Chiarella readily surprises his audiences, and follows his pivots with even more twists, disorienting his characters and keeping his viewers in a constant state of suspense. Whenever either lead spots the other, Chiarella has conditioned our heart rates to spike—and not because of swooning.

It’s director-star Olivia Wilde’s tight, warm control of her ensemble that keeps the awkwardly horny dinner party moving forward through its clunkier courses.

Couture is a patchwork quilt assembled from mismatched fabric swatches. If the disparate textiles were more intricately patterned and less flat-out drab, Winocour might have had a cleverly low-key interrogation of high-end folly on her hands.

Each new truth unearths a new layer of tragedy, but Romería pushes Marina, and by extension Simón, to dig deeper to understand her parents and the family they are all a part of. It’s awkward and painful, yet so is solving the mystery of the previous generation.

While the mix of old and new can be a blessing and a curse, Knoxville and the gang have earned the victory lap.

The movie’s visual sensibility signals Supergirl’s broader success in threading the needle between a kid-friendly, hope-suffused superhero story and bleaker, grittier stuff—and in doing so, recognizing how those aspects of life are often interwoven, rather than diametrically opposed approaches to IP. That’s always been the push-pull of the Supergirl character, equally able to be portrayed as Superman’s gee-whiz kid-sister equivalent and his more jaded, literally alienated reflection. The joy of Supergirl is how it mixes the two without demoting its main gal to a sideshow.

Even the third-act pivot, which pushes Unidentified further into campy, confused daytime TV territory, can’t rouse an audience nodding off after a stakeless, thrill-free whodunnit. But it does help undermine whatever social message al-Mansour might’ve offered about the way women live and die in modern Saudi Arabia, without even tapping into the joyous tastelessness of some of its peers.

While Jenkin’s story is tightly controlled, with little explanation as to how this time jump happened and almost no room for big emotions, his visual storytelling is deeply expressive.

Wickedly sharp and surprisingly moving, John Early’s Maddie’s Secret is a melodramatic comedy like few others.

It all adds up to a wonderful surprise of a film, the kind that makes you remember just what we’ve been missing as these women-centric genres have fallen out of fashion. Voicemails For Isabelle will make you laugh, make you cry, and make you believe it’s not embarrassing for a movie to strive to be “life-affirming.”

Girls Like Girls is a sweet little gem, particularly in how it represents the decade in a warm, naturalistic manner, allowing details like Lipsmackers, CDs, and elastic chokers to read as genuine instead of forced.

The continuation of Jessie’s story assures that Toy Story 5 has more emotional immediacy than its fourquel predecessor, though it’s perhaps not as inventive as that one in expanding the scope the series’ physical and thematic

Find Your Friends never figures out what it wants to be. It’s not engrossing enough to be a thriller, nor is it a riff on Spring Breakers sex-murder-rave culture, and its confusion is tinged with a distasteful flavor. Despite growing from one of Pakzad’s most vivid waking nightmares, the film is simply an aimlessly meandering road trip.

Mumenthaler accesses both sides of Lina’s uncanny dissociation, the lonesome and the sublime. It’s a captivating assessment of a hypersensitive mental state, nonjudgmental yet clear-eyed about the power it holds over its subject. But what allows The Currents to sweep you away is its understanding of impermanence.

This is lizard-brain ass-kicking, done about as well as you could hope, with a variety of martial art styles, ridiculous weaponry, and oddball characters for flavor.

Mixing Gothic elements with Mexican culture, bright colors, and intricate details, the unique fairytale is both mesmerizing to watch and emotionally entrancing.

It’s a slow drip towards the end, reality running out like blood from a vein, leaving only a body of stories behind. But without a compelling narrative or affecting emotions at its core, the subversion is often as shallow as the legend.

While Disclosure Day doesn’t live up to the high standards he’s set, it’s still a thrill ride, thumbing its nose at authority and begging its audience for more empathy, not less. Even if not all the pieces snap flawlessly into place, Disclosure Day is a reminder of how much magic is still left up Spielberg’s sleeve, how much excitement he and Koepp can bring to a story about government conspiracy, how easily Kamiński can make an audience nervous with the smallest lens flare, and how exhilarating it feels to listen to new Williams score. But because this creative team has hit so many homers before, even a mild showing can feel like a letdown.

Carolina Caroline is a story we’ve seen play out a million times. Pierrot Le Fou, Badlands, True Romance, and on and on. But there’s a down-to-earth quality here that eludes so many of these other iconic capers, and that’s what sweeps you up in the romance and ramshackle cons that propel the narrative.

Watching seasoned older comedians target the young for caring too much is bad enough, but seeing them miss even their softest targets makes Scary Movie the most embarrassing movie spoof since Scary Movie.

While the romance here feels tenuous at best, the comedy is in even worse shape, often mistaking uncomfortable oversharing for punchlines. If this was meant to be a return to form for Lopez, it’s not a satisfying comeback.

Savage House is caught, then, in a conundrum like that posing its characters: It’s too respectable to entirely ignore, yet too obvious and coarse to entertain those whose attention it courts.

The new Masters Of The Universe does not represent the best-case scenario, though if the bar truly is the ’87 version, consider it cleared with room to spare.

While Power Ballad is sometimes a good enough hang, especially during its opening half, its sitcom humor never rises to its stars’ level.

Who knew watching weather balloons flying up around the English coast could be so exhilarating? Under Maras’ direction and his script with David Haig, Pressure is a surprisingly effective war thriller, full of the hallmarks of the genre with a palpable time crunch.

Dosa’s film—which she wrote alongside Magnason, Jocelyne Chaput, and Erin Casper—sometimes strains a bit too visibly to connect this theme, becoming so enraptured with the encapsulating power of ice that the film protests too much about its own profundity.

Navigating a turbulent undercurrent of mommy issues, Propeller One-Way Night Coach ends up more of a bumpy ride than an all-ages tribute to soaring the skies.

Fans of Bargatze’s squeaky clean comedy of domestic absurdity will feel comforted by The Breadwinner‘s lightly toasted humor. They’ll feel doubly reassured by the clips from Bargatze’s stand-up that inspired the film’s material, which roll over the credits between shots of the cast cracking up. Sure, they all had a good time, but the audience deserves something more than what they’ve been fed before.

It’s suburban strip mall horror, which Parsons demystifies over the course of his overwrought directorial debut.

The ensuing shenanigans parade a cast of slumming heavy-hitters (Fiona Shaw, Charles Dance) going through the motions of ancient “battle of the sexes” jokes.

Bitter Christmas uncomfortably straddles its twin goals of complexity and amusement, too pithy to take seriously and too flat to be riotously entertained.

When in doubt, screenwriters Zachary Donohue and T.W. Burgess so awkwardly rush back to genre conventions that it feels like Passenger failing a series of trust falls before our eyes.

There’s an openness to Muragishe (symbolized by his hobby as a diligent tea master and tea urn collector) that Kurosawa admires, something fairly rare in his dark, disorientating filmography. It’s this admiration—not to mention the film’s patience and detail—that makes The Samurai And The Prisoner a delightful detour for the genre master.

I Love Boosters paints another winning amusement park ride in the bright colors of its filmmaker’s politics.

Jack Ryan: Ghost War [editor’s note: the full title of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War is way too long to keep repeating] is a straightforward spy movie without excitement or intrigue, like a training exercise to keep Krasinski busy. Even the franchise’s main distinguishing factor, its rah-rah patriotism, is no match for a few moments of product placement from the Saudi tourism board.

Where Tuner truly shines is in the work of Oscar-winning sound designer Johnnie Burn and the film’s sound team as they carefully recreate Niki’s world through the film’s engrossing soundscape. Roher’s technically impressive approach to this element weaves itself organically throughout the film and its story, setting the crime drama apart from more typical crowdpleasers.

There’s still evidence of his sardonic wit and stylistic flourishes but, save for brief blasts of cool brilliance, the film is for the most part a dud, as floaty and ephemeral as the fading mist that passes for one of the film’s central menaces.

Hamaguchi’s screenplay for his first French film (co-written with Léa Le Dimna) overflows with insight and discernment at such great depth that it’s more like the Tao Te Ching than a script, more like a film by the Dalai Lama than an internationally beloved auteur.

When Favreau banishes traditional actors in order to send little puppet creatures scuttling through the verdant landscape, suddenly his human-light blockbuster looks, if not quite visionary, at least novel. It also looks much closer to handmade, and deeply charming.

It’s Ritchie in fun-workhorse mode, more businesslike than Operation Fortune but fleeter than Fountain Of Youth.

Lavish with cultural references and fresh imagination, Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma is a revelry of comedy, murder, intellectualism, sexual awakening, queerness, and more.

Young and Johnson drive home Harris’ emotional story with a potent chemistry both tender and volatile. They’re brilliantly paired as twins who are so closely connected that they know when the other is in trouble, but are so unique in personality that they are their own separate entities.

It doesn’t make for a very serious look at decades of history, but The Wizard Of The Kremlin isn’t attempting to nail down a Russian reality any more than it is trying to directly tie its observations to modern America. It’s in its observation of hyperreality in action, its bleak look at constructed chaos, that the film inevitably feels close to home.

Through clever cinematography, editing tricks, and a cast that’s fully committed to the director’s unnerving vision, Barker reimagines a classic horror idea for a new generation.

Marty: Life Is Short is an overdue appreciation of a performer who’s underestimated as a clown only because he makes being funny look so easy.

While Remarkably Bright Creatures may repel those with little patience for stories of fate, those who enjoyed the book—or those who enjoy character pieces as catharsis—will find this a worthwhile adaptation.

It’s because Mortal Kombat II is neither campy enough to revel in its violent bad taste, nor earnest enough to pull off its sprawling ambitions that it most resembles a late-stage Marvel entry.

Even if it wasn’t hot on the tail of Pixar’s Hoppers, Swapped would still be an overly familiar adventure towards empathy, one light on comedy and insight despite plenty of visual imagination in its world of flora-fauna hybrids.

In this case, Eckhart exudes the sort of unselfconscious paternal energy that’s needed to keep things moving in between the familiar, but well-executed disaster movie story beats. He almost single-handedly makes Deep Water a better-than-average genre exercise, though the bloody shark attacks and corny banter don’t hurt either.

Hokum is the latest fruit of McCarthy’s chameleonic gifts, and his best film yet.

While there’s no recapturing the delightful surprise of the first, The Devil Wears Prada 2 is still a treat for fans of the original.

Jokes may fall flat, and the movie might get a bit treacly, but The Sheep Detectives‘ big heart is never in question.

Apex mistakes going bigger for going better when what it really needs is a little more cleverness, either in how Ben operates or how Sasha tries to survive her impossible scenario. For a movie with some pretty ridiculous plot swerves, everything winds up feeling oddly straightforward, which makes the survival genre’s requisite catharsis and comeuppance land anticlimactically.

The movie’s basic appeal––that of rebels rising up against evil empires––still works to some extent, but Desert Warrior does little to make it memorable beyond its historic production.

Fuze doesn’t fly off the rails at its midpoint. It keeps moving forward at a steady clip. By its final stretch, however, the effort to sustain itself becomes more visible, and less quietly confident.

Michael is an attempt to remind audiences why so many fans fell in love with him in the first place, but it doubles as a pretty clear bit of hagiography.

The trouble is, Roommates‘ emotional realism is so compelling that by the time it decides to swing around to being a full-on black comedy, it’s hard not to feel disappointed by the ending. To be fair, that is the setup promised by the framing device, so the film doesn’t exactly pull a fast one, and the cast is equally committed to the more heightened comedy when it arrives.

Farrelly’s film wanders aimlessly without being driven by anything absurd or outrageous enough to conjure a Hangover-like reaction, nor anything with enough humanity to justify the occasional heart-to-heart conversations between Brad and Elijah.

If Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is like any of the director’s previous work, it’s most like Evil Dead Rises, since it’s also programmatically upsetting yet narratively threadbare to the point of distraction. And while this movie’s relentless, reflex-testing shock scares suggest that the filmmaker has a sense of humor, the audience is never really encouraged to laugh along with them.

If, somehow, you’re just now getting into Saturday Night Live and haven’t already ingested endless lore about the most enduring of sketch shows, Lorne might be a meaningful primer. For everyone else, you’ve heard this joke before.

Mother Mary is not scary, nor is it particularly violent. But it does conjure an emotional and metaphysical weight that is practically impossible to shake off post-viewing. This is the most successful Lowery has been at evoking a sensory experience.

By the time Zimmer helps connect past and present, memory and reality, the ensemble’s lived-in performances already gesture towards the logical outcome. We just hope it isn’t true.

While Thrash resembles a general-audience survival horror drama, its forgettable protagonists also frequently stop to reassure viewers—mostly through profanity-laced dialogue and occasional bursts of gore—that it’s okay to scoff at whatever they’re looking at.

A talented animation team does its best to bail water from this sinking ship, but an overreliance on contrivances and slapstick leaves too many holes to plug.

The life lessons Reef learns aren’t meaningful, and the movie’s message about making amends is patronizing. In the end, it’s the audience that deserves an apology.

Exit 8 excels at capturing that isolation and disaffection in an elegant environmental ouroboros, though what it does once it establishes its atmosphere never matches that simple artistry.

It’s a straightforward slasher with a tech-savvy twist, ironically not outlandish enough to stand out from the formerly forbidden footage filling our feeds every single day.

Ozon’s The Stranger keeps the spirit of its source material alive as a timeless warning in a modern world of stark polarization, ongoing colonialism, and plenty of Meursaults ignoring the suffering of others.

There is room for vulgarity, horror, absurdity, and a whole lot of heart in Pizza Movie, though just barely, like attempting to host a rager in a 12′ x 14′ dorm room. The resulting stoner comedy is awkward, weird, and doesn’t quite work, but it just might become a core memory for those among the couchlocked who have yet to experience a proper house party.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie doesn’t really have the patience for character-based conflict, or plotting more complicated (or motivated) than groups of characters showing up to different planets on cue.

The resulting film is nonetheless a wonderfully thorny exploration of primordial desires for connection, destruction, and stability. Don’t expect any genuine relationship advice, but also be warned that this is not a glib exercise in aimless edginess.

Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice practically warns the audience against taking it too seriously, even while talking out the other side of its mouth about its own heartfelt themes.

Lapid’s garish maximalism will surely isolate some filmgoers, but the satire of Yes! works best when it’s fearless—unbothered by the genocidal regime it captures.

After so many smirky bloodfests, They Will Kill You scarcely needs believable human relationships to earn some goodwill. All it really needs is Beetz convincingly going through hell.

Pretty Lethal doesn’t even fully take flight once it finally escapes the realm of good taste, though it does feature a handful of standout moments and images. You might scratch your head a few times, but you also may enjoy yourself if you only want the filmmakers to embrace their unhinged high-concept premise

Over Your Dead Body is a gleeful, bloody romp masquerading as a dark marriage comedy, though unsurprisingly the two sides of its genre dynamic have a dysfunctional relationship.

By making the film about one woman (kind of) helping herself, with only vague connections to the world and the people around her, the filmmakers give up any worthwhile point about poverty, injustice, or community.

If you’re not immediately tickled by Normal‘s premise, which cements into the traditions of narrative conflict—man versus nature, man versus man, man versus self—the very literal concept of “man versus entire town,” this is the least of the Odenkickass movies. And if that idea makes you smile, Normal might be even more disappointing for how mechanically it goes through motions that used to be novel.

Even with all these spinning plates, Volpe struggles with maintaining tension despite Benesch’s knack for immediacy and impeccable dramatic timing.

Happily, the narrative moves ahead quickly, the better to demonstrate new, inventive methods of reducing murder-happy billionaires to sloppy carcasses in between beats where Weaving and Newton get to play off of one another.

While the plot isn’t realistic, it’s deeply felt, which is what these kinds of melodramas are supposed to offer. It’s a leaps and bounds improvement over Regretting You, and though Reminders Of Him has fewer grace notes than It Ends With Us, it’s got a more cohesive, meaningful message.

Over two-and-a-half hours, the duo’s film gazes in wonder at alien engineering, opens its heart to human vulnerability through karaoke, and makes the case that inspiring the next generation (or at least perpetuating its existence) is alluring enough to shake the smarmiest manchildren from their self-imposed exile. Most effectively, though, Project Hail Mary sees a personal sense of humor shine through the bludgeoning grandeur of a AAA sci-fi.

It’s both more and less than “Taken: Mom Edition,” another boneheaded poking of conservative’s self-inflicted wounds around human trafficking with a title just as deluded as its content.

As a theatrical experience, it’s lots of fun, making clever use of proven techniques that build tension before releasing it with exploding light bulbs and ghostly figures appearing in the corner of the frame.

Forget the gritty realism and quippy one-liners that so often define the modern action genre, War Machine is proudly, almost guilelessly old-fashioned.

On the whole, Man on the Run is a visually and technically creative documentary that successfully contextualizes McCartney’s decade of metamorphosis as a person and musician via his second band, Wings.

Heel wants to have its cake and eat it too, to present this darkly comic absurdity while dipping back into reality only when it suits the film.

The Immortal Man is not a good entry point into Peaky Blinders for the same reason it is not rewarding for existing fans: It traffics only in the late stages of Shelby’s arc, but offers nothing new to those who have already been there, done that.

Gyllenhaal never tones down the brutality, ripping us through bloody tongues, heads, and bodies—in cinematographer Lawrence Sher’s fit of gorgeously captured violence—until the frenzied finish

While there’s plenty of familiarity in Pixar’s small-scale animated romp Hoppers, there’s also a smart, unruly variation at its center.

The resulting film is empty fan service, content with simply evoking appreciation for the characters that Williamson created 30 years ago instead of doing anything exciting with them.

The abusive push-pull between America and Mexico, the conflict between the exotic fantasy of a Latin lover and its xenophobic underbelly, crashes into two people too ill-defined to function as anything more than symbols.

More inarticulate than outright bad, I Can Only Imagine 2 re-packages a heap of barely legible dramatic and comedic shorthand as an uplifting testament to “the goodness of God.” It’s mostly inoffensive, but also doesn’t really have anything to say.

Indeed, The Bluff is a rollicking good time despite the fact (or maybe because of the fact) that the line between thrilling and ridiculous has never felt more razor thin than it does here.

A too-modern sensibility and a drastic change from the original folktale lead the movie dreadfully astray.

Midwinter Break is most interested in the realities of long-term relationships—with unfaced trauma and graceful forgiveness alike—more than concrete absolutes, which is what makes it a valuable meditation on the imperfection of marriage.

At the center of it all is Powell, making the same face for an hour and 45 minutes, too unflappable to root for, too smug to magnetize as an inhuman American Psycho. And How To Make A Killing needed to pick a side, either of clownish class comedy or of bitter sociopathic satire.

By keeping their movie grounded in street-level pursuits and raucous shootouts, the McManus brothers situate the multiverse concept in a believable reality that doesn’t require a subreddit to detangle. Redux Redux jumps swiftly and elegantly, finding timelines worth visiting again and again.