Other than a few inventive sequences around the film’s central conceit of “the Noise,” Chaos Walking is a grim retread of the YA dystopian story that offers nothing else but a misguided attempt to elevate the genre through a darker, more “adult” tone. It ends up being little more than a joyless exercise with bad wigs.

Thanks to some fantastic performances and a patient, well-crafted script, this is a film that should find international audiences interested in some truly adult storytelling. There’s enough originality and sophistication here that an English language redux wouldn’t be unheard of, making one hope that any translation maintains the craft and elegance of Sødahl’s presentation.

One film shouldn’t have to handle the weight of representing an entire geographic region, and I don’t expect Raya and the Last Dragon to do so, though it appears to desperately want to. But taken purely as an action epic, Raya and the Last Dragon is a real treat.

Tom & Jerry is, in many ways, aiming to be a live-action cartoon. But it fails in so many basic ways of cinematic storytelling. The story is dull, the characters are single-dimensionally bland, and the performances are stiff.

Flora & Ulysses is, at its core, a very nice and sweet film. It’s low-key, but frankly, that’s fine. Sometimes, the stakes in life don’t have to get much higher than whether or not two struggling adults can find each other again, and whether or not a child can traverse a world without a strong family unit.

This is a major misfire that will have you scratching your head and wondering how it all came to be.

There’s a lot to love here; searing heretic cinematography included, as long as you’re a fan of horror flicks that *love* taking their damn time. It’s emotionally invasive, disturbing, and brutally unforgiving once Sator’s presence takes hold.

Earwig and the Witch feels like a film going through the motions, but not understanding the emotion behind the big narrative beats it’s trying to pull off. It’s a film matched by its flat animation style: incomplete and uninspired.

The comedy on display here is so forced and without charm that it made me wish Beckwith and company had abandoned any attempt at humor and instead tried to make Together Together more of a straightforward drama with occasionally funny moments. That’s the better version of this film, and you can see it trying to claw its way out from beneath all the quirks.

Is this a horror movie? A mystery? A thriller? There are elements of all of those things here, but the movie defies easy categorization, and its low-fi vibe and metaphor-heavy approach will not be everyone’s cup of tea. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair seems uninterested in adhering to genre trappings, instead focusing its attention on ideas about change.

Wild Indian is a singular achievement; a film so raw and centered that it dares you to look away from scenes that simmer and burn. It’s too early in 2021 to jump the gun and start calling out “best of the year” material, but Wild Indian certainly deserves to enter the conversation. It’s a film you won’t soon forget.

It’s pop art made into a feature film, which is a swell idea — if there’s an emotional core that can carry the audience through the staid surrealism. But Audley and the rest of the cast choose to play their characters like stoic ciphers, barely formed archetypes who glide through the film as if in some kind of permanent dream state themselves, making Strawberry Mansion feel even less anchored to reality.

The movie works mainly because of the magnetism and sincerity of its cast, who are giving it their all throughout. Engels and Noel have excellent chemistry, and their world is populated with charismatic, dynamic supporting players, best represented by Saunderson’s maximalist take on Mercutio. If this is what it takes to introduce a new generation to a classic story, so be it.

There’s a beating heart at the center of First Date, but unfortunately, the movie is less interested in exploring that central relationship and more amused with its zany cast of idiotic supporting characters. Good pacing can only get you so far.

Haunting, harrowing, and hypnotic, Eight for Silver is a werewolf story with a lot on its mind.

It follows in the footsteps of the Mr. Rogers documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? by shining a light on the making of the iconic series, revealing things you may not have known about its creators, and bringing some good old fashioned nostalgia to your heart.

This portrait of Sparks is just as lighthearted and delightful as the music you’ll be tapping your toe to throughout the entire movie. As soon as the movie is over, you’ll probably be adding Sparks songs to your streaming playlists and hoping that this won’t be the last time that Edgar Wright feels compelled to give us a deep dive into one of his favorite musical acts.

It’s an interesting idea on page, but in John and the Hole, it is all a little too opaque to make sense of Sisto’s muted portrait of adolescence.

There’s are undeniably great moments in Judas and the Black Messiah, but one can’t help but think the movie needed to push itself just a little bit further. But perhaps the raw power radiating off the screen via the performances is enough.

A maniacal whirlwind of cinematic insanity, it feels equally likely that Prisoners of the Ghostland could become a cult classic or disappear into the fog. Whether its overall inscrutability is a bug or a feature remains to be seen.

The dreamy images and the simmering passions of the film lingered with me.

While these misadventures could have easily resulted in a more chaotic sort of indie that loses focus, they’ve kept the attention squarely on the characters and each part of this wild day serves their arc in some kind of meaningful way. Somehow, this movie makes light out of total darkness without losing any of the heaviness that comes with it.

Mass is a masterful directorial debut for Fran Kranz.

Tearful confessions and big dramatic beats fail when contrasted with the emotions that swell up from the unblemished beauty of the landscape. It ultimately left me cold and feeling as if Land‘s central drama was unable to compete with nature.

A Glitch in the Matrix is more than just a conspiracy theory movie: it’s about how we function in a societal system, how we interact with other people, and what happens when we embrace a worldview which seemingly offers answers to things in life that don’t make sense to us. But the movie stumbles over its muddled execution of some of those ideas, and as a result, can’t help but feel like a letdown.

Underneath all the jokes and humorous moments, the movie is fundamentally about how important it is to love yourself – and about how something so seemingly simple can sometimes be incredibly difficult.

The final 20 or so minutes of In the Earth are downright impenetrable, and while that’s no doubt the point, it doesn’t make the experience any less frustrating. In a sense, Wheatley has successfully recreated the experience of stumbling around, lost in the woods, unable to see the forest for the trees.

With its flat hand-drawn characters moving briskly across the richly detailed backgrounds, Cryptozoo is bursting to the seams with dazzling, shocking, brutal (and edgy, this is an adult animated film, remember) visuals.

Overall, the electricity of the music and the novelty of seeing some of these performers absolutely shred during this period of their careers easily overshadows any of its flaws.

It’s a crowd-pleaser, to be sure, and a little on the corny side, but it’s so unwavering in its sincerity that it manages to hit all the right notes.

It works as a loving homage to the era of slap-dash, go-for-broke ’80s horror, but it ultimately adds nothing to the conversation.

As entertaining as it may be to revel in the 1990s setting of it all, not updating the script makes The Little Things feel stale. The bad guys are one-note creeps; the men are stoic and violent; the women only exist to be either background noise or helpless victims. Even some 30 years ago all of this would’ve felt dated. Today, The Little Things has even less to offer.

Ultimately, The Marksman hits its generic target. It is the kind of film you watch on accident more than seek out, but you probably won’t regret the accident.

Much like the characters themselves, Pieces of a Woman is constantly chasing after what came before, only to never get it back.

Soul is dealing with themes that may even be beyond its grasp. The idea of creative passions becoming a reason for living has been a recurring thread through most Pixar films, but Soul attempts to dig deeper. And while it may not find one perfect discernible answer, it’s a search that feels inherently…soulful.

Through a phenomenal performance, chilling atmosphere and a terrific script, Spiral builds an experience that is as terrifying as it is depressingly timely.

If there ever was a role that played perfectly to Pascal’s natural charisma, it’s Maxwell Lord.

The drifting from town to town gives the whole thing an episodic feel, and as great as Hanks is, even his talents aren’t enough to distract us from the sheer predictability of what’s going on here.

The title says it all: Safety hits recognizable beats and never really challenges its setup, making for a maddeningly, mystifyingly safe crowd-pleaser.

The Midnight Sky is ambitious in its attempts at pathos. There’s the germ of something beautiful buried in here; a story trying to tell us that every last life is worth saving even if all seems lost. That’s something worth hearing, but The Midnight Sky fails to even get the conversation going.

The film somewhat fizzles out and doesn’t feel like it has a satisfying ending, but in a way, I wonder if that’s intentional. Insert Coin comes to a close suddenly, not unlike the arcade game renaissance of the 1990s. But it does leave you with the hope and inspiration of whatever the next generation of video games holds, even if it’s no longer powered by 25 cents.

When Let Them All Talk finally reaches its destination, it feels like another Soderbergh experiment. He literally took his cast on a cruise for the flick – shooting for two weeks with his cast improvising whenever they could. The journey is enjoyable – but oddly forgettable. It’s like a quick vacation that immediately starts to fade from memory the moment you return.

Most of what Disney+ has released among its live-action fare is the kind of mid-budget movie that served as the Disney studio’s bread and butter in the 1990s. Godmothered, even with its connection to the Disney fairy-tale universe, is very much in line with those watchable, wholly unremarkable films. It helps that Jillian Bell and Isla Fisher do their best in predictable roles, but the roles being so predictable is hard to look past.

If you’ve seen The Godfather Part III, you’ve essentially seen The Godfather, Coda. Those expecting something drastic, like Coppola’s Apocalypse Now: Redux, are going to be disappointed. Instead, the filmmaker has made little cuts here and there. Cuts that indeed make the lengthy film and its sprawling narratives a bit more concise – it’s eleven minutes shorter than the theatrical cut. And while that may make for a (slightly) brisker experience, it can’t fix all the problems that are irreconcilably baked into the film’s DNA.

It fails to be either funny or dramatic.

The Croods: A New Age is going through the motions, accomplishing the basic level of work required in pulling off a computer-animated feature. It’s a strange way to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, even in a strange year like this.

A sensory overload, Sound of Metal is one of the most fascinating films you’ll see all year. Even when Darius Marder‘s lengthy character drama isn’t quite working – a problem that persists in the final act – it’s always engaging.

The film’s style is impeccable, its comedic delivery perfectly timed, and its editing sharp and energetic. A biopic by way of expressionistic absurdism, it’s a bold and uproariously funny statement of intent.

As haphazard and messy as The Mortuary Collection is, its bloody, ripped-out heart is in the right place.

Like Scream, Freaky understands and loves the horror movies that came before it. It takes these raw materials and molds them into its own unique identity, resulting in one of the most refreshing entries in the horror genre in a long time.

A creative reimagining sprinkled with fairy dust, Come Away succeeds on the strength of its whimsical (but not overly whimsical) script by Marissa Kate Goodhill and its impressive ensemble cast, and soars thanks to Chapman’s stellar direction. A new children’s classic has arrived, and this timeless fairytale will surely enchant audiences for generations to come.

Alexandre O. Philippe continues to impress by challenging what we knew of making-of documentaries with a poetic and lyrical film that’s as entertaining as its subject is eloquent, and a fascinating and thought-provoking as the horror classic that the documentary explores.

At first blush, Mank isn’t your typical David Fincher flick. Yes, it’s gorgeously mounted and meticulously crafted. But it doesn’t feel like Fincher’s other movies. And yet, when you look closer…it does. Because like all great Fincher films, Mank is about obsession. The obsession with getting something right. The obsession with creating good art. The obsessions with being remembered long after the whole world has faded to black.

Make no mistake about it, The Dark and the Wicked is by far the scariest movie at the Fantasia Film Festival, and its due in large part to Ireland’s neurotic catatonia. You find yourself holding your breath, waiting to see what spine-chilling event hovers just ahead, hiding behind a dark corner.

Its disquieting moments of magical realism paired with the all-consuming romance shared between Undine and Christoph — which feels as grand and tragic as the best cinematic love stories — add some warmth to Undine‘s chilly, cosmic exterior.

Great as our actual dads might be, they simply cannot compete with Costner. The guy perfectly hits all the right notes: honesty, dignity, quiet reserve, rugged Americana – all qualities we want in a hyperbolic father figure. Let Him Go exploits all this and reminds us of one other thing he’s good at: ass-kicking. But Let Him Go isn’t really Costner’s movie. Instead, it belongs to Diane Lane as his wife.

There is something about the humanity of this specific type of dread that seeps into your bones and hangs on for dear life. It’s the type of horror that taps into the fears we’re either too afraid to articulate, or would rather keep to ourselves lest we be judged.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is easily the funniest movie of 2020. That’s not exactly difficult in a year when there are barely any new comedies to challenge it for the title, but even in a year with stacked comedies, I’m confident this sequel would undeniably come out on top of the pack.

Under the Shadow is a tragedy as much as it is a horror film, and the heartbreak lingers long after the fears have been shaken off.

In The Woman Who Ran, Hong lets go of all vanity and gives Kim a well-deserved spotlight. With Kim’s rueful performance, and the film’s roaming, Eric Rohmer-like sensibilities, The Woman Who Ran allows itself to take solace in serenity and not worry so much about the would haves and could haves.

The film does not waste the brilliance of its two leading performances. But it doesn’t expand much upon their skilled interpretations, either.

The greatest mistake the devil ever made was underestimating a woman with a gun, and director Kitamura has come to collect.

While Clouds absolutely has its heart in the right place, that heart doesn’t translate into a similarly winning story.

By the time Nocturne drew to its admittedly effective conclusion I was left with the same impression that’s plagued every other Welcome to the Blumhouse entry so far: this would’ve been better as an hour-long episode of a horror anthology TV series. Sometimes, less is more.

Evil Eye deserves acknowledgment for taking a supernatural approach that involves cultures beyond Western trappings (there are countless horror movies that use American-centric Catholicism as their guide, for instance), but that’s about the only positive thing I can say here.

While Osei-Kuffour Jr. is able to conjure up more than a few disturbing moments – everything involving the mysterious twitchy man is great, aided by effective sound design full of rattling bones – Black Box loses steam rather quickly.

The Lie probably could’ve worked in a shorter form – a half-hour episode of a TV show, perhaps.

It is difficult and uneasy, and often feels more punishing than entertaining.

On the Rocks isn’t Coppola’s most momentous film — it’s a little too frothy, all crackle and no pop — but its near lackadaisical tone and a delightful Murray performance make it an entertaining watch. It goes down like a smooth glass of wine, with perhaps a little bit of tartness.

While the film as a whole is slightly haphazard, and the revelations are relatively few, there’s still a strong sense of engagement and excitement that illustrates better than most the thrill of discovery and the scope of what these humble rocks represent.

With Mangrove, it feels like McQueen has put the story — of Black pain, Black joy, and Black triumph — back in the hands of the London West Indian community.

From a movie-making perspective, The Trial of the Chicago 7 is sturdy but not particularly revelatory. But as a delivery system for great performers rattling off great dialogue, it’s almost unbeatable.

The movie never arrives at a place where all of its conversations and provocations feel like they coalesce into a clear thesis, and its frustrating ending leans toward emotional resonance but doesn’t land with the punch the filmmakers were hoping.

Some may get a kick out of how over-the-top and pulpy Shadow in the Cloud is, but what’s on display here is so abrasive and so bombastic that it begins to sap the life out of you, ultimately leaving a bad taste in your mouth when all is said and done.

Green’s humanistic stamp is evident when Wahlberg expresses a soulful sentiment or denunciation of narrow-minded thinking, yet there’s little for any director to do when faced with such an untidy script.

It manages in a concise and remarkable way to illustrate not only the ravages of this new virus but how its effects continue to resonate no matter the political forces looking to downplay its risks.

While the film does struggle a bit with some jumbled tonality, the latest work from the famously prolific French filmmaker strikes a new and surprisingly stirring combination of steamy and sweet thanks to the love story at its core.

Clocking in at a little over an hour, Lovers Rock is naturally a little lean, limited by its one-night premise and its brief sojourn into these characters’ lives. But it’s a tone poem that feels at once a love letter to the style of reggae music which it’s named after, and to the people who danced and fell in love to that music in ’80s London.

Falling fails hard, unable to generate sympathy for its protagonists and relying entirely on the charms of its writer/director to sustain interest. It’s a shame, as Mortensen’s a fine performer with a strong legacy, but the film feels like the worst kind of passion project, one that forgot to bring the audience in for what amounts to a film more masturbatory than moving.

There’s a serious lack of movies about Black cowboys or Black equestrians in general, and by telling their story in the unlikeliest of settings, Concrete Cowboy feels vibrant and alive, even when it’s suffering from its own plotting problems.

MLK/FBI is an essential film. And it’s a film relevant to where we are at this moment.

Sullen, sarcastic, silly and seductive at various times, the film manages to walk a high-wire act of tone, making the act of mourning the least miserable part of the family gathering.

Apples maintains the droll wit and entrancing abstraction of Lanthimos, but the film does not feel quite as drenched in irony. Nikou’s storytelling remains deliberately opaque while also leaving plenty of room for genuine emotional connection.

One Night in Miami never once feels preachy, or overly speechy. The conversations seem natural, as does the chemistry between these performers.

Sprawling and brutal, The Devil All the Time is not for the impatient or the squeamish.

It is an overall joyous experience – infectious, you could say. Even if you don’t love all of the songs – there were a few that did nothing for me, I’ll admit – you’ll get swept up in the energy radiating from Byrne and his group, all of them throwing themselves into this strange, surreal, beautiful show.

Our Time Machine might deploy too many endings, but each epilogue feels precious as if it is snatching as much time as it could with its subjects.

12 Hour Shift never takes itself seriously enough to make the calamity that ensues anything more than “dumb fun,” and I mean that positively.

One thing is for certain, you haven’t seen an anime movie like this.

Unlike some movies that feature a group of urban teens inspired by a teacher and their lessons, it doesn’t make it seem like merely winning a chess tournament will make all the problems in their lives go away. It’s one victory that might make everything else feel less overwhelming, at least for a little bit.

What Mulan does suffer from is the absence of the levity that the musical elements would have brought. Mulan is serious verging on dour, so bent on presenting itself as a serious war drama that its rare moments of comedy feel almost awkwardly slotted in.

Antebellum feels curiously unfinished. Rushed, even. You catch a glimpse of what the filmmakers are going for here, but never entirely buy it.

Face the Music is just so overwhelmingly nice. It’s a cheesy, dopey, pure comedy about people who care a lot — maybe about trivial things, maybe about the wrong things — but boy do they care. And they just want to share their joy for the things they care about (namely rock ‘n’ roll) to the world. So sit back, don’t think too much, and party on, dudes.

The scares are more textural than truly creepy, and they’re certainly overshadowed by what’s primarily a character piece, with each person’s fears and anxieties literally manifesting as part of the storyline.

It’s a beautiful, strange terrarium of a film, inviting us to gaze through the glass and wonder what’s going on underneath. Just as funny and creepy as it needs to be, the film is Kaufman at the top of his game, firing on all cylinders. A master of his own unique, unclassifiable craft.

Boyz In The Wood is the hippest, wildest, most energetic genre blowout to come from the UK since Attack The Block.

Train to Busan may have injected some life into the genre once again with its surprisingly heartfelt narrative, but Peninsula brings it back to those B-movie trappings. It’s not particularly clever or groundbreaking. But you know what? It’s pretty damn fun.

No other artform could quite present such a collision of time, place, idea and emotion, and it’s clear that Nolan’s pure intent is to give us the utmost of what this medium can uniquely provide. At its best this is a ride that manages to be viscerally thrilling while still being emotionally and intellectually engaging, all in ways that are truly, uniquely cinematic. In other words, say what you will about the tenets of Tenet, at least it has an ethos.