Carney’s emphasis is more on performance than craftsmanship. His camera lovingly covers the actual act of bringing music to life, and he makes being in the middle of a band look like the most revitalizing and rewarding place on Earth.

See You Yesterday is a compelling blend of nuanced drama, teenage adventure-comedy, and thought experiment. Its protagonists make a great duo, alternating between sophisticated genre-savvy observations and adolescent vulnerability.

While Palm Springs is a fun rom-com, it’s a story haunted by the idea that we’d secretly be tempted by a world where nothing really matters, to absolve ourselves of responsibility.

The film soars when it abandons all pretense of being a space opera, and fully embraces the bombastic modern action movie that’s at its core, giving it a unique identity that does indeed stand apart from other entries in the series.

While the style may outpace the substance, that doesn't make the style any less magnificent. And when it comes to sheer customer satisfaction, The Revenant checks nearly every box, up to and including the man vs. wild throwdown. It just makes a jarring, memorable statement about how often the wild is likely to win that uneven fight.

Ad Astra is poised to kick-start the most passionate style-vs.-substance debate cinephiles have had in years. Individual viewers will probably find that where they fall on that well-worn cinematic divide will determine how much they appreciate this visually breathtaking, emotionally inert drama.

Palmer’s performance is honest and brave (particularly given that she’s often just performing scenes alone), and Shortland deftly switches between locked-door thriller mode and more nuanced character work.

The best part of Shirley is Elisabeth Moss as a sharp-tongued and gloriously frumpy agent of chaos.

Many documentaries become less interesting the more you already know about the subject. But Feels Good Man presents a heavily covered story in a thoughtful and vivid way. Even its standard talking-head segments are peppered with compelling absurdities.

One of Marriage Story’s biggest successes lies in its straightforwardness. It’s not a story out to change how you think of relationships or marriage. It strives for honesty, even if it’s cliché.

Molly’s Game is the best of Sorkin, with many of his problematic tendencies removed, resulting in a tremendously entertaining film that turns the prolific writer into a filmmaking double-threat in one fell swoop.

It isn’t a flawless movie, and it nearly descends into self-parody at times, but after a decade of Bay’s rock-’em sock-’em battles, Bumblebee nevertheless comes across like a mini-revelation: Transformers movies don’t need to be terrible.

Claire Denis’ grotesque, mesmerizing, one-of-a-kind new science fiction movie.

Wilde’s film gets a lot of comic mileage from its lead actors’ ability to create a funny, believable relationship. Feldstein and Dever are both terrific in it.

One of Arnold's greatest accomplishments in American Honey is in illustrating, with a loose and comfortable storytelling style, how these misfits build a form of easy intimacy without really opening up to each other, or getting attached.

The movie is engrossing, with Sevigny delivering a fierce performance that inspires empathy in spite of — or perhaps because of — the awful things the audience knows Lizzie will eventually do.

It’s still an immensely satisfying and entertaining watch, because it spends so much time just watching Williams throw all his energy into whatever he does.

For people who specifically prize meticulous story-craft and the ability to dodge broad genre clichés, I See You is a rare gift.

First Love is the kind of film that’s designed for seen-it-all genre fans who know these tropes (the scheming criminal, the dewy ingenues, the cold-hearted lady assassin, and so on) and appreciate seeing them tweaked in new directions, and treated with an air of fond familiarity rather than dour airlessness.

Wheatley's past films —€” the dark comedy Sightseers, the genre-defying slasher Kill List, the weird black-and-white micro-project A Field In England —€” come together in this film, which is crazed and violent, strange and appalling, image-driven and a moral lesson, and just plain strange. But Hiddleston's combination of placid calm and seething, hidden rage gives it all an anchor.

The 2018 Halloween isn’t an entirely successful film, and it won’t provide an easy template for a new generation of revitalized slasher flicks. But it does serve as a fitting coda to a story that began 40 years ago.

Christopher Robin doesn’t just use nostalgia as a salve; it uses it as a way to mourn things that we’ve lost in our lives and as a way to unpack how our actions can hurt those around us. It’s a feel-good movie that really doesn’t think there’s a whole lot to feel good about much of the time.

Outlaw King has plenty of the right pieces in play to make this kind of personally enriched story possible, but compared to Mackenzie’s best work, it’s plodding and artless.

It’s hypnotic just how horrifying Arthur’s existence is, just as Phoenix’s performance is hypnotic as he spirals from fragile hope into increasingly outsized and confident acts of destruction.

The results aren’t flawless, but Split is nevertheless a tense, exciting thriller anchored by a stunning performance by James McAvoy. And it may just restore Shyamalan fans’ belief in the power of the twist ending.

Unlike Fisher’s book, the film is warm and comforting, occasionally sad but more often giddy and gleeful. It’s a melancholy final visit in light of the recent death of both its subjects. But it’s still a rare chance for viewers to sneak behind those weird, eccentric compound gates, and hang out as if they were part of the family.

At its best, it’s a reminder that King’s biggest strengths lie in his unparalleled ability to build tension, create atmosphere, and tell a direct and brutal story, not in his ability to launch profitable many-branched franchises.

Writer-director Jeff Baena has squeezed heart into this film, particularly with a surprisingly sincere, potent ending. Beneath all the bodily fluids and sex jokes, Baena and his actors show a deep fascination with the way we communicate our love, romantically and platonically — especially when the going gets tough.

While the characters are distinctive and charming, and the dialogue is often pretty funny, The Nice Guys is a large step down on the ambition scale from Kiss Kiss. Having deconstructed his favorite genre so perfectly, Black has a harder time reconstructing it without leaving out some pieces.

The siblings address their family through a Wes Anderson lens, with a tone so playful and visually poetic that it drops into surrealism. It feels like a fresh new approach to an old genre — a willingness to not just embrace the subjectivity of family documentaries, but to charge into it full-bore.

For the serious fans who this series is meant for, the promise of at least six more hours of Fantastic Beasts action likely means a lot more thrilling beasts, barriers, and beats to explore. Everyone else may find that all the little personal bits of character business and frantic complications aren’t much of a substitute for a clear and compelling plot with a single meaningful protagonist.

After a run of live-action Disney remakes that mostly play things safe, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is a much needed swing-for-the-fences dose of originality. It doesn’t always hit it out of the park, but it’s wickedly fun to watch it try.

Happy Death Day 2U pulls off a trick that isn’t especially easy for original movies, let alone direct sequels: it makes all the laborious world-building and storytelling effort feel like fun.

It’s a sleek and effective thriller, often scary and usually visually impressive. But too often, its reasons for doing absolutely anything amount to “because this is the way Alien did it.”

Elvis & Nixon is at its best when it sticks to what-if whimsy and the enjoyable fantasy of worlds colliding, with all the outlandish possibilities that crossover stories suggest.

Radius is a puzzle story built around a series of reveals. The script is tight and propulsive; the writer-directors have a talent for not over-explaining the implications of each development, and for giving the audience space to figure things out for themselves. That makes the developments hit harder and feel smarter.

Hail, Caesar! is immensely entertaining, but it's also frustratingly discursive, with so many incomplete sidelines and distractions that it suggests an overcrowded but exciting TV pilot more than a self-contained film.

John Wick: Chapter 2 is an enjoyable enough expansion on the first film. But its final-act setup for John Wick: Chapter 3 is more trying than promising.

Peters periodically relaxes into moments of pure art, with the camera studying faces, skateboarders on the move, a young couple kissing, or whatever else catches his eye. Give Me Future is a remarkably dense portrait of a place and a moment.

The Hateful Eight is a feature-length battle between thoughtful sophistication and the filmmaker's sloppiest and most self-indulgent instincts.

While it falls short of its predecessors, the film is generally more confident and inventive than any of the non-Toy Story Pixar sequels.

The Book of Birdie is most enjoyable as a moody horror poem, but if I had to pull out a theme, I might point back to its place in the female coming-of-age canon.

The film makes a strong argument for the value of artistry in horror. Stark colors and an active camera, chasing or leading the characters, give the whole film a sense of intensity and dynamism.

Not every joke works, on paper or on screen. But Fey and Poehler at least look like they're having fun, and they make it easy to get pulled along for the ride, no matter how awkward it gets.

It’s rare that a blockbuster movie feels this competently, serenely middle-of-the-road, but maybe being this safe in an era of easy outrage is its own form of mild, moderate, entirely bland achievement.

Detective Pikachu is a fever dream — a product of night time car rides with a Game Boy, staring up at the street lamps that pass you by, painting the darkened sky with wild imaginations of what a world full of Pokémon might feel like. Detective Pikachu is a silly, almost hallucinogenic ride.

Fuqua's film is ultimately a reminder of why the genre was once so wildly popular in the first place.

The colorful characters don't entirely hide the fact that this is a lesser Pixar film, coasting on Finding Nemo's popularity, and telling a too-similar story that isn't as ambitious or emotionally intense.

Though the film adamantly favors style over substance, there’s more than enough style in every scene to make the film work, thanks in no small part to lush visuals, smart choreography, and extreme commitment on the part of Theron.

While the film doesn’t disguise its origin as a Twitter thread, it generally doesn’t treat it as a gimmick, either — because in 2020, the internet is just where people share the weirdest, funniest, and most frightening moments of their lives.

Anything can happen, and Birds of Prey relishes in the havoc that implies. That manic energy is all that’s holding Birds of Prey together at times, and the fact that all of its characters seem to thrive in it makes it all the more disappointing that the movie doesn’t really take any time to get to know them better. It’s almost enough to derail the movie, but at a brisk hour and 47 minutes of genuinely fun spectacle, it’s hard to hold too much against it.

Captain Marvel (or Shazam, or Thundercrack, or whatever you call him) might be one of the simplest superheroes ever created, but Shazam! both gets what makes that simplicity so appealing, and understands the complications stirred by the common wish to grow up too fast and assume powers you don’t know how to control.

Marjorie Prime is superbly acted, and it’s certainly interesting. Hamm strikes a wonderful balance as a talking re-creation that feels almost human, and the rest of the cast is equally nuanced.

What’s lurking beneath the surface of this ruthlessly violent horror movie is a glimmer of gold. Happy Death Day is fun enough to be worth watching.

Scott and Everett are terrific in handling material that demands seriousness and silliness by turns, and the movie does enough well that its flaws are tolerable, if not necessarily overlookable. It’s a charming way of ringing in the Halloween season.

It’s bizarre and often delightful. Paradise Hills captures a futuristic fantasy aesthetic that feels familiar in video games, but fresh in movies.

Given how many zombie stories are basically elaborate wish-fulfillment video games, about blowing away targets, hoarding supplies, and finding a safe spot, Cargo’s quiet acknowledgement that suicide might be a kind option for the infected feels revelatory and even dangerous.

Felicioli and Gagnol's latest may be trying to do a few too many things at once, given its short length and genial aims. But it's still something distinctive and different in a sea of shiny mirrors, all reflecting the same slick CGI style back at each other.

While Fantastic Beasts’ erratic leaps between murderous gravity and childish silliness are distracting, one thing is consistent: the characters here can be silly, broad, naïve, bungling, or just one-dimensional, but a surprising number of them are in some form of pain.

It's only appropriate that the film is as competent, efficient, and mildly dull as the people it celebrates.

No matter how familiar the plot beats feel, that level of attention not just to functional special effects, but to outright beauty, makes The Wandering Earth memorable.

Ultimately, I Don’t Feel at Home in This World feels like an ambitious experiment from a first-time filmmaker trying everything at once. It’s scattershot, but it’s also goofy, creepy, and just wild surprising fun.

It's a frequently funny film that comes packed with the thrills of real combat, with real consequences for the characters. But the basic premise does make one question its priorities.

Beyond the film’s strong look and feel, it’s memorable because the script is so bizarre and unexpected, so confident and daring about what it’s trying to do.

For a first film, made on a shoestring with a largely non-professional cast, Krisha is remarkably textured.

The filmmakers try to innovate largely by making the movie as toothless and easily digestable as possible. Nothing in the film is real enough to care about past the moment, or serious enough to trouble audience’s sleep. Maybe in a world that’s already full of real-life disasters, it’s innovative enough to make monumental destruction this much dumb, lightweight fun.

The film hinges on Sophie Thatcher’s performance as Cee. In her feature-film debut, she brings a combination of determination and youthful naïveté to her performance that is essential to the entire movie working.

This humor could be profoundly ugly, given how it's aimed at reducing other people's grotesque deaths to punchlines. But first-time director Tim Miller keeps the tone light — in his hands, Deadpool is more a snickering, naughty nut than an authentic sociopath.

Manhunt is well aware of Hong Kong movie history and the visual language of international action movies. But it also approaches satire in its ridiculous mining of tropes and its conscious visual excesses.

The scares are some of the best the entire series has to offer, and on that criteria alone it can probably be considered a success. But there’s no escaping the fact that as a standalone film, Covenant is wanting, neither truly making its own thematic points nor carving out its own unique place in the legacy of the franchise.

Race is exactly the kind of film the Academy loves to honor: bland, uplifting, respectable, engaged with historical social issues, but not too controversial or directly tied to the present.

The convincing child cast carries the film when the scares start to feel redundant.

Even if The Current War is soft around the edges and a little soggy in the middle, there’s still something appreciably sparky at its core. As overstuffed and frenetic as the film is, in its best moments, The Current War manages to make an everyday utility seem just as magical as it did 120 years ago.

The Endless rapidly develops from a mysterious, elliptical story about cult survivors and strained relationships into a much larger and stranger movie, essentially the Aliens to Resolution’s original Alien.

Because the film goes in so many tonal and narrative directions, it feels like a grab bag anyone can reach into and fish around in for something to their personal tastes, from dramatic themes to offhand banter, from mindless pummel-fests to thoughtful conversations about heroic responsibility. Justice League isn’t an entirely coherent film, but it’s certainly an egalitarian one.

There’s a level of self-awareness in Aquaman’s more grandiose images and plot movements that’s certainly been missing from previous DC movies. The story is so deliberately corny that it’s never really moving, no matter how much it reaches in the direction of emotion.

This is a movie more about friendship and acceptance than anything else, and Pee-wee seeing so much of himself in someone like Manganiello is a ridiculously silly motor that gets the story moving quickly.

Wingard and Barrett add a creepy body horror element to the mix early on, and thanks to the forceful sound design there’s a greater sense of some massive, physical thing in the forest than the first film ever had — but Blair Witch is at its best when it’s honoring what has come before.

“It’s the first movie / song / book about life in the Trump era” has become trite, so I’ll say this instead: the movie is often quite literally a load of shit. But that can be comfortingly frank when it feels like the world is on fire, but we’re all just going to smile anyway.

It’s fine. A perfectly watchable film that could have been great if it, like its protagonist, remembered that the secret to magic is really believing in the wild thing you’re about to do.

Hobbs & Shaw proves they work well together, stretching out the sparky dynamic of their previous appearances together to feature length.

Doctor Strange is at its most entertaining when it’s unapologetically different from anything Marvel has done before.

Much like its eponymous plaything of the future, M3gan packs a surprisingly potent punch that takes a handful of narrative bugs and turns them into a delightfully comedic horror feature.

Age of Rage is most effective not at “explaining” the alt-right, but at providing a snapshot of it, alongside its anti-fascist opposition.

It’s at turns terrifying, hilarious, and uneven, but succeeds in doing its most important job: showing off a range of distinct directorial voices.

I Am Mother doesn’t plumb the potential weirdness of [its] premise, and it’s working in a well-worn genre without breaking much new ground. But it effectively dramatizes our perennial love-hate relationship with artificial intelligence.

From a technical and filmmaking standpoint, nothing about Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower stands out.... It’s as dry and straightforward as a reputable news report. But from a content standpoint, the film is riveting.

Birth Of A Nation is powerful and effective, but it's spectacle that can't humanize or define its subject.

Favreau and Marks’ version is surprisingly daring in its use of violence, and its physical and emotional darkness. It’s also creative, occasionally in bizarre and colorful ways.

Comedy is rarely sympathetic to its victims, but by letting all the major characters serve as each other's karma engines, Stoller and the other writers create a hilarious world where everyone can be equally awful, and equally heroic, and equally ridiculous.

Assassin’s Creed’s creators have the courage to always take themselves seriously, even when they’re working with material that sounds fundamentally silly. There’s no great leap of faith in Assassin’s Creed, but a surprising amount of the time, it at least finds steady footing.

Hit-and-miss horror auteur Alexandre Aja knows how to deliver lean, mean horror action. Crawl is far less tongue-in-cheek than his Piranha remake, but it doesn’t build to a fever pitch or deliver dynamite setpieces.

Waltz is the perfect villain in this setting: He's played this exact role before, as the smug, drawling, creepy aesthete who rarely stops smiling. But he's also capable of pivoting on a dime between real menace and garish, performative evil, between playing a subdued charmer, and the kind of movie-serial baddie who ties women to railroad tracks.

Star Trek: Beyond does have a strength that its two reboot predecessors lacked: it puts the focus squarely on the larger Trek ensemble, rather than solely on Kirk and his relationships.

Where Stranger Things goes for subtle, Summer goes for on-the-nose. Where the Netflix show offers nuanced, empathetic characters, this film gives us cardboard cutouts with performances to match.

Nicolas Pesce’s gory writing and directing debut Eyes of My Mother goes all-in on the idea of a remote location where horrible things can happen, and no one will ever know. But Pesce does a lot more with the idea of isolation — emotional, physical, and even moral.

It’s fun and mostly inoffensive, never taking itself too seriously while it rewards its inexplicable fans. Better still, it makes every effort to borrow from the Fast series’ latter-day push for more diverse heroes, something the action genre needs right now.

Øvredal is to be commended for simultaneously staying true to a beloved franchise and twisting its head around to face in an unexpected direction. Thanks to him, the film isn’t just a collection of scary stories. It’s a meditation on why the stories we tell ourselves shape us and why that’s the scary bit.