Brendan Fraser excels as a failed American actor adrift in Japan. Is his film a shameless soap opera or a far flintier look at human frailty? It’s more like both.

Even when the laughs evaporate in the final stretch, Gaten Matarazzo and Sean Giambrone know how to breathe comic life into a stoner buddy comedy that’s high on its own shitfaced supply.

Until predictability seeps in from the edges, first-time director James McEvoy offers an invitation to a rap party that’s hard to resist as two Scottish MCs fake their way to the hip-hop top as Americans.

In this slow but touching biopic, Claire Foy excels as an academic who buries her grief about her father’s death by caring for a predator goshawk, so both can relearn to fly.

Before it reverts to moldy zombie tropes, this low-budget, no-frills survival thriller puts a fresh spin on the familiar thanks to Daisy Ridley as a human living among the walking dead.

Keanu Reeves is an angel of fun in this bright but tonally broken Aziz Ansari comedy about the hell of living in a gig economy.

It sounds pretty cheesy and sometimes it’s a whole cheese wheel, but Hugh Jackman and especially Kate Hudson sing and act their hearts out.

What was once riveting now feels rote. What once made us want more of the same now makes us eager for the shock of the new.

Ethan Hawke brings back the mask that launched a thousand screams in a tricky treat of a horror sequel that’s perfect for Halloween

What to do when a great actor is stuck in a not-so-great movie? You bite the bullet and watch anyway for Russell Crowe at his cunning, commanding best as Hermann Göring, a Nazi whose soft-pedaled narcissism gives him gobs of unearned confidence. Enough to fool his shrink (Rami Malek) and the tribunal judges at Nuremberg? That’s the idea.

Watching Lesley Manville and Ciarán Hinds is usually time well spent, but this woebegone wintery love story makes you want to jump into an Amsterdam canal.

This hoop dreams animation romp from producer Steph Curry isn’t NBA quality, but it gets the job done for family fun. The inclusivity messaging abut teamwork is laid on thick, but still worthwhile for immature audiences of all ages.

There’s not a twist you can’t see coming, but thanks to Kiefer Sutherland and a cast of up-for-anything actors, this trifle goes down easy and leaves a smile on your face for the holidays that might just last all season long.

Cillian Murphy’s gangster icon Tommy Shelby makes his big-screen debut in a standalone film that can’t stand up against the great series that spawned it. For all its entertaining fan service, it’s an unnecessary coda to an unforgettable TV classic.

This intriguing fraction of a biopic rises above a clumsy script and stagnant direction on the strength of watching rock icon Bruce Springsteen, admirably played by Jeremy Allen White, show depression who’s the boss.

As killer ape movies go, this one’s a bloody wonder—it’s too bad no one bothered to add plot, character or a reason to care

A charming Elizabeth Olsen must choose between two men in the afterlife. The trouble with this often-beguiling romp is that it takes an eternity to wrap up. Too bad no one ever learns how to quit while they’re ahead.

Charlize Theron gives everything she’s got to a survival thriller right out of the cliché spin cycle, but there’s no contest when she pits herself against a raging Mother Nature and Taron Egerton’s psycho cannibal killer. They never had a chance.

Anne Hathaway and Michaela Coel are dynamite in a pop rock opera from director David Lowery that wins points for visuals and suffers from a terminal case of grandiosity

The visuals dazzle, the plotting not so much in this gender-switched take on “Hamlet” as a warrior princess revenge epic from Japanese anime master Mamoru Hosoda.

It’s Russian history for dummies, but a never better Jude Law paints a portrait of Putin as a young tyrant that rings thrillingly, scarily true, as does Paul Dano as the dangerous puppeteer who trains him.

Sally Field mothers a talking octopus in a shameless tearjerker that doesn’t shy away from eye-rolling cliches but may just be the empathy booster we all need right now.

Margot Robbie and Jacob Eloridi get steamy in Emerald Fennell’s overheated but undercooked take on Emily Brontë’s classic Gothic romance in which they suck each other’s faces with a wild, porny abandon that would shock Victorians. No complaints here.

Despite Christian Bale and a wow Jessie Buckley as Frankenstein and his missus, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s big swing at remaking a horror classic is a hot, unholy mess. One caveat: no one who still values artistic risk should dream of missing it.

Kate Winslet makes her directing debut with a script written by her 22-year-old son and acted by A-listers who, try as they might, can’t save it from dying-at-Christmas clichés.

Forget anything new. Director Renny Harlin is merely spitpolishing his same old bag of shark tricks. But the dude knows how to deliver assembly line product like nobody’s business.

Do Hollywood suits think we want nothing more from a Christmas movie than to feed on the dead carcass of an undeserving horror franchise? The scary part is they may be right.

Props to Charli xcx for grabbing her brat moment at Sundance. The dance-pop princess shows real acting potential, even though this misbegotten mockumentary gives her few chances to show her range.