The Da Vinci Code wasn’t Da Vinci, but it was an actual movie with texture and characters. Inferno is dumbed down to a shocking degree.

12 Years a Slave is an emotional workout, but McQueen makes many remarkable choices.

The bad news is the studio’s most innovative visuals are wedded to one of its most formulaic origin stories. In some scenes, Doctor Strange is Marvel’s most exciting movie yet. In others, it might be its most boring movie since Iron Man 2.

The film is a bit of a mess; a heartfelt, scattershot, mostly unfunny, intermittently moving polemic about our country and its people.

If you're looking for something lean and unpretentious, you should be pretty satisfied.

Never Go Back could have used a bit more personality in the bad guy department, and the middle section sags a bit before the inevitable (and satisfying) denouement. But everyone involved seems to understand exactly what kind of movie they’re trying to make, and they deliver on just about every promise made by the title Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.

The movie gives us fragments of characters and rich flashbacks, but they’re not supported by a fully-formed narrative. Lee has boldly introduced a new technology, but that technology was a bad fit for this project.

The world-building is engrossing. The premise is refreshingly peculiar. The action grabs your attention. As long as the movie keeps a lid on what precisely is going on, it works.

A famous (though almost certainly false) quote attributed to President Woodrow Wilson compared Griffith’s work to “writing history with lightning” and the best sections in Parker’s Birth of a Nation are charged with a similar kind of cinematic electricity. Many of his directing choices are obvious but bluntly effective.

Taylor’s film lacks the suspense required of a thriller. It’s a cheap exploitation of the horrors of alcoholism, depression, and domestic abuse that thinks it’s much smarter and artsier than it is.

To say that Ducournau’s cinematic introduction is assured would be an understatement; it’s a shrewd, insightful, and surprisingly funny film that feels like the work of a more accomplished filmmaker who has refined their talents over the course of many films and years.

Masterminds stars some of the funniest names in comedy. Kristen Wiig. Kate McKinnon. Zach Galifianakis. Jason Sudeikis. Leslie Jones. Too bad the movie isn’t funny.

Featuring a razor sharp performance from the incomparable Isabelle Huppert, Verhoeven’s latest effort is an expertly layered drama in which a successful woman experiences a rather unconventional midlife awakening.

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.

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

If this were a better, more entertaining film, Miss Peregrine’s could have been a thoughtful and bold metatextual thesis on Burton’s entire career. Instead, like its partially-formed villainous apparitions, it comes frustratingly close to achieving substance.

Though it may come off as Malick for hip-hop-loving millennials, Arnold’s film is a surprisingly poignant experience, a sprawling yet intimate odyssey through Middle America, and a bracingly honest portrait of emerging adulthood.

Although occasionally heavy-handed, Shyamalan’s latest is his most considerate and effective film in years, with a startling emotional core.

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 real treasure of A United Kingdom is the tender chemistry between Oyelowo and Pike, whose scenes together offer the film’s best moments.

There are an obscene number of funny people in this movie — though Mascots is not as obscenely funny as that Murderers’ Row of comedy talent would suggest.

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.

Snowden has some entertaining sequences, many of which explain the whistleblower’s story in an easily digestible narrative that doesn’t insult the audience’s intelligence or think too highly of itself. But the final moments are a mess; Stone isn’t interested in showing us the real version of the man, only his glorified version.

Pure and simple, Catfight is a total blast.

This is the sort of film that is more frustrating than bad. Vigalondo had something really special here. He just didn’t quite pull it off.

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

With infectious enthusiasm, charismatic leads, gorgeous songs, vibrant colors, and dazzling camerawork, La La Land restores the original movie musical to its former glory.

Blair Witch does deliver the requisite shocks demanded of a horror movie for a multiplex audience, but maybe it’s time for filmmakers to stay out of these woods for a while — at least until there’s a new technology for the Blair Witch to mess with.