[Its] staginess is offset by their blistering investigation of morality, manipulation, individual and social responsibility, and masculine power.

Concise, clever, and unnerving, it’s a perfect film for the onset of winter.

MaXXXine may be less intimate to its detriment, but it does such interesting things with its scale that the lack of closeness doesn’t matter. It’s small compared to most movies, but massive compared to West’s first two installments.

No matter the out-of-this-world nature of their adventure, they remain an amusing and endearingly down-to-Earth doofus duo.

Funny and charming as ever, it’s a welcome cinematic reprise for the British icons, even if this latest outing is slight enough to suggest that it might have been perfectly fine as a short.

A hysterical, insightful, and ultimately moving portrait of the difficulties of keeping long-term relationships alive.

More turns out to be just about right in this case, with the film offering up such an onslaught of brutal, breakneck action that it’s easy to forgive its less compelling narrative excesses.

It boasts some of the nerve-wracking anxiety of Uncut Gems and the keenness of last year’s standout Playground, even if it doesn't eventually pull off its delicate tightrope act.

Gaga Chromatica Ball feels as all-consuming as being at the show yourself. It’s a mobilizing watch experience, one that will make you dance, sing, and sweat. It’s rare to have such proximity to a performer where she’s most in her element: on the stage.

Those with a craving for out-there mystery and dread, however, will get a heady buzz from its bizarro madness.

A midnight movie that recognizes that there’s no existence without sacrifice, and no birth without death.

Electrified by virtuoso filmmaking, its enraged message comes through loud and clear.

Full of the very thrills one might expect from a summer blockbuster.

Far from a stuffy history lesson, it’s a film that’s at once urgent, rousing, and alive.

Energized by Ariella Mastroianni’s disoriented and frazzled lead performance, it begins unnervingly and ends, like all such sagas should, with haunting bleakness.

An assured directorial debut about media reliability that unnerves by embracing the unknown.

A gut-wrenching saga about illuminating the darkest corners of private lives, and about the difficulty—and perhaps unjustness—of genuine Christian forgiveness.

With leads Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller generating considerable sparks, and violent set pieces that up the supernatural ante one out-there revelation at a time, the director’s latest proves a bonkers B-movie on a big-studio budget.

It’s Dynevor, though, who makes Fair Play sizzle. Balancing fiery sensuality and severe determination, the red-headed 27-year-old actress lights up the screen.

There’s no way to get a total read on what Qualley’s protagonist is up to, which turns out to be the primary thrill of this snapshot of personal, professional, and class warfare.

Juel Taylor crafts a tense, timely mystery that’s brimming with atmosphere, wildly smart, and packed with laughs at every single turn—an instant entry into the modern canon of incisive Black science fiction.

A collision of agony and ecstasy that approaches the divine even as it reveals piousness to be an outgrowth of, and justification for, earthly suffering, it’s like nothing the genre has seen before.

As a hitman on an assignment in a far-flung locale, [McShane's] as good as he’s ever been, exuding a heft and danger that typifies this understated and affecting genre effort.

Barry Keoghan is arguably the most electric actor working today, and he absolutely ignites Bird.

Invigorates its well-worn formula through meticulous stewardship and an excellent performance from headliner Gustav Dyekjær Giese as a boxer who attempts to realize his dreams of glory in the most daringly illicit manner imaginable.

The film makes a choice: it ignores the psychic wounds that created the witty and prickly bow in which Lebowitz wraps herself. But this approach feels exactly right, and with Public Speaking Martin Scorsese has created a fine film that may be as close as her fans will get to the book Fran Lebowitz seems unable to write.

Weir and Clark have crafted an absurdly stylish film that is never content to rest on its ambitious visual scope, burrowing under your skin for an eerie glimpse at how men in their youth form bonds with one another that can slowly spin out of control as time passes.

What initially seems like too absurd and comedic a conceit to work for a full 90 minutes ends up being one of the more human and successful works of art inspired by the COVID lockdowns.

Stone is a mesmerizing riot in this bleak satire of our current state of disorder—as is her co-star Jesse Plemons, who matches her intensity and manages to outdo her craziness.

Celebrates feminist independence and rage, even as it embraces the conventions of its many cinematic and pop culture influences.

A sly, sinister film about self-loathing, sacrifice, and the things people will do to survive—with a great tormented performance from Dakota Fanning at its center.

A successful experiment that’s highly attuned to the digital immediacy of our modern condition.

A hypnotic star child of out-there wonder and internal corruption and chaos.

Resembling a bonkers marriage of “Young Tully” and “Teen Wolf,” and led by a ferociously naked and unafraid performance by its star, it’s an amusingly incisive howl of maternal pain, frustration, disappointment, resentment, and feral strength.

Snappy, sweet, and moving, this crowd-pleasing winner starring Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen, and Callum Turner continues the genre’s much-needed revitalization.

There may be no cinematic artist more deserving of a lionizing documentary than Williams, and that’s precisely what he receives from Music by John Williams.

[Its] genuine focus is the emotional turmoil that drives people to practice this profession as well as to patronize its “experts” in search of guidance and insights into the biggest questions of their lives.

Distinguishes itself by putting a distinctly 21st-century spin on its time-honored template, as well as via a black sense of humor.

A captivating character study about a young man trying to carve out a grown-up life despite having spent half of his years on Earth behind bars.

An endearing, infuriating, and despairing non-fiction portrait of a country’s final descent into oppressive authoritarianism, all of it shot covertly by one brave teacher, it’s a striking work of rebel cinema.

[Bayona's] finest film to date, and a fitting tribute to those who both perished and managed to escape their fateful mountain tomb.

With an aesthetic ingenuity to match its pooch’s impressively expressive performance, it’s a thriller that ably justifies its central gimmick.

Playfully mocking today’s always-online, virtual-signaling teen generation while simultaneously embracing its bevy of old-school tropes, it’s exactly the sort of crowd-pleaser designed to be seen in a theater, after dark, with a rowdy audience.

This is not the film you may have expected, but this is a film you can cherish. Its characters bursting with life, its music playful, its visuals astonishing, its plot inviting, and its heart is open. All you have to do is listen.

Taut and mournful, it’s a lament for the mistakes made in anger, the wounds that fail to heal, and the past that never truly seems to be past at all.

With Oscar-winner Sam Rockwell as its tempestuous engine, it’s a captivatingly silly saga about the pitfalls of our modern techno-obsessiveness.

A sober military thriller that excoriates Joe Biden’s decision to pull out of Afghanistan in 2021 and, in the process, to strand the thousands of local interpreters who had risked their lives to aid the American cause.

An illuminating look at a superpower in the throes of a burgeoning cultural catastrophe—and of a few of its myriad desperate-for-love men.

A bewildering and gripping saga about reproduction, identity, and family that, at its finest, taps into a legitimately demented vein.

Both a comprehensive primer and a nostalgic celebration, it successfully makes the case that few 20th-century funnymen were as daring, pioneering, or outright amusing.

This funny and charming slice-of-life tale has the spirit of a low-fi ’70s romantic comedy, complete with characters who resonate as authentic inhabitants of their particular time and place.

Cage makes a meal of it, attuning himself to director Lorcan Finnegan’s wacked-out frequency to deliver another tour-de-force of grief, regret, anguish, and seriously psychotic fury.

A portrait of millennial estrangement and discontent that, despite suffering from sporadic redundancy, strikes a raw cringe-comedy nerve.

A look at Coppola’s creative process that proves significantly more illuminating and entertaining than the director’s finished product.

A cannier, and more effective, slice of shaky-cam insanity than most of its brethren, right down to a finale that’s akin to 2001: A Space Odyssey as processed through a meat grinder.

As tender and somber as it is thrilling, The Return proves a sword-and-sandals saga rooted in life’s biggest issues, all of them written on the unforgettable countenance of its illustrious star.

Destined—depending on one’s perspective on this matter—to inspire either heartfelt sympathy or blood-boiling outrage.

The acclaimed star delivers a masterclass in silent expressiveness, and he proves the riveting axis around which Tim Mielants’ precise and deft feature revolves.

An affectionate portrait of Chelly as a one-of-a-kind trailblazer who lived life to the fullest, and always on her own iconoclastic terms, all while also providing a vivid snapshot of New York City during its daring and dangerous pre-sanitized era.

A high-octane action extravaganza sure to satiate genre fans’ delirious bloodlust.

Haigh is otherworldly when it comes to capturing not only the feeling of falling in love but all of the fear of vulnerability that comes along with it.

A reimagining that’s thrillingly, monstrously alive.

Gracefully balancing its lighter and darker concerns, it’s a witty ride whose poignancy—like adulthood itself—sneaks up on you.

Proof that Sandler still has the capacity to spearhead (as opposed to just for-hire headline) a competent movie—including one featuring those closest to him.

The Saint of Second Chances is a testament to prioritizing goofy, compassionate family entertainment over winning and profit, as so many associated with the Saints readily attest.

Adele Lim’s romp fits in with the likes of Bridesmaids and Girls Trip—which is to say, underneath all the sex and raunchiness, there’s actual emotional depth.

Its anger is matched by its empathy, both of which abound in its tale of woe set in the nightmarish region between Belarus and Poland.

Thanksgiving is less a cheap rollercoaster ride than a faithfully grisly throwback, complete with more than a few subtle (and not-so-subtle) shout-outs to Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th.

Sinister even when it’s slyly winking at its audience, it’s a satisfying meal of tasty horror cheese.

A delightful film about the dim-witted and the disreputable. And though its humor ultimately wanes, it compensates with a surprising measure of tenderness.

Consistently funny and erotic, if ultimately a bit too straightlaced for the incendiary subject matter at hand.

Proves that forty-five years after the xenomorph first terrified audiences, there’s still plenty of acid-bloody life left in the franchise’s monstrous bones.

A brutal buddy film pairing Affleck’s killer with his equally murderous brother, it locates the humor in its mayhem and, for it, proves a superior sequel in every respect.

What they have to say, and what’s depicted here, won’t make anyone feel more optimistic about our looming undead-avatar futures.

[Its] vignettes are uneven and occasionally repetitive and yet, at their best, deliver the sort of macabre mood and mayhem that make the series an enduring spooky-season pleasure.

A canny cautionary tale about the perils of looking for Mr. Right—and of keeping your phone powered on at dinner.

Zootopia 2 feels like it came out as the filmmakers intended, even if they set their own expectations at medium instead of high.

Proves a deliriously amusing vehicle for both glamorous, charismatic actresses. It won’t win Sweeney or Seyfried any prizes, but it’s the sort of hysterical thriller that, in the ’80s and ’90s, was a theatrical staple.

In a genre overly taken as of late with “elevated” trauma scares, its gritty, skillful menace is a breath of fresh air.

Unabashedly romanticizing its subjects as paragons of strength and style, it doesn’t have much substance lurking beneath its surface—but then, with a surface like this, it doesn’t really need any.

Occasionally stumbles along its well-worn path. Still, courtesy of [Mortensen] and Vicky Krieps’ excellent lead performances, it delivers moving measures of the genre’s beauty, brutality, and sorrow.

While its assortment of recurring images, conversations, scenes, and dynamics intermittently borders on the exhausting, it plays as an intriguing meditation on desire, dreams, and the things that make us who we are—and without which we’re lost.

A stylishly pessimistic portrait of one man’s villainy and, just as stingingly, the way in which it infected all that he touched—as if through the very blood.

Chronicles the whirlwind phenomenon and, it turns out, the tricky process of looking back and learning to both accept the good and let go of the bad.

A film that’s as sweet as it is scary, and whose frights are the sort that come from all-too-relatable fears about being alone, being apart, and being unable to hold onto the people and memories that matter most.

A globetrotting action comedy whose primary selling point is the chemistry of headliners (and The Suicide Squad castmates) Idris Elba and John Cena.

The movie’s secret weapon, in many ways, is not Washington but rather A$AP Rocky, who emerges in the second half to give a performance so fun it’s easy to anoint him the next big movie star.

Affords an intimate and wrenching view of a national collapsing under the weight of unbearable traumas, and of the young children who are the prime victims of that strain.