Good Luck to You, Leo Grande turns out to be a wise, amusing, unexpectedly touching exploration of human psyches, the bodies that house them and radical self-acceptance — by way of a literate two-hander executed by actors at supreme ease with each other and, by extension, their audience.

Like Charles himself (and maybe Brian, too), it’s an odd hodgepodge of a story: a sweet, eccentric misfit, just waiting for someone to find it, and love it, despite its flaws.

Writer, director and actor Cooper Raiff delivers an ingratiating turn as a cheerful lost soul in Cha Cha Real Smooth, a post-college coming-of-age story of intergenerational lust and the rocky road to adulthood.

If the film is aspirational, showing Andy what it means to be a dependable ally, then MacLane sacrifices pure entertainment for a loftier purpose. A more straightforward clash between good and evil might have touched on the same themes, without sacrificing the action kids could mimic with toys.

When “Dominion’s” final 20 minutes play as a beat-for-beat re-creation of previous films’ set pieces, it becomes clear that Trevorrow and Co. have nothing new to say.

With its outré images and pulsating shots of human viscera, Crimes of the Future is clearly meant to shock, as well as reference very real anxieties about technology, genetics and environmental degradation. But as the convoluted plot wears on, Cronenberg’s transgressive kink looks more and more played out.

Actor and screenwriter Joel Kim Booster gives Jane Austen a brisk, lighthearted refresh in Fire Island, a hedonistic — but disarmingly sincere — ode to the eponymous gay vacation spot.

There are gray hairs on some of the people in this fascinating film: Jimmy Buffett, Tom Jones (yes, that Tom Jones — he played the 2019 show) and others. But the energy that the film puts out is vital and full of sap.

Despite its light subject matter, “Phantom” is about something more than an obscure British folk hero (although it is also that). It’s a story about following your passion, not because of the heights this path will take you to, but because it makes you happy.

Fiddler’s Journey aims to tell a story that delves into more than creative and technical details. Although it is also about those details.

Like the hyper-competent aces at the story’s core, this is a movie that defines its lane early and sticks to it, with finesse, unfussy style and more than a few sneak attacks of emotion.

In the era of climate change, Howard seems to be saying, Mother Nature may be an unpredictable force, but we have our own flesh-and-blood counterpart: this voluminous, combustible, unstoppable Spaniard named Andrés.

Put in terms that Bob (and perhaps only Bob fans) can understand: This movie may not be the Meatsiah — beef tartare inside a medium-well burger inside beef Wellington — but it’s pretty well done.

The classic college party-crawl comedy gets a smart, self-aware refresh with Emergency, a funny, adroitly executed satire that manages to find genuine laughs in the unlikeliest places.

The subtitle refers not only to the twilight of the 1920s but to a changing of the guard in this entertainment franchise as well. In that sense, maybe Downton Abbey isn’t really giving its fans what they want, but what they have always needed to accept in this epic saga: that time doesn’t stand still.

The most fruitful aspect of the film may be its themes, which unbraid and retwist the threads and conventions of the damsel-in-distress narrative even as they superficially follow them.

Although the pacing of the film — written and directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel (“What Maisie Knew”), from a story co-written with David Spreter — can be as slow as the clouds over Big Sky Country, the flawed young characters grow on you, their troubles gradually becoming as mythic as the landscape that surrounds them.

There’s plenty of food for thought here too, and Carmichael clearly hasn’t set out to trivialize a serious subject. But the film may inadvertently end up doing that, by delivering a message that can be boiled down to a platitude: Live every day as if it is your last.

The film is a sobering reminder that the consequences of limiting access to safe medical care aren’t just theoretical but existential.

It’s tempting to call the semi-autobiographical film — inspired by both the death of Noé’s mother and his own recovery from a brain hemorrhage (and subsequent sobriety) — Noé’s most personal movie. But what makes Vortex stand out is its cruel universality.

It’s all entertaining enough, in a shaggy way. But if the director can’t stay focused on his own subject, how are we expected to do so?

Petite Maman is what every film should be: powerfully, even arrestingly original; grounded in emotional truth; hyper-specific; deeply universal; strange; mesmerizing; and not a minute longer than necessary. It is, in short, a small wonder.

There’s stuff to like in “Multiverse”: amazing effects, surprise cameos, even the unexpectedly moving scene in which Wanda realizes she has, at last, become a monster. But there’s also stuff that’s just, for lack of a better word, annoying.

Memory is by no means a deep film. But there’s something here that lends the familiar proceedings a bittersweet aftertaste that lingers in the mind.

The Duke, based on the 1961 theft of Francisco de Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London, features delightful performances by Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren, both of whom help ground this strenuously heartwarming film in something a little more solid than the ether in which it otherwise seems to be set.

Gradually, a story of bittersweet beauty and unexpected tenderness emerges.

If this all sounds too insufferable and in-jokey, fear not: Gormican, with the help of his fabulously game ensemble cast, keeps the balloon afloat with a light touch, crisp pacing and an overarching mood that’s more goofily endearing than smugly self-amused.

As arresting and elaborate as the images are in The Northman, there are just as many sequences that revert strictly to pulpy, B-movie type.

It’s a heist film with heart and humor, and where’s the crime in that?

Top it off with Pinaud’s final dedication, and The Rose Maker turns into a film that wears its emotions lightly but generously, like dew on a blush-colored petal.

Its clumsy, inert storytelling seems less interested in converting nonbelievers than in convincing us of Wahlberg’s piety.

Gustavo Dudamel’s transfixing talent is obvious throughout the documentary ¡Viva Maestro!, a compelling but incomplete look at the prodigious Venezuelan conductor.

It may not be the most spellbinding of the prequels so far, but it does advance this saga in an entertaining, if less than fantastic way.

Dual takes awhile to get into gear, ending on an unresolved note. But it’s a funny and provocative struggle over the meaning of life.

Audiard’s direction is engaging, especially his choice to portray one of the most beautiful and romantic cities in the world as a place defined by stark, concrete slabs of apartments and high-rises. But the film never quite lands on anything profound about how this generation lives.

The framing device of the conversation between Henry and Celia, which includes a bit of flirtation, necessitates a certain ennui, though director Janus Metz (“Borg vs. McEnroe”) does his level best to open up the claustrophobic setting with frequent jaunts to other times and locales. Come to think of it, there’s an air of a tennis match to the proceedings of All the Old Knives, with its two protagonists playing a mental game of volley and return, as it were.

So much of Ambulance works like a charm, but acting-wise, it could use a deeper bench.

In The Automat, Hurwitz and writer Michael Levine trace the rise and fall of Horn & Hardart, illuminating not just a surprisingly compelling corporate history, but a facet of American culture that feels both brimmingly optimistic and thoroughly extinct.

Beyond Aline’s visual incongruities, there’s a problem with is its choice of focus.

Beneath this straightforward (if enigmatic) premise, there is a gradual slippage, as if the plate tectonics of Weerasethakul’s seemingly solid medical/mental mystery were subtly rearranging themselves, like puzzle pieces shifted by an unseen hand. As they lose their narrative mooring, the various parts of the whole have the effect of rearranging your own consciousness, in a way that leaves your perceptions feeling profoundly altered, perhaps permanently.

There’s no denying that kids will delight in “Sonic 2’s” zany antics, explosive set pieces and commendable lessons. Older viewers should get a kick out of the punning dialogue and meta-humor, which wryly calls out homages to Batman, Ghostbusters and Indiana Jones.

Based on a spare, exquisitely crafted novel by Graham Swift, this thoughtful but ultimately inert dramatization respects its source material and tries valiantly to give arresting visual expression to its finely layered themes.

The screenplay is thoughtful and nuanced, and Epps’s performance anchors the narrative with a solid, unfussy portrayal of ethical indecision, even if the third act detours into more melodramatic territory.

You Won’t Be Alone can be ghoulish at times, but also gorgeous, in the swooning manner of a Terrence Malick film: all grass and leaves and sky and water, captured by tumbling camerawork that evokes the wide-eyed wonder of someone experiencing the world for the first time.

What this movie could use a little more of is the rigor and self-discipline to pull off all the imagination and originality in a way that does more than leave you gobsmacked.

The filmmakers make just as much magic on the ground as some do in space.

The two actors have charisma to burn, finely tuned comic chops and the kind of smoldering physical star power that manages to look effortless and superhuman at the same time. But even gifts as prodigious as Bullock’s and Tatum’s can’t keep “The Lost City” afloat.

The film’s inertness is unexpected, and a tad disappointing, considering that first-time screenwriter Joshua Rollins has unearthed some genuinely fascinating details about Bales’s backstory that were not in either published account of the rescue.

It’s a fantastic idea, but the execution is inconsistent. Alice, the movie, dares to go through the looking glass, but it doesn’t entirely know what to do once it gets there.

It has certain je ne sais quoi, if graphic nudity, self-referential humor and serial murder — neck stabbing, eye gouging, alligator munching and shotgun blasting — are your thing.

Master might be a horror film, but its scariest elements are off screen, in the form of the persistent social realities that inspired it.

Set in 1956, it’s a cleverly twisty crime story constructed of many invisible folds and threads, yet it fits Rylance like custom-made clothing.

I Am Here is, at its core, something much less complicated: a bearing of witness to horror. It’s inspirational, yes, but sadly far from unique. In its oft-heard contours, then, lies both its power and its tragic familiarity.

The Adam Project isn’t especially smart, but it does leave you with a warm, fuzzy feeling. Its science grade is only passing, but its emotional IQ is above average.

To paraphrase Sigmund Freud, sometimes a red panda is just a red panda. And sometimes it’s a metaphor for that inner spark of creativity, the flame of originality that is to be cherished, not extinguished. With “Turning Red,” Shi demonstrates that she’s got it, in spades.

After Yang again demonstrates Kogonada’s mastery of form, framing and composition. But audiences will be forgiven for wanting to reach through the screen to mess it up a little, if only to inject some recognizable warmth and spontaneity.

Welcome to “The Batman,” yet another lugubrious, laboriously grim slog masquerading as a fun comic book movie.

Ultimately, it is, like its conflicted hero, sweet and likable, and you wish it well.

Cyrano, like the best art its implacable hero celebrates, is full of poetry, romance, terror and truth.

Studio 666 is either a delightful lark or a mystifying waste of time: Your pleasure will probably depend entirely on how you feel about Grohl.

While “Dog” is often funny, it’s not a comedy. Though it’s often sad, it’s not a tragedy either. Instead, it’s a sensitive, engaging, realistic look at what happens when a soldier’s toughest battle starts when they come home.

Kuosmanen has given us another affair to remember, this time about love as something for which you’d not just go to the ends of the Earth, but to the beginning of time.

What transpires is part heist flick, part Mission: Impossible-lite, with a dollop of Dan Brown (for the puzzles), the DNA of Nicolas Cage in National Treasure and mildly zingy buddy-banter dressed up with a bit of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre’s existential darkness.

The Cursed is stylish and scary enough for what it is. That’s an old-fashioned creature feature, effective enough to give you a mild case of the heebie-jeebies but nothing chronic.

The movie sounds — and looks — tasty enough, but this “Strawberry Mansion” just doesn’t bear much fruit.

Writer-director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun paints a world that can feel as vast as it is isolating, while Amina, along with most of the other characters, speaks in a direct, almost transactional manner that befits her steely demeanor.

For fans of Neeson as action hero, “Blacklight” may be something of a disappointment, at least measuring it against the yardstick of previous thrillers in this particular branch of the actor’s body of work.

Trier and Reinsve have gifted audiences with a movie that understands the ecstasy of diving into the unknown, the flush of new love, the beauty of connecting amid unspeakable loss.

It’s a movie that’s all too happy simply to go through the motions when its star is clearly capable of busting bigger, more interesting moves. Luckily, there are other films in the sea. This is one that Lopez should have left at the altar.

The crime’s solution is fine and dandy, but it’s Poirot himself who most fascinates. This isn’t your grandmother’s Agatha Christie, in other words. It belongs to Branagh, heart and soul.

By lovingly examining these dishes’ cultural underpinnings, Hawk serves up an insightful introduction to a food scene at the cross-section of political strife and culinary excellence — not a full meal, exactly, but an enticing appetizer.

Despite its poignant subject matter, much of the film feels like a pastiche of political thriller, romantic drama and tortured-genius cliches.

Not since “Magic Mike XXL” has there been a greater testament to the cathartic, even rapturous power of men baring their bodies in performance.

The combined impact of these scenes, augmented with Robinson’s lecture — which, while deeply informed and informative, is anything but dull or academic — makes for a powerful one-two punch.

Sundown is at its most engrossing as an individual portrait, even if its inscrutable subject is a person to whom virtually no (sane) viewer will relate. Roth is still a great and mesmerizing actor, even when he’s drifting, vacantly, through a hellscape.

It’s a yarn that’s made for a great storyteller, with thrills and chills to burn. But the way Tulis spins the thread is wonkier and clunkier than it could, or should, be.

Dumont is clearly critiquing the way we mediate life via screens, large and small. There are times in this rambling story when the filmmaker’s point isn’t quite as obvious, but that’s only because he has a habit of trying to jab several moving targets with a sharp stick all at the same time.

Like a dream you’ve half forgotten by the time you get to the breakfast table, it’s neither good enough to make much of an impression or bad enough to completely forget.

Redeeming Love is an incident-rich saga populated by cardboard heroes and villains and outfitted with greeting-card sentiments and cartoon villainy.

It feels sharply, even painfully true, while also hazy and nonspecific. Its head is in the clouds, while its feet are grounded in the very real catastrophe we are all currently suffering through.

Filmmaker Clint Bentley makes a tender, visually poetic feature directorial debut with “Jockey,” a closely observed portrait of a man embarking on the downslope of his career.

Thanks to his courage and Rasmussen’s compassion and creativity, “Flee” morphs from a tale of dispossession to a testament to the power of narrative — to overtake a life, and to liberate it.

There is such a thing as toxic fandom, to borrow the term used by one of this movie’s young protagonists, and “Scream,” which is filled with endless conversation about the difference between a sequel and a “requel” and more rules than a penitentiary, suffers from it, fatally.

A mixture of well-researched historical fact and pure fiction, “Munich: The Edge of War” is a smart and entertaining thriller that suffers from just one thing: We all know how it ends.

There’s plenty to look at while we’re waiting for the titular Queen, and it’s often quite pretty: Shots of rabbits, sheep, deer, yaks, foxes, pikas, bears, other big cats and a miscellaneous assortment of birds abound. But this is not your typical Animal Planet or National Geographic film.

The movie takes place in Iran, yet it’s really situated in the crack of daylight that separates truth from a lie. It’s a tight squeeze, Farhadi seems to say, and one whose pinch this tragedy of the everyday makes us feel, acutely.

The geometry of filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar’s masterful, moving Parallel Mothers, which follows the stories of two women who give birth almost simultaneously in a Madrid hospital, is really a crisscrossing set of two fascinatingly entangled lines.

Licorice Pizza is at its best — and is genuinely charming — when it’s simply focused on Gary and Alana — two mixed-up kids trying to make their way in a world that feels promising and perilous in equal measure.

For such a compact and efficient vessel, “The Tragedy of Macbeth” pours forth seemingly endless wellsprings of language, emotion and psychological depth.

Wachowski seems to be at war with her audience, rewarding them with deep-cut callbacks one moment only to roll her eyes at the entire enterprise the next.

Writer-director Garth Jennings’s script hits the usual sequel plot points: No one over the age of 10 will ever accuse the film of originality, or wonder for very long whether this plucky zoo will ultimately manage to put on a solid performance.

The film, whose title may or may not refer to a slang term for a dog’s erection, often teeters between compassion and something that feels perilously close to cultural voyeurism.

Despite a story line that covers such fraught historical events as 9/11 and the Iraq War, the movie is too tidy to ever really feel like a living, breathing thing.

Tender also is an apt description for the gently heartwarming tone of this appealingly low-key, faded Kodachrome coming-of-age story, capably directed by Clooney from a screenplay by William Monahan (“The Departed”).

Co-directed by siblings and faith-based filmmakers Andrew and John Erwin, this down-the-middle crowd pleaser ultimately makes for a rousing enough portrayal of against-the-odds fortitude, pad-crunching gridiron action and good old-fashioned Midwestern decency.

If the story is fun — and it is fitfully, only after a protracted, sloggy set up — it’s a lot less so than either of the first two films.

Maggie Gyllenhaal makes a quietly astonishing directorial debut with “The Lost Daughter,” a crafty treatise on maternal ambivalence that delivers an unsettling emotional wallop.

For more casual consumers of the costumed comic-book superhero’s exploits, mileage may vary. But there’s a whole lot to like here.