Wistfully looking back on the past with a mix of affection for those we have lost, a melancholy yearning for the more tender age of innocence, and anxiety and regret for our trespasses, Gray’s stripped-down drama is a clear-eyed and emotionally intelligent work of great empathy.

In “Final Cut,” the realism that grounded the humor of the original film turns into outright cynicism ... The film’s lazy, anti-intellectual and reactionary perspective is felt in the severe lack of laughs.

Despite its pedigree, “Downton Abbey” remains the fanciest of soaps — the kind that Martha Stewart and Oprah Winfrey use — but it’s still a soap. There’s drama and dalliances, and it would all seem so silly if it weren’t for its setting, cast, and budget. Some plot elements are so ludicrous that they earn giggles, but Fellowes makes it so purely enjoyable that it’s hard to complain too much.

It’s unsettling how every minute of this 94-minute flick delivers a new level of boredom. You have to feel for the actors.

As much as “Top Gun: Maverick” whips from a technical, visceral, thrill-making, supersonic-level, the entire endeavor and every little moment of introspection, suffering and determination is all the more accentuated, strengthened and fist-pumpingly good because you care so damn much about the story, the people and their very human concerns.

When Operation Mincemeat is focusing on the nitty-gritty, the clinical elements of the operation and how these people hope to pull it off in a way that doesn’t get people killed, it can be thrilling.

As the clock ticks, the film asks, who can this qualified woman trust, but mostly, we’re just looking at our watch, waiting for the dull torment to end.

In the end, Men works best as a surprising slice of cosmic horror and a showcase for Buckley in a near-constant state of emotional duress, particularly her on-screen screaming abilities.

For all its emotional horrors—witnessing the worst of ourselves and hoping for the best versions of ourselves eventually triumph over our inherent faults—Multiverse of Madness is arguably lacking the humanity, the heart, and soul of Marvel that works so well when balanced with humor and spectacle.

While Trocker attempts to connect the form to the content of the film, he gets lost in his formalist conceits, never creating fully realized characters to hold the weight of his structural choices.

The biographical and fictional afterlives of Monroe are particularly interesting, and probably tell us more about the authors who choose to dedicate their lives to researching her than anything new about Monroe, herself. One wishes that Cooper, and Summers, would’ve realized this.

Brunner puts his ability to invest anything and everything with a malevolent charge to chillingly effective use.

We’re a dozen action thrillers deep now, and you start to wonder: is Neeson really making these for us anymore?

Onoda – 10,000 Nights in the Jungle, which runs two hours and 45 minutes, is an achievement: a moving and multifaceted film about one man’s quixotic attempt at leading a meaningful life.

Writer/director Kate Tsang cleverly straddles childhood fantasy with the baser impulses of adolescence, drawing an angsty portrait of teenage girlhood in transition. But even as a movie geared towards young adults, Marvelous and the Black Hole feels innocent to a fault.

It’s a sweetly funny, damning, and poignant depiction of this very specific time in life–at once angsty and lovely–when anything is possible. And it has a killer soundtrack to boot.

Make no mistake: The Innocents is no young adult novel adaptation, and things get very dark very quickly.

A seemingly straightforward drama that details a complex portrait of a nation, through the journey of a single, determined man.

When the film drifts into the larger discourse of Abercrombie’s fall, it favors simplistic answers — namely the democratization of social media — over a more critical interrogation of why Abercrombie fell, and how they are still trying to claw their way back to relevancy.

Edralin’s Islands is a patient debut that reminds us that while our parents are important, our own happiness cannot be understated or ignored. In this sense, through its final seconds, “Islands” is a life-affirming achievement.

Even though it’s more of a vision board of what it could be, the film introduces a nifty premise that recalls not just “A Nightmare on Elm Street” but how that series was able to make multiple irresistible sequels. Choose or Die is also the rare mid-budget Netflix movie that gets better and better as it goes along, owning its weirdness and not playing it easy.

While a bit too opaque near the end, and perhaps not the horror show that one might expect, it’s nevertheless an impressive debut.

Charlie McDowell’s lockdown project Windfall is a farcical comedy that attempts to have some bite about capitalism.

By showing mainstream audiences what the everyday lives of these young women looks like, and by showing the metaphorical and political significance of reversing the racist tropes that dominate popular culture, the film makes a substantial contribution to the ongoing discussion of North American history generally, and more importantly, who gets to tell their own stories.

Soft and Quiet begins as subtly as its title implies. It sneaks up on you. By the time you realize what it’s actually about, it’s too late and you are swept into a narrative (and a world) that you do not want to be a part of.

It’s good without being elevated or necessarily great. But it has enough scares to qualify as a decent “dark place” movie without breaking the mold.

Meet Me in the Bathroom feels like a surface-level music documentary with little mindfulness for creative expression or the shades of reality outside the fame of its subjects.

A staggering feat of visceral filmmaking, The Northman, like Eggers’ previous films, warrants profound analysis while still delivering a high-octane action odyssey. Some of the flourishes the director opted for, as well as the film’s overall demeanor (neither entirely self-serious nor fully whimsical), may receive mixed reactions. Still what Eggers has ambitiously crafted lands as an invigorating beacon for an industry in need of studio fare with substantial ideas and artistry.