Ocean’s 8 is the self-aware frosé of movies; a summer delight, perfectly airy and refreshing, it’s not here to be your cinematic think piece. Ocean’s 8 knows exactly what it’s doing and what it’s trying to achive– showing the audience hell of a good time – and it succeeds marvelously at it, without leaving the audience feeling duped.

With capable performances and a smart, character-focused script, this film balances its formal conventions with narrative nerve, ultimately making for a satisfying – if not show-stopping – watch.

Unique, unforgettable and cathartic, Border is an oddball, but poignant cult classic in the making. Abbasi’s sincerity wisely avoids caricature and mocking his marginalized characters and in doing so he crafts a surprisingly humanist and artful story of love for the diminished and dismissed outsiders of the world.

Less a narrative than an explorative essay, as artificial as it is self-involved, lacking any discernible sense of humor, occasionally a bit silly in execution yet deeply, rigidly earnest in intent, and laboring under that aggravatingly prim, Victorian title: It really does everything it can to make you hate it.

Haywood brilliantly subverts her audience’s expectations at every step of the way. She introduces characters as tropes and steers them into the opposite direction.

Adrift avoids the perils of most survival stories, thanks not only to its strong cast and well-structured script but to Kormákur who manages to succeed at capturing the tone of both the intimate moments and the ones where a building-sized wave looms over Tami and Richard.

You might start this film expecting a riotous night with some of the most underrated women in comedy, but you’ll soon find yourself invested in a mesmerizing story of partnership and personal growth.

Stripping the “I Will Always Love You,” singer away from sensationalist tabloid dirt that marred her life, MacDonald’s thoughtfulness is arguably its standout element. The finesse with which he crafts his doc makes for, quite simply, an absorbing and moving portrayal of an unforgettable heartrending figure.

A hyper-realistic urban tragedy Dogman is ferocious and in its own way, much more frightening than “Gomorrah.”

Capharnaüm is not without its issues. The director over-relies on the courtroom scenes and the movie’s message is heavy-handed at times. Yet, the sheer force of the filmmaking and its artful delivery overpowers sappy overreaching.

It’s a beautiful, moving finale but it hardly needed all the digressions en route, which basically amount to Ceylan taking the very long (and often scenic) way round to arrive at the simple conclusion that the wild pear does not, after all, fall so very far from the tree.

Trying to pick apart his native country’s struggles between tradition and modernity, legality and crime, Kore-eda takes the time to affectionately dissect the way family functions, before carefully deconstructing it and revealing the contoured complexities that live within.

Guerra and Gallego’s film is no dusty period piece, it is wildly alive, yet it reminds us that no matter how modern we are, there are ancient songs our forebears knew whose melodies still rush in our blood. We are not creatures of one era or another or of one place or another, we are only ever birds of passage between our mythic pasts and our unwritten futures, being tossed around by the wind

More than a documentary, the film is an exposé on the world of global capitalism’s callousness that handily demonstrates their inhumanity.

With no unique viewpoint on the story of its own, it’s perplexing why Papillon went in front of cameras at all.

Simmering with ambiguity, Burning plays its staging, writing, dialogue, acting, music, everything with carefully calibrated minimalism, but in turn it makes some grandiose statements. An unrecognizable murder-mystery Burning torches genre clichés and leaves a lasting, scorching blister.

Sauvage captures the multitude of emotion or lack of, that come with Leo’s tricks. There’s jealousy, pain, excitement, cruelty and even monotonous apathy where you’d least expect it.

While Long Day’s plot seems an afterthought, the experience is all that matters: the audience gathers all the clues, rummage through them to soak up the atmosphere and enter a world unlike any seen before. Make no mistake about it, Long Day’s Journey Into Night is a flat-out masterpiece.

It is certainly too long and too messy, too indulgent in some parts and too starved in others to be an unqualified success. But the surprise of it is that there are times, like the inspired first act, when it really does work, when it seems to have a kind of manic energy, a sheer joy at existing, which certainly makes it a far more engaging picture than Gilliam’s last.

Through a few dreamlike, discreet and beautifully placed sequences, Rohrwacher makes us believe that a world of empathy and accord may someday exist again.

With enlivening performances and thoughtful filmmaking, Girl has the power to not just change lives but reinvigorate your belief in cinema.

Despite youngster Aksoy-Etaix’s commendable performance, not only will you not believe, you also won’t care.

With Under the Silver Lake Mitchell saw all the lights on the long highway to success turn green, and in the full flush of all that indulged freedom, put the top down, turned up the radio and roared off into the LA evening, forgetting that he didn’t have anywhere to go.

The minute-to-minute detail is absolutely stunning, from the period costumes to the on-set locations, there’s a searing authenticity to the time period that is undeniably absorbing. However, the almost too tightening restraint he gives his film forces us to quickly witness its events rather than be enveloped or moved by them.

The simplicity of the film is commendable, but it’s only in the last act where things finally come together and any kind of visceral thrills arrive far too late. Even Mikkelson’s on-screen talents can’t save an admirable yet stagnant film in dire need of a heartbeat.

Sollers Point is an intimate and wise character study, not only of an unformed young man but also of a neighborhood struggling to preserve itself in the face of economic decline.

Perhaps The House That Jack Built is the kind of film you make when you fervently want someone to stop you, to save you from yourself and the demons of your worst nature. Perhaps, this time, we should oblige.

BlacKkKlansman has many virtues, but it is also a strange kind of messy, in which the performances from both Washington and Driver are so laid back as to feel curiously low-energy at times.

Ash is Purest White borrows heavily from “Mountains May Depart” — the narrative construct, the same actress, the musical gimmicks, even the flawed ending — and yet we are nevertheless absorbed by the finesse and grace in a film by this venerable artist.

Ron Howard arguably captures it in his enjoyable, escapist ‘Solo’ movie, but the burden of keeping fans happy means if you’re looking for surprises, you may have come to the wrong place.

Deadpool 2, while extremely thin on plot, is gleefully impish, entertaining and often laugh-out-loud funny. Almost everything that felt forced, crass and hamfisted in the original film now feels organic and effortless; a constant breezy stream of gags, quips and expertly choreographed action. Deadpool 2 is filthier, funnier and ferociously manic.

This is exhaustingly exhibitionist cinema, that wants to be looked at for the sake of being looked at — for the crispness of its moves, not the complexity of its concepts, and that can get wearying after a while.

Tupac’s legacy deserved a better story, and hopefully, one day he will be rewarded with one.

There are wit and wisdom and a kind of “Before Sunrise” wistfulness in this slight little film, and it’s shot through with an unobtrusively lyrical affection for being young and aimless in even the less obviously lovely quarters of lovely Lisbon.

The House of Tomorrow is a charmer that will incite a smile from ear-to-ear with each and every scene brimming with hope in the face of downtrodden situations and a world that tells you no.

Maybe if the film had dwelled on its more off-color scenes instead of falling back on typical comedy fodder, it would be truly magnetic. Unfortunately, it’s more like a sloppy friend who, despite starting the night off full of joie de vivre, you now have to help stumble home.

Farhadi’s genius is to be able to take the most ordinary of situations (say, a separation) and turn it into the stuff of gripping sociological drama. But largely, this time out, he’s rather done the reverse: given a gripping premise and a game cast he has engineered perhaps his most ordinary film.

It’s beautiful, if not brilliant, and (aside from a final act that drags on way too long) fun to watch. In the alternate universe where I don’t care about misogyny and I decided to watch this movie on mute, it’s probably one of the best things I’ve seen all year.

With a far more complex exploration of the internal world of a child, Seno validates her standing as a unique and rising voice within the film industry, as Nervous Translation galvanizes her ability to devise an innocent scope of complete awe in an attempt to come to terms with the crumbling yet beautiful world around us.

Moussaoui’s underwhelming use of fractured storytelling technique not only dilutes any organic narrative development, but he completely jeopardizes the impactful nature of the film’s potentially poignant message: how we as humans are in one way or another connected to each other.

While Our House occasionally loses sight of itself and could stand to take more risks, it offers a wholly original perspective on female friendship bolstered by precocious directorial acumen and a self-assured visuals.

Reis and Guerra bring to life the beauty, people, textures, and (stunningly shot) landscapes of Cape Verde as well as the difficulty of finding home.

Cocote is an entirely different beast—a challenging watch that swings from the avant-garde to an ethnographic model of filmmaking.

This is one of the most thoughtful films about the female experience to debut in recent years, and should be mandatory viewing for anyone eager to engage with confidently-made, skillful art cinema.

Modest though her debut is, Metelius has achieved a fine, beguiling balance. The tone is kept light and bittersweet, so she’s hardly making any claim to great importance or originality in her narrative. But nor does she apologize for the story’s slightness, displaying a sincere and persuasive confidence that makes it worth telling nonetheless.

Yeksan’s portrait of generational malaise and middle-class dissociation is deceptively loose in execution for a film so dense with allegorical potential. Yet, like the occasional sparkle of amusement in Selim’s eye, it is enlivened by a finely tuned sense of the ridiculous, and an ending that improbably offers up the oddest cocktail of optimism with which to toast the oncoming End Times.

“Bride” is remarkable for how honestly it earns every tiny tick of pleasure it gives — for it gives many.

Overall, State Like Sleep is a satisfying movie about grief and an unsatisfying mystery.

Although the majority of Beirut proves to be quite the task to watch, it’s still rather refreshing to witness Hamm continue to come into his own as a genuine A-list talent.

By refusing to illuminate the detainees’ stories or the humanitarian crisis—not widely reported enough for Brady to take the audience’s familiarity as a given—they are trapped inside, The Island of Hungry Ghosts relegates itself to being little more than a pretty but wispy curiosity that fails its beleaguered subjects.

One of the most undersung and most potent pleasures of genre cinema is the excuse it has given us, time and again, to watch attractive people fall in love with each other, and if you’re in a romantic frame of mind, Racer and the Jailbird delivers so wholly on that front that it goes a fair way toward compensating for the film’s deficiencies elsewhere.

While Vitali is frank about the nature of his demanding and subservient relationship to the man, his warmhearted, dazzled, Everest-high respect for Kubrick’s talent remains undimmed even now. It is truly inspiring and touching just how little bitterness Vitali has in him, and it stems from his having no regrets over a life dedicated to something he believes in with utterly selfless purity.

Fascinating, atmospheric, and utterly strange in ways both good and bad, Ghostbox Cowboy pulls back the curtain on those trying to export the American dream and reaping the whirlwind.

Jones makes both narrative and formalistic leaps, which won’t be spoiled here, that initially are jarring in comparison to the lo-fi aesthetic that precedes it, but truly open the film up to broader implications about how we hold onto the past events and how they constantly resurface.

Though the film attempts to introduce a future laden with fascinating social implications, it maddeningly ignores them in favor of an overwrought, plodding, and inherently sexist romance.

Brownson’s misguided and desperate attempts to humanize Dolezal only expose how deeply selfish and self-absorbed this woman is. There is something sick, twisted and insulting about America’s fixation with Rachel Dolezal and the way her lies have given her a platform, albeit a negative one, that most Black people don’t have.

This debut marks a bright future for Vives and is an excellent entry in the romantic comedy format that doesn’t lose sight of who its heroine is the moment she falls for someone.

The film is a trifle, albeit one spiked with mirth and malice.

Beast takes a storytelling gamble, presenting itself as a psychological whodunit, before pivoting toward a more genre oriented plot. The risk doesn’t quite pay off, undercutting its thematic potential for thrills that aren’t quite that effective.

Ultimately, the latest Marvel event is ‘Civil War’ on steroids and as enormous a spectacle as you’ll ever see on the screen that’ll leave you shook. For a movie plot this thin and basic, ‘Infinity War,’ is remarkably gripping, supersized entertainment that should exhilarate audiences, electrify the box office and continue the Marvel hegemony for years to come.

It’s the kind of smoothly rounded, edgeless historical drama that’s built for maximum appeal, with a broad perspective and an easy to digest tone. Well-crafted and ably told, this is a film that’s wholly respectable though not particularly memorable, but still manages to connect with its earnest good intentions and desire to please.

Like its characters, Duck Butter is imperfect, but unlike human objects of our affection, it’s attractive despite its flaws rather than because of them.

The Devil and Father Amorth will polarize audiences, and while a good portion of Friedkin’s documentary will fail to change anyone’s minds, it will keep viewers gravitated to its sales pitch—the exorcism itself.

For Driver’s movie, Basquiat is a ghostly presence, popping up in snapshots or scraps of footage.

Marked with a conveyer belt quality, Kodachrome is every indie dramedy you’ve seen before, just like more of you’ll see after, and unlikely to create a cherished memory that you’ll want to revisit.

For all its faults – both in its construction and the execution of its themes – I Feel Pretty still manages to be fun in the moment. It’s sweet and silly with a scene-stealing performance from Williams, but it ultimately could learn from its own lessons. It’s not confident enough in its central premise, leaving the audience wanting something more.

The ugly truth here would be to tell you to just skip the film, and the dare is to actually pay money to see it.

Handsomely shot, evocatively designed, solidly cast and terribly daft, it also presents your friendly neighborhood reviewer with something of a challenge. With what seems like almost premeditated skill, it saves its worst instincts for the backend of its convoluted and barely credible narrative, a good arm-and-a-half’s-length beyond the impassible “spoiler wall.”

Dumont’s uncompromising approach to the material makes for a love-it-or-hate-it affair, and it should be clear where this particular viewer fell on that spectrum.

By allowing Ejiofor the time and narrative space, even allowing many of the sermons to play out in full, to express Pearson’s confliction, Marston has created one of the more restrained explorations of faith in quite some time.

In the right moments, Brad Peyton can stage a ceremoniously ludicrous set piece with grace and ease. It’s easy to follow the nonsense found in the last act thanks to his assured hand, and you can tell that he is having an absolute ball with its silliness. If only we could share in that enthusiasm for its tedious first two acts.

The cinematic equivalent of a bath bomb, this fizzy feature is sure to delight — at least until the charm fades. So unfurl your towel, dust off your bathing suit, and soak up that warmth.

Blockers is the kind of movie that Hollywood typically gets wrong. They make it too crude or too wild or too inconsiderate. Thankfully, Blockers is an unexpected triumph, even if it’s not quite as great as it could’ve been.

Revenge is a hugely satisfying horror movie, a real achievement on the parts of all involved.

Sweet Country is unmistakably a western in iconography and spare, taciturn tone, but it is also an incendiary slave narrative, in which the poetry of the filmmaking can barely contain a simmering fury and disgust at this most shameful of human institutions.

First Match is a culturally significant, capably-crafted film, but it leans on safe familiarities when it should seek risky rewards.

Desplechin lashes storylines and filmmaking gimmickry in to the one ginormous stewpot with gusto, slams the lid down on it and promptly forgets to turn on the heat. [Cannes Version]

All I Wish is inoffensive, mostly painless, and only occasionally grating. It is also, however, derivative, confusing, and largely pointless.

At its best, Pacific Rim Uprising is tedious and mildly diverting, but at its worst it feels like an out-and-out betrayal.

Beneath the film’s grunge and characteristically dingy aura, the daring Potrykus proves once again why he is one of the most promising young filmmakers and provocateurs around, as he wields weighty commentary, an extremely limited setting and a darkly comedic turn of events to his advantage. Relaxer is Potrykus’ most discomforting and unforgettable experience to date.

The filmmakers brilliantly set-up an atmosphere that feels uniquely cinematic and wholly original. But when impressive world-building is established and story takes over, Prospect quickly devolves into a mess of contrivances and overstuffed characters in its more problematic second half.

It’s a well-made, gutsy film. So, if you can withstand the whole soul-crushing feature, you’ll probably be glad you stuck it out. If “glad” is an emotion you can still feel afterward.

For a production founded on a tried and true indie formula – start with your characters, add in existential malaise, substitute plot with antics and awkward conversation – Pet Names is made with remarkable urgency

Tthe best elements of Don’t Leave Home – its foreboding tone, its photography, and Roddy Sr.’s soulful, remorseful performance as Burke – override its head-scratching missteps.

As striking as some of these performances are, 6 Balloons is not without its problems. At a barebones 74 minute running time that doesn’t dive into the emotional texture as much as it could, 6 Balloons at times, feels slight.

There’s still a lot of pleasure to be had here, whether from digging your fingernails into the armrest early on, to Freeman’s sly comic performance later.

There’s a lot wrong with Josie, but the thing that sinks it beyond the possibility of recommendation in any circumstance is its aforementioned third-act twist and ending.

Unexceptionally directed by Roar Uthaug (Norwegian hit “The Wave“), Tomb Raider is superficial even for a mainstream tentpole, clumsily and unpersuasively put together and tests and breaks suspension of disbelief at every turn.

Dazzling in form and a chase film at its heart, Ready Player One is exhilarating, but it also can’t sit still. Fitting to the content perhaps, the movie still arguably suffers from troublesome A.D.D. with its hyper fast cutting and its tendency to wander narratively.

A thrilling, near-silent film that brilliantly toys with the audience’s nerves while deftly avoiding familiar cliches, Krasinski shows a surprisingly assured and suspenseful touch within the horror genre.

They are tough and necessary questions that make Take Your Pills, for all its dizzying energy, a grounded and rigorous film. Though at times, it feels too squeamish to lean all the way into an idea or too hard on a particular truth, which makes it feel too deliberate and maybe not quite the earnest dissection it could be.

Journey’s End is about as good an adaptation as you can imagine of the material, and a film with compassion and humanity that goes far beyond its perhaps uncompromisingly prestige-y exterior.

Featuring a fittingly shallow funk-lite score by Christophe Beck, Gringo, is ultimately like a Taco Bell version of the ‘90s crime genre; tasteless, cheaply made and just as inauthentic.

Earnestly aiming to land with the weight of an Important Film married with Big Ideas, the more Submergence tries and strains to find connections to contemporary issues, the more those beats ring hollow. “Submergence” not only leaves the talent involved underwater, but the audience also longs for anything of significance to cling to.

Leto, with his whispery dialogue and complete lack of emotional range, fails to register on any level. While the film itself feels straight out of a Robert McKee seminar, as each twist and turn is telegraphed so blatantly, that it’s hard to see what Leto, who can be a good actor when he’s not too busy going all “method,” saw in it.

Despite its strong performances, notably from Reid, Pine, and Witherspoon, its wide collection of marvels and it’s joyful sense of self, A Wrinkle in Time crumbles under expectations. But it’s not so much a failure as it’s a flawed do-gooder that could make our world better. It doesn’t dazzle like the stars and it doesn’t transport us away, but it still offers hope.

With its politically charged themes of oppression and the genocide of Native Americans, and the play on how history has been presented in the past, Mohawk is a fascinating and engaging tale of bloody revenge.

Chappaquiddick hardly lands with the power of an exposé, and doesn’t bite hard enough to spur a reconsideration of the Kennedys. The film revives a chapter in Kennedy history, but what it means nearly forty years later is never quite clear.