Grigris is the unusual movie that takes a lead's obvious talents, and curiously backgrounds them, hoping for their charisma to carry over to more traditional cinematic purposes.

The main thing you’ll feel from Cars 3 is joy; this is Pixar at its most radiant and playful.

Good Grief arguably doesn’t quite get there in the end, but there is a promising sense of possibility for what the future could hold for Levy as a filmmaker next.

For all the film’s faults, Saunders and Lumley still bring an addictive energy to the screen that finds you wanting more.

Plummer adds another comfortably unreliable character to her gallery, turning Abigail into an older woman with a schoolboy crush.

Chasing Summer earns a lot of goodwill with a rowdy climax that plays into Shlesinger’s strengths as a humorist.

Featuring pointedly jagged performances from James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan, the only characters in film besides their son Arthur (Samuel Logan), who moves around the film, and frame’s, periphery, Together is an occasionally slight, but nevertheless riveting showcase for the actors and Kelly’s decidedly unsentimental script.

There’s something frustrating about Noé’s approach, but also an undefinably admirable quality to the extremity of his showmanship.

It’s an absorbing (if sometimes preachy) look at the horrors of becoming a housewife, and a splash of holy water on the demons of assigned gender roles.

The Drama remains a vital, bleak, and admirably mean-spirited look at the cost of being known and, more expensively, the price of trying to save face. It doesn’t fully cash in on the nastiness of its best idea, but it is funny, queasy, and wholly willing to make everyone miserable for your amusement. In an era of soft, therapeutic romantic storytelling, that alone gives it biting validation.

As aesthetically dazzling as this picture is, with hypnotic compositions carved through meticulous mise-en-scene, there are certain conventional lines which — when crossed — must warrant good reason. In this case, the activity on the screen must be immersive and interesting enough to balance out the physical endurance asked of the viewer by the creator.

There are moments in “My Zoe” that are hard to watch, unthinkable in their emotional brutality. That Delpy finds her way to the ending she does—and earns it is—no small accomplishment.

McDonagh is such a smart writer that one spends much of the movie waiting for his script to exhibit some awareness of the trope, and to comment on it, but that acknowledgment never arrives – and as a result, this is his thinnest screenplay to date, flimsy enough that, in a lesser actor’s hands, it could really fall apart.

That the structure consistently undermines its own storytelling is frustrating when the story to be told is a vital and interesting one.

Jurassic World takes the sensibilities of Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park,” the sense of wonder, the awe, the thrills, and transports them into the 21st century with ease, plausibility and storytelling clarity.

Though undeniably watchable...Mateo Gil’s film fails to rise above the well-trodden genre film language nor does it meaningfully contribute to its central existential questions on mortality .

Gould and Zwann’s film runs along perhaps too familiar formal lines to have many tricks up its sleeve.... Yet that does not rob the inevitable meeting of its simple, sweet power, and the gentle revelations, mellowed with time, that punctuate the excited chatter are truly moving.

A film as mercurial as this can be an impressive thing, but the back half is so filled with half-baked metaphysics, pseudo-Lynchian maybe-dreams, and a sour, cheap conclusion that feels nihilistically cruel to at least one of its characters, that even the pleasures of watching the actors on screen start to fade away.

With a little more focus, “A Banquet” could be a haunting portrait of a family in crisis, an adolescent adrift, and mothers’ care gone sour. As presented, however, it’s an elaborate yet clumsy slice of domestic horror that bites off more than it can chew.

Mary Harron is too good a director to make a drab, conventional biopic, so it’s disappointing to report that with Dalíland, she’s done just that. It’s not a complete waste, and she manages to insert a handful of distinctive flourishes and memorable characters. But the picture never escapes the box it’s been placed in or transcends a key, fundamental error in its conception.

I Love My Dad cannot overcome its off-putting premise. Nothing is out of bounds, of course (especially in comedy), but if there’s an approach to make the material palatable, either played straight or broad, it is left undiscovered here.

Worse than offering no especially fresh angles on its cliched material, however, are the trite characterizations of the two lead female characters.

As a taut thriller, it works, but the “why” of it all, the substance that generally makes even Sheridan’s worst efforts still fascinating, is strangely and glaringly absent.

What the newbies can’t recreate is the coked-up, jet-fueled delirium of Bay’s efforts, particularly the second “Bad Boys,” which may be as pure a peek into a narcissist’s id as has ever been captured in a summer studio picture. It’s a loathsome, ugly movie, but fess up, it’s one you’re still thinking about. Bad Boys For Life is, by most standards, a “better” movie. And you’ll forget it by next week.

It has warmth, it has flashes of insight, it even has moments of wit, all it really lacks is edge — which it lacks in large, whopping, huge amounts.

Ballerina is passable as a continuation of “John Wick” mythology. However, it’s not strong enough to organically generate comparable enthusiasm for continued storytelling with this character.

Siberia juggles a number of intriguing ideas without any real success at marrying them. It’s an enjoyable watch, if only for the confident surrealism, albeit one which could inspire confusion and/or disgust in many film fans.

Less a polemic than a portrait, If You Build It celebrates the flinty spirit that spurs problem solving and creativity (sometimes at the same time) with people not dedicated to a cause, but to people.

In amongst Joker’s fire and blood and chaos and its blackest of blackhearted laughter, there is the sense of a grotesque, green-haired genie being let out of a bottle, and whether it wreaks havoc or not, we’re not going to be able to put it back in.

Mother, Couch is a delightful, sometimes hard-hitting family drama that will stay with you for a long time after you watch.

Magic is something that children of all ages desire to experience, and The Little Mermaid has magic to share because Halle typifies that enchantment.

For a film that so often trades in claustrophobic close-ups, some of the strongest compositions in Natural Light are its grander landscape shots, making a sinister beast of Hungary’s jagged treelines.

Always thoroughly pleasant, and that's entirely due to the cast, who all turn in breezy performances.

One can’t help coming away with the feeling that if the intelligence and originality of All My Puny Sorrows matched its earnestness, they could’ve really had something here.

Unfriended is sometimes a blast to watch and is occasionally funny and unnerving, but by its conclusion it becomes screechy and overwrought.

It’s a bold and terrifying story, but it’s told with all the usual bells and whistles, basements and attics, creaks and bangs.

All the narrative ideas are sound—comparing and contrasting schoolyard perspectives based on age, gender and experience is a great premise—yet for all of its resonant human ideas and modest aesthetic strengths, Mouannes’s film feels a little half-finished.

Superior falls short of inhabiting the period within which it purports to exist.

Despite its title, it’s unable or unwilling to surrender itself to being more than just another celebrity documentary.

Apatow indulges in his freeform tendencies to a particularly destructive degree with This is 40, resulting in a movie in which the ambitions are only equaled by the shortcomings.

Cruella is a dull overwrought origin story without an audience.

If you’re a fan of found footage and enjoyed the previous “V/H/S” films, you’ll find enough in “V/H/S/99” to keep you entertained. However, even though the addition of more camp and comedy shows that the anthology series is still evolving, five films deep, you have to wonder how much more tape is left in the cassette in the “V/H/S” franchise?

While it hardly reinvents the genre, it’s smart, sharp entertainment that meets expectations dead on, and provides a nifty little story told with just enough spark to make the familiar feel fresh.

Marston and Sheppard have come up with a terrific premise, and have worked it into an often highly entertaining movie. But after a while, all the narrative ellipses and question marks start to feel like an affectation — beguiling on the surface, but un-genuine.

Clean narrative lines, top-notch production design, great acting, and Hollywood-grade cinematography and lighting elevate Burial above what might have been a forgettable schlock-fest.

It’s about as well-acted and enjoyable a version of this particular thing as you’re likely to find.

Taymor’s latest manages to be both a loving tribute to American trailblazer and the power of collective action to bring social change. It’s also visually vivid and unexpected, but unfortunately, fairly uneven overall.

It’s a bit of an irony that The Voices doesn’t have much to say, but the fact of the matter is that it’s the tone and the tenor of the film that make it most watchable; a truly hilarious film about truly horrible things, the real artistry in Satrapi’s direction of The Voices speaks for itself.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is, at once, invigorated and underdeveloped, both rousing and slightly underwhelming.

A major gaffe, God Help The Girl finds a great artist taking on a huge challenge and stumbling painfully on its ambition almost every step of the way.

Even as Reinhart does solid work with the shaky material, her character remains adrift in a meandering psychological thriller that offers only a superficial look into her psyche.

Shadyac’s movie may ask difficult questions about the ills that society grapples with today, but it tackles them in a shallow, facile, sometimes uncomfortably out of touch manner.

A beautiful, hearfelt and raw piece of work.

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.

There is a winning buddy comedy deep inside The Accountant 2, but it’s buried under so much tedious meandering that it never gets to fully see the light of day.

The film works best when at its simplest — two brilliant actors sparring with each other, Kingsley attempting to justify the horrific, Issac attempting to stay human and just while grappling with the embodiment of the Third Reich’s unfathomable legacy.

Before I Fall is a movie that will make its core audience of teenage girls melt and is a nice diversion for everyone else. It will make Hollywood studios take Russo-Young more seriously and be a calling card for Deutch, Sage and Miller. That’s not so bad, is it?

August: Osage County is a film of big, wild gestures, plate smashing, screaming and tears, but not nuance, and it all has the effect of leaving one deadened, not moved.

Despite some misplaced comedy, a few questionable creative decisions, and tonal inconsistencies, It: Chapter Two brings it all home with a remarkable third act that provides one of the most relatable, moving, and emotionally satisfying conclusions.

Ultimately Spin Me Round is like a bad vacation where even the gorgeous Italian seaside isn’t enough to make the time spent feel worth it.

Sinha’s debut may not be destined to be the next American indie classic, but it’s a powerful debut film with a stirring perspective on criminality and immigration.

[Morgan's] observations about Hollywood’s image-consciousness and the transactional nature of L.A. relationships are nothing new. But there’s a specificity and a liveliness to her jokes that makes them feel almost fresh — or, at the least, relevant.

Characters this lovely only come once in a blue moon.

It’s hard to argue with too many of the decisions considering what a fitfully entertaining and satisfying entry it really is. This is a movie stuffed (perhaps overstuffed) with moments that will make you gasp, giggle and applaud, whether this is your first “Fast and Furious” movie or you’re a longtime fan.

Everything matters in Cronenberg's Cosmopolis, but not everything is necessarily the same as DeLillo's book. And that makes the film, as a series of discussions about inter-related money-minded contradictions, insanely rich and maddeningly complex. We can't wait to rewatch it.

For all its problems, Bourne is still thrilling and an undoubtedly engrossing action film thanks to its taut construction.

What Longoria has created is less a history lesson and more a fairy tale that reframes an American success story within California’s Hispanic community. You may doubt its accuracy, but the message will resonate, and that is a far more interesting conversation than how closely Flamin’ Hot matches the Montañez Wikipedia.

Victoria & Abdul is a movie that flirts with exploring prejudice, cultural tension, power, and religion, but never really consummates the ideas. At best, it tries to humorously dismantle the absurdity of empires and royalty, but that’s about as subversive as it gets.

One is caught between appreciating Jenkins’s soulful, empathetic performance, and just thinking “fuck that guy,” and wishing the unexpected swerve The Last Shift made was to turn to McGhie’s Jevon, to make Stan an incident in his life, rather than the other way around.

Boston Strangler steps right up to the line of the hokiest girlboss tropes and narrowly avoids crossing into a cringeworthy injection of contemporary feminism into a historical narrative. Rather than blaring its priorities throughout, Ruskin’s film gradually reveals the biases suppressing the idea that women’s stories matter. It’s just enough of a twist on an otherwise imitative, iterative story to hold interest.

Crimes of the Future sounds a whole lot more fascinating than it actually is: it’s a more interesting film to read/write about than to watch, which just goes to show how Cronenberg at this early stage was still closer to a kind of literary, idea-based storytelling, and had not yet mastered the filmmaking side of the equation.

Gibney’s movie points fingers not just at the people it argues carried out the killing, but the highly-placed figures who covered up for them.

Even as a late night Netflix viewing for fashion aficionados who enjoy a scandalous bit of melodramatic trash, The Model doesn’t offer anything new, interesting, or engaging.

The film is accessible, engrossing, urgent, and horrifying.

[Boden and Fleck] re-emerge carrying some of the hallmarks of comic book cinema as well: an overemphasis on in-jokes, a sprawling web of larger-than-life yet flimsy characters, and a belief that a kick-ass fight scene at the end can overwrite many of the wrongs that came before.

The risible Stoker is a brutally empty, deeply unfortunate movie, and Park Chan-wook's jackhammer of a tool he calls a brush is, on this evidence, something that should be locked away.

Lacking narrative momentum, saddled with thin characterizations and uninspired plotting, Trouble With The Curve should've stayed on the bench.

As inviting as it is immersive and convivial, Nerve is bumpy, sloppy and rather unsophisticated, but it’s also ultimately sociable, warm, endearing and, most of all, pretty fun.

The Keeping Room attempts a blend of sexual curiosity, home invasion horror and elegiac drama, that doesn't quite work, but whose ambitions are nonetheless compelling.

As it stands now, The Highwaymen arguably does just enough legwork to justify its existence, but good luck enduring it.

An American Pickle is a most unexpected Seth Rogen film, maybe less funny than you hoped, but still charming, amusing, and far more considered than you would have ever thought.

At its best, the film becomes something winningly subversive.

Gayby isn't groundbreaking, but it's a fun romp whose characters grow on you after spending some time with them.

It may very well be the best action movie of the year.

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 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.

In Bed with Victoria is buoyed by irresistible performances on the part of the titular lead (Virginie Efira) and inevitable romantic interest Sam (Vincent Lacoste). It is their turns that imbue the film with its energy, even if its generic formula and social milieu is at times too familiar.

After co-writing and producing Romain Graves’ own epic of civil unrest, 2022’s “Athena,” he steps behind the camera once more for his second feature directorial effort, “Les Indésirables,” and while the subject matter is just as timely, the overall result is slightly less scintillating.

Even when it tries to swing for the fences as some commentary on what motivates hate speech, it may not always work, but Macdonald does the best with what he’s been given, and that’s enough to warrant a look, at least.

If you come looking for an effective drama with heavy ideas about family and justice, The Mule will likely disappoint. However, if the idea of an oddball road trip with Clint Eastwood toting a few kilos in the back sounds appealing, you’re in for a treat.

Theron can survive almost anything onscreen. Apex proves, once again, that she can carry weak material farther than most actors. It also proves that even she cannot quite drag a dull survival programmer up the mountain.

Raw, improvised and indicative of Trump’s America, The Oath reminds viewers of the need for laughter despite the downtrodden insanity around us. Thankfully, Barinholtz resists the urge to lapse into cynicism, because at the end of the day people are more important than politics.

One of the more disappointing big studio animated features this year, a movie can't even muster the energy to be visually engaging, let alone give you anything to care about story-wise.

In the end there's nothing surprising in Sisters, except for the fact that it isn't anything more than a party movie.

Gilroy has fashioned a character study that has moments that are incredibly well written.... What’s extremely disappointing is that the screenplay’s through line is simply not that interesting.

A crude sketch of a film that could barely withstand a short-form, but instead has been stretched to agonizing feature length by directors Robert Wilson and Jason Lapeyre.

Shrouded in an elegiac reverie, The Midnight Sky is a frequently beautiful movie, from the mechanical ballet of the bird-like Aether to the brief glimpses of K-23, where Jupiter looms in a purplish night sky. But its inability to make a strong connection between the separated stories, and a tone that slips sometimes from poetic quietude to sentimentality, keep the movie from taking a long and honest look at the devastation its reticent mood only suggests.

What The Wait really needs is more: more story, more character, and more reason to grieve with these women. Because what these women have to grieve is worthy of time and attention, yet these qualities are frustratingly absent from this film.