Given its multitalented cast, Rough Night should have committed to the darkness (originally, the screenplay’s title was Move that Body). In execution, the women are asked only for flop sweat and nervous jabbering. Party on.

The film gets so many exquisite details just right—the vacuous party guests, Hayek’s slightly self-righteous pose, the happy clink of the wine glasses—that it’s a letdown to realize the movie doesn’t have a proper ending. You take it home with you and argue about it.

The film glows with the kind of sweetness last seen in John Crowley’s "Brooklyn." All it asks of you is an open heart.

It’s all well and good for the under-12s, but this movie never packs the kind of emotional punch we know Pixar is capable of.

The Beguiled has its jolts and its laughs, but mostly this glides along like a mildly saucy yet poetically made parable, well-dressed, well-designed and well-performed.

The actors are what save it. Not only does Johnson build on his subversive 
persona of hulking, dim-witted likability, 
but he’s joined by Neighbors’ Zac Efron, today’s reigning king of the hazy one-liner.

A taut kidnapping drama, this ferocious Australian export leaves no doubt about the limitless potential of a handful of characters in close quarters.

An epic, often funny testament to creative fearlessness.

Put your fingers in your ears when the talking starts, and you might enjoy the view.

It Comes at Night is a film of tense gradations, a chamber piece set at the twilight of humanity.

As the film advances its more adventurous ideas about privacy, it suddenly feels like a lecture written by a twelve-year-old. Worse, The Circle ends precisely when it’s getting interesting; you’ll wonder if the production simply ran out of money. Movies about the dangers of rampant interconnectivity are welcome in this day and age, but let’s please make them a little more courageous.

You have to swallow some inadequacies to get the most out of The Promise. It is appealingly photographed and boasts some stunning location work, yet it’s also saddled with the tone of a biblical epic, invisibly watermarked with the label important.

A beautifully organized documentary (befitting its subject, urban planning), Matt Tyrnauer’s elegant profile sets up its iconic NYC showdown along geometric lines.

Built out of complex performances etched with economic flair, unobtrusive camera work and the faintest tinge of comic whimsy (the film’s score, by Japanese trumpeter Jun Miyake, is marvelous), Norman is an intimate film that simply has no drawbacks.

This one’s unforgettable indeed, just not for the right reasons.

Don’t think too much about the plot; it’s about as water-tight as a corporate-pension scheme. All three stars deliver exactly what you expect from them — nothing more, nothing new — but their onscreen familiarity is a strange comfort in itself.

The question at the movie’s heart is: What is best for Mary? The answer Gifted chooses is predictable, but that doesn’t stop the movie from messing with your tear ducts.

As Holocaust-era movies go (Chastain’s maternal saint begins to secretly hide Jews in her cellar), this one is neither too pretty nor too ugly—which might doom it to a particularly banal shade of detachment.

It’s definitely a horror movie but a wonderfully witty one, not for gentle souls.

The script shoehorns in more identity-grappling this time—half-baked and sub-Westworld though it is—and the squelchy synth score (by Black Swan’s Clint Mansell) supplies a playfulness that’s unearned by the visuals. Find a handy film geek to tell you all about how Ghost in the Shell was a massive influence on The Matrix. Better yet, just rewatch The Matrix.

Even if you have mixed feelings about the new suits and other shortcomings, Power Rangers will leave fans feeling sentimental.

The grandeur of this movie is off the charts. For a certain kind of old-school film fan, someone who believes in shapely, classical proportions and an epic yarn told over time, it will be the revelation of the year.

A swirly-girly sameness has taken over Malick’s flow; his movies aren’t supposed to feel like fashion spreads but they do, even as hushed narrators speak about their aching souls and lost loves.

For a faith-based film that aims to promote spiritual healing and prescribe forgiveness, The Shack is almost unforgivably joyless and visually bland.

For all its updated bluster, this update still can’t escape the shadow of 1933’s magical King Kong.

But mostly, knock it for reducing Ice Cube to the tired sneer he’s been successfully avoiding in recent films, especially in last year’s Barbershop: The Next Cut.

The main reason to commit to this movie’s tough story of orphan loneliness is the screenplay by Céline Sciamma, herself a major French talent devoted to tales of youthful resilience. (Her 2014 film "Girlhood" is breathtaking.)

In the film’s second half, the two characters have roughly swapped social positions — Mindy is about to get married — but their sexual attraction (never fully expressed) remains a palpable thing. Try this one.