The two-and-a-half-hour result is riveting, acted with careworn nuance down the line by an excellent ensemble, yawing this way and that in terms of narrative and emotional momentum, even as we sense early on that no clear, cathartic resolution will ever be forthcoming.

It’s an endless pleasure to see such exceptional, careful, considered filmmaking applied to such a gleefully generic set-up. Even when some of the tricks become apparent, each new repetition somehow delivers more than the last.

Kore-eda’s attitude toward what he’s showing us is so lackluster and noncommittal that it’s hard to know how to react to any of it.

It’s been a while since Bardem had a role this straight-up that he could sink his choppers into. He is always a formidable presence, but since Esteban is himself a force — charismatic and manipulative, ruthless but cunningly quiet about it — for a while we just feel like we’re watching Javier Bardem in all his handsome, magnetic and unmistakable aggro Javier glory. The subtle power of his performance, and it’s a terrific one, is that it takes us a while to grasp the kind of mind games Esteban is a master of.

The movie is engineered to be seen as “powerful.” Right now, though, I’d say that he’s an ace director who’s still being undercut by the holes in his screenplays.

Gentle Monster is a meticulously plausible depiction of the dissolution of a family under the most trust-annihilating of circumstances, but that is all it is.

Come for the arch, bitchy humor promised by the title and the director’s general social media brand; stay for the unabashed sweetness of the enterprise; leave with the distinct sense that there’s more to Firstman than his online persona.

The Japanese director’s gorgeous new feature, is the rarest type of film, not merely good enough to remind you what cinema can be, but great enough to remind you what life can be.

The movie manages to be rigorously muddled despite not being all that complicated. Maybe that’s because the tales it tells are parallel in such a sodden way. It feels like they’re competing to underwhelm you.

Ritchie goes relatively easy on the joy-of-killing stuff, at least until the climax, and there’s an engaging couple of minutes en route thanks to the simplest, cleanest action filmmaking the film has to offer: a chase involving motorcycles, police cars and some proficient editing.

A steamy stew of sex, death, VHS and junk food, as though workshopped by Eros, Thanatos, Colonel Sanders and the Jolly Rancher in the seediest recesses of a Blockbuster Video, Schoenbrun’s delirious third film is their most accomplished, most persuasive and most playful movie yet.

The unexpected formal execution draws the excitement out of what’s mostly a straightforward narrative.

An argument can be had about what will end up being the “best” animated feature released in 2026 — it’s early — but there’s little chance another film can dethrone Decorado as the most mind-bending.

It has the disposition of a vintage buddy movie and an underdog tale, one that celebrates human determination and the notion of advancement through science.

The result is a genuinely funny and ultimately heart-pounding production, with an execution that feels like a heist itself.

Balagov, however, remains the star attraction of “Butterfly Jam,” his fluent, adventurous command of sound and image keeping the film interesting even when not much is happening on screen, and tangibly atmospheric when the narrative pendulum swings too far in the other direction.

Fatherland is an incisive and ambitious movie that wants to lay bare the torn soul of Germany after World War II. It’s also a portrait of family demons and literary celebrity. The film has been made in a spirit of nearly fetishistic meticulousness; it’s as subtle as a fine wine. Yet Fatherland, as an experience, is so steeped in ideas that in the end it’s more heady than haunting.

At 99 minutes, A Woman’s Life is brisk and concentrated, but it never feels glibly selective with regard to its protagonist, permitting us access to Gabrielle at her most impressive, her most unbearable and her most disarmingly ordinary.

Nagi Notes, however, happily sees the director returning to the form of his 2016 breakout Harmonium, with the precision of its characterization and the balance between heartfelt emotional candor and pensive silence in its finely worked script.

Like the novelty gift that causes all the trouble, Obsession initially seems simplistic, and even a bit silly, in its rehash of the age-old monkey’s paw trope. Like the consequences of that ill-considered wish, however, it proves eerily hard to shake.

It seemed like an entertainment that might have something for everyone. But The Electric Kiss is so overcalculated, so stuffy and labored, so infatuated with its own conceits that I suspect it will end up satisfying virtually no one.

The movie often brushes past what might have been its most intriguing moments in favor of an unobtrusive hagiography. It approaches dramatic rigor and visual intrigue in only the briefest of scenes, often far too late into its runtime.

Both wildly entertaining and viciously upsetting, this remarkable debut boldly reaps what others have sown.

Even as it dabbles in toe-curling cringe comedy, The Travel Companion is ultimately too genial a work for such tonal extremes.

Heavy on benevolent feeling and shy of outright human conflict, the film floats and sprawls and spirals like the creature to which it’s glowingly in thrall, but a bit of spine wouldn’t go amiss.

“Hit Me Hard and Soft” is a concert film that doesn’t look and feel like other concert films. It’s a true experience, because of a combination of the show itself and the way that Cameron has filmed it.

Mortal Kombat II, a sequel to the 2021 Mortal Kombat reboot, is still an old-school video-game trash extravaganza: all sound and fury and flying bodies and jargony world-building, propped up by a sludgy excuse for a story.

You don’t leave The Last One for the Road with the feeling that you have seen something life-affirmingly original. But there is still a sense of disarming comfort in the film’s down-to-earth demeanor, and Giulio’s rewarding if predictable arc.