The truth is that “Rocky IV” and Creed II sharing the same cinematic universe requires supreme suspension of disbelief. But taken as descendants of the original, “Rocky IV” is the delinquent you never talk about, while Creed II at least knows how to keep the family business humming.

There’s enough good-naturedness and cultural specificity here, alongside a slight deviation from the usual immigrant narratives, to render it a dollop of sweetness and novelty that goes down easy.

In this time for movies about teens in trouble, it’s the mom in this one who packs the biggest punch.

An atheist’s inverse Balthazar, Wiener-Dog witnesses and experiences suffering but cannot transform that pain into anything substantive, nor can she redeem those around her.

The Founder never steps up to become the biting satire of American capitalism it so begs to be. The film is not here to praise Ray Kroc, but neither is it here to bury him.

If you strip away the things that make this such an unusual release in such an unusual year, you’ll find a pretty good movie and one that approaches this story with heart and with fresh eyes.

A documentary that sends up more red flags than a MAGA rally, You Cannot Kill David Arquette is nonetheless a robust (albeit bloody) piece of entertainment. And it’s also a character study of a guy who’s revealing himself to us regardless of whether what we’re seeing is reality or construction.

Chilly yet compassionate, anchored by both a characteristically deep-set portrait of off-putting intelligence from Peter Sarsgaard and a poignant turn by Rashida Jones, it’s a delicate oddity that won’t necessarily replace any of your favorite cinematic New York couplings, but it’ll remind you why we often respond to an unlikely pairing built around smarts, sadness and hope.

Sasquatch Sunset is sometimes hilarious, often unique, and otherwise forgettable.

Bumblebee is, again and easily, the best “Transformers” movie. Heck, it’s probably the only genuinely good “Transformers” movie, with nary a caveat to be found. But it’s also a lively and earnest 1980s nostalgia trip, made with affection for the era and its characters and its soundtracks and its storytelling styles and, yes, even its toys.

Bajestani is believably repellent as someone whose split lives as an obsessive loner and respected family man are disturbingly concordant. And Nadim Carlsen’s gritty camerawork pushes the film’s sense of grim social realism further still, providing a viscerally authentic horror. Abbasi doesn’t seem to realize, though, that he’s creating much of that horror himself.

It’s inarguable that some fans, somewhere, will relish every detail.

Unless you’re coming to the material with the experience of, say, Steven Spielberg, “violent war biopic” and “inspirational animal drama” are a tricky combo. So while it’s perhaps no surprise that director Gabriela Cowperthwaite struggles to weave these disparate threads together in Megan Leavey, she ultimately does her heroes — both of them — proud.

There’s no denying that Driver — with film after film cementing his status as a top-tier actor — is excellent at exasperated outrage, but it’s not enough emotion to save The Report from feeling like a handsomely mounted, expertly researched op-ed.

Neugebauer, Lawrence and Henry deliver an unhurried gem that might feel slight but always feels right.

Jeffrey McHale’s feature debut, the Showgirls appreciation documentary “You Don’t Nomi,” works awfully hard to justify both its subject and its mission. But if you instantly appreciated the cleverness of its title, you’ll enjoy commiserating with fellow travelers.

The bothersome and irritating thing about the way The Midwife is written is that we keep hearing detail after detail and story after story about the shared history between Claire and Béatrice, but we never get a solid idea of what that history was.

While the digital effects are undeniably contemporary, Crimson Peak is otherwise a period homage that mostly plays like a period film, rarely giving in to contemporary notions of pacing and payoff. When the scares do arrive, however, they’re effectively unsettling.

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.

The Kid Who Would Be King is a charming story of fantasy, pop-culture references and myth-making. It’s a movie with the playful camaraderie of “Goonies” and a few elements from ’80s sagas — like “Labyrinth,” “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” “The NeverEnding Story” and “Legend” — where young people go on character-building adventures.

Director Tom Hooper shakes things up a bit with The Danish Girl, proving that he’s capable of making a movie that’s both steeped in awards-season prestige and in possession of a pulse.

Fast and funny, filled with memorable characters, and able to balance slapstick and violence without spilling too far in either direction, this frenetic R-rated farce is that rare comic gem that lands on all the spaces without ever going to jail.

Somehow, through the alchemy of acting and makeup and lighting and costuming, all traces of Zellweger are erased, and only Judy remains.

Working from a script by Matthew Robinson, the dark comedy, like other Verbinski works, feels like it’s bursting at the seams and threatening to collapse under its big ideas. And yet the threat of combustion, along with a terrific performance from Sam Rockwell, helps provide the film with its off-kilter energy that will keep you hooked until you’re exhausted.

Admittedly, it’s pretty easy to consume Wonka. After all, it’s just a piece of candy. But it’s the kind of candy that would make Willy Wonka sick to his stomach. Wonka is the sort of safe and corporate product that the hero of Wonka says we shouldn’t settle for.

Blanchett, as you’d imagine, is riveting, even when she’s saddled with the movie’s on-the-nose dialogue, not to mention a handful of fairly contrived domestic scenes.

In both the writing (in collaboration with Jean-Stéphane Bron) and directing, Alice Winocour is careful and clever in how she dispenses information.

Crumbling nuclear families are a well-worn movie genre; you could even add “in Manhattan” to that description and the examples would be many. “Landline” is simply another one, not appreciably worse than the average, but not much better, either.