As evidence mounts, The Perfect Neighbor steadily and deftly builds momentum until its crushing apogee.

What makes Twinless special and surprisingly compassionate is how this director handles grieving characters.

While the drama depicts a situation most parents would find unthinkable, it does so with unfailing compassion and sensitivity.

Made with love and acted with great empathy by a cast led by always dependable pros Olivia Colman and John Lithgow, Jimpa is nothing if not sincere. But to be brutally honest, it’s also kind of a cringey bore, like being stuck in a room with a bunch of oversharers from queer studies class.

Through all this, Byrne’s high-wire act remains riveting, scrutinized for long stretches of the film in DP Christopher Messina’s probing closeups. It’s a bruising performance, digging deep into the intense pressure and isolation that can sometimes accompany motherhood.

Like so many pictures about artists, be they visual artists or composers or even writers, Modi, Three Days on the Wing of Madness doesn’t dare to engage with any seriousness about craft, application and technique or any of the nitty-gritty stuff that truly makes their creations important.

Though an array of family and lovers are interviewed, the most interesting comments come from European critics and directors.

With Game Changer (which this critic saw dubbed in in Hindi), Shankar’s signature maximalist storytelling instincts have gone into overdrive. Every beat is heightened. Every expression is exaggerated. Every emotion is drilled into our brains. For two hours and 45 minutes, this film veers between ridiculous and even more ridiculous.

Flight Risk manages to deliver some high-altitude thrills in its breathlessly paced 91 minutes. But its clunky dialogue, uneven performances and less-than-grade-A special effects ultimately make it the Spirit Airlines of airborne thrillers.

[Yeoh] has such a commanding and darkly amusing screen presence that the pedestrian film can almost, but not quite, be forgiven for letting her down so completely.

The gimmickry ultimately wears thin and you find yourself thinking less about the inventive way the scenes were shot . . . than the flimsy narrative.

The tyro director steps up to the plate beautifully, delivering an ingenious, fast-paced horror-thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat while also featuring generous doses of mordant humor.

Love, to quote that woozy old ballad, is indeed a many-splendored thing that takes many forms — a multiplicity that Love the film is quietly alive to.

The movie won’t carve a spot in the classic action-comedy canon, but it’s easily digested fun, which is no bad thing.

One of Them Days, produced by Issa Rae, is the kind of big-laughs, mid-budget theatrical comedy that used to be more common; it’s a shame TriStar scheduled a January release, because the film had the potential to be a summer hit. Its two charismatic leads alone make it worth seeing in a theater, surrounded by a crowd primed for a good time.

There’s no shortage of intensity or gore, not to mention brisk efficiency in the way the script isolates a fragile family unit before plunging them into lycanthropic mayhem.

The unapologetic sentimentality doesn’t make this bittersweet comedy-drama any less touching or insightful in its observation of spiky family interactions when end-of-life issues and questions of inheritance cause sparks.

Unfortunately, the superbly orchestrated car chase/shootout, taking place both in a tunnel and on winding mountain roads, occurs nearly two hours into this equally bloated sequel’s 144-minute running time. Until then, you spend a lot of time watching the characters luxuriate in the European settings via consuming copious amounts of croissants, gelato and tiny cups of coffee.

If making a film is challenging under fortunate circumstances, one can only imagine the obstacles faced by filmmakers trying to survive annihilation.

I got bogged down frequently in the familiarity and intentional messiness of the story that Veiel and producer Sandra Maischberger chose to tell, while at the same time wondering what sense a wholly unaware viewer would be able to make of this woman and the long shadow she still casts.

Baby John is the sort of film that pummels you with star power (including a Salman Khan cameo), extravagant visuals, ear-bleeding sound, fantastically gaudy songs and a story that twists and turns with flashbacks, double identities and assorted villains, but despite all that flash fails to hold you.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 gets the job done, and should provide entertaining diversion for families during the holiday season.

There are instances where you can see the director experimenting and attempting to disturb Disney’s imposing order, deploying close-ups, almost ground-level pans and strategically sweeping views to find warmth and tactility within a cold technique.

Egerton and Bateman’s performances elevate Carry-On and contribute significantly to the film’s overall success. Even when the repeated showdowns between the TSA agent and traveler lose potency, these actors maintain the narrative’s tension and viewer investment.

With its focus on the news gathering process, Waves affirms the importance of independent and ethical reporting.

This film has sweat, ambition, audacity. And yet, we have to ask: How much Pushpa is too much Pushpa? Because three hours and 20 minutes is definitely an overdose.

Punishingly dull.

The Bibi Files paints a damning portrait of its subject’s machinations to stay in power.

Whatever script flaws there are in terms of structure, plot momentum and an opaque central character, A Complete Unknown offers rewards in its lived-in performances and in the exhilarating music sequences that propel it forward. For many audiences with an affection for Dylan’s music and the era in general, that will be enough.

The battle sequences in particular are stunningly rendered, and will certainly benefit from being viewed on the largest possible premium and large-format screens.

The Six Triple Eight relates a little-known story that fairly demanded to be told, and does it full justice.

In lieu of revelations, though, what keeps Martha engaging is watching Cutler thrust and parry with his subject.

Do stars Shea Whigham and Carrie Coon manage to make the material feel both fresh and engaging? Yes.

The frenetic editing might leave some viewers dizzy as they try to sort sober realities from sensational storytelling, but Grimonprez makes thrilling connections that should push viewers to pursue their own research.

It’s a Gothic horror nightmare heaving with sumptuous visual detail, groaning under the weight of portentous dread, writhing with both convulsive violence and sweaty eroticism and leavened by sly hints of fiendish camp.

To their credit, the directors aren’t afraid to take things way too far — which could be considered a quality in and of itself, but not one that’s sustainable for nearly 90 minutes of action.

It should hardly come as a revelation that Black’s hardworking comedic efforts are the film’s saving grace.

While the highly anticipated follow-up features stunning animation, it lacks the cohesive narrative and emotional intimacy that made its predecessor special.

Tedeschi’s film is a declaration of love for the Beatles, but what distinguishes it is its curiosity about the America of that time, beyond the bubble of the four Scousers who can hardly believe they’re drinking cocktails in Miami.

The film flaunts vivid animation and some pretty striking moments, captured with close-ups and unexpected angles — but similar to Skydance Animation’s debut venture Luck, Spellbound inspires a sense of déjà vu.

Throughout Night Is Not Eternal, Wang models an urgent and necessary type of critical thinking. Her questions become one of the most striking elements of this project, which takes a surprising turn.

Ultimately, Sabbath Queen isn’t interested in the headline-grabbing macro conflicts that embroil Jews globally, but the internal culture wars within Judaism itself: fascistic fundamentalism versus reformist progressivism; dominant cishet masculinity versus burgeoning feminine and gender nonconforming voices; hallowed bloodlines versus chosen family. It is one of the best films I’ve seen this year.

The clashes between Afghan women and the Taliban forces oppressing them is captured with clear-eyed honesty and a compassionate eye in Bread and Roses

Grande and Erivo give Stephen Schwartz’s songs — comedy numbers, introspective ballads, power anthems — effortless spontaneity. They help us buy into the intrinsic musical conceit that these characters are bursting into song to express feelings too large for spoken words, not just mouthing lyrics and trilling melodies that someone spent weeks cleaning up in a studio.

The auteur seems to be squeezing everything he can into a personal manifesto in which cinema, history and real life become interchangeable, and in which he tries to situate his output within film’s larger trajectory.

In terms of brutal spectacle, elaborate period reconstruction and vigorous set pieces requiring complex choreography, the sequel delivers what fans of its Oscar-winning 2000 predecessor will crave — battles, swordplay, bloodshed, Ancient Roman intrigue. That said, there’s a déjà vu quality to much of the new film, a slavishness that goes beyond the caged men forced to fight for their survival, and seeps into the very bones of a drama overly beholden to the original.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever never quite lands its most poignant moments because Imogen and her siblings remain stubbornly at a distance.

Dawn Porter crafts a striking profile of a singular musician.

This is a high-concept, CG-saturated bore that lacks heart and infectious humor, even if it huffs and puffs its way to a little poignancy in the end.

Out of all the film’s many achievements, perhaps the most impressive is the ability to keep the tone balanced just on this biting point between tragedy and comedy in scene after scene.

While Paddington in Peru sadly lacks the absurdist wit and decidedly dark edge that elevated the first two Paddington movies, it’s serviceable enough given its limitations.

Especially in the first hour, it’s a richly satisfying tribute to an unimpeachable cinematic legend who, one could easily argue, has become even more beloved than the iconic directors he collaborated with or the movie stars whose legends his themes and cues helped burnish.

As a piece of filmmaking, Chasing Chasing Amy is effectively put together.

The Gutter’s humor rarely misses. The Lester brothers deploy jokes with precision, taking aim at everything and everyone.

Moland delivers a sharp-looking, well-paced movie with a moody score.

Vengeance Most Fowl is a brisk and well-paced escapade, in which Gromit proves himself to still be one of our best screen actors and Wallace’s absentminded behavior still endears.

For a movie covering such an expansive passage of American life, Here feels curiously weightless. It’s no fault of the actors, all of whom deliver solid work with characters that are scarcely more than outlines.

Hardy brings sufficient charm (and witty voice work) to his symbiote-inhabited character’s internal battle between id and superego to make each entry diverting enough, even if they leave little aftertaste. And so it goes with Venom: The Last Dance, which caps the trilogy by going gleefully out on its own.

Navigating a complex narrative line, Nabulsi doesn’t always achieve the nuance or the propulsive tension the material requires, but she has a sure grasp of emotional give-and-take and day-to-day realities.

It is Curtis’s first foray into animation and although the characters are digitally rendered, the story taps into the same authentic energies that made his earlier works so beloved.

It’s in transporting viewers into the heart of this jungle, where the moths calibrate the ecosystem, that Nocturnes most its most compelling case for protecting these exquisite creatures and our planet.

We all know a feel-good ending is coming eventually. But more patience, and fewer clichés, might have made its emotions feel more earned.

A haunting lead performance from Marco Pigossi, steeped in melancholy and raw pain but also in moments of openness, optimism and even joy, helps make High Tide an affecting portrait of untethered gay men seeking meaningful connections.

Wolff (Hereditary) impresses, deftly modulating his performance so we can’t land too easily in one emotional camp — excessive sympathy or complete ire.

The cumulative experience is affecting in its own minor-key way, an appealing throwback to old-fashioned family dramas of a more innocent era.

The movie functions mostly as personal testimony — a riveting, if too often searching, autobiography of a figure whose political transformation is haunted by narrative inconsistencies.

For a movie that aspires to antic comedy, it brings way too much casting firepower to a slim plot and even sketchier character development. Whether a streaming audience will even notice the mis-calibration is probably irrelevant, as long as they remember the mismatched brothers.

Smile 2 confirms Finn as a gifted visual stylist who has an assured hand with his actors. He perhaps just needs to back off a little from the misconception that more is more and maintain a greater focus on his story skills.

Neither dull enough to be painful nor fun enough to be engaging, it’s simply too bland to make much of an impression at all.

While there’s much to admire here . . . the drama too often lacks the subtlety that distinguishes the British writer-director’s work at its best. Two hours long, practically to the second, this feels like a project that’s been excessively trimmed, snipped and tapered to fit an arbitrary running time.

There is more of Fuller’s memoir that might be a source for other adaptations. It is hard to imagine any would be more beautifully realized than this.

The subject matter alone could be enough to trigger geysers of tears in viewers, but what makes Le Fanu’s direction especially impressive is its lack of sentimentality. Instead, she focuses on daily rituals — the little murmurs of gratitude and kindness, and the sense of exhaustion that stretches out for hours, days and weeks as one waits for someone to die.

Hardcore Ozon fans will have fun arguing about where exactly this falls in the ranking of his substantial body of work, but it’s surely somewhere in the top 10 or even the top five, a rock-solid demonstration of his control over storytelling, technique and ability to get the best from actors.

TWST is set up like a concert film, but instead it’s a combination of two nonfiction categories — the tone poem and the city symphony — that are used as fallback catch-all classifications for critics and scholars. Ujica blends them with archival rigor and effective whimsy to create a movie that’s dreamy and clear-eyed at once.

Forster’s steady direction keeps this thread of White Bird affecting even when it conforms to predictable narrative beats.

In exploring how the ruptures of the past map themselves onto relationships in the present, [Quy] elegantly approaches a familiar theme: how war reverberates throughout generations, imposing on witnesses and their successors.

Devara: Part 1 is ambitious, exhausting and so high-decibel that when it’s finished, after nearly three hours, you might need to pause and reorient to reality. Which is both a good thing and a bad thing.

This recap of a unique and deeply sincere bid to demystify utopian ideals for the conservative masses using the platform of popular television offers a fascinating glimpse into a very different period in this country’s past.

It provides some great background on Carville and certainly convinces us that he is one of the most colorful figures on the scene today — and still making noise.

Any thoughts about the violence we’re seeing are strictly our own, never fed to us by the filmmaker. That makes Afternoons of Solitude, in its uncompromising way, a doc as muscular and ferocious as the poor creatures being ritualistically slaughtered in those bullrings.

Salem’s Lot is a clipped horror that partially works thanks to a handful of assured performances and key style choices.

Flow is a joy to experience but also a deeply affecting story, the work of a unique talent who deserves to be ranked among the world’s great animation artists.

If it’s lucky, Emmanuelle might find an afterlife as a kind of Showgirls for its generation, a great-bad movie that’s undeniably craptacular yet strangely endearing, a shameful pleasure in every sense.

Capturing that transitional moment when seemingly permanent adolescent ties suddenly appear uncertain, this is a melancholy drama laced with notes of anger and disquiet, but also resilience.

It’s not so much a prequel as it is a parallel story that continues underscoring the limited autonomy of women. Restrictive social mores trap both Rosemary and Terry, albeit in different ways.

Director/co-screenwriter Uberto Pasolini (Still Life, Nowhere Special) strips the tale to its bare essentials, resulting in a stark, solemnly paced experience that viewers will find either enervating or thrilling.

The film is exceedingly funny, even in translation, right up to the point where the tone shifts dramatically. Deeply endearing on every level, from its anti-authoritarian politics to its body positivity to general joie de vivre, this is a crowdpleaser through and through (unless the crowd happens to be made up of moral policemen and dogmatic clerics).

On an intellectual and reporting level, Separated is sturdy and persuasive. Morris is angry, and if you’re watching this movie, chances are good that after 90ish minutes, you’ll be angry, too. What Separated needs, though, is a little touch of the old Errol Morris.

Fun is banished from Aja’s latest, which starts out mildly intriguing and chalks up a few bracing jump scares before running out of juice.

Wilson’s direction is similarly uneven, especially toward the middle of the film, which packs in convenient plot points to distract from narrative thinness. The result is off-kilter pacing that threatens to undo the film’s more successful parts.

A gleefully discomfiting portrait of male bonding that delivers some of the year’s biggest laughs.

Harvest stands strong and tall, a work solid as an oak. Full of a sensual love of nature and a distinctive vibe, it’s tangy like a home-brewed ale.

On Swift Horses is about the shapes love can take, the varied lives we live and the many different ways one can make a home. It’s beautiful, heartbreaking and demands to be seen on the biggest screen possible. Here’s hoping it brings the romantic epic back into fashion.

The portrait of a nearly vanished rural way of life remains compelling, and the melodrama engaging enough to suggest this might have been improved by being spread thinner as a TV series.

The long, unbroken rhythm of Wang’s filmmaking somehow casts a spell, and he certainly has a good eye for characters. That’s a blessing considering how slow and considered the takes are here, watching with equally intense absorption whether the subjects are sleeping on a train or constructing seams or making food. But overall, the lack of differentiation can be wearisome.

The best parts of Relay harness the details of Ash’s brokerage. Mackenzie’s direction is never tighter than when he’s focused on message relays, burner phones and the bureaucracy of the post office.

Had all those assets been funneled into a movie with some tonal consistency and a script that built credible relationships, the result might have been a nasty bit of fun. Instead, it wobbles awkwardly between creeping mob menace and scrappy sitcom, inching toward a violent climax that still doesn’t acquire cohesion.

As its restless protagonist navigates the road to ultimate personal victory, director Morrison is right there with her, maintaining a propulsive momentum accentuated by editor Harry Yoon’s rhythmic cuts and composer Tamar-Kali’s elegant, percolating score. And so are we.