If more world-building, bigger action, and a deeper embrace of what its leading man does well all perk up your ears, you know what you need to know. As someone who has been in the tank for these movies for nearly a decade now, the fourth film is everything I wanted out of these movies. Yeah, I'm thinking he's back.

This visually and metaphorically commanding film, crafted with precision by Jenkin, urges viewers to look for its answers deep within itself instead of simply giving them away.

The cast is dynamite across the board. The way they converse with each other feels wholly natural, as if they've been talking for years.

The element that keeps The Card Counter truly alive is Isaac, who turns in one of the best performances of his career here, using his eyes to convey things dialogue never could. To watch him work here is something special, even if the movie as a whole can't ever quite match his intensity. 

The otherwise low-stakes drama is so invested in their emotional state that the lows are bottomless, while the highs have no ceiling. Haapasalo plucks this tiny three-week period from the ether and every filmmaking trick in her quiver allows us to relish in it.

This isn't Bogart's best film, although it's a very fine one.  It does, however, contain by far his best performance, making it a fitting send-off as his last outing under the bright studio lights.

Vera Drew is both the unstoppable force and the immovable object, and we should all be so lucky to bear witness to her madness. The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules, and The People's Joker refuses to follow any of them.

No less than 40 years pass throughout the film, but the immediacy and almost casual flow of time makes it surprisingly easy to attune one's senses to what van Groeningen and Vandermeersch are attempting to communicate.

A Love Song is rough around the edges, but between its gorgeously crafted world and Dickey's ability to ground the film with a single expression, the flaws fade away when the finer elements sing together in harmony.

Barbarian ends up being a masterclass in tension and unpredictability. It is scary without leaning too hard on tropes, making for a truly entertaining film. It is a damn good-looking movie anchored by great performances all around.

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.

This is a truly beautiful film. But these visuals wouldn't be nearly as effective if del Toro had neglected the emotional heft of the story. Thankfully, he has Elordi to do a lot of the heavy lifting.

The film underscores its technical prowess with a raw, emotional story that finds beauty struggling to push through all the muck and mire. In 1917, war is hell, but it’s a hell you can find your way back from as long as you remember your humanity.

The Substance has an impossible-to-miss message about the struggles of women, especially women on constant display in an industry that thrives on rigid beauty standards. But it's also a delightfully farcical romp; an exhilarating, shocking freak show with an absurdist heart. It's the type of movie you won't forget.

While this movie's story may sound familiar — it's about a religious teenage girl's sexual awakening in a stuffy community that would rather never address such things — its success is dependent on its execution, and writer/director Laurel Parmet, in her feature directorial debut, hits every target she aims for along the way.

The end result is stunning and scary, full of swooping, swooning, doomed romanticism and moments of pure, unblinking horror.

Fancy Dance has excellent performances, elevated by the script's deft composition. There's a remarkable nuance at play in this story of womanhood, parenthood, sexuality, community, and coming of age. It all feels so real and authentic.

Deadwyler is simply a revelation in the role, her alternately fragile, fiery, and steely performance carrying "Till" through some of its biggest lulls.

Obsession has a nasty sense of humor at the heart of the story, but the reality of what's going on is extremely dark.

Nope may not be Jordan Peele's best movie to date, but it is his most enjoyable. A true summer movie spectacle meant to be writ large across the screen, giving us thrills, chills, laughs, and that most precious of things: movie magic.

After it's over, you won't soon forget what you've seen and heard. Even if you try, it'll come back — whether in your fantasies, your nightmares, or both.

Islands is a poignant and engrossing reminder that you're never too old to start living. It's never too late to develop a lust for life.

Broker is another showcase of empathy from Kore-eda, a movie about found families and finding a home with each other, about the small acts of kindness that can truly mean the world to someone. Though its tone doesn't always work and its runtime is excessive, it is an emotionally devastating and life-reaffirming movie that is hard not to sympathize with.

Moments of levity and joy twinkle throughout the crackling, tense narrative, endearing the characters to us viewers. It's a fierce message against the oppressors, unapologetically feminist in reckoning against the patriarchy.

As the horrors of The Royal Hotel unfold, the film shifts from a terse thriller into a full-on horror, assisted by appropriately and effectively eerie cinematography from Michael Latham.

God's Country" is a headier exploration of how impossible it can feel when trying to enact change in institutions, and how, when systems are rigged against the same people they're ostensibly set up to support, the empty hopelessness of that realization can lead to devastating outcomes.

It becomes futile to resist the intoxication of Otomo Yoshihide's rock music and the visual excess. Yoshihiro Sekiya's cinematography dances with Inu-Oh's supernatural ballad, extending and sprawling across the lakes and stage. Easily, those concerts are the most enthralling and splashiest sequences, recreating the adrenaline of witnessing stagecraft, all culminating into a hell-raising musical finale.

This is a biopic made by a mad man, filmed in a visual language that defies categorization, with musical numbers that would make Baz Luhrmann dizzy.