It’s a satisfying return to the genre from Gluck, a promising feature-length script debut from Wolpert, and an intriguing first outing from Sweeney and Powell. The two stars have the stuff; it just needs some more refining before round two.

The Mean Girls movie-musical barely differentiates itself from its predecessor.

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.

A beat-‘em-up whose competent fight sequences are ultimately overshadowed by its unintentional humor.

It takes its time—quite frankly, too long—to deliver the gruesome goods/

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

An old-school melodrama of pride, folly, and sacrifice that’s electrified by yet another superb turn from its leading man.

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.

Overwhelms via length and monotony, employing a challenging form that’s both its greatest strength and, ultimately, its most frustrating weakness.

A sweet and sad slice-of-life about the comfort and sorrow of solitary repetition, buoyed by a Yakusho performance that rightly earned him the Best Actor prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

A franchise farewell so underwhelming, nary a tear will be shed over its passing.

A stately affair that’s never particularly intellectually incisive or revealing, and its stolid execution fails to transcend the material’s inherent staginess.

Cheerfully dumb and dutifully formulaic, it’s “content” in the worst sense of the term.

Hits many of the right feel-good notes. Unfortunately, it also strikes a lot of discordant ones, neutering most of its attempts at rousing inspiration.

This misbegotten attempt at creating a new out-of-this-world Snyderverse is merely a knockoff dressed up in its director’s stylistic signatures.

Blame for this sports drama’s shallow leadenness can’t be similarly pinned on the supernatural; instead, its shortcomings are attributable to a one-dimensional script and resultant performances that are far less nuanced than its headliners’ ripped bodies.

Its lack of originality is at least partially offset by its gripping depiction of intolerance and exclusion as impediments to survival.

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

Unoriginal and ungainly at every turn, it’s a debacle devoid of any genuine magic.

As Toho Studios’ new Godzilla Minus One proves, the Japanese know how to get the iconic radioactive behemoth right.

A film that, regardless of its easy-going pace, demands active engagement with its action—a request that’s innately in tune with its depiction of creation through dialogue.

One of the director’s finest, its thematic scope and emotional power growing with each new revelation.

Envisions Napoleon as a complex mix of the imposing and the absurd, his dreams of conquest—and single-minded ability to make them a reality—matched by his folly and awkwardness.

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.

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.

Never more than skin-deep and ultimately overstays its welcome but which comes alive when—especially in its latter half—it indulges in its most wildly deviant impulses.

This rote affair would deserve the designation “for fans only,” if not for the sneaking suspicion that even they won’t be wowed by this return trip to Panem.

The film is moment-to-moment lively, sharp, and funny. Too bad that, like a dream, its pleasures are all over the place, and dissipate almost as quickly as they arrive.

An irrelevant B-team affair which further suggests that the MCU can’t survive, short- or long-term, without the active participation of its most famous characters.

Provides only some of his story, its up-close-and-personal view masking as much as it reveals.

Jacobson’s documentary resounds as merely a small victory in an ongoing war.

The Devil on Trial still allows David and others to argue that demonic possession did take place, but given the evidence on display, many will likely find that up for considerable debate.

An affectionate homage that captures the psychosexual delirium of its genre inspirations, it’s a throwback chiller steeped in blood, kink, and the terrifying thrill of violation.

A cautionary tale about…making “a pact with the devil.” However, Milli Vanilli doesn’t have much to reveal that isn’t by now well-known pop lore.

When it comes to its central legal struggle, though, it leaves out so many crucial details that it cuts itself off at the knees.

Just as there’s no reference to the many falsehoods Diana has apparently told about her past, there’s zero overt mention of the controversy surrounding her signature triumph—thereby proving that the film cares more about rah-rah uplift than thorny inquiry or messy reality.

Painting a multifaceted portrait of the racing legend during a particular moment of personal and professional crises, the auteur’s first feature since 2015’s Blackhat hums with steely passion and pain.

A boldly demented science fiction saga (executive-produced by Steven Soderbergh) that melds the unsettling body horror of David Cronenberg and the seductive surrealism of David Lynch with a menacing video game-inflected spirit of its own.

As appealing a turn as the Oscar-winning actor has given, and it does much to elevate this inspired-by-real events tale of unlikely alliances and an even more improbable victory.

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.

Last Stop Larrimah is a tale about provincial dynamics and the hostilities they often breed, as well as about the unique types of men and women who willingly choose to spend their days and nights on the outer edges of civilization.

With thrilling dexterity and acerbic wit, finds a way to mock crass commercialism, cultural misogyny, corporate greed, worker exploitation, bigotry, social media hate, and the many systems and forces conspiring to crush us all.

A WWII horror story rooted in separation, alienation and a cold indifference that shakes one to the very core.

Operates in a single, precious sub-Kelly Reichardt register, its every second marked by studied images, sounds and performances.

He’s a grand chronicler of his own biography, and expertly goaded on by Morris, whose queries challenge present and past statements and compel further elaboration and contemplation.

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.

Delivering scares at a pace that rarely allows one to catch their breath, and with enough gruesome surprises to consistently startle.

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.

The Exorcist: Believer trots out Burstyn for continuity credibility and then treats her with stunning disrespect—the most brazen of many indications that the film is a soulless cash-in on an established name brand.

A sci-fi story that spirals about in circles on its way to a predictable and underwhelming twist and an even less satisfying conclusion.

By cleverly setting its timeline between the series’ first two installments, Saw X is both an invigorating thrill ride on par with the franchise’s best entries and a trenchant, timely charge against industrial systems set in place to keep humans sick.

A visually striking but shoddily written and crushingly derivative amalgam of assorted genre forefathers.

Such tension ultimately unravels during a latter half that rushes through too many underwhelming revelations, but that’s not enough to completely offset the film’s beguiling air of despondency.

Merely more of the same gung-ho corniness, delivered with a chintziness and wink-wink self-consciousness that undercuts its aggro appeal.

A beautiful and bountiful bite-size film, it stands as Anderson’s second triumph of 2023 (following June’s Asteroid City) and a mini-masterwork in its own right.

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.

A directorial debut of poised peril that should inspire both laughs and a few sleepless nights.

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

In a streaming landscape already saturated with takedowns of Big Pharma and its pill-popping perfidy, it’s a generic version of far more powerful originals.

Its sentimentality expertly balanced by its humor, The Holdovers is a story about the lies we tell ourselves (for good and ill) and the reality of our not-so-dissimilar human conditions.

Knox Goes Away isn’t the first (or fifth) genre effort to play with memory, although it might be the flattest.

The best one can say about it is that it at least doesn’t feature a lovably cartoonish genocidal dictator.

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

Though stirringly headlined by Kate Winslet, it’s a by-the-books affair in almost every respect.

No matter Jodie Comer’s committed effort to wring something emotional from this cataclysmic saga, the film proves soggy in every respect.

A true-crime thriller that also operates as a damning commentary on societal misogyny—especially in Hollywood—it’s as chillingly sharp and canny as its deranged fiend.

A triumphant satire about race, exploitation, family and identity that’s as rich and captivating as [Wright's] tour-de-force.

By weighing everything so heavily, and obviously, in one direction, it eventually comes off as a thinly disguised sermon about ugly oppression and noble suffering and defiance.

Ripped from yesterday’s headlines, it’s as fast, flashy and superficial as the director’s prior efforts, and also as exaggerated.

As an authorized project primarily designed to celebrate rather than investigate, that hatred goes largely unexamined in this non-fiction affair.

It mixes the comfort and reliability of a greatest hits album with the bold visionary direction of a thrilling, experimental album from an artist at the peak of their powers. If The Boy and the Heron is really the end of Miyazaki’s career, he’s gone out with a triumph.

Both understands our private relations as enigmas to those on the outside, as well as wields that mystery for a subtle, striking examination of the imaginative means by which we fill in personal and collective blanks.

The most surprising aspect of Rotting in the Sun isn’t how many hard dicks are knocking together at any one moment, but that it’s genuinely a blast despite all of that. It’s a sexy, searing satire of influencer culture and gay misanthropy, as well as a pseudo-murder mystery in one abrasive package (pun intended). This is the sleaziest fun you’ll have all year.

Sitting in Bars with Cake is exactly what you think it is from the name alone: a happy-go-lucky coming-of-age movie about people who sit in bars with cake. It is sweet but, like a good cake, never too sugary and indigestible.

It may be messy, but then, what child’s story isn’t?

A stinging political, social, and media critique made from digitally altered bits and pieces of entertainment favorites, at once hilarious, enraged, and as zonked out of its mind as many viewers will prefer to be while watching it.

Choose Love wants to be an exciting Choose Your Own Adventure special; but really, the film is too lazy to actually come up with any fun, creative storylines.

The outrage elicited by Scouts Honor over that situation is compounded by the agonizing commentary of victims.

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.

As self-contained as any episode of the television show upon which it’s based. It’s also as efficient and straightforward as that predecessor, if not quite as disposable, thanks to its peerless star.

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.

A damning portrait of an unrepentant cheat and the unregulated system—and unsuspecting people—he bamboozled for his own gain.

Prepare to bang your head and raise your horns to what is surely the most epically metal release of 2023—and a satisfying conclusion to a gonzo parody par excellence.

Any grown-up’s desire for such material will be swiftly neutered by [the film], which despite boasting the participation of genuinely funny people like Will Ferrell, Jaime Foxx, Isla Fisher, and Randall Park is a mirthless mutt of a movie.

Arguably the most derivative offering the tired genre has yet to offer, borrowing elements from so many forebearers that it plays like a conventional pastiche.

Habitually shooting her characters through narrow doorways and windows, the better to convey their isolation as well as their squeezed-by-circumstance states, the director fashions a sinister atmosphere, aided by intermittent pregnancy and corpse imagery.

A testament to the vitality and fragility of memory that itself serves as an act of preservation—of a prized past, a fraught present and an everlasting devotion.

The movie has a tighter, more out-there scope than its contemporaries, but its ideas about aging and companionship are universal. Bolstered by a terrific core cast of older actors, Jules is a warm film that proves senior cinema doesn’t have to be the same fluff, repackaged several times over.

Heart of Stone plays like reheated leftovers, its flavor familiar but diluted.