The filmmakers may have refashioned the book to make it a vehicle for Mr. Murphy, and done so successfully. But they were right about the POV: Witnessing the turmoil of these very troubled youths through the frustrations of their teachers makes for more convincing drama than would a delinquent’s-eye view of the same situation.

All horror film is metaphorical. But to qualify for the genre itself—and satisfy the base demands of the base—a movie is required to both accelerate toward lunacy and entertain a certain amount of mayhem. “Bring Her Back” contains enough gore to swamp a blood bank. But it also features a performance by Sally Hawkins that may be the best of the year, or even her career.

Rangy in tone, style and theme, it has so much going on that a single viewing hardly seems sufficient to absorb it all. Whether it’s a masterpiece or a hodgepodge will be a matter of some discussion; the reach is evident but the grasp is a little shaky.

The Vietnam echoes are everywhere. The vocabulary is mere embellishment

The documentary’s director, Linus O’Brien (son of the show’s creator), interviews fans and outside experts to piece together the still-amazing story of how “Rocky Horror” caught on.

It’s difficult to describe the astonishing beauty of “Porcelain War” without trivializing everything and everyone involved.

It ought to be a treat to see such charismatic talents falling in love, but the only overwhelming and unstoppable force in the movie is its love for cutesy and cloying gimmicks. It’s a cinematic crime to waste these two stars: I charge “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” with unconscionably aggravated whimsy in the third degree.

Mr. Tipping ditches reasonable motivation to deliver a satirical haymaker aimed at those whose religion is football. Like many failed satires, the conclusion is more vehement than amusing.

The film is plagued by flaws: James Newton Howard’s relentlessly bombastic musical score, an elementary storyline, underwritten characters. As expertly as Mr. Greengrass recaptures the flaming horrors, his film is a somewhat superfluous successor to an excellent documentary on the same subject, Ron Howard’s 2020 feature “Rebuilding Paradise.”

The documentary becomes a reasonably engaging if unpolished account of a legendary filmmaker’s most quixotic pursuit.

With his trilogy, Mr. Haugerud has shown himself to be intelligent, compassionate and possessed of writerly flair. But filmmaking is, among other things, a demanding balancing act, dependent on a director’s taste and discernment in answering a wide array of questions—about sound, image and character, big themes and minor details. Dreams suggests he’s still trying to find his cinematic equilibrium.

If you emerge from this movie with a strong urge to rewatch the entire saga, you won’t be alone. Neither will those who emerge with tears of gratitude in their eyes.

Both the underlying story and the dramatic re-creations possess an urgency that eludes so much televised—and sensationalized—nonfiction.

If “Spinal Tap II” doesn’t quite earn an 11 on a scale of one to 10, I’d say it rates a strong 7.

The portrait that emerges is that of a fanatical protector of her public image, a movie star turned director for whom the camera was a miraculous and endlessly manipulable tool, no matter which side of it she was on.

A feature debut from writer-director Nicholas Colia, it sees its premise stretched thin and undermined by an amateurish construction. But the commitment of the cast and a handful of good comic ideas keep the proceedings watchable and amusing.

As the Roses start to become increasingly hostile to each other in front of others, the tone is meant to be hilariously nasty. Instead it’s merely monotonously vulgar, as a long string of one-liners relies more on the supposed shock value of profanity than on wit.

Who better to lead us into this netherworld than a late-night bartender, the kind who is still slinging shots at 4 a.m.? As Hank, Austin Butler turns in yet another starburst performance in Darren Aronofsky’s careening, sordid, often hilarious noir about a man on the run in a metropolis abounding with weirdos, poseurs and goons.

Hell of a Summer, as written and directed by Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk, manages to mine some fresh mirth out of the mayhem while lampooning a format’s classic conceits.

It’s easy to smile at The Thursday Murder Club, with its veteran performers chewing the scenery and still having the teeth to do it. Does that sound ageist? It might, if the charms of this lighthearted, star-studded confection weren’t all about its main characters being advanced in years and still as sharp as an insulin injection.

What’s missing from Stans is a sense of humor—not among the stans, who are self-reflecting and self-effacing. Mr. Mathers, outside of his songwriting, seems to believe that amused self-examination is a weakness to be hidden. The stans, ironically, are hiding nothing.

Mr. Coen and Ms. Cooke’s plot is such a muddle that they more or less expect us to dismiss it. The interstitial moments and incidental comedy are meant to be the chief attraction here. Minus Joel Coen, however, the jokes are thin and tired.

The entire movie comes across as awkward, even flailing to hold our interest.

Mr. Hallström, who has made some emotionally satisfying and even delicate movies (“What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” “My Life as a Dog,” “The Cider House Rules”), doesn’t really have the material here that he had in his other films. His cast is pretty; the Sagrada Familia is more eloquent.

It’s a lot of fun, but nothing special, another in a long line of semi-comical fight movies.

Mr. Assayas has crafted a beautiful and moving tableau of how one small group dealt with a bewildering change. The time when Covid-19 ruled our lives is one many of us might prefer to forget. May our most gifted artists resist that impulse.

Its title notwithstanding, the fascinating, frustrating Highest 2 Lowest ends up somewhere in the middle.

There are a few speedbumps of illogic along the gnarled route of Night Always Comes, but they can’t negate the pace of the storytelling, Mr. García’s gymnastic shooting, or the sense of there being no bottom to the well of darkness explored by Mr. Caron.