These are two middle-aged guys having a good time, by looking forward and backward and, most of all, just by being in the moment. It’s a pleasure to ride along.

Because Munn wisely underplays, she’s able to creep across the high-wire Bateman has stretched out, in which Violet perpetually balances deadpan external calm with overwhelming internal detonation.

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.

The wispy depression drama A Mouthful of Air floats more weighty ideas about mental illness and suicidal ideation than its episodic narrative can accommodate.

Army of Thieves, a by-the-numbers heist movie and prequel to Zack Snyder’s gloomy zombie caper “Army of the Dead,” traces over that previous movie without ever improving or even just replicating its lighter elements, especially its chases and safecracking shenanigans.

What makes Eternals feel special is that, for once, the director genuinely cares as much about the character within that spectacle, as the spectacle itself.

At the Ready plays like a frightening but necessary exposé of state-sanctioned copaganda targeting young people from marginalized backgrounds to groom them into instruments of their very oppressor.

A thrilling, sprawling sensory overload that simultaneously enchants and overwhelms.

Found is told with such genuine love that it’s frequently hard to hold back tears. Once again Lipitz has focused her lens on the magic of girls and found real treasure.

There is enough here in the first hour to make this memory piece worthwhile, and Levine is clearly someone worth watching and following.

It’s an enjoyable ride with intermittently compelling moments, particularly when Buttigieg struggles to find the balance between innate personality, intellectual morality, and professional practicality. But the film simply doesn’t dig deep enough.

A film that finds a new way to address a familiar subject.

As it traverses the sacred and the factual, the film intently portrays the liminal space anyone who’s ever left home knows well. It’s the threshold between the person you were, who you’ve become, and how the two halves are at odds mutating into a unique color, a new prism-like worldview.

Suzanna is quite an alluring figure and a convincing liar. Even when the plot gets melodramatic, she remains steady, feigning confusion while passively exerting and exuding her power. It’s a character sketch steeped in old-school femininity that is curiously both nostalgic and surprisingly contemporary.

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.

Ron’s Gone Wrong offers partially realized messaging about social media while populating the story with elementary sight gags, too many overused “fish out of water” tropes, and attractive merchandise options.

Reitman’s direction may be sharp and professional, but that’s only in the service of familiar material, so it falls to an excellent cast to make the most of a very repetitive situation.

The filmmaker’s juxtaposition of overworked physicians and desperate patients offers a concentrated and intimate look at the bottomless, unimaginable depths of loss as well as the indefatigable reservoir of hope that sustains humanity during its darkest moments.

Set on a remote farm in the Icelandic tundra that could center either a horror film or a children’s fable, Valdimar Jóhannsson’s debut feature — which is sorta both — is in certain ways unexplainable, and in other ways as straightforward as a family portrait.

Presumably, Sudeikis took this job to prove his dramatic skills, and he does deserve credit for achieving that goal. What he’s never able to generate, though, is a compelling case for the movie itself.

Fever Dream delivers its jolts with a whisper and not a scream, and its enigmatic final shot vibrates with a deep sense of dread, one that won’t leave after the lights come up.

As a representative display of historical-but-reimagined players on well-worn ground, The Harder They Fall has undeniable pop, but as a movie needing character, narrative, and pacing beyond revitalized nostalgia, it’s all too often a bloody, showy mishmash that rarely holds its clichés and archetypes together with any lasting resonance.

Building on 2019’s solidly entertaining animated entry, The Addams Family 2 remains kooky and fun, yet it lacks the warmth from the previous film and feels more juvenile, too.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage is a bold and brisk superhero story, unlike any other mainstream Hollywood film in the genre. It crams a heck of a lot of movie into an hour and a half, but it doesn’t feel like it needed to be longer. It just feels like we need more movies like it.

No Time to Die will be remembered for its emotional impact above all. And, to cap it all, Craig may well have delivered the most complex and layered Bond performance of them all.

Content with dipping its toe into a social issue without risking much, what’s most revealing in The Jesus Music is what’s left out.

The rom-com veneer acts as the sugar that lets the film’s more serious medicine go down, and Schrader understands this territory well.

Surge captures the protagonist’s collapse but shies away from catharsis, judgment, or context. Karia’s film lives in the moment and no matter how overwhelming it may seem, the moment is fleeting.

If there’s a quibble with this graphically imagined The Tragedy of Macbeth, it’s one common to the movies Coen made with his brother: It’s ruthless, intelligent, and entertaining, and mightily drinkable as filmmaking, without necessarily raising the emotional temperature past a clinical, grim efficiency. Often, even with the never-not-human Washington going for it, dazzlingly so.

The new characters are all one-dimensional, and we learn nothing new about the old characters from the series.

Amirpour takes on the Big Easy, mixing a heady cocktail of EDM beats, Hollywood treacle and southern sleaze and sipping down Bourbon Street.

In the aggregate, Karam’s directing is so meticulously composed about conveying the density of what’s unsaid, and the mood around the people instead of the people creating the mood, that “The Humans” can feel a bit suffocating.

It’s all too rare that audiences are treated to a big-screen examination of a woman’s inner turmoil, let alone a woman in the grandmotherly phase of her life; this one pops with both acrid wit and meaningful drama.

Inu-Oh may get messy with its plotting, but that never dulls its impact. It’s a siren scream of a musical: angry and beautiful, rapturously animated and highly infectious.

Lifshitz envelops Sasha and her family in a sort of visual cocoon, as if to cradle them, shooting them in gentle afternoon light when they’re outside and in protective shadows when they are inside their house. His touch here is so delicate that it makes most American talking-heads documentaries look particularly crude and formulaic by comparison.

Co-directors Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn would rather offer viewers a no-concept, light and breezy big-screen hangout, betting that audiences will turn out to watch a pair of beloved celebs cut loose, and that the actors’ megawatt charisma will be enough to carry the show. At least for a certain amount of time, the bet pays off.

The Western is a genre weighted down with dark history, and Henry is a man in the same position, haunted to a degree that Nelson makes transfixing.

It’s a very entertaining trip, but it doesn’t really go anywhere: If you go in loving Kenny G you’ll come out that way, and if you go in hating him you won’t change your mind.

What unfolds is a bone-chilling account of what is widely regarded as the largest prison rebellion in U.S. history.

“Becoming Cousteau” could have used a little more focus on his earthly experiences.

The Survivor needs to be an unpleasant movie to watch, because you don’t want to simply use Nazi atrocities to advance the plot. So Levinson doles them out, makes them shock and then ties them into the postwar Haft standing in a ring and enduring merciless beatings.

Dark and unsettling, The Forgiven doesn’t ask us to like its characters, but it forces us to watch as privilege begins to shatter and people for whom everything feels inconsequential have to deal with consequences.

My Name Is Pauli Murray more than rests its case on Murray’s brilliance and important contributions.

Wife of a Spy doesn’t necessarily change its tone when the stakes are raised so much as shift its concerns from what’s on the surface to what courses underneath in a time of war.

At its best — when the flow of voices, archival clips (co-director Pollard being a master at the textural impact of found footage), and nicely blended-in recreations made to look archival, is thematically strongest — "Citizen Ashe" becomes a documentary about how experience becomes voice becomes action.

At the end of the day, “DASHCAM” actually doesn’t seem to have much of a point to make. It’s a mean little joke of a horror movie, one where the worst people seem to live longest and endure no consequences, and if that’s what “DASHCAM” has to say about life itself then fair enough, but it’s not presented with cleverness or pointed satire. Savage’s film just keeps digging a hole and somehow it never reaches any depth.

King Richard may be a fairly straightforward biopic, but it’s an enjoyable one, giving viewers the chance to enjoy a heartwarming if not uncomplicated story, talk about parenting and the stresses the many characters faced on their way to the history books

A road movie that, considering who made it, starts pretty far down that road, Cry Macho is familiar and loose, sometimes rattly, occasionally wince-inducing, and in a few moments genuine in ways no one else seems to know how to do anymore.

It’s messy at times and melodramatic at others, and its treatment of mental health issues is not the most nuanced, but those feel like quibbles given the joy you can find in its best moments.

Does the film explain “Hallelujah?” Of course not – the song stubbornly resists explanation, because it’s so many different things and because there’s a beautiful mystery at its heart. Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song is smart enough to embrace that mystery and that beauty, and to know that there’s far more to Cohen than can be summed up in four, or seven, or even 150 verses.

A crisis scenario striving for issue-driven importance that should have paid more attention to its dull suspense mechanics, slapdash style, and implausibility.

For a film that tries to be a bravura piece of genre-hopping cinema, “Encounter” too often feels confused rather than assured.

As tragic biopics go, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain isn’t interested in wallowing in misery. Instead, this amusing retelling of Wain’s life is a way to introduce his quirky illustrations to a new generation, putting them in a new light that’s more in line with the irreverent and animated creatures Wain once imagined years ago.

The film feels true in the way it must be exploring Branagh’s memories of a tumultuous and confusing time, and the way it pays tribute to a vibrant community as that community is irrevocably changed.

What some might find dramatically unsatisfying about the film’s climax directly comments on the inequities of the era and the limited options offered to women, and there’s no shortage of rich storytelling, acting, and visual potency leading up to it.

That blend of tones is not always smoothly handled, but there’s enough heart in its express train of ambition, flaws and fallout to allow its leading lady wide berth for a wonderfully committed, soulful, even sexual turn admirably devoid of caricature.

The smooth professionalism of so many outstanding participants can’t help but elevate a very ordinary film a little bit higher. Despite the best efforts of both McCarthy and O’Dowd, though, there’s never a moment where it truly takes flight.

Moratto’s concise firecracker of a movie is straightforward in its soul-crushing blows and an essential piece of social-realist cinema for our times.

Adapting Eric Jager’s 2004 non-fiction book with screenwriters Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Nicole Holofcener, Scott spins a medieval yarn that is by turns gruesome, grotesque, gorgeous and inconsistent.

Fuqua, like Möller before him, doesn’t really give you time to sit back and think about it. The Guilty stays in one place but moves like a tough, efficient action flick; it’s a thrill ride in an office chair.

Natalie Morales’ directorial debut Language Lessons creates a warmth that so often gets lost in these virtual meetings. With her gentle guidance and two very heartfelt performances, the result is a warm, lovely film about platonic affection and the human need for connection.

Malignant might not hold up to scrutiny but by the time all its mysteries are revealed, it’s clear that it was never supposed to. It’s an absurdly entertaining frightfest with a heavy emphasis on the absurd, and thank heaven — or hell — for it.

There are, of course, countless prisms through which to examine the events of 9/11 and their lingering impact, but Come From Away offers one that is stirring and funny, moving but never mawkish. It’s a story that provides hope without turning its eyes from despair.

Green seems less interested in rewriting the “Halloween” playbook than in giving audiences what they came for, from ghastly scares to a ghoulish score. It’s a strategy that promises to make the series as immortal as Michael Myers himself.

The Capote Tapes can feel a bit chaotic and lopsided at times, but it makes clear that Capote is a figure who continues to command the public’s attention.

Regardless of your political leanings or affiliations, Fauci is an education on what civil service looks like. And Dr. Anthony Fauci leads the pack.

The darkly funny American indie drama Small Engine Repair works best when it’s a hangout comedy starring three schlubby New England burnouts.

Its intensity burns like the sun which makes Neil’s skin blister, peeling off a layer we hope might reveal more. Franco is scratching away at the surface, too, making the sort of movie you come away from with questions, wondering if you’d blinked and missed something.

The Rescue is an enthralling documentary, with a real-life story so spectacular you can hardly believe it. That’s why the film’s overwhelming polish sometimes undermines the real-life story it’s trying to tell.

The Lost Daughter is a masterwork in perception and all that society places upon mothers and motherhood.

While it doesn’t come together seamlessly, there are wonderful moments between Dinklage and Bennett, even Harrison Jr. and Mendelsohn have their moments to shine. Perhaps it’s why this version of Cyrano felt so bittersweet, leaving the audience with a sense of what might have been.

If you’re a diehard fan, you’ll probably glory in what the film delivers and wish there were more of it; if you’re not, you may find yourself power-chorded into submission sometime before the 2-hour and 17-minute running time comes to an end.

When viewed with both eyes open, Worth is a thematically confusing motion picture, no matter how good the acting is. If the film exists to sell us on how great the fund was, it blew it, because we’re left with troubling and unanswered questions. If the film exists to raise those questions, it cops out by resorting to treacly melodrama. And it cannot effectively do both.

Mixing glorious pastiche and gory ghost story, director Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho will stand as one of the best London movies of new decade.

Villeneuve’s Dune is both dazzling and frustrating, often spectacular and often slow. It’s huge and loud and impressive but it can also be humorless and bleak – though on the whole, it tries valiantly to address the problems of taking on Herbert’s complex epic.

While it might not be as revolutionary as its subject, Julia celebrates not only the woman but also her joy and passion for the creation and consumption of delicious food. Just be warned: It’s not a film to watch on an empty stomach.

The character complexities grow out of Mills’ divinely extraordinary writing.

Its feverishly edited volume of concert footage and first-person interviews occasionally delivers a slightly dizzying chronology of Bernstein’s life and times, but Tirola does an exceptional job of showcasing the irrefutable truth that he contained a few more multitudes than most.

Clarke and his collaborators have achieved a historical record in and of itself, documenting not just this compelling bond and friendship but also a crucial period in the Black freedom struggle that should serve as a valuable resource for years to come.

Even when considering how it’s graced with splashes of stylistic bravado and how vigorously head-on it distills its heady themes (all to an extent rehashed from Schrader’s own body of work) — not to mention the decision to keep part of the gruesomeness off-screen and concluding the piece on a semi-hopeful note — The Card Counter still doesn’t come across as urgent or magnetic as other efforts.

The canned British character study Mogul Mowgli disappoints on a few levels, especially given its admirable focus on authenticity and cultural identity in a kitchen-sink drama about Zed (Riz Ahmed), an aspiring British Pakistani rapper.

Who You Think I Am may ultimately be just a corker of a melodrama, but at least with Binoche and a director enamored with the hurt, power, and sensuality she provides, it’s a tingly riff on a very 21st century kind of dangerous liaison.

It might be hoped that the passage of time could give him some fond or melancholy distance from such material, but Sorrentino serves up his memories in an unappealingly inert and flat manner.

For a movie that appears to stop and start as it shifts its focus a few times too many, denying us longer introspection into its most magnetic man-to-man rapport, The Power of the Dog thrives on having actors so submerged in the fiction that they are creating a reality. Their subcutaneous labor translates what’s unsaid into fleeting but telling gestures.

Parallel Mothers often finds Almodóvar doing Almodóvar, leaning into all of his tics and obsession for this tale of two women whose lives become forever linked when they meet in a maternity ward.

Cinderella has far less substance than [Cannon’s] other features, ultimately making this a one-time, forgettable watch.

Clara Sola mixes religion, mysticism and sexuality in a way that feels simultaneously odd, disquieting and richly rewarding. It starts out beautifully restrained and ends up somewhere else entirely, but it’s all the more interesting for its split personality.

Deception, as a novel and as a film, offers a curio for obsessives, a postcard for archivists, and a not-too-interesting bump in the road for everyone else.

No Man of God may have been written by a man, but you can’t help feeling the reason this umpteenth examination of a modern devil works as well as it does is because, as a woman, Sealey knows where the exploitation traps are and avoids them by focusing on the people in her frame, their exchanges well-paced by editor Patrick Nelson Barnes.

Everlasting Storm is an anthology film that is as uneven as most anthology films, but one that offers a disquieting and essential snapshot of the time from which we hope we’re emerging. Like the lockdown itself, it can be a slog and it can be a kick.

DaCosta uses a range of thoughtfully considered media to shape their already-sharp script; the film’s violence is equally startling whether it’s depicted graphically and up-close, or through old-fashioned shadow puppets and oral traditions.

In all too many ways, it’s a predictable, tiring wade as both a domestic tale and a pandemic yarn.

Even if it was long overdue, or maybe precisely because it was, “Black Widow” still felt like the remnant of a timeline before heroes had reached total market saturation. “Shang-Chi,” by comparison, feels like the new beginning that its predecessor was meant to be, as much as anything, because it truly ventures in a new direction — building distantly on the world that has now become common moviegoer knowledge, but adding stylistic flourishes and an unhurried pace from Cretton that suggests it’s content to be its own story instead of a cog in a larger machine.

The Night House works as an exploration of grief because of Rebecca Hall’s incredible performance, plain and simple. But as a horror film, it overpromises early on and then fails to deliver on any chills that go beyond a jump scare.

Ultimately, Campbell’s film fails because it can’t decide whether to be cheeky escapism or a thoughtful character study, instead landing in between with something repetitive and too often a little dull.

It’s hard to get lost in Cameron’s images or Joy’s workmanlike direction given how often they’re overwhelmed by her flashy dialogue.

Demonic isn’t just a low-budget supernatural–sci-fi thriller; it’s also a shallow one, a boring one, a poorly conceived one — and the characters stink too.

True to formula, the neatly wrapped ending is telegraphed from continents away. But even under those rules, Harwood’s already rarefied quality and Butterell’s adept choices in his film directorial debut — his familiarity with material yields a positive transfiguration from stage to screen — color Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, a high-heeled and glossy romp that’s radical in its loving optimism.