There are some moments where the film clings a bit too heavily to genre tropes, but thankfully, its main focus is on coping with loss and the complexity of grief.

I’d say if The Plague wasn’t nominated for Best Original Score there’s something terribly wrong with the Oscars, but The Plague didn’t even make the short list, so there’s just something terribly wrong with the Oscars.

Life is too damn hard to get so damn mad about a sweet, mostly effective drama like Song Sung Blue.

This new Anaconda is so busy talking about how silly it is to make a new Anaconda that it never actually makes a good 'Anaconda.

In the end, The Whole Bloody Affair doesn’t do enough (or perhaps does far too much) to justify its existence to the everyday cinephile. However, Tarantino superfans will undoubtedly lap the film up like cream and, in the end, a director got the opportunity to finally share his true vision with the rest of the world. That’s a net win here.

Glorious, angry, hilarious, nail-biting fun from a director, writer and cast who all know exactly what they’re doing, and relish in the fact that they’re practically getting away with murder.

The only way ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ could be more hypocritical, and taken less seriously, is if the characters also yelled “Hypocrisy sucks!” while sitting on Whoopee cushions.

Not Without Hope never completely comes together but when it works, it’s absorbing disaster filmmaking."

Skarsgård is a captivating chaos gremlin, and Montgomery is — in an easily overlooked, but absolutely vital role — an exceptional foil.

A sadistic delight, just like its predecessor.

Goodbye June is just hyperemotional tourism. We’re lookie-loos popping our heads in for the saddest moment in this family’s lives. We don’t even get to know them very well.

Scarlet' might be [Mamoru Hosoda]'s most narratively ambitious work to date, adapting and warping one of the most famous tales ever told, adding new layers of complexity, and centuries of new, invaluable context.

It’s one of the best, most deeply felt and most gorgeously animated features of the year. On this or any other planet.

Ella McCay' is a film about American politics in the same way that Pixar’s 'Cars' is a movie about cars. As in yes, these are definitely films about politics and cars. But no, politics and cars don't work like that.

Despite one wonky misstep, it captures some real magic.

However depressing 'Rosemead' is, and it’s depressing in all italics, it’s just not deep enough to make running this gauntlet worthwhile.

On one hand this reads like a Chaucer story, albeit a modern one that tackles topics even Chaucer would have struggled with. On the other, arch is still arch, so it may be hard for some audiences to appreciate Jackman’s wavelength.

There are no small parts in a Michael Showalter movie. Every actor is a star when they’re on camera.

Shallow self-congratulation for American moxie at the expense of everyone and everything around us.

There’s nothing groundbreaking here, but it’s a perfectly enjoyable continuation of the story that introduces new players into the ensemble and literally expands the world of Zootopia in a mostly entertaining and meaningful way.

It’s not just "Netflix holiday rom-com good." It’s actually very, very good.

Road to Revenge is everything you could want from a rough-and-tumble, tough-as-nails action movie. 'Sisu' was even more of it, but only by a matter of degrees.

Even as all the comedy to be found within this setup had already run dry a full movie ago, The Family Plan 2 keeps going back to the well in the desperate hope that there are still a few drops left.

The romantic part of Johnson’s rom-com barely reaches a low simmer, but the comedy part burns a little brighter.

There hasn’t been a pre-planned 'Part Two' this disappointing since the second half of Andy Muschietti’s 'It.' At least nobody projectile vomits on Jeff Goldblum to the tune of Juice Newton’s 'Angel of the Morning.' Then again, that would have been more memorable.

A sweet, immersive glimpse at two of our futures, and it’s clear-eyed about which aspects of those worlds we want to avoid, and which ones we have to pursue.

A slapdash effort from an otherwise great artist.

Come See Me in the Good Light is a tender expression of love conquering all despite the burden of needing to go against the wind.

Challenging the foundation of a “law and order” culture is not easy, but hopefully The Alabama Solution shows that mass incarceration is not the way to build a strong nation, and that the real fight is between the haves and the have-nots, those in power against the powerless.

Some movies are movies. Other movies are cocoa. A Merry Little Ex-Mas is the latter.

The Carpenter’s Son' is a Biblical horror movie with interesting ideas. They just don’t seem interesting because the perspective is cockeyed, which nullifies the film’s ability to trouble our hearts.

The fact that it's released by Paramount plays like a punchline, and it’s unclear who’s getting punched.

It’s a magic act without the storytelling, so every moment is the prestige, and none of it feels prestigious. It’s goofy and shallow and delightful and in a couple days I’ll forget I ever saw it.

If In Your Dreams was too entertaining it would contradict its own message about the perils of escapism. But it might not be entertaining enough to make audiences want to stay until the message comes through. Call it a design flaw.

This is wickedly exciting filmmaking. The rare, flashy studio blockbuster that doesn’t read like a laundry list of creative compromises, where the money went to telling a story about fascinating characters and putting them in impossible, gorgeous, and horrifically violent situations.

It takes awhile to get to why Lynsey is so passionate about her work, but the film eventually becomes real, raw and deeply human. It’s more of an exploration of why women aren’t typically known for war photojournalism, but Lynsey Addario hopes to change that stereotype for future generations.

Queens of the Dead may not be a timeless classic and it might not be a game changer for the genre, but more than any other recent zombie flick, it’s likely to play the midnight circuit for years. Not because of the camp. Not because of the unlimited cosplay opportunities. But because it fosters genuine good will from the audience. We love these characters, and we want them to stick around. Zomb-ay, you stay.

A sensual, ingenious update of Ibsen’s classic play, honoring the grand theatrical tradition and transforming it into new, ecstatic cinema.

Yes, the movie looks scary. So scary it could almost be confused for a scary movie. Almost. But only if you’re not paying attention, and miss how shallow, derivative and underwritten it is.

Look, do you want to see a man made out of chainsaws or not?

It’s probably better to have a mixed-bag remake with real thought put into it than a superficial thriller retread of tired yuppie phobias. 'The Hand That Rocks the Cradle' may not rock, but hey, let’s give it a hand anyway.

It’s one of the great horror sequels, for about an hour. Then it’s a cautionary tale about how not to make a horror sequel, for about an hour.

Set aside for a moment that the movie is literally hard to look at: it’s also tonally chaotic, and repeatedly trips over its own unspeakable horrors, before falling face-first into bowls of insufferable sugar.

With extraordinary performances, Hamnet not only tackles grief but also explores single parenting, the lustful love that turns sour due to absence, and what it takes to revive love in its original form.

In addition to creating a brilliantly engaging narrative, Berger’s sense of cinematic style is enhanced all the way from his production and costume design to the extreme close ups that have assisted in defining his cinematic style.

It’s a playground for the filmmakers and audience alike, a fantastical space where anything can happen, whether it’s silly or badass or both.

Lopez, while certainly dancing all the right steps, is only ever a composite of a movie star who feels trapped in a surprisingly stiff production. She deserves better than what the film gives her, but there’s never a moment when she gets it.

It’s a great sports movie about the urge to be great at sports, and it’s one of the smartest movies the genre has produced in a long time.

The film aspires to be yet another eat-the-rich parable in our time of oligarchs, and while there’s no rule that these stories need to be dark comedies, they should at least aspire to have some kind of personality.

Bertino and Fanning are deeply committed to going to dark places, and they take us along for their freaky little ride. Whether it makes sense or not. (Probably not.)

Tron: Ares has, in no uncertain terms, a great frickin’ soundtrack. The movie, on other hand, completely sucks.

It may be odd and insular, but it’s very much intentional. Even the heavy-handedness feels genuine.

Indy is a delight who can do no wrong. Though the film around him is not always as assured, he is a star who has earned all the pets and treats a dog could dream of. After all the nightmares he had to endure this film, he more than deserves it.

It’s hard to imagine Mark Wahlberg as Parker, even after you just watched him play Parker for two hours.

The Strangers: Chapter 2' is an improvement on 'The Strangers: Chapter 1.' Then again, a moderate case of food poisoning is an improvement on a severe one.

It’s suspenseful and smart. It’s got great performances across the board. It’s exactly the kind of thriller we keep saying we want, again and again, but which never get enough credit (or enough marketing).

Colin Minihan knows how to make a gnarly horror film.

Doin’ It' isn’t a great sex comedy. I don’t think I’d even call it a good one, so I won’t. But it sure as hell isn’t lazy. Noble intentions are splattered all over the walls, and the overall message isn’t in dispute.

You learn about as much from the movie as you do from the trailer, and the trailer is free to watch and saves you a lot of time.

It’s possible, maybe even likely, that Paul Thomas Anderson has stuffed so much into one movie that a lot of people will find something to take away from it. All I see is the lack of focus.

It’s this generation’s answer to “Cry-Baby” and also distinctly Early.

Driver’s Ed is mildly amusing at best. It’s a good-natured and good-hearted film without much of the edge or hilarity the Farrelly brothers brought to Dumb and Dumber or There’s Something About Mary.

I admire you for trying to make it work, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, but I think we should both see other films.

Hardwicke and Coogan are tremendously talented actors who give Roy and Mick, respectively, a story worth exploring.

John Candy: I Like Me, made with the cooperation of Candy’s children and his wife, feels like a tale told by friends, but friends who are less interested in promoting idolatry than in showing you why they loved the man.

It’s still the story of an anguished man grappling with death, transplanted to a different world and a different time but still exerting a powerful pull on our imaginations. In one way, it’s an abbreviated “Hamlet,” but in another way, it’s a pumped-up one.

The film takes a situation that could be milked for wrenching drama and outrage, an elderly woman whose daughter tries to sell her mother’s longtime home out from under her, and treats it with lightness and charm.

It’s not that The Long Walk has made walking terrifying — although certainly it’s a fraught and frightening walk. It’s that it makes every trudge through every day remind us of torture.

The more we are taken on this journey through Grace’s early foray into adulthood, the more it earns its classic coming-of-age beats while also cutting into something deeper it can call its own.

Designed as a horror movie for the entire family, the film has its scares, but it’s just too wacky and too much fun to be disturbing.

EPiC is Elvis through the Baz lens, where big and bold is always preferable to straightforward and where going over-the-top is never considered a bad thing. If it’s not revelatory for people who’ve seen the existing films from the era, it’s the most imaginative, generous and entertaining look at a time in which Elvis’ comeback still had real life to it.

A gently appealing and sincere romance.

Director McAvoy is skilled at honing in on the details, never wavering in his ambition to tell a small tale about friendship, its pitfalls, and the lies that result in hurting others.

“The Grand Finale” is pure, uncut “Downton,” but one where screenwriter Julian Fellowes finally seems at peace with not trying to cram in every character into every scene.

Even as Dillon is the one with more to do and dialogue to speak, it’s an outstanding De Bankolé who holds the camera with such intensity that you don’t dare look away for even a second.

Though this film does gesture towards urgent issues, like misogyny being endemic to the modern tech industry, and is genuine in how it seeks to talk about them in a more crowd-pleasing package, it never amounts to being more than one note.

As long as Odenkirk’s grumpy sheriff has his coffee and mustache intact, he is the key to finding the perfect balance. No matter how many blows the film and he take, the joy in seeing him swing freely makes it all good, family fun.

Nuremberg benefits not only from a terrifying performance from Crowe in a larger-than-life role like those that defined the early part of his career, but also from the ensemble of actors.

A film whose quietly flooring opening frames of a vast landscape becoming home to a compassionate story of a Hungarian-Canadian family navigating an uncertain world together already signal it as a major work, writer/director Sophy Romvari’s intimate and incisive Blue Heron only grows even greater from there.

On its face, Eternity is a sweet, spiritual and humorously convoluted take on what dreams may come in The Great Beyond, but it stays true to its premise with outstanding comic range from its cast.

Some outstanding comedy offerings are overshadowed by a few unfortunate B-plots that ultimately fall flat. But the film is sparkling with fantastically funny performances that make a 90-minute comedy worth it in the end.

Etzler wields the film’s urgent satire like a scalpel, precisely cutting away at all the lies we so easily find ourselves telling that mask the darker truths about who we are.

The characters may cut into the cinematic canvas with a knife, smother it with glue, and just generally wreck it, but they can’t destroy what Soderbergh has achieved.

Below the Clouds is a tone poem paying tribute to a region that is suffused with beauty and haunted by loss. It wanders, to be sure, but in a way that’s the point.

The writing is frequently darkly playful, the direction measured and the performances all completely committed, ensuring the portrait of a family in crisis holds together just as they may all split apart.

The tonal juggling act isn’t always seamless, but in a way, the contradictions are what give Roofman its life. It’s a sad movie, really, but it’s also a lot of fun. And if that doesn’t make sense, maybe it’s the whole point.

It’s easy to see what attracted Fraser to this material, since it’s almost mechanically designed to make him look good as an actor, and enchanting as a star.

Although “Wake Up Dead Man” is the “Knives Out” movie that’s most preoccupied with existential questions surrounding death, writer/director Rian Johnson’s third film in the series is also the one that’s most full of life.

Each empty bump in the night lands with a dull thud. Even a terrifying dog that becomes crucial to the film has a bark that’s worse than its bite.

It succeeds about half the time, making for a split decision where Sweeney and Christy both emerge as champions while the film itself can’t quite go the distance.

Few films have been more unsparingly intimate.

The result is an always engaging, sometimes enraging, and occasionally revelatory doc, stretching from Civil Rights to Substack, that every so often reveals something more jarringly (and appealingly) adversarial.

Braverman’s approach, in which he mostly relies on Kaufman to tell his own story through extensive and deftly edited vintage footage, is the right one.

One of Ozon’s richest and most satisfying works in years — that rarest of literary adaptations, one that honors a foundational text precisely by finding something new to say.

Ben Hania shows little interest in agitprop. By burrowing into the granular details of this one tragedy on this one day, she arrives at an extraordinarily far-reaching articulation of an acutely contemporary emotion.

The film may be unbridled, unfettered and bold, but sometimes those adjectives aren’t complimentary.

As a scary movie, 'The Conjuring: Last Rites' is a generic film, neither good nor bad. It’s practically begging audiences to judge it on a 'pass/fail' basis. As the conclusion of the 'Conjuring' series, it’s a little more successful, but not much.

The film has its twists, turns and resets, simultaneously giving the audience more information while also keeping it off balance. It can be riveting and at times repetitive, but it does what it sets out to do: It drops you in the middle of a crisis and it keeps you there.