While there are some quality jokes about how hard it is to maintain authenticity, it’s all frustratingly—if unsurprisingly—surface-level. Thankfully, the film is often funny, and it's best when leaning into the absurdity that fuels Hess and Wang’s other work.

Whereas Bertino’s original was sleek, sinister and deft, this do-over is noisy, dull and dumb as a bag of rocks.

All in all, however, Appendage moves quickly enough that its thinner spots become forgivable after the payoff of its final twist. Beyond the monster design, the film’s greatest feat is the comedy it derives from what could be a dour subject.

Destined to be passionately adored and despised, it’s a provocation, a stunt, a dare, and an experiment—as well as a bold one-of-a-kind experience that...shouldn’t be missed.

A tense, fatalistic saga of bad luck and worse decisions, it’s a throwback that feels as fresh and alive as its predecessors did decades ago. Not to be missed, it stands as one of the most welcome surprises of this moviegoing year.

Too often rehashing its myriad predecessors’ ideas, conflicts, and images, it’s a competent if unexceptional blockbuster game of monkey see, monkey do.

It’s Stalter’s brazen conviction that really sells the film. Carried on the shoulders of Cora’s leopard print, faux fur coat, Cora Bora is a taught indie that straddles funny and forlorn with unexpected depth.

It's content to be childishly silly rather than legitimately weird, veering between gags concerning age-old products and Jan. 6 with a mildness that keeps things pleasantly pedestrian.

A masterful film that invites contemplation and, in return, delivers lyrical beauty, haunting mystery, and more than a bit of unexpected terror.

[Depp] proves that he remains one of cinema’s most magnetic presences—even if his latest project doesn’t do terribly much with him.

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

Set to Tom Holkenborg’s bombastic score, Gregorian chanting, and endless pew-pew-pews, Rebel Moon—Part Two: The Scargiver roars and rampages, yet its drama can’t match its aesthetic pomposity.

The real issue here is simply a dearth of novelty—an insurmountable shortcoming for a B-movie that should be able to drum up some thrills from its offspring-of-Nosferatu premise.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare would seem to be an almost ideal project for Ritchie—which is why its lethargy comes as such a dispiriting surprise.

What’s conspicuously missing from this non-fiction inquiry—much to its detriment—is an attendant discussion of what came next, and how McVeigh’s actions directly and indirectly led us to our precarious present moment.

In Challengers, tennis is sex, and sex is tennis. The two things are never separate, and their concurrence is what makes the film such a fascinating, lithe creature.

Makes up for any narrative patchiness with a bevy of unforgettable images and an attendant sense of ancient beliefs and rituals that divide as much as they unite.

Knowing just how much to say aloud and how much to suggest through visual and aural means, this superb Irish fable feels at once modern and ancient, and hums with mystery and malice.

A towering genre film about a not-so-fanciful end times—one that both understands, and proves, the peerless power of the visual image.

It’s consistently engaging, but also not much more revealing than a quick perusal of Jennifer’s Wikipedia page, and the fact that its real-life saga may not be over only amplifies the impression that it’s less than the full story.

Telegraphs its bombshells from the outset and dutifully shuffles toward a conclusion that tethers this saga to Donner’s The Omen.

Threads the needle between appealing to those viewers well-versed in all things internet and those who know 4chan best as the birthplace of QAnon.

By re-contextualizing MoviePass as the story of Black innovation thwarted by reckless privilege, it makes MoviePass’ swift downturn delicious and even comedic for the right reasons instead of the wrong ones.

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.

It’s a film that could easily veer into manipulative territory in lesser hands, but Hausmann Stokes transforms this personal and devastating story into something deeper, sweeter, and funnier than it may initially seem.

It’s as big a swing as any in Besson’s career, and consequently, when it wholly and embarrassingly misses, the blow back is borderline overpowering.

A sequel that ups the ante in virtually every way—none of them good.

Composed to seem at once off-the-cuff and mannered (replete with varying film stocks), La Chimera blends sweetness, sorrow and silliness with a lyrical touch.

Sing Sing is a revelation.

Love You Forever isn’t gripping or poignant enough to stick the landing. You can only watch a grotesque man commit atrocities for a short period of time before the shtick becomes too upsetting to continue.

The film’s dawn of the new millennium references—from AOL dial-up crackles to the “Macarena” dance—are absolutely riotous. But a lack of intriguing characters and failure to follow through on a great concept for a horror story leave Y2K with major software bugs.

The film works best when it’s a psychological drama or a deeper look at certain characters (particularly Rose, although Sammy gets his time, too) instead of a biting satire about the entertainment industry.

A scathing portrait of Jones and the vile misinformation he spread about the Sandy Hook tragedy.

On a comedic level, The Gutter is too quiet to be slapstick but too random to actually have an intelligent sense of humor.

Like many teen movies, I Wish You All the Best does become heavy-handed and cheesy at certain points, but that in no way diminishes the poignancy it offers.

Bob Trevino spins a fascinating story into a superb movie with stellar performances from its two leading stars.

Liman’s work in Road House is downright captivating. The fights are oiled to perfection, cameras planted on dollies and tracking his characters’ every last move. The director is completely unafraid to experiment, using every last trick in his arsenal to make the crowd go absolutely wild.

Russell Crowe continues to prove that he’s better than the B-grade projects he’s now offered, but his convincing performance isn’t enough to elevate this surprise-free mystery.

The Contestant outs the Japanese reality show as a pioneering work of manipulative heartlessness, happy to put Nasubi through the ringer for ratings and, also, for spectators eager to chuckle at his mistreatment (and marvel at his cooperation in it).

Babes’ benevolent humor skims the great heights of a Nora Ephron film for a modern take on womanhood that feels close to classic on arrival.

I Don’t Understand You stays one step ahead of its audience at every turn, armed and ready with unexpected gags and memorably biting dialogue that repeatedly quell suspicions about whether or not it can pull off its big narrative swings.

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.

It all resembles a lot of cosplaying, although its central failing is foregrounding cacophonous mayhem and middling melodrama over the drollness that defined the first two Ghostbusters movies.

We Strangers constantly tries to hold onto something that was never there in the first place. It’s a movie that’s sort of about community, sort of about racial assimilation, and sort of about the lies we tell ourselves and others to wrestle with life’s mundanity.

A Nice Indian Boy is filled with enough novel truth to transcend its predictable elements, leaving viewers with a film that feels like a genuine love story, instead of an idealistic imitation.

Irish Wish is bland, woefully flat, and entirely devoid of laughs, and is a vacuum of charisma when its star isn’t in the frame.

Benson’s film is a crafty yet subtle inversion of a stale genre. It moves the viewer and gets out while it’s ahead, aiming for maximum emotional impact over any flashy, absurd striving.

Weaving confirms that she has the nerve to be a horror icon, delivering a wicked and gritty performance, and rising to the demands of a film where she must believably convey the nuances of fright and rage, without any words to do so.

Though Immaculate won’t raise any hairs, it should boost Sweeney’s career. She transcends all of the triteness, proving herself to be the megawatt actress with virtuoso potential that she’s already demonstrated herself to be.

On top of being a no-holds-barred action movie, The Fall Guy is also the best studio rom-com since Crazy Rich Asians. Gosling and Blunt make for an intoxicating duo, and Gosling really runs away with the rest of the movie, too.

Though Monkey Man is exasperating, Patel’s work shows heart, love, and promise—something that can’t be said about many other action films.

Fortuitously timed, providing an insider’s view of this most tabloid-y of political tales and the woman at the center of it all.

Cabrini is a respectful biopic designed to shed light on a forgotten woman whose charitable acts deserve recognition. It’s also so stultifyingly dutiful you may find yourself missing Sound of Freedom’s tawdry watchability.

A lifeless hodgepodge of the hoariest clichés the genre has to offer.

Has its heart in the right place but little else, starting out competently and then slowly falling apart with each clumsy step along its "Game of Thrones"-lite path.

This movie is nice to gawk at, though the character models of Disney films are starting to get a little too interchangeable, a little too… well, on model. But as a piece of storytelling, Wish is as flimsy as a star decal stuck to a wall.

Little more than a creaky lark that fails to generate consistent laughs, even if it proves that John Cena is a charming goof-off who’s game for anything.

It’s a movie only Bong could have made: ferocious, bracingly critical of the absurdities of late-stage capitalism, yet fun and never priggish. It’s one of the best films of the year.

The Greatest Love Story Never Told is a study of celebrity, and the drive that it takes to maintain it. It has no intention of humanizing its shining star, only reminding us of exactly why she has retained her wattage.

Strives for stratospheric emotional heights and yet proves so self-seriously somber and saccharine that it plays like a leaden parody.

The Animal Kingdom is what an X-Men movie would look like if it doubled-down on its tolerance-for-outsiders metaphor and did away with any exciting superpowered spectacle.

Poor Things is a work about distortion, assemblage, and invention, and thus it’s apt that the film deforms and amalgamates to beget something thrillingly unique.

The film repeatedly oversimplifies Wilkerson's polemic, dumbing down the argument for an audience that may well start to feel patronized.

It’s arguably the greatest expression yet of Fincher’s style and worldview—caustic, unrelenting, and wickedly funny.

[An] overly dramatic and revelation-lite feature-length documentary, whose main purpose seems to be rehashing that which has already been exhaustively covered by the media and, also, underscoring the sociopathic dishonesty of Joran van der Sloot.

A marvel of slapstick invention that in terms of pure unbridled creativity puts most big-screen comedies to shame.

A stark window into the conflicted soul of [Ceylan's] homeland, whose tensions and schisms are subtly evoked throughout the course of this challenging, if ultimately rich and rewarding, 197-minute import of longing, resentment, compromise, and self-interest.

Aiming for ribald and risqué and coming up with only ruinous humorlessness, it may be the longest 84 minutes anyone will spend in a theater this year.

[Boasting] an ambitious and exhilarating story that matches its style, it’s the finest thing Villeneuve has helmed and the 2024 film to beat for outsized sci-fi showmanship.

Headlined by a serviceable Liam Hemsworth and a fantastic Russell Crowe in all his hammy scene-stealing glory, it’s the bro-iest bro-fest that ever bro’d—and I say that with far more affection than condescension.

This Is Me…Now: A Love Story is gleefully messy, just like love so often is. Whether that frenetic chaos is intentional or not doesn’t matter when it feels so apt for the story.

On the basis of Madame Web, however, Sony’s Spider-Man Universe is now completely lifeless—and in no need of resuscitation.

Even in a crowded true-crime field, it’s something of a doozy.

A sumptuous period-piece celebration of sensory delights—both culinary and otherwise—infused with all manner of complex, intoxicating flavors.

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

They Called Him Mostly Harmless proves most interesting as a story about the various ways in which people both come together and go it alone in order to fill (or at least cope with) the holes in their lives.

Boasts the idiosyncratic anxiety, depression, and angst of its author’s work and the bouncy tone and matching visual style of every other recent cinematic kid’s fable—two flavors that, it turns out, don’t really go well together.

Its comic touch almost as heavy-handed as its slow-motion-drenched action is dull, it seems primarily designed to answer the question, “How many movie stars can one fiasco squander?

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.

In raising some of the questions that desperately need to be asked before next January, it serves as an urgent warning.

For all its commotion, however, the film doesn’t drum up the madcap mania it seeks.

A movie that’s about—and asks its lead to literally and figuratively wear—masks, A Different Man is a multifaceted meta mind-melter.

A remarkably intimate non-fiction exposé about the ordeals women suffer after being sexually assaulted—and the strength, courage and togetherness required to change that status quo.

Too much of Realm of Satan comes off as unreasonably poe-faced, which not only neuters the proceedings’ sense of giddy transgression but feels at odds with these characters’ comical bizarreness.

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story paints a rich portrait of Reeve as an individual, celebrity, activist, and family man, bolstered by commentary from his children and friends and, additionally, from Reeve himself.

A zombie film unlike any other, focused less on mayhem than on grief, loss, and the quiet, tragic terror begat by the dead’s return.

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

A hot-blooded crime story whose affectations outweigh its subversions.

Together, [Culkin and Eisenberg] make for a winning pair, balancing each other in a variety of ways that speak to the material’s larger concerns about loss, grief, remembrance and regret.

As far as celebratory backward glances go, it’s compelling enough to temporarily brighten one’s day.

The director’s latest is a distinctly cool, dynamic Soderbergian riff on Michael Powell’s "Peeping Tom" via "The Haunting," with a dash of "Paranormal Activity" sprinkled around its edges.

A socially conscious romantic comedy, and if those two modes don’t sound compatible, [writer/director] Libii does nothing to alter that impression.

Although handsomely mounted and occasionally chilling, it’s the cinematic equivalent of a one-note tweet.

You can cut-and-paste all your adolescent obsessions into a giant collage (and recruit Pedro Pascal and Ben Mendelsohn to participate in the madness), but that doesn’t mean it’ll amount to more than a messy, insubstantial grab bag of your favorite things.

It's a thriller, a heist caper, and a surprisingly moving romance all in one, and it seems destined to be one of the breakout hits of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

A three-hour drama whose slender story serves as the skeleton for a formally exquisite examination of loss, faith, family, and connection, it's the year’s first masterpiece.

A pedestrian thriller that never generates a modicum of suspense.

Love Machina’s scattershot structure does its subjects no favors, with the film taking a variety of meandering detours until its overarching purpose grows hazy.