Swapped won’t change the world, probably, but it’s a step above a lot of similar films and an effective fantasy story for all ages.

Kendrick manages to make her film both weirdly entertaining and thoroughly disturbing.

It’s like a National Lampoon movie where Chevy Chase is a mass murderer. That’s a great pitch, dang it, and Timo Tjahjanto throws it at 105 miles per hour.

With striking scares, moody atmosphere, and impressive performances, You Are Not My Mother gradually reveals itself to be a wicked, wicked work of horror, with perhaps only a few unanswered questions holding it back from true greatness.

When Cameron’s film calms down, and the stunning imagery that cinematographer Russell Carpenter (“Titanic”) has created with the film’s enormous visual-effects team can linger for a while, the imagination and scope of Avatar: The Way of Water can occasionally feel quite magical.

Caught by the Tides is an elegy of sorts, at times angry and abrasive but more often gentle and reflective.

Beneath Us never lets the exploitation cinema elements get in the way of the serious conversation about actual, real-life exploitation. That makes it frightening, and that makes it bold.

A welcome new patch in the sprawling 'Bridget Jones' tapestry. It’s got all the humor and romance we’ve come to enjoy and all the caring and maturity we’ve come to depend on.

With nary a jump scare in sight, Aster has created a moody piece with a delicate but devastating sense of dread.

In the end, Master Gardener is ripe with seeds of ideas on the verge of blossoming into something beguiling, maybe even generously healing. What a way for Schrader to close the loop on his long line of tortured men.

Audiences looking for quality stories about faith and patriotism will find Indivisible to be a thoughtful and satisfying motion picture. Although it never reaches the emotional and cinematic zeniths that might make it great, it does what it sets out to do, by offering hope and guidance to audience members who need it. And that’s kinda great in itself.

The Painted Bird ... is not the wallowing miserablist parade you might fear, yet not quite the Holocaust-themed masterpiece it wishes to be. But it’s always starkly compelling as a reminder of why war survival stories are essential to our understanding of innocence and beastliness.

Jagged and disorderly, confounding and charming and sometimes irritating — just like the man at its center.

The Crimes of Grindelwald probably had enough plot to drive a four-hour mini-series, but even so, what we get is often absorbing and grand. The sense that this magical world is actually, well, fantastic is finally back in the series.

It’s a charming, light comedy that goes down easy and is distinguished mostly by how it takes the Cyrano story to high school and mixes in emojis, diversity, immigration, LGBT issues and lots of other stuff to set it in today’s world.

Committed performances by Keri Russell, Jesse Plemons and extraordinary young actor Jeremy T. Thomas vividly communicate the deeper emotional stakes of Antlers, if somewhat unfortunately without adding an ounce of fun or excitement to its mythmaking.

Henson and Howard are a fine match, and the sort of film you’d expect Ron Howard to make – straightforward, skillful, honest and sympathetic – is pretty much the kind of movie you’d want about Jim Henson.

While the reteaming of Gal Gadot and director Patty Jenkins provides the expected thrills and excitement, this sequel shares the significant flaw of its predecessor: Both films graft an unwieldy and effects-heavy finale onto a movie that had managed to create relatable characters and situations, even when both are larger than life.

In an era in which the collision of Russian and American interests is never far from the headlines, a weird little story about one crazy time those interests collided might even teach us a thing or two.

To some, a film with undeveloped themes, thin characters, and superficial gore might seem like a bad thing. To connoisseurs of the slasher genre, it’s all part of a well-balanced breakfast. Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s narrative efficiency and tight 81-minute running time make it an ideal delivery system for creative kills and memorable gore.

As the story of a mother and daughter, Miss Juneteenth benefits from subtle, offhand performances from Beharie and Chikaeze; as a portrait of a community, it’s layered and rich. Not a lot happens, really, but in its modesty the story packs a lovely punch.

It’s not hard to imagine a young audience completely losing their minds over the thrills and action of Thor: Ragnarok, and then loving it all over again when they realize how funny it is.

It fills up the uncharted territory between parody and pure fan service with a guileless weirdness that the biopic genre never knew it could accommodate but, in a post–“Walk Hard” world, could stand to emulate.

Us Kids is a needed reminder that issues don’t go away just because something else is getting today’s headlines.

There’s not a lot of clarity here, but there is a terrible, strange beauty in the film’s mixture of ritual, magic, faith and the dark side of colonialism. By the end New Boy has a name, but his identity remains elusive.

Montana Story remains a worthwhile exercise, largely because it puts two stellar actors through a monumental emotional gauntlet, and they pass with flying colors.

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.

A tough but affecting film ... The fact that this never comes across as maudlin is tribute to a director who knows her way through dark places, and a pair of actors who can create a quiet storm.

As slick and contrived as the plotting may be from time to time, the writers and director Jake Schreier (“Robot & Frank”) throw in enough charming character moments and literal forward motion (this is a road movie, after all) to avoid getting bogged down in whiny teen solipsism. You might not believe that any of these kids exist, but you’ll enjoy hanging out with them.

Shadow in the Cloud has that boisterous B-movie energy, and it’s a reminder that narrative shamelessness is permissible, even welcome, in the hands of an assured storyteller.

The film traces a strong, steady line to a foregone conclusion, and that steadiness is exactly the point.

The indisputable star here is Johnson. She balances Anne’s dissonant scorn and sweetness with aplomb, her usual soft-spoken, sarcastic shtick perfectly suiting the character. Even when forced to do truly regrettable things, like wink directly at the camera, she exudes charm.

Make no mistake, Petrov’s Flu is a formidable piece of filmmaking; it is also an exercise in style that uses its own virtuoso technique as a blunt-force tool against the audience.

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.

If you love Christmas movies for all the reasons that make them Christmas movies, Almost Christmas is a Christmas movie for you.

Dibb’s adaptation will have less of an impact if you aren’t seeing this story play out for the first time, but if you are seeing it for the first time, it’s probably going to break your heart.

Arcel has created a film that is big, bold and over-the-top, but it has the right guy at its center to hold everything together – and, in a touch we didn’t know we needed, that guy has the right person by his side.

Polsky’s film digs into the rot in his characters’ psyches for a time but gradually climbs back out again, perhaps in an attempt to put their madness in a larger context social context. But mostly the final act of the film comes across like clunky, though well-earned, moralizing.

It’s not full of revelations about a young woman who has always been frank and open about her insecurities and mental health issues, but it feels honest and delivers some nuance in the way it celebrates and explores its subject.

It’s intelligently crafted and falls together quite well, despite a narrative that turns complicated quite quickly. You are safe in writer/directors Logan George and Celine Held’s hands. They’ve thought it all through.

The images are vivid, but the storytelling remains elusive and elliptical, exploring the title character from different perspectives without ever pinning him down.

Without the willingness to connect the dots between his very powerful examples, Chandler creates the opportunity to indict America’s culture of violence and then disappointingly misses his shot.

With its passionate contributors and lofty ideas, Memory: The Origins of Alien demonstrates that, if nothing else, the study of a film can be as exciting as the film itself.

Even with a completely unrealistic premise, and a handful of trope problems, Long Shot is still charming enough to bring the laughs, the escapism, and the twitterpation that any great romantic comedy can provide.

That Crime 101 comes close to greatness and never quite gets there is not a crime. Even if it was, it’d be a misdemeanor.

13 Minutes is well-acted, with authentic settings and an involving structure, but it’s undercut somewhat by a rather flat love story.

As a vehicle for Shaye, a veteran character actress getting the most screen time she’s ever been given, it’s a blast to watch her anchor this atmospheric look at the personal costs and triumphs of devoting your life to duking it out with nasty presences from the other side.

Eisenberg emerges as a restrained filmmaker who has a clear idea of what he wants to communicate, and a clear, unfussy way of delivering it.

In some ways, Safdie’s approach seems casual and grounded rather than pumped up, though it’s also raw both physically and emotionally.

It’s a kind and thoughtful drama that respects its characters and has faith in them, letting them live and breathe and find the meaning in their own lives.

This time, the goals and stakes are more direct, and the overall lean storytelling works in the film’s favor, with each step from every character becoming an occasion for viewers to hold their breath in suspense.

Despite the film’s needlessly fractured structure and a relentlessly grim story, Kidman and Kusama seem to be speaking the same language, in quieter moments illuminating not just the faults of the protagonist but also the faults of every tragic hard-boiled detective in cinematic history.

In the documentary Free Chol Soo Lee, first-time doc directors Julie Ha and Eugene Yi use archival materials in an attempt to present their tragic hero in all three dimensions. Despite their efforts, Soo Lee feels just out of reach, but the story of his life remains as important as it is horrifying.

This new Man from U.N.C.L.E. would be an instant masterpiece if it were consistently as good as its best parts, but even as a hit-and-miss affair, it’s a bracing bit of late-summer fun for anyone who has given up the notion of a major studio offering anything truly revelatory until at least October.

Roberts populates convincingly elaborate underwater sets with a suitably appealing cast for a claustrophobic adventure that manages to deliver some real terror before it somewhat inevitably levels up into absurdity.

Wild Diamonds is a character study both of Liane and of the culture that has spawned her, and a film that manages to be both empathetic and unforgiving. It won’t make you think she’s making smart choices, but you’ll understand why she’s making bad ones.

A stellar script and two standout performances from Jillian Bell and the sensational Natalie Morales round out this sweet little flick which, despite its intergalactic ambitions, doesn’t stray far from a rental house in wine country.

This is a filmmaker precise in her composition and in her texture, her comedic beats reminiscent of both David Lynch and Issa Rae.

Evolution is less about healing than about haunting; it’s an odd, small and moving work that asks disquieting questions about identity after decades of trauma.

While Red Rocket very ably explores the headspace and mechanisms of the 100% beef-fed all-American huckster, it loses a step or two when it does so as a kind of morality tale assessing the damage and human toll Mikey leaves in his wake.

An awful story, in a great way.

There’s enough energy and flash, though, to overcome most nit-picking, and Butler throws himself into a performance that’s wildly physical but never cartoonish or disrespectful. (The movie respects Presley, who deserves it, but not Parker, who doesn’t.)

The film is defiantly unconventional even if it does provide enough of the usual beats to give its audience a solid footing.

This is the Sudeikis-Harris show, and it really works.

Its performances are strong — Kauchani Bratt in particular, but across the board — and its tale is moving.

Even as it concludes on those notes of sadness and grace, “Street Gang” remains appropriately celebratory and thoroughly entertaining. Let’s face it, blooper reels in which Muppets blow their lines and curse will always be priceless.

If you like your superhero comic-book movies with a truckload of angst on the side, The Old Guard might be just what you’re looking for. Or if you like your brooding dramas best when they come with a high body count, this could be the movie for a nice punchy weekend.

In laying out the facts, Costa is, for the most part, posing a series of sad questions rather than supplying the answers; in truth, she may not know whether she’s documenting a stormy political era or chronicling the end of something.

As the story builds, these characters become richer and more complicated — and the stakes become more deadly — resulting in a movie with a delayed but no less potent dramatic punch.

Yes is a tortured film, from a tortured artist, about a tortured man, meant to torture us with a kaleidoscope of anguish and a coterie of grotesques. Formally, the film nearly bursts at the seams, as Lapid’s camera spins fast and frantic and out-of-control, with the color contrast and soundtrack turned all-the-way up, keeping the film forever on assault mode.

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.

With Cousins’ wry thoughts on the films and some reflection of the meaning of it all, The Storms of Jeremy Thomas provides a colorful and entertaining canvas for some beautiful and beautifully set-up movie clips — you want to rush out and watch all of them again.

Its messiness is part of its charm and part of the point; a film that took itself more seriously than this one wouldn’t let a climactic gun battle turn into an almost cartoonish grand guignol splatter-fest.

Like a gorgeously decorated tree with a few too many presents stuffed under it, Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey is excessive but never unwelcome.

Awkward at times and affecting at others, Val doesn’t come across as a story about acting – instead, it’s a pretty straightforward tour through Kilmer’s career with lots of mostly mild anecdotes along the way.

You may never have thought you needed or even wanted a sequel to “The Croods,” but you may find it a pleasant surprise in a year where most of the surprises have been anything but.

Another star-making performance by Mia Goth — surely she’s a star now, right? How many star-making performances does it take? — and a trip back to the seedier side of a decade that’s been sanitized within an inch of its life by condescending corporate exploitation.

Concrete Cowboy is an urban drama, but it’s also a glimpse of a world most of us never knew, and a richly evocative introduction to a strange new world that has been right under our noses all along.

A treat for anyone with a taste for rock, for rock imagery and for the glories that can be found in that piece of cardboard wrapped around a record. Anton Corbijn knows those glories well, so his movie’s got a good beat and a good look.

It’s fun to watch clever people think their way out of impossible situations. What Berk and Olsen do in Villains is make it wildly entertaining to watch not-so-clever people try to do the same things.

The Suicide Squad is by no means perfect, but like the “Deadpool” movies, it’s a showcase for what can happen when a superhero movie is allowed to be sprightly, self-aware, and sardonic while also indulging in hard-R violence, gore, and language. Gunn’ latest creation is not without moments that drag, but when it pops, it pops brilliantly.

Southpaw is so simultaneously entertaining and unsurprising that it could go straight to ESPN Classic, but if these are the extremes it takes for certain people to notice that, hey, that guy from “Bubble Boy” has turned into a heck of an actor, then so be it.

Ultimately, the strengths of Unbroken far outweigh its flaws.

In Álvarez’s final flourish, the film finally forges its own identity, pushing the franchise into a territory that it has yet to go in before. It might not stick the landing — and in some ways it feels altogether silly — but the twist plays so well into the gloriously indulgent mashup play that the film runs on that, by then, you’re just happy to be on the rollercoaster ride.

It’s a sweet story about someone who doesn’t know what their story is. It’s a funny film about seriously figuring yourself out. It’s a serious film about pain, in which no one intentionally inflicts it. Craig Johnson might not have made a particularly strange film, but it’s a particularly kind one, and it’s worth loving.

Richland is a unique and heart-wrenching portrait of a town willingly taken advantage of and is a necessary documentary in an age of nuclear unease.

A film like this is always a major accomplishment, so it feels like a cognitive disconnect when the actual story it tells seems so light and benign.

Playing like variations on a theme, Jarmusch’s shaggy-dog triptych affably loops through moments of awkwardness and family strain, finding fresh notes in the repetition.

It’s got grit and power, not to mention great fake-band songs by Alicia Bognanno and Anika Pyle. And as a movie about learning to balance youthful creativity and adult responsibilities, it’s leagues better than what Disney did to Perry’s “Christopher Robin” script. Put this one on your playlist.

It’s a deliberately paced, ultraviolent, outlandishly stylish delivery system for Nicolas Cage’s wild-eyed acting style, and a thoughtful meditation about why Death Metal totally rules.

“Pompo” reveals itself to be a film about why not every single thing you do as an artist is special, and how admitting that can lead to stronger, more efficient storytelling.

The film, in short, exhilarates and exhausts in equal measure, abundant in ambition and arduous, at points, in execution. And after six long years of waiting, one can hardly fault a bit of excess generosity – even if the feast leaves you stuffed if not quite satisfied.

The movie leans into the melodrama, taking its time and milking the situation for all its worth.

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.

It didn’t take long for this fleet-footed sequel, spry and charming, to win me over.

These performances are about more than just literal nudity, of course; both leads strip away the surface layers of the characters — her brisk efficiency, his good-time party vibes — to get at the vulnerability and the complex neuroses of each.

What’s worth taking away from the film is its peacefulness. There are moments of friendship and family and workplace camaraderie that are real and charming.

Austin Peters’ Skincare knows exactly what it’s doing, balancing a sense of total desperation with just enough camp to convey its nightmarish situations without ruining your day.