In the end, Donnersmarck has it both ways: He’s sentimental and he’s provocative, a craftsman who has something to say and it going to take his time saying it.

Simien’s Haunted Mansion is a wondrous blend of horror and comedy, tinged with emotional resonance in its story of grief and how we try to connect with those we’ve lost.

As a fantasy, Gretel & Hansel is a delectably smart concoction, thoughtfully reevaluating the original tale, adding all-new layers of the ominous, and yet also keeping the story rooted in an amorphous, fairy tale past. As a horror movie, Perkins’ movie relies more on disquietude than external threat, and demands a thoughtful audience’s mental energies instead of a rowdy audience’s popcorn-spilling flinches.

Anchored by a pair of extraordinary child performances and titled like something you’d scrawl fondly under a faded photograph in a well-thumbed album, Summer 1993 is a delicately brushed memory of confusion and joy, as if the movie itself can only smile awkwardly — and eventually, tearfully — as it looks back trying to make sense of it all.

With its aura of melancholic humanity and last-minute grace, Living reminds us that we’re all susceptible to a personal “infrastructure week,” but that it’s never too late to do something about it.

On a level of sheer cinematic flourish, Miranda’s adaptation is a triumph; he really harnesses Larson’s songs for the screen and gives them tremendous life, whether or not you’d seen them before on stage.

The fight for equality rages on, but historical snapshots like Nationtime remind us of both the long road to justice and the hard work that goes into paving the way.

The way in which tradition and progress convenes amid such challenging circumstances becomes Meirelles’ tribute to his subjects. The fact that we fully believe in this apparent impossibility feels like his gift to us.

The setup is durable, as “Russian Doll” has most recently proven, but Barbakow, Samberg, Milioti and writer Andy Siara find a freshness in the way they play with it and the way they mess with the romantic comedy tropes that are all but inevitable when you stick a couple together like this movie does.

Whereas the jokes in the “Grown Ups” series feel reactionary and bullying, the family-friendly Hotel Transylvania gags (in the script by Sandler and Robert Smigel) instead come off as clever and humane, even when they’re making fun of helicopter moms and lawsuit-sensitive summer camps.

You can come for the music and stay for the politics, or vice versa; either way, it’s a vibrant document of an inspiring event that never loses sight of what that event meant for a community, a city and a culture.

Hotel Transylvania 3 always goes for the joke and rarely misses.

The story is familiar enough that it requires unerring lead performances, and though Regan has done an outstanding job working with her actors, credit must also go to casting director Shaheen Baig.

Doesn’t have the depth of Shyamalan’s most important films or the theatricality of his most memorably weird experiments. But it’s one of his best thrillers.

An elegant chamber piece that deals with big issues – life, death, family, guilt, grief – in a beautifully austere way, Coming Home Again rarely raises its voice, but it cuts deeply.

All in all, this electrifying and thought-provoking ride works as it chooses the searing over the subtle, a tough call when approaching a subject that warrants in-your-face urgency.

Ver Linden never goes the commercial route here with her high-concept idea. Like Palmer, she stays true to her goal but does give the audience several satisfying moments that call for applause.

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.

Whitney is at its most powerful when it focuses on reminding us what we all lost, because the more you think about how outstanding her gift was, the more tragic her absence feels.

In the end, Saltburn works as a distinct and wildly entertaining probe into familiar waters of privilege, rather than the definite word on it, one that reinforces Fennell as a distinguished auteur of the big and the bold even on shaky grounds.

It’s a lush and intriguing experience that works so well for so long that it can’t be undone by a few flaws.

What’s most impressive about Joker: Folie à Deux is the way Phillips willingly undercuts his own billion-dollar blockbuster. He’s looking inward. Arthur is looking inward. Hopefully the audience will too, and question why they care so much about Arthur Fleck in the first place.

Larraín’s odd little film dances to the beat of its own drum, that’s for certain. But it does pay off in a wholly satisfying way.

Delightfully unpredictable and surprisingly shocking, this is the kind of wintry wickedness that will see you through both Halloween and Christmas, especially if you like those holiday flavors together.

Throughout it all, Hawke is mesmerizing. The action scenes are tense and well-executed, though it’s the way he grounds it that makes you feel every setback.

Avery’s film is a solid piece of genre entertainment, grounded by excellent performances, and clever enough to find a new way to present the same old tropes. Like an old hunk of junk fixed and cleaned up, and made into something new again, and worth paying full price for.

The Rover is less an allegory than a suggestion how bad things could become. It's well made, and it's disturbing, if not overly passion inducing.

It’s a diabolically odd horror comedy that keeps the giggles at a steady simmer until, eventually, they’re just right.