Cold Copy is a tense journalism drama that ultimately can’t be saved by a group of strong leads who are running lengths with the material they’ve been given. Helberg’s directorial eye proves to be something to watch, but the story she tells falls flat in the wake of uninspired character motivations that ultimately don’t make much sense in light of the stakes at hand.

This is a movie that neither works as a quirky dark comedy about the hapless people of a small town (on that note, the film is painfully unfunny), nor as a period piece on the anxieties of the Reagan era, no matter how many “1984” references the characters throw at you.

It’s hard to imagine a film with less strength of conviction than The Flash, a time travel movie about why it’s bad to retcon the past, but which exists entirely to convince the audience that retconning the past, present and (potentially) the future of the DC superhero franchise is a super cool thing to do.

Where Bay’s movies where incoherent messes that necessitated heaps of migraine meds, Caple Jr. actually manages to pull off something articulate and rousing with “Rise of the Beasts,” thanks in large part to the ever-relatable presences of Fishback and Ramos, and a parting note that’s just witty enough in its suggestion of a bigger universe.

It’s a triumph of maximalist filmmaking, using in-your-face techniques to craft a gigantically intimate story. A wonder to behold, a shock to the senses, a thrill to one and all.

Robot Dreams—as much a movie about coupledom as it is about friendship—sneaks up on you with an ending that both eulogizes the ones that got away and celebrates the memories that they had left behind.

With story beats and character turns that strain well beyond familiarity, Elemental matches formal adventure with storytelling timidity. Here is a new spin on the old formula, livened up by advances in technology and delivered with real artistry. The film is full of complex and volatile parts, all held together in the most elemental of containers.

La Chimera is a pictorial delight to luxuriate in, as it is a philosophical wonder on the unknowability of time. The earth belongs to the past and the future, this miracle of a film quietly suggests. We just live in it.

The film is as exhausting as it is disturbing, and it’s relentlessness is in many ways the whole point as viewers spend 212 minutes looking at circumstances in which these young people, most in their late teens and early twenties, spend their daily lives.

Perfect Days has plenty of amusing scenes and plenty of touching ones, but it would be stretching the definitions to describe it as either a comedy or a drama.

Throughout, Kaurismäki shows his usual complete control of a delicate tone that could easily go awry if it didn’t work so well.

No matter how frightening the individual moments may be, and no matter how impressive it is that we only ever see enough of the monster to excite our imagination, and no matter how exceptionally the eerie sound design turns out to be, The Boogeyman never quite gets under the skin.

Paints a rich picture of full lives using little more than pauses, glances and a frozen landscape that says volumes without speaking.

It looks amazing, of course, but it might well be the least involving movie he’s ever made, with an amazing cast providing little but momentary distraction.

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.

Corsini has delivered a wonderful film, a beautifully calibrated coming-of-age drama that ever so elegantly flutters questions of race, class, guilt and opportunity through a seaside summer breeze.

Strangely, the most conventional aspect of Firebrand is its central character.

Part thorny family story, part whodunit, part courtroom drama and part meditation on the nature of truth and fiction, Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall takes two hours of conversations and makes them both provocative and propulsive.

The live-action “Little Mermaid” is a fresh take on a beloved classic that isn’t afraid to take a fairy tale and make it as real as it can, inviting its audience to dive into uncharted waters alongside its engaging and charming central characters.

Impressive in its single-mindedness, this is nonetheless a movie that dares you to try and like it – and most likely, few will take Sauvaire up on that dare.

At an hour and 27 minutes, the film has the feel of an exquisite miniature, succinct and evocative.

It’s a searing, mesmerizing and unforgettably wintry mood piece and character study.

Despite a heavy-handed cocoon motif that sometimes spells out the story’s themes to a fault, Haynes has done something spellbinding here: heady, grown-up and committed to a refreshing dose of moral ambiguity at a time in cinema where moral pandering sadly seems to be the default.

Neither provocation nor counter-point, The Zone of Interest is instead a furtherance, a new take on an ungraspable madness we must never let ourselves forget.

It’s exactly because of the repetitive, monotonous pace and structure of Occupied City, a film that smartly omits talking-head interviews and archival footage entirely, that McQueen’s excursion feels as spiritually searching as it does.

Killers of the Flower Moon is vast and vital in its scale, purpose and emotional scope, a Western-thriller and ensemble piece that is every bit a Scorsese crime picture as one can dare to imagine.

Monster manages to sink its claws into one’s conscience, thanks in large part to the movie’s young leads—like Farhadi, Kore-eda is an astute director of children, able to shepherd their performances in ways both precocious and disarmingly innocent.

If this is the final Indiana Jones movie, as it most likely will be, it’s nice to see that they stuck the landing.