What really lingers after The Sheep Detectives is its tone: earnest, uncomplicated sweetness, rooted in the love that we — whether human or sheep — have for those with whom we share our lives, and a gentle acceptance of loss as part of that love.

Like the shadows dancing on their home, the film is overwhelmingly beautiful and agonizingly incomplete, a refraction of a refraction of a time that has now long since passed. It’s a work of rich layers that offers something new each time you watch.

It’s faithful to the book without being overly devout, asking a multitude of deeper, more probing questions while reflecting on the same unsettling and existentialist ones that the book did. By the time it closes with its unexpectedly mournful yet gently searing final frames, reinterpreting and expanding on the enduring source material one final time, it names all that Camus did not.

Yes, this is a standard rom-com, in all the best of ways — both playing with the genre’s well-trodden tropes, and letting us enjoy how much fun they can be.

It makes for an entertaining watch in which the attention to detail in every technical element helps smooth over the scattered and superficial story’s many residual shortcomings.

The prime attraction of this movie, and its predecessor, is that it envelopes the audience in the Mario world. Every square inch of the screen, from top to bottom, corner to corner, is packed with images derived from the game. Easter eggs abound. Watching it is akin being inside the 2007 Super Mario Galaxy game itself. Which is why it needs to be seen on the big screen. Seeing it on a phone or a laptop wouldn’t do it justice.

Both Weaving and Newton do great horror-comedy work, by turns beleaguered and enraged, and share some genuinely sweet, funny moments as they repair their relationship.

Byrne, a recent Oscar nominee for “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” holds it together.

By the time the film turns into this unusual buddy adventure, it is an absolute joy, the pair putting their big brains to the task at hand and playfully ribbing each other as they go.

In channeling his creative resources toward the sound of “Undertone,” Tuason conjures a lot out of a simple concept — a girl in a house. The marriage of this sound design to thoughtful, carefully placed camera movements makes for a horror film that’s a suspenseful slow burn.

What keeps Hoppers from drifting into Pollyanna-ish sensibility is its charming spikiness, and embrace of the weird, wacky and witty as it unfurls a high-tech action thriller about a strange, if brief, merging of the human and animal worlds.

More coming-of-age than love story, “Pillion” finds joy in Colin’s journey of learning who he truly is. His road there is a little bumpy — like riding on the back of a motorcycle — and it may be a path less traveled, but it’s a worthwhile one all the same.

This Wuthering Heights is a mess, but an occasionally irresistible one.

The Moment works best when examining the creative tensions between people with different agendas, the small passive-aggressive tensions and second-guessing generating the ripples of conflict. But perhaps Zamiri felt those stakes were too small.

Critically, the film’s many revelations aren’t neat and tidy, but they are revealing in all the ways that matter.

A Private Life is a murder mystery only on its surface; at its heart, it’s an exploration of a lonely woman’s extremely active mind, and an unexpectedly moving story of becoming more present in one’s real life, rather than one’s imaginary one.

Raimi can’t resist letting things get wildly over the top at times (there’s a lot of blood and vomit in this movie), but ultimately Send Help is a fascinating study of what happens when a power dynamic suddenly shifts — and when a skilled and charismatic actor is given space to try something entirely new.

DaCosta takes some big stylistic swings — particularly with the soundtrack — that sometimes makes you feel as if you’re watching a comedy rather than a horror film. It’s a welcome, offbeat balm to the more intense moments sprinkled throughout and reflects the movie’s more pondering approach to a story that questions who the real monsters are.

The film may have begun with a joke on one man, but with the cutthroat world we’re increasingly building for ourselves, it may soon be on all of us.

There’s actually quite a bit to enjoy here, not least of which is Black and Rudd’s funny chemistry, some amusing sight gags involving that enormous CGI snake (who has a diva’s sense of timing), the term “snake funeral” and a rather sweet message about following your dreams. It’s all very, very silly.

Josh is flying solo this time, but Marty Supreme shows he’s capable of achieving a greatness that’s all his own. While brief plot elements weigh the film down, Safide defies gravity even as Marty cannot.

Feig, who’s made a specialty of stories featuring unlikely female duos, knows exactly what he’s doing here in the classy-B-movie genre, and “The Housemaid” ticks along like oatmeal-toned clockwork — a little scary, a little silly and very popcorn-appropriate.

Everybody involved seems to be having a blast making this latest “SpongeBob” a funny, fast-paced pleasure.

The action is fierce, kinetic and basically nonstop in “Fire and Ash.” The ending sequence goes on a bit too long (as does the movie in general, at 195 minutes), but it’s all generally entertaining, if you forgive the fact that the spectacle replaces the story for the most part.

If Brooks could have mustered up a screenplay half as good as “Broadcast News,” this movie would have been a delight; instead, it disappears into agreeable blandness and earnest platitudes. It’s not at all unpleasant spending two hours with Ella and her family and colleagues, but it leaves you feeling a little nostalgic for what it could have been.

Fackham Hall is a pleasantly silly diversion for “Downton Abbey” fans with a tolerance for raunchy sight gags and bad puns.

It’s the trio that gives this story liftoff, thanks to spectacular performances from Groff, Radcliffe and Mendez as friends who have seen each other through their best and worst moments.

The last moments of Hamnet are transcendent, and perhaps the most moving thing I’ve seen on screen this year.

Wake Up Dead Man is less funny and more meditative than its predecessors: Father Jud, a man of quiet faith, inspires a certain introspection in Benoit, and the two men ponder questions of religion and mortality, which wasn’t really on my “Knives Out” bingo card but was often utterly engrossing, with the two actors finding a thoughtful chemistry.

The sweetness in the original is absent in the sequel. The players, including Judy and Nick, have an edge to them. Maybe that’s to be expected in that the main characters are now more settled in their parts, but there’s a sharpness in tone that makes them hard to warm up to.

Wicked: For Good could have been better, but it’s still a glorious journey to Oz.

“Jay Kelly” is a playful movie made with palpable love for cinema and its magic.

There’s a lot to like in The Running Man, so it’s all the more disappointing that its most interesting elements get such short shrift. As a humorous action film, it’s an enjoyable experience. As a social commentary on a dystopian America, it mostly just trips over itself.

Ultimately, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is never quite as much fun as you expect it to be, particularly when Pike isn’t on screen. Despite a character intoning that we all “need magic more than ever,” this movie didn’t have enough of it.

Yorgos Lanthimos’ particular brand of dark comedy can be an acquired taste, and his latest, the gritty conspiracy thriller Bugonia, pushes that taste to the limit.

There’s more going on here than pretty pictures: This fascinating portrait of a lady has ice and steel at its core.

Linklater really nails the atmosphere here; watching Blue Moon feels like sitting with smart people in a retro bar, covered in a gentle blanket of cocktail piano. And Hawke, often surrounded by wafting symphonies of cigar smoke, gives a beautifully shaded performance, of equal parts bravado and vulnerability.

This Frankenstein has no shortage of horrors, but it also finds notes of forgiveness and kindness; it’s a monster movie with a soul.

It’s an impressive performance by Byrne, who embodies Linda with unhinged pathos; however, it just as often felt like watching a spiral for spiral’s sake. But, perhaps, viewers with kids of their own may find comfort in the moments Linda vulnerably faces her sense of ineptness as a mother and wrestles with her responsibility for her child’s illness.

It’s odd that Guadagnino clearly wanted to make a movie that people would talk about, but doesn’t seem quite sure of what he wanted it to say.

Condon doesn’t shy away from the violence and tragedy at the heart of this story, but he lets us see the tender, hard-forged connection between Molina and Valentín, and also lets us disappear into a world of tinselly Hollywood beauty, just as they do.

If all you want out of your Tron movie is amazing visuals, a great score and some fun action sequences with light cycles, cool weapons and even a Recognizer, “Ares” will execute that command. Anything more, though, and it all starts to get a little glitchy.

It’s a promising but uneven debut, not quite worthy of its star.

The picture itself is more workmanlike than transcendent. It marches along but doesn’t soar.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another — the most entertaining, exhilarating movie you’ll see all year — is an incision into a raw nerve. A thrilling, tense portrait of modern life, it’s Anderson’s most urgently relevant work yet.

When everything’s clicking, there are moments of real beauty and introspection to be found here.

It doesn’t have the same wild unfamiliar sparkle as the original, but that’s the point. The joys of this film are similar to the joys of a beloved (real) band’s reunion concert: watching decades of personal and musical history play out onstage, cheering for the revolutionaries of their day and, in the case of the actor-creators of Spinal Tap, seeing what more than 40 years of commitment to a bit — and to each other — really looks like.

It’s a visual spectacle, a 155-minute fight-to-the-death battle anime held together by a series of emotional lows told in flashbacks covering the worst demons in each hero and villain’s past.

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale is as good as it needs to be, though like the other movies it’s probably a complete puzzlement to anyone not already familiar with the franchise, and creator/writer Julian Fellowes can’t resist having someone earnestly intone something about Things Change And We Must Change With Them every two minutes.

Executed and performed with precision, the focus is on the relationships, but not breaking the system itself. The message of The Long Walk is muddled, at once hopeful and despairing.

It’s a whiplash journey of humor bordering on callousness, and sadness just shy of suffocating, but you’ll want to hold its twisted, bruised heart in your hands all the same. It deserves some comfort after all it’s been through.

Both star and director are at the top of their game here, and that’s as good as movies get.

Aronofsky has always been an actor’s director, and even though he’s playing in the pulp sandbox with “Caught Stealing,” he lets Butler shine. There are a few choices to side-eye in the script, to be sure, but Butler, Kravitz and Libatique are unimpeachable on this wild ride.

For those who like their comedy so dark that it’s practically blackened, may I present The Roses.

Even if the weave is loose and the big final reveal takes such a hard-left turn it could cause another traffic fatality, Honey Don’t! is a bleak and breezy good time. Don’t overthink it.

Ne Zha II deserves all the attention and accolades: It’s an empowering film that makes you believe that you, too, can change your fate.

Glander’s debut has vibes to spare, but he never coasts on them even as Billy coasts around the Florida landscapes. In the end, he delivers a full meal of a film that, like the giant hot dog we see in one shot in the middle, is a mesmerizing work of art worth taking a big bite out of. It will never be to all tastes, but to those who find themselves on its wavelength, it couldn’t be sweeter.

Lohan was, and is, a charming and funny screen presence. And if you think this all has nothing to do with the movie, I’d say you’re wrong. This movie’s existence is predicated on our nostalgia for the original film and our parasocial relationship with Curtis and Lohan, as a duo. These feelings matter.

The Bad Guys 2 is not as fun or slick as it thinks it is — especially in its emotionally underwhelming yet visually dazzling third act — but it still carries just enough charm to warrant a trip to the theater.

For vast swaths of this movie, despite excellent, unsettlingly comic performances from Brie and Franco, all I could see was the Big Idea, rather than two people on a horrifying journey. But the more gruesome the story gets . . . the stronger it is, as the over-the-top ick kept my brain present.

Incisive, insightful and very funny.

Caught by the Tides is a beautiful time capsule that holds a record: Humanity can survive wildfire, displacement, disease and heartbreak with music, dance, song and film.

It’s heartfelt, action-packed and just plain fun (and comes with an intriguing mid-credit scene you don’t want to miss). Fantastic indeed.

Do I think we need more reheated IP that uses our collective nostalgia as catnip to cover up the fact that we didn’t actually care that much about the original film? Nah, of course not. But if you’re gonna make it, make it well, make it fun and make it stand on its own two narrative feet. This update pulls that off, and with a bloody high body count to boot.

There are no safe places in his pictures. And Eddington is dense with multiple levels that stoke the ever-present unease.

This is a dynamic, delightful film and the introduction of an exciting, uncompromising new voice.

Parts of that story may be hard to watch, but, anchored by Venter’s extraordinary performance, it’s not hard to enjoy.

But there is bashing aplenty, and it all looks gorgeous. The action sequences are top-notch, the stunning visuals adding a delightful crunch (bones do break) and a sense of scale appropriate for someone like Superman. (There’s so much property damage, it’s ridiculous.) Throw in heat-vision lasers, freezing breath, Mach-speed punches and a superpowered flying dog, and it’s a rollicking good time. (Go see this in IMAX, if possible; you won’t regret it.)

Despite excellent performances all around, that balance is off in this follow-up, which has more characters but is less character-driven.

The bottom line, for any movie that purports to be a thrill ride, is whether the end result is thrilling — and I’d give a definite yes to that.

Though it’s fun watching Pitt swanning about in his nonchalant way — and a delight to see Kerry Condon, as a F1 technical director, finding some playful chemistry with him — this movie is entirely about the driving, and the speed.

Not that it was ever in question, but 28 Years Later is an invigorating reminder that Boyle, as a technician of dizzying, daring cinematic style, has never lost his fastball, and he employs it to great effect emphasizing Spike’s visceral emotional experience.

This gem of a film manages to draw together our questions about the universe and ourselves into one single adventure story that hits every emotional beat. It’s what Pixar does best, and “Elio” is another knockout, a quiet but determined shooting star that earns its place in the galaxy.

It’s ultimately a gentle exploration of what we think we want from love, and how those things can change when the right person arrives. It’s also, disappointingly, about what happens in a movie when only two-thirds of the principal casting hits the mark. Materialists is a wistful near miss.

There are plot levels here that are deeper than the original, which is quite complex and moving in its own right.

Flanagan’s trick is simply how he imparts this eternal lesson to us: We know life will end, so how you spend the time is all that matters. It’s simple, and it may be delivered in a way that’s a bit too clever by half, but it’s still a gut punch, and a message worth absorbing now, and always.

Telling the story of an obstetrician working in a rural town in the country of Georgia who also performs abortions outside work, it’s a quiet wail in the darkness of the night, hurtling along with all the force of a lightning bolt.

Jane Austen Wrecked My Life is a gentle treat, sure to leave any book-loving viewer happy.

Lively, fast-paced and ever so familiar, the picture is a happy addition to the holiday. It’s worth leaving the house to see.

Each sequence is cleverly planned and staged, but timing is everything, and the rhythm and cadence of the edit is perfectly executed by Sabrina Pitre.

The eighth entry in the movie franchise that began in 1996 (based on a television series that began in 1966), is a competent, smart, expensive and sometimes thrilling action movie; it is also a very long one, in which we are given time to wonder whether spy/superhero/very intense runner Ethan Hunt (Cruise) ever just gets up in the morning and decides to take it easy that day.

Thunderbolts*, one of the best MCU movies in years, delivers a much-needed jolt to the struggling franchise.

This one will likely only appeal to fans of the genre who appreciate reverence and twists on this kind of material, but it’s bloody — if lightweight — fun for those who enjoy this kind of good old-fashioned romp in the woods.

The Accountant delivered a dependable ‘90s-style throwback action thriller and “The Accountant 2” is much the same, though it embraces a looser, more amusing tone, while playing in a story sandbox that looks like our world, with our issues: immigration, human trafficking, organized crime.

Nobody in this movie would be out of place in a glamorous old-Hollywood drama, which is kind of what On Swift Horses is trying to be — and, most of the time, coming pretty close.

Despite a plot twist you’ll see coming all the way from Vancouver, The Wedding Banquet is a worthy successor to Ang Lee’s classic, and a chance for a group of actors to shine together and separately. There’s plenty of silliness, but also time to be moved by quiet moments.

Coogler has delivered one of the best blockbusters of the year, and that it has a heart and brain behind all the blood-drenched thrills just makes it that much more satisfying.

Drop gets the job done, and even throws in an excellent cocktail-piano rendition of “Baby Shark.” Go see it on a first date, if you’re brave.

It feels odd to be evaluating a dog’s performance, but Bing (the canine actor playing Apollo) definitely broke the heart of this cat person multiple times during the film. It’s a pleasure watching him and Watts connect, and to watch a film about so little and yet so very much.

It’s infectious, the love Freaky Tales has for the Oakland, Calif., of the mid-1980s.

Kids will likely be diverted by the colorful excess of A Minecraft Movie, but fans of the game may feel it misses the mark. More creativity, please.

This curio of a film could have gone deeper into what it means to be a gangster, but its core themes resonate all the same.

Of all the stories in all the world to remake on the big screen, why “Snow White”?

Novocaine wins with violence and personality. It’s simply fun to hang out with Nate.

Black Bag may be rooted in the mind, but it is inextricably connected to the heart, especially in matters of love and trust, betrayal and murder. That’s what makes a Soderbergh genre exercise such a deliciously satisfying cinematic morsel: It is pure fun, but also deeply layered with larger existential themes, making for a delightful romantic spy drama that cannot be missed.

Bong covered many of the same aspects of “Mickey” in his 2013 sci-fi epic “Snowpiercer,” a more streamlined and hard-bitten work of social commentary with the have-nots battling the heedless rich. ”Mickey 17” is less focused and not quite as satisfying a production as that earlier movie.

This sturdy, solid thriller underscores that at their core, survival stories are always stories of humanity’s best, and the impossible things we can achieve when we work together.

Life and death is one big joke in The Monkey, with the sense that Perkins is manically cackling along while he never skimps on the craft to make it all hit brutal pay dirt.