The script, by Lawrence Kasdan and his son Jonathan, is capable but unremarkable, as is Howard’s direction. But the cast...consistently elevates the material.

The film ends on a remarkably touching emotional note. Had it held to the strength of its convictions—and it is immensely obvious why it did not—it might have been the best ending of any superhero movie to date. (No, the bar’s not terribly high.) But it’s nonetheless awfully good, and we can still look forward to, mid-credits, the world’s best-ever Green Lantern joke.

While McCarthy does what she can with the material provided her, it’s not nearly enough to save the movie. As a result, Life of the Party doesn’t live up to either of the nouns in its title.

Swerving between thrill-a-minute action and intense, drawn-out suspense, Revenge has all the subtlety of a bazooka to the face, but it’s an arresting watch if you can stomach its most lurid moments of violence.

Let the Sunshine In is a unique, spellbinding work, worthy of comparison to Denis’s best films.

Much of what does work is owed to Theron and Davis’s incredible performances.

Disobedience finishes on an annoyingly vague note, almost as if Lelio and Lenkiewicz had stumbled on a more interesting, expansive narrative in the final act but didn’t quite know how to pursue it. The result is a film that, from beginning to end, feels as hopelessly lost as its characters do.

Never has the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” seemed like more of a universe, in ways both good and bad. Infinity War—the title is almost too apt—is a narrative juggling act the likes of which I’m not sure I’ve ever seen before. It is far from a perfect movie, but it is probably close to the best movie it could have been.

You Were Never Really Here feels remote and somnambulant—a bad dream viewers know will end after 90 minutes, never to disquiet them again. Its emotional stakes are inflated so overzealously that they scarcely register as stakes at all.

There’s absolutely nothing else like it in theaters this year, which I mean as both a hearty endorsement and a necessary forewarning. Zama is a viewing experience that can be frustratingly inaccessible at first, but it blooms in bold, surprising directions.

The Devil and Father Amorth at times seems like it’s trying to set the record straight on exorcisms. Amorth is presented in the kindliest of lights, and the ritual seems to involve little more than intense prayer. But again and again, Friedkin can’t help but come off as an old showman dusting off his bag of tricks.

Pearson’s epiphany, and his subsequent battles with the church, were confusing for both parties, and Marston seeks to underscore that with nuance. Unfortunately, he ends up losing grasp of the compelling drama lying at the heart of that conflict.

Rampage is a big, noisy nothing—an action extravaganza that fails at being funny just as hard as it fails at being serious.

Zhao clearly understands that universal conflict between desire and reality, and with The Rider, she’s dramatized it beautifully.

The result is a comedy so black that it recalls the words of the immortal Nigel Tufnel: It could be “none more black.”

It’s true that Isle of Dogs is a film about scapegoating, political hysteria, and deportation. But it is also—and at its best—a film about dogs. May they never go unpetted.

A Quiet Place is a taut piece of genre filmmaking, to be sure, though it succeeds because it leads with a believable, if heightened, portrayal of a loving family.

Blockers ends up being a mirror-image coming-of-age film, where the kids have to help the adults make some grand realizations.

When it’s at its subtlest, Lean on Pete sings with power; but when things get outwardly grim, it loses a little of its impact.

It’s a film looking to challenge America’s gauzy perception of the country’s most famous political family, loaded with all the bleakness that task requires.

Falco’s performance is strong enough to make the film compelling even in its softest moments.

Don’t call Gemini a neo-noir—call it a neon-noir, a moody little slice of pulp fiction that ends up satisfying the eyes more than the mind.

Rather than dig into the mind-boggling, byzantine inner workings of the OASIS, Spielberg spends time with the flashier stuff. He is, even in this later, moodier phase of his career, still an entertainer first and foremost.

Once Pacific Rim Uprising reveals the means by which the kaiju might return, I was briefly delighted; there’s one strange twist that’s perfectly executed. But quickly enough it was time for 30 minutes of competent, clanging CGI action, and my brain turned right off again.

Unsane is a great worst-nightmare movie from Soderbergh, a tense piece of low-budget auteurship that plops the viewer into an absurd scenario and then ratchets up the tension for the next 90 minutes.

Vikander, who can balance flinty charm with sympathetic humanism, helped keep me invested, but Tomb Raider could best be described as a solid step forward, away from past wrongs. I’ll take competence over silliness, but the Lara Croft brand still has a long way to go before her movies are truly memorable.

It’s refreshing to see a kids’ movie that’s content to remain just that, and doesn’t feel a need to douse itself in pop references or inside jokes. Find the right frequency, and you just might enjoy yourself.

I’m happy to see a major-studio teen film wrestle with homosexuality and life in the closet as more than a comical subplot, even though I wish there had been a more engaging character to build that progress around.

Though this latest project might feel like a trifle (it’s only 69 minutes long and was filmed at Cannes to take advantage of a press appearance Huppert was doing there), it’s also a clear statement of artistic intent.

For those seeking a wickedly dark little confection, Thoroughbreds should prove a diverting watch; but those looking for anything deeper will find a lot left to be desired.

On some of those fronts, the film wildly misfires, but for a wide studio release headlined by one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Red Sparrow is an admirably bold effort.

In depicting the out-of-sight, out-of-mind bubble mentality of Israel’s civilian citizens (and how easily that bubble can burst), Foxtrot is a uniquely powerful work.

Though Garland’s film is decidedly creepy and often ravishing to look at, it’s hard to shake the sense that, beneath its highbrow patina, it is an intellectual muddle.

Mute is a slog, and a depressing one; as Netflix sci-fi goes, it’s not as abjectly inept as The Cloverfield Paradox, but it’s perhaps even more disappointing given the talented filmmaker involved.

The arguments Black Panther undertakes with itself are central to its architecture, a narrative spine that runs from the first scene to the last.

The good news—and, yes, we are grading on a curve so steep that it’s essentially a vertical drop—is that Fifty Shades Freed is marginally less retrograde and offensive than Fifty Shades Darker. The bad news is that it is even more idiotic, which is in its way a remarkable achievement.

Anderson directs with an understated elegance worthy of the House of Woodcock.

Like any Park film, it’s pretty charming, the kind of kids movie that finds the right mix of slapstick humor and intelligent storytelling to keep everyone in the audience happy.

Perhaps his curious gambit of casting real-life figures would never have gelled, but Stone, Skarlatos, and Sadler are not unsympathetic, just untrained in front of the camera. With more time and effort The 15:17 to Paris might have worked; as it is, it’s little more than a failed experiment.

This is a movie that deserves to be seen—it’s a work of maturity and confidence from one of the indie world’s best young directors.

Not only is it not very good as a standalone story, but it’s also been bizarrely shoehorned in to J.J. Abrams’s nebulous Cloverfield franchise (which now consists of three films made in the last 10 years) with next to no narrative justification.

A Fantastic Woman, nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category at this year’s Academy Awards, is a tremendous portrait of grief and prejudice. It’s also an incredible showcase for Vega, who excels in a role that’s unfortunately rare in film—as a trans character who’s more than the butt of a joke or an exoticized other.

Even by Kiarostami’s standards, this is a daringly, charmingly tedious piece of cinema, one pushing at the boundaries of what you could even call a “movie.”

As the final act succumbed to dull, apocalyptic formula, I saw an entire sub-genre slip away with it: The Death Cure is a grim, half-hearted farewell to this wave of young-adult dystopias.

A Futile and Stupid Gesture feels like a quick tour of a man’s greatest hits that relies on his accomplishments, rather than any storytelling artistry, to impress the audience. Yes, Kenney was part of a turning point in American satire, but that alone doesn’t make for an interesting film.

Though the film seeks to avoid many of the genre’s cliches, it nonetheless ends up slipping into some well-worn and dull dynamics of noble Indians teaching important lessons to their American occupiers.

It’s almost charming watching the film find various ways to use the limited confines of a suburban commuter train in service of a nervy action thriller.

Paddington 2 is gorgeous to look at, smartly written, and gleefully funny, boasting a fierce ensemble of estimable British thespians. For those looking specifically for excellent family entertainment, it’s a must-see; but even other viewers will find this movie well worth their time.

Best of all are the car chases, which Wright choreographs with the same blend of wit and technical finesse he brought to the pool-cue, “Don’t Stop Me Now” zombie rumble in Shaun of the Dead.

It all culminates, of course, in a cacophonous and interminable final battle involving far too many participants to possibly keep straight.

It is hard to imagine a better tribute to this victory of survival than Nolan’s spare, stunning, extraordinarily ambitious film.

What begins as a shocking portrait of police misconduct gradually becomes a test of audience endurance.

A solid but relatively conventional horror movie, above average but overlong

This is a demanding film, and there is one grisly (though in no way gratuitous) twist near the end that will test the endurance even of those who appreciated what came before. So be forewarned: Aronofsky has made precisely the movie he set out to make. But it may very well not be the movie for you.

The movie is too long, too violent, too silly—too everything. Yet for those who enjoyed the original Kingsman, it is a more than adequate second act. To put it another way: first time satire, second time farce.

Victoria & Abdul is worth seeing for Dench’s magisterial performance and for Frears’s light but sure directorial touch. Just don’t mistake it for actual history.

Blade Runner 2049 is terrific, a worthy heir to one of the great science-fiction films of all time.

Ultimately, The Snowman is that most frustrating of film types: You can picture the good movie that it might have been; it’s just not the movie that’s up on the screen. For a while, it sinks into your bones. And then it just sinks.

Just over two hours of entertaining but profoundly silly superheroism.

Branagh’s retelling of the classic Agatha Christie tale is visually sumptuous yet otherwise inert, a series of what are essentially cameos by performers far too gifted to waste their time like this.

It is a film that continually complicates and recomplicates itself, denying viewers the comfort of easy moral footing. It is by turns heartbreaking, harrowing in its violence, and very, very funny, and it features Oscar-level performances by Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, and Sam Rockwell.

Does Coco rise to the heights of Pixar’s very best work? No. But it is a generous, heartfelt film, full of color and music, one that offers a timely Thanksgiving tribute to the intergenerational importance of family.

It’s Hawkins’s wordless performance that holds the movie together and grounds its wilder fancies in a semblance of emotional reality. By turns gentle and curious, vulnerable and fearless, she provides the film with a heroine whose humanity is profoundly irresistible—no matter what your species.

Does the movie, like its predecessor, rely on familiar tropes a bit more than it should? Yes, I think it does. Is it, at a solid two-and-a-half hours, considerably longer than it needed to be? Yes, that too. But it’s still a pretty damn good movie, arguably the best the franchise has offered since Empire.

Spielberg is in complete control of the material and even manages to tamp down his customary treacle until the movie’s almost over. It’s a fine, enjoyable ride, even if the ultimate destination is never the slightest bit in doubt.

Even if Molly’s Game is a tad too long and a mite too exposition-heavy, its star alone is worth the price of admission.

All the Money in the World is watchable and at times quite gripping, but it’s little more than a middling entry in Scott’s long career.

All of Downsizing’s story elements are so audacious that I was rooting for Payne to make some narrative sense of them. But in two hours and 15 minutes, the only insight the movie offers is that stagnation is part of existence, and that while we probably can’t stop the world from ending with unbelievable scientific breakthroughs, all that matters is that humans are there for each other.

I, Tonya too often feels glib and glancing, holding the public responsible for many of the easy assumptions and narrative shortcuts the film itself indulges in while telling Harding’s story.

Wiseau’s odd appeal is the only reason anything in The Disaster Artist is remotely believable, even though it’s based on a true story. James Franco is magnetic in the role, so committed to precisely replicating Wiseau’s unique presence, that you understand why so many people went along for the ride with him.

Wright has found an ideal collaborator in Oldman, an actor who knows how to embrace his most dramatic side but who still excels in his quieter moments.

Mudbound is beautifully shot, well-acted, and surprisingly sweeping for a movie with a relatively small budget of $10 million; if it’s guilty of anything, it’s perhaps trying to do too much at once, which is understandable given its novelistic scope.

Each element is carefully calibrated, but deployed with consummate grace—this is a film to rush to, and to then savor every minute of.

The real star of Professor Marston and the Wonder Women is Rebecca Hall, who’s an absolute dynamo as Elizabeth Holloway Marston.

For all Sandler’s screaming, and Hoffman’s imperious rambling, the film builds to some quietly tragic moments amid its chaotic comedy of family manners.

Beats Per Minute is specific in topic, to be sure—this is a moving account about the gay experience at a particular point and place in history—but it’s also fascinating to consider from a wider angle, as many people continue to grapple with how to carry out different kinds of political protests.

In its quieter moments, Wonderstruck occasionally approaches the transcendent, sublime quality Haynes is aiming for—but those times are frustratingly few and far between.

The Square is darkly amusing, but it’s also bracingly honest in its absurdity, and that’s what kept me coming back to each one of its wonderfully knotty scenarios even months after seeing it.

With his latest movie, Lanthimos has made a tense, heart-wrenching tale with an admirably askance view of humanity that’s a worthy successor to his prior works.

Had Suburbicon committed to its primary crime-caper plot, it might have been just another forgettable, uninspired film. But its attempt to haphazardly take on a weightier tale makes Suburbicon a much rarer, and more mesmerizing, kind of catastrophe.

Lady Bird isn’t a movie about any searing issue; it’s just a wonderful, rare character study of a young woman figuring out her identity, and all the pitfalls that follow.

The film feels half-formed, sometimes trying to be raucously confrontational, other times excessively sedate.

One element is consistent throughout Roman J. Israel, Esq.—the enigmatic lead, played with typical dedication and forcefulness by Denzel Washington. But even though he’s fully committed to the role, this movie is anything but, aimlessly weaving between story ideas like a distracted driver.

Justice League feels like a pilot episode—it’s half-formed, overstuffed, and narratively a chore—but at least its gotten all those annoying introductions out of the way. And it only took five movies to get there.

Oldboy is mostly absorbing because of the intense anguish radiating off the screen at all times; Park’s ability to effectively communicate obsession, and put the audience in the head of someone who has almost entirely lost touch with his sense of self, feels unparalleled to this day.

You can get carried along by the exuberance and likability of Remo: The Adventure Begins , only to have the despair of the pop mythology underneath it catch up with you the morning after.

While it's hardly a cohesive experience, individual scenes are brought to life with striking power.

It’s a movie that actually makes the past look otherworldly, unlike many period pieces, which strive to make history seem easy to slip into.

It is the script that made the difference here and that allowed Huston to make a better film than he had made in many years.

The genius of the movie is that it seeks to do no more than record an escape from the burdens of the real world.

Out of the Past is more than just an exemplary noir. It exceeds its genre even as it typifies it.