It may not always come alive in the way Heller, or us, would entirely hope for, but one can still be glad “Nightbitch” exists, especially with Adams there to lead the way. In every facet of her performance, she paints a full portrait of a character herself figuring out who she now is.

Its performances are strong — Kauchani Bratt in particular, but across the board — and its tale is moving.

An awful story, in a great way.

In a movie whose setup that almost inevitably leads to rampant sentimentality, Pugh and Garfield are enormously charming actors who are also skilled at undercutting their own charm; they commit to the sentiment without yielding to it, making We Live in Time a truly charming and surprisingly rich film.

That’s Hard Truths, in a nutshell: people. People you won’t forget, courtesy of a handful of remarkable actors and a singular director who at the age of 81 remains a true treasure.

A mesmerizing study anchored by three incredible leads, each working at the height of their craft. The material is rife for exploration, rich with nuance and discoveries. And the ending packs a wallop.

The Eggers Brothers have a canny way of balancing those wildly different tones. We’re frightened for each character, even when we point and giggle at them. It’s a twisted film.

Ultimately, Daniels has made a touching and forceful film about three generations attempting to overcome familial and societal trauma. It’s only the Devil who underdelivers.

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.

The Order might be the filmmaker’s most accomplished work to date, offsetting a kind of broody fatalism against natural splendor, and punctuating the bloody affair with an action beat.

Taken as a whole, The Brutalist both mourns and celebrates American ambition –the ambitions of an immigrant class trying for a new life with no guarantee of success, and the ambitions of a filmmaker filling a canvas with a lifetime of obsessions.

A film like Rebel Ridge reminds us that you can lose yourself in exciting, engaging, stimulating entertainment while still keeping your brain completely on.

It’s a movie about cool people looking and acting cool, for the enjoyment of the (probably uncool) people in the audience. They call it ‘star power’ because it dazzles.

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 Friend juggles the happy, the sad and the bittersweet while somehow managing not to lose the lightness that has kept it afloat.

If an algorithm recommends The Emoji Movie, Weitz’s film argues, there’s something very, very wrong with that algorithm — and there’s no denying that logic.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice goes all-in on the legacy front, offering everything you want and less, playing as a Burton buffet that leaves you stuffed if not quite satisfied, and in no real hurry to go back for thirds.

Like a sheep in wolf’s clothing, Halina Reijn’s surprisingly genteel Babygirl might bare the occasional fang, but it doesn’t have much bite.

Sean McNamara’s fawning and superficial biopic about the 40th president of the United States treats the political figure as a godlike messiah who was placed on this Earth to vanquish America’s enemies, foreign and domestic, and fall perfectly in love with the perfect woman while riding horses dramatically across the California hills.

In a movie that is stately on the surface and stormy underneath, Jolie’s drawn, almost architectural features and air of enforced restraint is ideal for Larraín’s vision of Callas. She’s a glorious, luminous wreck, looking for peace but drawn inexorably to a world of grand artifice.

A deft combination of excitement and thoughtfulness, an excellent and unexpected film.

It’s good to know that John Woo still thinks the only reason motorcycles were invented was to be shot and exploded in mid-air, but most of this action is merely satisfactory, and even after years of experimentation, CGI bullet hits still look faker than an old-fashioned squib

When you stifle the emotional simplicity of a story like The Crow to emphasize the plot, the plot had better make sense. And it doesn’t. It’s got perplexing rules and a vague chronology and nothing seems like it matters anymore.

There’s nothing really to recommend The Union except the fact that it exists and you can watch it. It’s a harmless waste of time because it’s a serious waste of a good idea.

Austin Peters’ Skincare knows exactly what it’s doing, balancing a sense of total desperation with just enough camp to convey its nightmarish situations without ruining your day.

Although The Instigators can at times feel like a Coen Brothers movie without the polish, there’s enough charm and energy flowing through Doug Liman’s picture to keep the film humming.

By the end, a part of the experience makes one wonder what sharper point Kravitz is trying to make beyond the obvious ones — and it’s clear she wants to say something — while another part simply wants to lean into the audacious experiment she’s crafted. One where the film’s tart bite is remarkably thrilling, even if there’s some hollowness to its center.

In Álvarez’s final flourish, the film finally forges its own identity, pushing the franchise into a territory that it has yet to go in before. It might not stick the landing — and in some ways it feels altogether silly — but the twist plays so well into the gloriously indulgent mashup play that the film runs on that, by then, you’re just happy to be on the rollercoaster ride.