Even this kind of WWIII escapism—it’s based on a 2012 novel by Don Keith and George Wallace called Firing Point—requires a sturdier hero than Gerard Butler, who finds himself in a time machine that delivers actors to rejected Tom Cruise projects.

Shirkers is at its most gripping when it doesn’t overestimate Cardona’s narrative worth—the multifaceted women at the documentary’s heart are far more appealing.

Two struggling souls come together to pull off a hoax on a world that's rejected them, in this powerhouse showcase for Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant.

A lively, uncomplicated jukebox movie. Bohemian Rhapsody is a feature-length earworm that leaves “Don’t Stop Me Now,” “We Are the Champions,” “Another One Bites the Dust” and the rest of them wriggling in your cochlea and helping to drown out any inner whisper suggesting that you’ve just had the wool pulled over your eyes by these masters of rock theatrics.

The movie is nostalgia, pure and simple, unfettered by examination. Even its title is fuzzy and vague.

It’s uncomfortable in all the right ways.

Parents will feel heard by this movie in a way that few other films have tried. Everyone else should go for the kid, who's a rocket taking off. You want to be able to say you were there when it happened.

As with his first directorial effort, the ace meta-horror The Cabin in the Woods, Goddard has a blast toying with genre expectations, although here the payoff is a lot less satisfying.

It’s a lot of plot for one sitting, but Widows will remind you of how massively entertaining crime movies can be, especially when they’re animated by the spirit of cool-headed capability, on and offscreen.

Javier Bardem does what he can to maintain his dignity.

A punk call-to-arms about being yourself, this Joan Jett documentary vibrates with attitude and a true spirit of independence.

Entertainingly, Hardy lets himself get jerked around, Evil Dead–style, but he’s never enough of a jerk—so much for that journo-snoop backstory—and Venom isn’t vicious enough to justify its own existence.

How filmmaker Robert Greene got an entire town to ham it up remains a mystery, but his gift for inviting self-interrogation (also on display in his equally fascinating Kate Plays Christine, a 2016 hybrid about an actor’s plunge into the life of a suicidal newscaster) marks him as an innovator who may become a future Errol Morris.

What makes The Favourite work are its women—who rule, both literally within the movie and outwardly, dominating our enjoyment.

The subtle pleasure of watching Tyrel comes from raising an eyebrow at every inferred (implied?) slight.

The Sisters Brothers may be a violent movie but it’s not an especially graphic one; the bad guys are coolly dispatched from a distance and with minimal Peckinpah-ish splatter. The one genuinely stomach-turning moment comes at the hands of a surgeon, not a gunman. Prepare yourself.

Lacking the grace and humor of the Fogelman-scripted Crazy Stupid Love, Life Itself gives its talented cast occasional affecting moments, but its thesis—life is full of pain that must be endured—is ultimately reflected by the experience of watching the film itself.

What makes Moore’s latest so ferocious—and pound for pound his most effective piece of journalism—is the way it pivots to a meaty central subject that isn’t Trump but has prescient echoes.

Cosmatos needs you to be charitable toward his performances. Or, barring that, he needs you to be stoned. Many will oblige: Mandy is an instant midnight mood, graced by a thickly menacing synth score by composer Jóhann Jóhannsson (Sicario), whose recent death from a drug overdose robs us of not only a singular talent but also an obvious superfan of Vangelis.

Once A Simple Favor hits the first of several I-can’t-believe-they-went there moments (there are a few too many), it loses some of its lure, and Feig never quite regains tonal control. But you won’t be bored by this.

It is wittier, warmer and more unpredictable than it has any right to be.

Let those who come to the theater counting American flags get incensed over nothing. They’ll miss something more provocative: a moment when the nation pursued excellence and, in turn, was celebrated for how smart it could be, and how big it could dream.

What elevates Halloween beyond mere fan service is the presence of Jamie Lee Curtis, whose willowy Laurie Strode has been converted, Sarah Connor–style, into a shotgun-toting shut-in with more than a hint of crazy about her.

Were it not for the hard-R violence and a generous amount of computerized splatter, The Predator would play like a slightly naughtier Independence Day or Armageddon, sci-fi movies that had their squareness dirtied up by pop-culture-riffing jokesters hired to polish up a draft or two.

The only thing Peppermint does accomplish, after Proud Mary, Traffik and Breaking In, is to cement 2018 as the year Hollywood proved itself incapable of turning out a decent female-led action film.

Hardcore genre fans will appreciate visual shout-outs to shriekers like The Exorcist III and City of the Living Dead, while Conjuring devotees will enjoy the “aha” moment of a concluding callback that brings the saga full circle.

Greengrass’s heart lies in exploring the ways a nation processes such a horrific, unexpected event, but Breivik’s odious ideas also get a comprehensive airing along the way. It makes for an uncomfortable, challenging watch.

A richly textured masterpiece, Roma is cinema at its purest and most human.