It’s a heartbreaking love story about loneliness and the transcendent power of language, and it’s simply magical.

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.

One of the best things about The Big Sick is that the obstacles facing this relationship are real and relatable. It’s a funny movie, but it’s about really serious stuff.

First Reformed is the type of film that leaves you with more profound questions than answers. You’ll probably need to see it two, maybe three times to really soak it up, but even after a single viewing, it left me completely awestruck.

Baby Driver, Wright’s first-ever solo screenplay, is a thrilling and original cinematic joyride that pays homage to heist masterpieces while creating a legacy of its own.

It does what all great horror movies do: turn real-world anxieties into the stuff of nightmares.

Spielberg’s version improves upon the original in almost every way; the performances are stronger, the casting is better, the script is sharper, and the social commentary is more biting. He’s made a musical that feels like it was written about today, not the New York City of the 1950s — much less Renaissance Verona.

Burnham is uniquely tuned into the minds and behaviors of his young characters and their hyper-active, hormonally-charged world. For a gloriously funny and heartbreaking 94 minutes, you too will feel like you’re 13 again.

There’s a novelistic quality to Mudbound that elevates it from what could have been a traditional and singular story about struggle and oppression into a layered, multi-dimensional one.

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

I hope Spielberg makes 20 more movies. But if this is the last one he ever directed, it would be the perfect career capper: An origin story, a thesis statement, a love letter, and a cautionary tale. Like life, it is hilarious at times, and pitifully sad at others. From the first scene to the last, it had me leaning forward in my seat like Sammy Fabelman at The Greatest Show on Earth.

Perhaps the most surprising turn in The Handmaiden is that Park has knowingly subverted his own iconography by delivering one of the most beautifully romantic films of the year.

The movie has an elegiac quality; it’s filled with passionate feeling about the fleeting nature of life and the magical permanence of cinema.

The way Coogler resolves Sinners’ central ideas within a traditional horror story framework is truly masterful. He plays the audience like a fiddle. Or a blues guitar.

In my mind, there’s no question Toy Story 4 is the weakest movie in the series. But it’s also the riskiest and the most pleasantly unpredictable.

Displaying the mastery of visuals and storytelling of a more established veteran, Laika president Travis Knight has gone beyond merely crafting a confident directorial debut; he’s made the studio’s best film to date.

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.

This film disturbed me way more than most conventional horror movies, because Lowery understands that the really frightening part of any haunted house tale isn’t the ghost or the demon or the everyday objects moving of their own accord. It’s the reminder that death is coming for us all, whether we’re ready for it or not.

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.

More than a third of its runtime is frustratingly lifeless, mimicking the repressed, impassive psyche of Ryan Gosling’s astronaut, and when Chazelle finally takes us to that big rock in the sky, the sequences may be gorgeous to look at, but the film fails to capture how awe-inspiring something as epic as a trip to the moon must have been.

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.

When you have Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen, and Natasha Lyonne as your central stars, some things don’t need to be said out loud.

At times, Soul is as heavy as it sounds, and invites all sorts of contemplation from viewers about our purpose on this planet, and whatever (and wherever) comes afterwards. At other times, it is uproariously funny, particularly after Joe and 22’s story takes a very unexpected turn in its second half. In typical Pixar fashion, it’s also visually stunning.

It’s one of those special movies where during your first viewing you already know there’s going to be a 100th viewing someday.

While The Lighthouse didn’t hit me as deeply or as sharply as The Witch, the fact that such a strange feature can still be produced with so few concessions to the mainstream, and that it’s coming to theaters, feels like a breath of fresh air — albeit one cut with at least a few Willem Dafoe farts.

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

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.

The film offers at least one tangible piece of advice for dealing with this impossible, seemingly endless time: Keep your sense of humor about you. Palm Springs, which is billed as a “Lonely Island Production,” is consistently funny, from Samberg’s IDGAF attitude, to Milioti’s initial fury at her entrapment, to a deep roster of comic talents who bring hilarious variations to the numerous riffs through the same day.