Howard’s film is a love letter to the icon, but ultimately Pavarotti is a more of a celebration of the individual behind that façade and a reminder that it’s as much his humanity as his talent that made him a star.

Writer-director Mariama Diallo’s debut feature Master doesn’t just blur the lines between the horror genre and institutionalized racism; it convincingly argues that there’s no meaningful difference.

Hill’s made an unabashed love letter to a particular decade, sure, but also to a specific moment in everyone’s life. And while he undercuts his own movie by romanticizing even the most extreme experiences of lost innocence, the purity of Stevie’s longing makes the movie’s wistful fantasy understandable.

Nothing about the interactions between Daniel and his former pen pal in the second half of the movie are even remotely believable, and so the rosy climax of Private Desert enters the dangerous realm of fantasy and wish-fulfillment, revealing that the makers of this film are as recklessly naïve and morally questionable as their protagonists.

The failure of Catfight lies not with the leads, then, but with wasted opportunity.

It’s unexpectedly touching and even lovely, a grandly sad benediction to people who don’t need no stinkin’ test to tell them who their soulmate is.

Boseman’s roiling magnetism goes a long way toward making it all work.

Although it’s extremely competent, it fails to add a new perspective to the story, or a distinctive approach to its telling.

The first hour or so of Mothering Sunday can be very enjoyable because Husson (“Girls of the Sun”) does not take what little narrative there is too seriously and instead dedicates herself to making O’Connor into the most attractive possible love object for her camera.

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.

Their street-level stories, frequent Cannes winners since 1999’s “Rosetta,” typically hinge on a central desperation tied to simple survival, but when played out with their trademark visual restlessness and character-driven purposefulness, they’re often as nail-biting as any genre exercise or melodrama.

A disappointingly standard biopic, one whose technical flaws and paint-by-numbers clichés threaten to overshadow its subject’s compelling story.

The pacing is far from what you’d expect in a Hollywood movie with this much action, which can make the film feel longer than its 116 minutes. But that rich languor and love of words is earned, and do you really want to tell Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche to hurry up? No. You. Do. Not.

Trying to overwhelm the audience with spectacle, as “Kingdom” attempts to do, is a sorry substitute for the detailed characters and thoughtful conflicts that populate prior entries in the series.

If you can separate the art from the artist — as most of us do at some point, or there’d be almost no movies or plays or novels or music or paintings left to enjoy — it’s a stone-cold gas.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them has all the makings of a huge family blockbuster, but all the bloated traps of those, too. It hasn’t quite got the balance right.

It’s tricky to tell a feel-good story in a time in which many people are feeling anything but good, but “Becoming” film insists on doing just that.

It’s all about radical acceptance but can only talk about the real-world application of its message in general metaphors, so people who don’t actually accept 'weird,' 'different' kids won’t have to think about how wrong they are.

Armstrong crams just about every strategy and justification late capitalism can produce into densely packed dialogue that the film’s core quartet of actors make sound remarkably organic.

Lighthearted in tone yet intellectually intriguing, the L.A.-set film ponders valid queries about identity, even if they’re almost entirely sustained by dialogue.

Does Deadpool 2 pick up its predecessor’s baton and run off to new and exciting places? Not really. Is it as tasty as leftovers on the second day? Absolutely. Temper your expectations accordingly.

O’Connor’s work here behind the camera is equal to Affleck’s in front of it, as the two of them navigate this character’s complex minefield of shortcomings both earned and adopted, never letting him off the hook but attempting to explore and understand how and why these destructive patterns of behavior settle into rhythm.

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.

I Care a Lot may have delusions about being a cautionary tale of elder abuse and the perils of court-appointed guardianship, but let’s be honest: It takes way too much delight in despicable people doing despicable things to really care a lot, or even much at all, about the larger social issues.

At times, The Infiltrator feels like a movie we’ve seen before, but deft performances and Furman’s sharp sense of the era transform it into an engrossing drama.

There are the expected clichés voiced here about how music can transform hearts and minds, but Gay Chorus Deep South is most useful as a way of seeing how intolerance hides behind evasive Southern hospitality and how it might be vanquished with what that hospitality seeks to avoid: direct confrontation.

This is a film with an agenda in mind, granted, but it’s too witty and too heartfelt to be dismissed as a mere public service announcement. Audiences may get a message out of this message movie, but they’ll also get a movie.

There’s probably no real reason for Mary Poppins Returns to exist at all, but now that it’s here, it does at least find some moments of delight even as it travels a familiar path.

The kids will love it. And actually, you might, too.

Malmberg’s documentary is quick to gloss over rough patches in both Mickey and Disney’s shared histories.

“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.

A heartwarming, horrifically violent homage to the most lovable dreck ever produced outside of the studio system.

Miss Stevens bears a maturity and genuineness that thankfully feels miles apart from the inspirational assembly line of Hollywood product.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is for the fans, all right, but in that expression’s worst way.

For as prolific a filmmaker as Ozon continues to be, his occasional misses are far outweighed by his offbeat and insightful forays, particularly in the realm of sexuality — the best parts and the crazy-making parts. For audiences equally interested in his insights about loss and about love, there’s plenty to ponder in Summer of ’85.

The gender-driven power struggles in Widow Clicquot are in some ways the most conventional part of the film, which can soar in one moment and feel routine in the next.

The beats are too predictable — and even though the film tells a story we may not have known until now, the storytelling is too familiar.

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.

White Girl wants credit for its provocations, but it’s not provoking us towards any particularly insights, just pointing out that white privilege exists and then calling it a day. It’s “Woke af: The Movie.”

This isn’t the first sequel to desperately transplant its characters into a tropical or jungle locale, and it isn’t the best. Then again, the competition includes Weekend at Bernie’s II, Speed 2: Cruise Control and Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise, so it isn’t the worst either.

Call it scenery in search of a film. Call it a film in search of a purpose. Call me when Guiraudie releases his next one, because, damn, the guy’s got talent.

This is filmmaking that demands to be noticed, if not always trusted.

When chewing through some oddly phrased text, Qualley’s non-verbal tics offer twice the information with half the winces, making “Stars at Noon” sometimes feel like two films in one. There’s the paranoid thriller and the dreamlike dirge; a steamy drama and its feminist reappraisal; the work of a master with the promise of new kinks to iron out and maybe greater heights to which to soar.

Equal parts horror masterclass and internal home-invasion thriller, “Ouija” is as chilling and nerve-racking as they come. It’s a sort of cinematic heart attack — irreparably damaging to the body and mind, with a slow recovery time.

I do understand that the message McMillin wants to make is how much harder these kids have to try to be looked at as Americans, even when they love and are devoted to a sport that is as American as apple pie. But by not adding moments of joy, those little wins here and there, and forgetting to show the beauty that this community holds, he does what so many others have already done — othering them, even in their own story.

For their reinvention of Father of the Bride, Alazraki and Lopez manage to make it feel so rooted in the Latino background of their characters that comparison to the older films doesn’t seem all that relevant. This one stands on its own.

Jones’ debut is stuffed to the brim with the sharp dialogue and rich costumes that bring us back to the period romance genre again and again. Her direction is serviceable, and the pacing never lingers too long, keeping the laughs and romance coming.

It works as well as it does precisely because of an intelligence, humanity and restraint we rarely see in Hollywood films.

It’s silly and occasionally a little slow, and it could use the kind of in-person audience that it won’t get in these pandemic days. But if you felt any affection for “Bill & Ted” in the past, you’ll feel it again here, because the movie rides on the same kind of goofy charm as its predecessors.

Liman’s tone, channelled through Cruise gently straining to deconstruct his own iconography, achieves neither real comedy nor actual tension. The movie feels lightweight, even while pointing fingers at the American government’s meddling foreign policy and lies.

It gets away with missteps because of how consistently heartwarming and affable the people on screen are. Clemons and Offerman are especially effective, with Frank’s earnestness comically shot down by Clemons’ quick-witted preciousness.

Grahame’s contributions to cinema are more than worthy of a reevaluation. Her complications, too, deserve more than this tepid, uncurious portrait.

It’s a bit of an irony for ¡Viva Maestro! that Braun’s having to fit unexpected events and thorny issues of arts and politics, into what was surely intended to be a straightforwardly image-burnishing biodoc, has ultimately created a better in-the-moment movie.

There are plenty of truths to be found in Last Flag Flying, and a great deal of sincerity as well. But regrettably, there is not much in the way of understatement.

This sequel might lack the delightful jolts of its predecessor, but it nonetheless maintains a slow boil of terror that’s consistently unnerving.

The scattershot new media satire Vengeance might have been merely a toothless provocation replete with both-sides false equivalences were it not so well-scripted and well-directed on a scene-to-scene basis.

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 more commercial way of doing this story would have been to make Pat into a flinty and sassy guy no matter what, but Stephens chooses the more realistic path of making him into a person with flaws and a great deal of vulnerability, almost to a fault.

At last, an Aronofsky film where it doesn’t feel like he hates us. O brave new world, that has such movies in it.

Pawn Sacrifice is intelligent, absorbing, never boring, and skillfully tense when it should be.

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.

With Carousel, Lambert’s new romantic drama starring the excellent duo of Chris Pine and Jenny Slate, she strikes gold yet again.

While this new “Dragon Ball” spinoff may not be all things to all viewers, it’s also a thrilling showcase for Toriyama’s beloved characters.

This is a film that dares to be about something while still delivering as a piece of straightforward entertainment.

This new mainly live-action Disney version of the oft-told story directed by Bill Condon feels largely perfunctory. Where it flounders most is on the miscasting of several crucial roles.

On a gutbucket genre-film level, Alien Covenant delivers when it delivers. As with so many of its monster-movie peers, however, there’s just not much to it when the creature isn’t preening for its close-up.

Sprawling where “Son of Saul” was focused and frustrating where it packed a punch, Sunset is nonetheless an audacious step for a director who prefers immersion to exposition. It’s not easy, but it’ll get under your skin.

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.

Deadpool is one of those movies that’s all the more successful for how easily it could have gone so very wrong. It’s suffused with an arch, self-aware wit...yet it takes its romance and revenge storylines just seriously enough to keep us engaged.

This time around, writer-director Tim Hill steps in, and he’s managed to take the goofy denizens of Bikini Bottom on a road trip that is visually dazzling and almost consistently hilarious, mixing verbal and physical humor, as well as some perfectly chosen cameos, both in-person and among the voice cast.

Garland’s active engagement with his themes, moods, and show-stopping ick is still something to be reckoned with in today’s climate of fear in the film industry regarding original stories.

The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part is a delightful all-ages adventure with the potential to reach even the most cynical and weary of us.

Saccharine is not a film that goes down easy, but you may just find yourself hungering to return for a second course to get a better sense of what James is serving up.

The story of a woman dismissed by those around her who asserts herself through art testifies to the indomitable power of creativity. Why turn that compelling story into a predictable romance?

That there is a genuinely clever current running through it about the cinematic history of sharks and the fear they hold in our imagination is just a little added bonus that offers a bit more to chew on.

Take Me to the River isn’t a horror movie, but then it’s not not a horror movie, either. It’s a slowly tightening vise, all about suspicion and hostility and resentments and what people aren’t talking about when they talk to each other. A stunning debut feature from writer-director Matt Sobel, Take Me to the River is Polanski, with cicadas.

There’s a sadistic streak in High-Rise that’s simultaneously hypnotizing and unnerving. If there’s a morality to Wheatley’s world, it’s nebulous at best.

Recreated footage of the rovers flying to, landing on, and carefully exploring the red planet tend to be the most engrossing material in White’s scattershot documentary, which too often tries to humanize the rovers’ handlers by playing up their emotions instead of their accomplishments.

It does have an intimacy that is rare for Swift, from the opening scene of her playing piano while one of her cats walks across the keyboard to several revealing glimpses of her writing songs in the studio.

Thanks to Kore-eda’s characteristic practice of thoughtful scripting and gentle direction, the metaphors, though too numerous, land gently and effectively.

For a sequel to a nearly 30-year-old movie, Twisters miraculously stands out against the modern blockbuster landscape. Just like Twister did back in 1996. It’s the rare legacy sequel done right.

For all the wonderfully weird entities and world-building — with the adorable Splat being the standout — the filmmakers are unable to cohesively merge the fanciful tone with the overbearing precepts they seek to impart.

"Deidra & Laney” shows an easy flair for heartwarming comedy, character eccentricity and issues that sting but resolutions that soothe.

What saves this wallflower of a drama is its focus on the women’s friendship, which Mosaku and Horn sell with aplomb.

While Landon has made fun genre outings before with “Happy Death Day,” “Happy Death Day 2U,” and “Freaky,” Drop is, at its best, never more than just down the middle. At its worst, it’s an oddly clunky experience that strands its performers with little to work with.

The filmmakers’ connection to the material is always palpable and undeniably affecting.

If The Good Nurse is about anything, it’s about dedication and stoic compassion, rather than a headstrong sense of morality, and the film, like its protagonist, is all the better for that.

The film always has Majors on its side, pulling us back in right as we are ready to step away from the intense barrage of rage. Anchored in his greatness, Magazine Dreams can get away with most of its flaws.

Cooley’s movie feels like what the Transformers films always should have been — adventure films the whole family can enjoy regardless of any pre-existing affection for the world of Transformers.

Derrickson and Cargill successfully tailor their focused and mostly compelling narrative to a Steven Spielberg/Amblin Entertainment–esque bit of Stephen King–sploitation.

Kruger is entirely commanding.

The pros don’t come from trustworthy sources and the cons require a lot more elaboration.

Aster has always had a knack for confrontation, while Phoenix works best as an open-nerve. That the duo should prove so adept tapping into a vein of neurotic action is one of the many brutal surprises in a social satire as blunt and broad as America itself.

It’s far more successful with holiday magic than it is with character-based comedy, but that’s not enough of a flaw to keep young audiences (and their parents) from potentially turning this feature into a cherished annual tradition.

In truth, the movie can be pretty ridiculous, too, with its wild ambition sometimes coming across as a little foolhardy. But overreaching might be the whole point of The End, which offers an end-times prescription for living: Hold the fantasy together as long as you can. And when in doubt, sing.

The press notes for Stop-Zemlia call Kateryna Gornostai’s coming-of-age story “radical, authentic, and sensitive.” The latter two descriptors are accurate. The movie’s power, however, comes not from any radicalism but from how authentically ordinary it feels.

Hostiles, Scott Cooper’s mournful meditation on human nature, is more than a revisionist Western; it’s a film that explores the roots of racism and the cost of redemption.

The couple’s talk about dreams deferred is too knee-jerk to warrant sympathy. And though a lot of quiet in between their squabbling is sometimes a relief, it ultimately points to an underdeveloped script that suggests it’s more profound than it is. These two are a little too comfortable with silences.