon is as deceptive as shattered glass, with a brilliant beauty so mesmerizing that you don’t notice its murderously sharp edges until you’re bleeding all over the floor.

It’s a tender, introspective film you’ll want to pull in close, hold tight, and keep with you.

Fans occasionally refer to Shazam as “The Big Red Cheese” and this movie is very faithful to the spirit of that nickname. It’s warm and sentimental about blended families, and it sincerely believes in the importance of being a hero and doing the right thing. It’s got plenty of goofy kid-gets-to-play-superhero-for-real humor. And other than some friction between Levi and Asher’s performances, it all works.

The atypical stuff in The Old Guard all comes from director Gina Prince-Bythewood, who brings a level of thoughtfulness and nuance to material that’s usually just an excuse for onscreen bloodshed.

Top Gun: Maverick has so much fun flexing the might of its practical effects that issues like logic go right out the window. That’s the magic of the movies for you.

Bill Condon’s live-action update of Beauty and the Beast is more reimagining than remake, a lavish and lovely take on a familiar tale (as old as time, no doubt) that enriches its source material without betraying it.

IT is better than The Dark Tower in every conceivable way. And beyond the inevitable comparison, it’s just really good. Scary good, even. The new IT is narratively coherent, mythologically complex, and above all, fun. Yes, fun.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Disney+’s Hamilton. The performers are at the top of their game and the material — music, lyrics, and book by Miranda, based on a Hamilton biography by Ron Chernow — is as powerful and catchy as its reputation. It would have been nice to see a movie version of that material that was as unique as the material itself. Perhaps someday, we’ll get one.

The reason to see this Nosferatu anyway is its handsomely detailed production, which is soaked in gothic atmosphere thanks to incredible design, cinematography, and that creepy Skarsgard performance.

This entry won't win any new converts, but anyone already invested in this series is going to have a blast.

It’s a film that slowly sneaks up on you, imbued with such quiet emotions that you don’t feel its full weight and beauty until it ends.

If Beale Street Could Talk is a movie about racism and the incarceration of black Americans – realities as significant and relevant today as they were when Baldwin’s novel came out – but most importantly, the deep, shining love that pulses through Tish and Fonny’s story never fades.

If Redford really is done for good, this is a perfect way for him to say goodbye.

This Superman does something more impressive than make the audience believe a man can fly. It makes them care about the man doing the flying.

The Trip to Greece reminds us that anyone who gets to take a picturesque holiday with good food and friends should savor every last second of it. Because it won’t last forever. And it could all end when you least expect it.

This is not just a cheap rehash of the story beats of an earlier film. It is not a legacyquel that trots out a few beloved old characters to bestow their blessing on a new generation. It takes the core elements of this concept and reconfigures them into something new.

It’s such a pure-hearted celebration of movie magic it makes you want to make your own film — or at least watch one.

Unafraid to expose her character's weaknesses and degradation, White Girl establishes Wood as a brazen new talent to watch.

This is less Lanthimos’ film than it is Colman, Stone, and Weisz’s. The Favourite is mostly an excuse to watch these three attempt to one-up each other.

Firth might appear like an odd choice for an action hero, but he makes a surprisingly convincing one in the Roger Moore mold, the sort of unflappable British gentlemen who can kick your ass without wrinkling his suit. He’s a great straight man for Jackson and some of the movie’s sillier elements as well; Firth has this unshakeable dignity and poise that even the most vulgar moments in Kingsman can’t puncture.

The film’s structure — off-putting in the early going, irresistible by the end — is ingenious.

After that thrilling opening act, The Suicide Squad settles down into a more conventional (if still satisfying) superhero adventure. The story flags a little, and some tricky editing in the final act designed to keep up the energy just makes the climax more confusing. Still, the opening is a blast — and the whole thing looks like a Fellini movie compared to Suicide Squad.

Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers isn’t so much based on the old animated series as it is a relentless mockery of it, along with just about everything and everyone else in soulless modern Hollywood.

Like the resort it captures, everything in this film is fun and games right up until the moment someone gets seriously injured.

This movie is so colorful and zippy and packed with outlandish supporting characters, that Hemsworth’s job is relatively easy. He just needs to look great, kick ass, nail the one-liners, and ride off into the sunset (or Avengers: Infinity War, whichever comes first). Thor: Ragnarok is sort of like a giant flatscreen TV hanging on a wall with an enormous hole in the middle of it. The TV is beautiful, but it doesn’t fix the hole. It just covers it up.

Even if Cohen’s targets remain untarnished, even if his attempts to push undecided voters to the ballot box do not succeed, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is still an amusing sequel, with a few moments of surprising sweetness amongst the chaos and horror.

The reason to look past the movie’s issues is Fassbender.

Thunderbolts* is a nice reminder of what this company is capable of at its best. It looks good, it sounds good, and it really does turn its protagonist’s pain into an effective allegory about rejecting despair and apathy in favor of action and brotherhood.

It manages to capture not only the adventure of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, but also the sense of camaraderie the game engenders, because it is typically played by groups of close friends meeting regularly for months or even years to a complete a campaign.

Like The LEGO Movie before it, The LEGO Batman Movie is far more entertaining than a giant piece of crass commercialism has any right to be.

The film will be remembered for its performances, but it should also be remembered for its messy, realistic examination of the complicated decisions we’re faced with in life.

The themes introduced in the early scenes are explored in the second act, further expressed through the chases and fights, and resolved in the conclusion. This might sound like rudimentary stuff. But it’s sometimes shocking how few blockbusters successfully pull off the rudimentary stuff.

Like HBO’s new Watchmen series, Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep doesn’t simply rehash its source material, and instead uses its characters, setting, and themes in smart and novel ways.

With Tom Hagen and a different Mary, The Godfather Coda could actually rise to the level of the first two Godfather movies. Without them, it’s still a fairly good sequel, a sad story about guilt, with an endless supply of memorably dialogue from Coppola and Mario Puzo (“The higher I go, the crookeder it becomes.”) and an underrated Al Pacino performance.

Stoller cooked up a solid premise, assembled a funny cast, gave them some good scenes to play and lines to deliver, and let them do their thing.

Spider-Man: Homecoming is a return to form, featuring an incredibly likable cast, a compelling and complicated villain, and a irrepressibly charming Spider-Man. Welcome home, Peter.

But that’s Spider-Man in a nutshell. He’s the guy who perpetually breaks stuff, then has to patch it all back together. (Good thing he’s got those webs.) No Way Home, with its use of the old characters from previous Spider-Man movies, really gets that idea. Power and responsibility are important. Seeing something through after you mess it up? That’s the mark of a genuine hero.

F1 never quite says “It’s not the car, it’s the driver” — but it comes awfully close on several occasions. And it makes it clear that when it comes to action movies, it’s not the subject, it’s the director. That strikes me as a pretty old fashioned notion, and a good one.

Although Teen Titans Go! to the Movies is ostensibly about spoofing superheroes and their hoariest clichés, the film is loaded from top to bottom with loving Easter eggs from DC Comics history.... As a result, it’s actually a far more affectionate portrait of comic books — and a more persuasive argument in favor of their escapist pleasures — than any of the so-called “serious” DC movies.

The cast was the original’s greatest asset, and every single character of note is back, along with the original film’s mordant sense of humor and surprisingly charming sentimentality. Best of all, 2U weaponizes your knowledge of the original — your confidence that you have seen this all before and you know what’s going to happen — and uses it against you.

Dunkirk would have been even better, though, if any of the characters seemed as fully realized as the aerial and naval warfare. Without that, it works best as pure sensory experience; incredible visuals, intense battles. In the rare quiet moments, we’re invited to observe an unusual instrument featured in Hans Zimmer’s score: The ticking of a clock, a reminder that while Nolan can change the march of time, his heroes cannot.

Though Searching is a fun ride, I left disappointed over how little the film uses its digital schtick to unpack the psychology behind our modern screen addiction.

You Were Never Really Here isn’t an entirely satisfying experience, and may benefit from multiple viewings, but it’s still a masterful exploration of the nasty ways repressed trauma can resurface, and how violence can become a means of excising the bruises of the past.

Yes, 28 Years Later is gory and violent and the zombie kills with that jerky Bullet Time iPhone rig are cool. But the film is also thoughtful, even contemplative at times.

In an earlier era, Babygirl might feel less novel, and its unwillingness to push its story into truly uncomfortable territory might be a bigger issue. These days, when Hollywood has pretty much abandoned sexuality as a topic of serious discussion, the film can easily lay claim to the title of top dog.

Even though Walker is still present, his absence is already felt. It is strange to watch a movie that is this much fun and this sad all at the same time.

In another franchise, it would stand as a significant achievement. In this franchise, it almost qualifies as a disappointment.

Prisoners is too nuanced to dismiss, but too silly to take seriously.

Although it’s sometimes uneven with somewhat underdeveloped characters, I Don’t Feel at Home is nonetheless a clever blend of two very different genres. Blair’s mix of humor and feverish violence works best in the film’s final act, when things turn completely nutty.

Superficially, the movie looks a lot like past Phillips comedies about men behaving badly, with dirty jokes and wacky hijinks galore. But War Dogs is more critical of its protagonists’ behavior, and there’s plenty of sad commentary about the state of modern America.

It shirks the typical Disney model of an untouchable, picturesque fantasy by telling a more grounded, human story coursing with love and earnestness.

It’s a mature consideration of the ideas underpinning its comic-book motifs. It’s also easily the best Wolverine movie of the three, and an impressive sendoff for Jackman’s version of the character.

Alvarez has crafted an intense, relentless and confident thriller that only occasionally fails.

Southside With You’s greatest assets are its performances.

Durkin, a self-described wrestling fan from childhood, has managed to stuff a moving tribute to the art form and its practitioners into a two-hour feature. There’s just so much story to tell here.

I can (and have) defended each of the later Terminator sequels, but there’s no question Dark Fate is the best of the bunch.

The characters and their relationships are strong and the dialogue is sharp, but the whole thing feels like a minor installment in an ongoing series.

On the whole, Inside Out 2 lacks the structural elegance of the first film, and it holds far fewer surprises for viewers on a narrative level. Still, whether you call them anxieties or fears, Inside Out 2’s depiction of tween insecurities is right on the money.

At its heart, Florence Foster Jenkins is about a woman at her most unabashedly genuine, and there’s something admirable about that.

Onward’s ups and downs suggest these probably are less magical times at Pixar. But that doesn’t mean with enough hard work or concentration — or maybe just following your gut — that the magic can’t come back, if only for a little while.

The biggest strength of Zootopia is in how it acknowledges all identities are capable of carrying prejudice and wielding judgement, yet the first step toward change is awareness.

As a director, Berg is known for his brutal action scenes, and while Deepwater Horizon’s second half is full of intense sequences, the film’s first half is just as exciting thanks to the wonderfully uncomfortable dynamics between Wahlberg, Russell, and Malkovich.

Creed II is very much a Rocky sequel. It’s bigger, louder, and more over the top than its predecessor, with a more formulaic story and more absurd boxing matches. It’s satisfying as a pop confection, but it’s not as special or as rich as its predecessor.

Even if it falls a little short as a character study, the fact that it’s both hugely weird and hugely watchable is impressive.

Surrounded by so many bloated, unsatisfying movies, The Shallows is as refreshing as a quick dip on a hot summer day — preferably in a pool, not the ocean. They tend to be safer and less shark-infested.

A few clunky lines of dialogue aside, the movie mirrors the honorable thief at its center: Methodical, cool, and effective.

Its sheer over-the-top excess and lack of taking itself too seriously allow it to become a delightful, exhilarating concoction of its many pieces, and much more accessible and entertaining than the dizzying cinéma vérité of its parent movie.

The era Enter the Clones of Bruce chronicles wasn’t that long ago, and yet it feels entirely alien to our own.

The Hitman’s Bodyguard is not the best movie of the summer, but it is easily its most pleasant surprise. An unapologetically violent and vulgar buddy action comedy, it updates the template set forth by Lethal Weapon and particularly Midnight Run for a new era.

Back in the day, the endless comparisons between Shyamalan and Hitchcock felt like a bit of a trap themselves. With Trap, though, there’s no point trying to escape them.

I believe Mangold directed the Dylan movie he wanted to, and in some ways A Complete Unknown is interesting precisely because it is a willfully withholding portrait of an enigmatic star. Then again, it's hard to make a completely satisfying movie about a subject that its director seems to believe cannot be understood.

The film isn’t about catastrophe; it’s about the beauty of what happens when everyone works together to solve a problem.

It’s both an accomplishment in introspective, transcendent filmmaking, and a puzzle as imbalanced as the knight at its center. We may not quite be able to understand it, but Knight of Cups certainly feels like a work of a great talent who’s still figuring out what he’s trying to say.