Even if you’re not necessarily a fan and Perry’s control feels suffocating at times, that doesn’t stop Maxine’s Baby from being a frequently fascinating look at a unique figure.

The contestants just lack dimension. And Lawrence’s journeyman handling of the more character-driven drama provides sputtering momentum at best.

DaCosta’s kinetic direction and intimate storytelling style lets audiences see this trio — whose lives collide in unexpected ways — from new and entertaining vantage points.

A documentary dork’s delight, Jennifer Tiexiera and Camilla Hall’s Subject is one of those films about which my biggest lament is that it could have been five times as long — with the caveat that while I would be down for a 10-part series on documentary ethics, this 96-minute intro will be a thoroughly effective conversation starter.

The novel presumably filled in the blanks to build an engrossing tale, one that here comes across as a rote suspenser, complete with jump scares and a violent climax. The actors nearly elevate the proceedings to something greater.

While Ryan’s bountiful charm is as evident as ever, her character unfortunately comes across like an older version of the manic pixie dream girl. And the movie’s heavy-handed magical realist elements counter the slightness of the material to deadly effect.

Even acknowledging and regretting the conceptual misjudgments that mar the film, there are moments to enjoy. The conversations between the doctor and the don remain stimulating, and the two central performances add to the electricity.

That so many have to struggle not just with the disease but also the cost of staying alive is a national disgrace that documentaries such as this, however well-intentioned, can only begin to address.

Maybe Korem’s primary objective is simply to make you think more about Milli Vanilli than you ever have before. In that, it’s a total success. It’s more of a failure when it comes to trying to answer some of those big questions and engage in direct accountability, and I don’t know if I buy most of its cultural conclusions

Although anchored by a number of strong performances, particularly those of Ben Foster and fresh-faced Toby Wallace as estranged half-brothers attempting to find common ground despite their different upbringings, Helgeland’s meandering film still feels stuck in another place in time.

As a nightmarish suspense drama about everyday life disintegrating, Esmail’s movie is sometimes effective, even while it echoes earlier films like The Road and David Koepp’s underrated 1996 thriller, The Trigger Effect.

Mirza has created a film bursting with creative energy and distinctive aesthetic sensibilities. Even when the narrative slackens, you’ll want to keep watching.

If you find Burr’s stand-up routines funny (and since he routinely sells out arenas, it’s obvious that plenty of people do), you’ll enjoy Old Dads, which also benefits from Cannavale’s hilariously beleaguered reactions, Woodbine’s solid underplaying and some very funny turns by a variety of comedians in small roles.

On many levels, Evolution is a dazzling high-wire act.

The lack of cackle-worthy one-liners here and the entertaining but highly predictable last act make this a little bit snoozy for savvier viewers.

The Kitchen also has plenty of inventive ideas, creates heady atmospheres in both its dark and lighter moments, and features vivid performances with a large ensemble.

It’s a declarative project, which oscillates between didacticism and experimentalism. What viewers take away from the doc will depend on their familiarity with Woolf novel. Preciado’s film comes most alive when it plays with its source material.

Rather than a pileup of bad behavior, the screenplay offers shifting perspectives as to who’s being sensible and who isn’t, who means well but executes badly, with few characters falling unequivocally into the camp of “right” or “wrong.”

It’s a modestly proportioned movie of quiet magnificence, one that feels spun of gossamer summer light and rooted in unshakeable depths.

With its fine mix of dark humor, healthy anger and self-compassion, this portrait of the artist as a young woman is the work of an inspired filmmaker, and it was worth the wait.

Extensive archive news material is drawn on to explain key moments in the struggle over reproductive rights, but mostly the story emerges organically from the interviewees themselves.

Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss’ The Mission is an empathetic and reconstructive portrait propelled by questions surrounding Chau’s voyage.

What a concert it is — and what an experience it makes, even in the relatively modest confines of a movie theater.

That the documentary United States vs. Reality Winner achieves its primary goals makes it a fairly successful film. That it achieves those goals while relying tediously on almost all of the genre’s most overused formal devices, offering shockingly little variation from countless other docs you’ve seen on similar subjects, makes it a so-so film.

Totally Killer may not be destined to become a classic in its own right. But the Amazon release is fun enough for a spooky season night in.

Unlike Green’s Halloween trilogy, which served up diminishing returns with each new installment, Believer condenses that downward trajectory into the first chapter.

The movie often toes the line between inner-city clichés and a vision that’s more stylish and unique, never quite landing on the proper balance between the two. But as a touching portrait of an outer-borough New Yorker whose talents are just waiting to be harnessed, it shows some true potential.

The film is saved to some degree by the unstinting commitment of Ronan and Mescal, sweating it out in an environment that’s stifling both physically and psychologically. But the screenplay becomes so overwrought that it smothers any emotional connection to them.

Like so many of his other movies, it’s pithy, punchy, a little shouty at times, but made with brio and swagger.

A Still Small Voice is about listening for inner truth and bearing witness.

The frenetic mayhem becomes tiresome in its repetitiveness, although kids already hopped up on candy and soda will presumably not mind at all.

None of this would work nearly as well without Bell, whose raspy voice and menacing gravitas are so riveting that he makes Jigsaw’s oft-repeated declaration “I’d like to play a game” scary as hell. He’s made the character truly iconic, much like Robert Englund did with Freddy Krueger. Accept no substitutions.

Tülin Özen, in the lead role, delivers a pitch-perfect, tightly contained performance as an astute professional who hasn’t time for own vulnerability.

Much like the songs of Willie Nelson that populate its soundtrack, the film relies on a general uplifting atmosphere as the indefatigable Greta stops at nothing to fulfill her dream.

The film is both a food lover’s dream and an aspiring chef’s guidebook, uncovering the sophisticated alchemy that makes such places not only run flawlessly, but serve up groundbreaking dishes that are also locally sourced.

There will be blood, yes, but mainly there’s a well-written and beautifully performed investigation of yearning and the mysterious realm that apps and algorithms can only profess to quantify.

This is a movie that, its many strengths notwithstanding, seems split between the desire to do something original and an imagination tethered to better movies from the past. That makes it a nostalgic patchwork, not the bold new vision it aims to be.

It should hurt to watch such a relentlessly ruthless piece of work. Yet its savagery feels blunted when nearly every character but Jimmy feels underwritten and nearly every relationship built on plot contrivance.

The film, based on the novel of the same name by Megan Hunter, takes a quiet, emotional approach to the end times, with director Mahalia Belo favoring a meditative visual style.

Wicked Little Letters swerves between comedy and tragedy without ever hitting its stride. The movie is at its best when it doesn’t strain to turn every moment into a joke, instead letting the story breathe a bit.

Despite the best efforts of the directors, Hell of a Summer just isn’t scary. Bryk and Wolfhard know how to tell jokes, but struggle with establishing a truly creepy atmosphere.

Graceful but slight, in the end The Movie Teller tries to do too much and accomplishes too little to fulfill its big ambitions.

The potency of It Lives Inside — and why it might be worth checking out even if it isn’t wholly satisfying — lies in how it introduces Sam and Tamira’s relationship and links it to Hindu lore.

No One Will Save You proves a singularly intense experience.

Expend4bles — the number is in the middle of the word, get it? — represents a nadir for a series that began as an entertainingly nostalgic throwback to old-school action movies and the square-jawed muscle men who starred in them.

As we’re reminded in the background here, the ’60s and ’70s were not exactly glorious years for covert operations by operatives of the U.S. government. This plot, though, was about as morally defensible as they come.

The Peasants is a ravishingly beautiful visual triumph.

Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal tackle a tricky balancing act in their new feature, celebrating the intoxicating lilt of the bossa nova and also investigating the devastating brutality of state terrorism. It’s a testament to their talent as filmmakers that, for the most part, they manage to pull it off.

Bennett’s sensitive performance pulls us into her growing anguish and fear.

Perhaps there are a couple of unnecessary complications on the way to the denouement, but the storytelling is lively and piquant, demonstrating the director’s sense of humor and sharp observational skills.

Divided into seven narratively ill-defined parts, Sorry/Not Sorry moves like the first draft of an article that has all its sources, but doesn’t quite have a thesis yet. Rather than contemplating the nuances of C.K.’s rise and fall, it is simply an information piece, adding footnotes to the story we already know.

As compelling as the life-and-death situation is, it becomes a bit of a drag in a movie pushing two-and-a-half hours that could definitely benefit from a tighter edit.

By the end of Sly, the star proves to be a good enough explainer of his legacy that the documentary finds effective insight and poignancy — despite however much he’s an overly protective custodian of that legacy, and however hesitant Zimny is to shake him off of his preferred course.

It’s wry, vivid and moving in unexpected ways.

If you come to this film looking for a brisk overview of his achievements in couture, you might find High & Low more than serviceable. . . But if you’re expecting the definitive closing leg of the redemption tour, it’s unlikely you’ll find this a persuasive argument for separating the art from the a-hole.

Gasoline Rainbow pays homage to all the road movies that ever were but is still its own quirky thing, uniquely of its time.

Dear Jassi has the feel of a timeless folktale, made all the more unbearably sad because of its basis in fact.

While Pine is undeniably a charismatic actor, that likability can only generate so much audience good will in a production overstuffed with cartoonish caricatures lacking any sort of deeper connective tissue.

Despite Woman of the Hour’s sometimes shaky execution, its story is undeniably powerful.

Optimism is indeed at the heart of The Burial, a film that genuinely believes in the ability of the legal system to fight injustice.

Despite its heavy-duty subject matter, the film co-directed by Capobianco and Pierre-Luc Granjon is filled with welcome humor of both the visual and verbal varieties.

Despite all that loopy energy, Dicks: The Musical still can’t help but remain an inescapably one-note proposition, albeit a subversively melodic one.

The chemistry between Awkwafina and Oh proves to be more layered and touching with each leg of their characters’ zany mission.

Pain Hustlers is strongest when it focuses on Liza and maps her complicated web of desire and integrity.

In some ways, it’s one of Hopkins’ best performances from the last few years, beautifully underplayed, eschewing mannerisms or silly accents. It’s just a shame the film itself, directed by James Hawes, with a script by Lucinda Coxon and Nick Drake, is a bit worthy and diagrammatic.

The convoluted storyline is too clever by far, and might have proved entertaining if the film had been intended as an absurdist black comedy. Unfortunately, Keaton goes in a more neo-noir direction, with the generally grim tone only accentuating the narrative absurdities.

Over the span of his 120-plus film career, Nicolas Cage has been a lot of things — but he may have never been as flat-out hilarious as he is in Dream Scenario.

Kuras’ film is competent, polished and awards-ready. And while that all makes for a fine viewing experience, the movie also feels at odds with its subject — a restless woman whose passion and hurt drove her to action.

Cornwell died in 2020 and it’s a treasure to have this last opportunity to glimpse into the mind of a master raconteur, to hear his erudite explanations for his thematic fascinations and to watch him tiptoe around which personal tales he’s comfortable rehashing and which are better left in forms previously written.

The film works best when Waititi gets out of his own way and lets the characters speak for themselves instead of self-consciously extinguishing any warmth with jokes.

The movie contains no non-diegetic music and even limits major camera movement to a relatively small handful of scenes. Nothing distracts from the tender wisdom of its unimpeachably unsentimental gaze and the vividness of its very specific New England milieu.

American Fiction is smart and, thanks to its fine cast, has genuine heart.

While the landscapes, especially in the parched Sahara section of the story, are dazzling, Carnera’s camera always keeps the focus on the humans, sometimes specks seen from great distances moving through the sand and sometimes studied in close-ups that fill the widescreen canvas.

While hope is a quality not readily associated with the Mexican auteur’s work, it keeps surfacing here to extend a lifeline, even as we wait for the other shoe to drop. In that regard, Franco’s latest represents a slight departure, without surrendering the director’s signature austerity and intensity. He’s helped considerably by Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard, two riveting leads who hold nothing back.

Ly and Gederlini weave in keen analysis about political manipulation, structural violence and community organizing — a perceptiveness that makes Les Indésirables resonate despite its flaws.

The new film is much pokier in its pacing, with duller characters. Despite some highlights, including Branagh in top form as an even more somber than usual Poirot, the film is watchable but it is also something lethal to a mystery: uninvolving.

It is a tribute to Bening’s performance that she keeps us mesmerized by Nyad even at her most stubbornly pigheaded.

There’s no doubt, from the way Reptile creeps in the first half, that Singer is a skilled director. But there’s something to be said for restraint, which the helmer, who wrote his screenplay with Benjamin Brewer and the film’s star Benicio Del Toro, doesn’t exercise enough of here. In an effort to prove its cleverness, Reptile clanks, rattles and stumbles in its second half.

It’s full of flashy technique and ostentatious stylistic flourishes but has almost nothing of note to say about the supposed burdens of privilege.

If cinema is an empathy machine, to paraphrase the late Roger Ebert, then Agnieszka Holland’s new film is one precision-tooled specimen.

The result is more admirable than captivating, losing its way in old school hijinks (wacky professors, evil spies, a femme fatale) that grow outlandishly phantasmagorical as the plot thickens.

What it lacks, however, is a gripping and original plot, as well as enough dazzling set pieces to make all the late exposition worthwhile.

Finally Dawn is uneven, and at 2 hours and 20 minutes indulgently long, but it is also full of texture, wit and a few done-to-perfection set pieces.

The Promised Land is a terrific story driven by skillful writing and strong performances. There’s an art to bringing vitality and modernity to historical drama, and Arcel shows a firm grasp of it.

It’s a compelling story told in largely engaging fashion, anchored by Dano’s terrific turn as the eccentric, strong-willed Gill, who becomes an unlikely folk hero.

The film could be read many ways, but fundamentally, it plays like a heartfelt depiction of resilience in the face of conflict and grief, a gentle call to find friends and trusted allies, to move forward and bring humanity and understanding to the world.

We’ve seen the story of a woman searching for herself after tragedy many times before, but in Origin, DuVernay affectionately makes it her own.

Rotting in the Sun ultimately feels slight and overstretched. But with its freewheeling handheld camerawork and characters grounded in skewed reality, it whips up a compelling kind of 21st century madness as it reflects on the solipsistic nature of artists and gay men in a world consumed by shallow pleasures.

It’s a lot to handle and also a bit silly, but Besson often pulls it off — thanks in no small part to a commanding performance by the chameleon-like Caleb Landry Jones (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), who manages to be touching and slightly terrifying at the same time.

This mostly competent but largely uninteresting, bordering-on-silly work upholds the Allen tradition of just carrying on as usual

As a penetrating study of character and milieu, it’s the work of a mature and enormously talented filmmaker not afraid to take chances.

Wolfe has made an admiring but nuanced feature that doesn’t aim for biopic completism or cause-and-effect formula.

What resonates beyond the brawls and blood is a profound affection for the people onscreen — those grace notes provided by a fine cast, with Jodie Comer and Tom Hardy stirring undercurrents that are particularly affecting precisely because they’re never explicitly examined or explained.

Given the chemistry between the two leads that could restart a dormant nuclear power plant, viewers are likely to come away sated with pleasure after seeing this delightful work.

The film maintains a certain level of suspense as it leaps between various epochs, often without warning. But, like many of Bonello’s movies, it lacks forward momentum and a sharp edit, lumbering along as it reaches into a grab bag of thematic and aesthetic concepts.

It’s not really a movie at all, but more like a cross between a movie, a video game and a flow of hallucinatory images that could play in the background of a live show by rapper Travis Scott — who co-stars here as a gun-toting, philosophizing killer surrounded by a swarm of twerking booties.

It elegantly upgrades a key player in the Elvis legend from the sidelines, and anyone attuned to Coppola’s distinctive wavelengths will find it a pleasurably emotional experience.

It is an engaging and often touching comic drama that builds power as it moves toward its immensely satisfying conclusion.