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The Gold Standard in Critical Analysis

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Spider-Man: No Way Home

The best of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” reminded me why I used to love comic books, especially the ones about a boy named Peter Parker. There was a playful unpredictability to them that has often been missing from modern superhero movies, which feel so precisely calculated. Yes, of course, “No Way Home” is incredibly calculated, a way to make more headlines after killing off so many of its event characters in Phase 3, but it’s also a film that’s often bursting with creative joy.

Director Jon Watts and his team have delivered a true event movie, a double-sized crossover issue of a comic book that the young me would have waited in line to read first, excitedly turning every page with breathless anticipation of the next twist and turn. And yet they generally avoid getting weighed down by the expectations fans have for this film, somehow sidestepping the cluttered traps of other crowded part threes. “No Way Home” is crowded, but it’s also surprisingly spry, inventive, and just purely entertaining, leading to a final act that not only earns its emotions but pays off some of the ones you may have about this character that you forgot.

Note: I will very carefully avoid spoilers but stay offline until you see it because there are going to be landmines on social media.

“No Way Home” picks up immediately after the end of “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” with the sound of that film’s closing scene playing over the Marvel logo. Mysterio has revealed the identity of the man in the red tights, which means nothing will ever be the same for Peter Parker ( Tom Holland ). With an almost slapstick energy, “No Way Home” opens with a series of scenes about the pitfalls of super-fame, particularly how it impacts Peter’s girlfriend M.J. (Zendaya) and best bud Ned ( Jacob Batalon ). It reaches a peak when M.I.T. denies all three of them admission, citing the controversy about Peter’s identity and the roles his buddies played in his super-adventures.

Peter has a plan. The “wizard” he met when he saved half the population with The Avengers can cast a spell and make it all go away. So he asks Dr. Strange ( Benedict Cumberbatch ) to make the world forget that Spider-Man is Peter Parker, which, of course, immediately backfires. He doesn’t want M.J. or Ned or Aunt May ( Marisa Tomei ) to forget everything they’ve been through together, and so the spell gets derailed in the middle of it. Strange barely gets it under control. And then Doc Ock ( Alfred Molina ) and the Green Goblin ( Willem Dafoe ) show up.

As the previews have revealed, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” weaves characters and mythology from the other cinematic iterations of this character into the universe of the current one, but I’m happy to report that it’s more than a casting gimmick. My concern going in was that this would merely be a case of “ Batman Forever ” or even “ Spider-Man 3 ,” where more was often the enemy of good. It’s not. The villains that return from the Sam Raimi and Marc Webb films don’t overcrowd the narrative as much as they speak to a theme that emerges in the film that ties this entire series back to the other ones. For a generation, the line about Spidey was “With great power comes great responsibility.” “Spider-Man: No Way Home” is about the modern Peter Parker learning what that means. (It also helps a great deal to have actors like Molina and Dafoe in villain roles again given how the lack of memorable villains has been a problem in the MCU.)

So many modern superhero movies have confronted what it means to be a superhero, but this is the first time it’s really been foregrounded in the current run of Peter Parker, which turns “No Way Home” into something of a graduation story. It’s the one in which Parker has to grow up and deal with not just the fame that comes with Spider-Man but how his decisions will have more impact than most kids planning to go to college. It asks some interesting questions about empathy as Peter is put in a position to basically try to save the men who tried to kill other multiverse iterations of him. And it playfully becomes a commentary on correcting mistakes of the past not just in the life of Holland’s Parker but those of characters (and even filmmakers) made long before he stepped into the role. “No way Home” is about the weight of heroic decisions. Even the right ones mean you may not be able to go home again.

Watts hasn’t gotten enough credit in his other two Spider-Man movies for his action and “No Way Home” should correct that. There are two major sequences—a stunner in a mirror dimension in which Spidey fights Strange, and the climactic one—but it’s also filled with expertly rendered minor action beats throughout. There’s a fluidity to the action here that’s underrated as Mauro Fiore ’s camera swoops and dives with Spider-Man. And the big final showdown doesn’t succumb to the common over-done hollowness of MCU climaxes because it has undeniable emotional weight. I also want to note that Michael Giacchino ’s score here is one of the best in the MCU, by far. It’s one of the few themes in the entire cinematic universe that feels heroic.

With so much to love about “No Way Home,” the only shame is that it’s not a bit more tightly presented. There’s no reason for this movie to be 148 minutes, especially given how much the first half has a habit of repeating its themes and plot points. Watts (and the MCU in general) has a habit of over-explaining things and there’s a sharper version of “No Way Home” that trusts its audience a bit more, allowing them to unpack the themes that these characters have a habit of explicitly stating. And, no offense to Batalon, turning Ned into a major character baffles me a bit. He always feels like a distraction from what really works here. On the other hand, this is the first of these three films that has allowed Zendaya and Holland’s chemistry to shine. In particular, she nails the emotional final beats of her character in a way that adds weight to a film that can feel a bit airy in terms of performance.

“Spider-Man: No Way Home” could have just been a greatest hits, a way to pull different projects into the same IP just because the producers can. Some will see it that way just on premise alone, but there’s more going on here than the previews would have you believe. It’s about what historic heroes and villains mean to us in the first place—why we care so much and what we consider a victory over evil. More than any movie in the MCU that I can remember, it made me want to dig out my old box of Spider-Man comic books. That’s a heroic accomplishment.

In theaters on December 17 th .

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

• Tom Holland as Peter Parker / Spider-Man
• Zendaya as Michelle 'MJ' Jones
• Benedict Cumberbatch as Stephen Strange / Doctor Strange
• Jon Favreau as Harold 'Happy' Hogan
• Jacob Batalon as Ned Leeds
• Marisa Tomei as May Parker
• Alfred Molina as Otto Octavius / Doctor Octopus
• Jamie Foxx as Max Dillon / Electro
• Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn / Green Goblin
• Tony Revolori as Eugene 'Flash' Thompson
• Angourie Rice as Betty Brant
• Martin Starr as Mr. Harrington
• Hannibal Buress as Coach Wilson
• J.B. Smoove as Mr. Dell
• J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson
• Benedict Wong as Wong
• Chris McKenna
• Erik Sommers

Cinematographer

• Mauro Fiore
• Michael Giacchino

Writer (based on the Marvel comic book by)

• Steve Ditko

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Best Movies of 2021

Even when a film wasn’t great, filmgoing was. But there were some truly wonderful releases, ranging from music docs and musicals to westerns and the just plain weird.

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By A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis

A.O. Scott | Manohla Dargis

The 10 best arguments for the importance of movies.

This year, it felt to me as if every good movie was also an argument for why movies matter. There is a lot of anxiety, pandemic-related and otherwise, about what the future of the art form might look like. Will everything be streaming except a handful of I.P.-driven spectacles? Will streaming platforms (and their subscribers) be receptive to daring, difficult, obnoxious or esoteric work? Anyone who claims to know the answers is a fool. What I can tell you for sure is that these 10 movies, and the 11 that almost made the list, do what they can to resist the dishonesty, complacency and meanness currently rampant around the world. They reward your attention, engage your feelings and respect your intelligence. Every little bit helps.

1. ‘ Summer of Soul ’ (Questlove)

This documentary about a series of open-air concerts in Harlem in 1969, interweaving stunning performance footage with interviews with musicians and audience members, is a shot of pure joy. The lineup is a pantheon of Black genius, including Stevie Wonder, Sly Stone, the Staple Singers, Mahalia Jackson and many more. But the film is more than a time capsule: It’s a history lesson and an argument for why art matters — and what it can do — in times of conflict and anxiety. ( Streaming on Hulu . )

2. ‘ Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn ’ (Radu Jude)

From its hard-core opening to its riotous conclusion, this category-defying Romanian film captures the desperate, angry, exhausted mood of the present almost too well. A Bucharest schoolteacher (the brilliant, fearless Katia Pascariu) finds her job endangered after a sex tape she made with her husband goes semiviral. Meanwhile, the Covid pandemic and simmering culture-war hostilities turn everyday life into a theater of grievance and anxiety. Holding everything together — barely — is the abrasive intellectualism of Jude’s direction and the earnest rage that fuels his mockery. (In theaters.)

3. ‘ The Power of the Dog ’ (Jane Campion)

There are a lot of talented, competent, interesting filmmakers working today. Then there is Jane Campion, who practices cinema on a whole different level. The craft in evidence in this grand, big-sky western — the images, the music, the counterpointed performances of Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee — evoke the best traditions of old-style Hollywood storytelling. But there is nothing staid or conventional in the way Campion tackles Thomas Savage’s novel of jealousy, power and sexual intrigue. (Streaming on Netflix .)

4. ‘Petite Maman’ (Céline Sciamma)

The death of a grandmother, the grief of a parent, the acquisition of a new friend — these ordinary experiences, occurring over a few weeks in the life of an 8-year-old girl, provide the basic narrative structure of this spare, perfect film. Whether it’s best described as a modern-dress fairy tale, a psychological ghost story or a low-tech time travel fantasy is up to you. What’s certain is that the performances of Joséphine and Gabrielle Sanz, real-life twins playing possibly imaginary friends, have a clarity and purity that Sciamma (“Portrait of a Lady on Fire”) deploys for maximum emotional impact. (Coming to theaters.)

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The Best Reviewed Movies of 2022

The year's 90 highest-rated movies at ign..

2022 was a solid year for moviegoers, as IGN has awarded 90 movies a review score of 8 or higher. Fans of nearly every genre have had reason to celebrate this year's film lineup, which has included the long-awaited Avatar sequel, an excellent animated feature from Pixar, one of the best-ever One Piece features, Steven Spielberg's autobiographical Fabelmans, Jordan Peele's Nope, the first proper Jackass movie in over a decade, a career performance from Brandon Fraser in The Whale, a new iteration of DC's iconic hero in The Batman, and so much more.

To keep track of the year's best new releases, we compiled a list of every movie released in 2022 that IGN scored an 8 ("great"), 9 ("amazing"), or 10 ("masterpiece"). Read on or click through the gallery below for our full list of 2022's best-reviewed movies.

Best Reviewed Movies of 2022

Review Score: 8 ("Great")

Anything's possible.

From our review : Anything’s Possible is a fun, frothy teen rom com that features a trans character front and center. Director Billy Porter brings his boundless energy and exuberance to every frame, which makes the romance between Kelsa and Khal so beguiling and inspiring to watch. By giving audiences an opportunity to celebrate their young love, and empathize with the concerns and worries associated around them, it moves us one step closer to wiping away the stigmas that exist. – Tara Bennett

Avatar: The Way of Water

From our review : Avatar: The Way of Water is a thoughtful, sumptuous return to Pandora, one which fleshes out both the mythology established in the first film and the Sully family’s place therein. It may not be the best sequel James Cameron has ever made (which is a very high bar), but it’s easily the clearest improvement on the film that preceded it. The oceans of Pandora see lightning striking in the same place twice, expanding the visual language the franchise has to work with in beautiful fashion. The simple story may leave you crying “cliché,” but as a vehicle for transporting you to another world, it’s good enough to do the job. This is nothing short of a good old-fashioned Cameron blockbuster, full of filmmaking spectacle and heart, and an easy recommendation for anyone looking to escape to another world for a three-hour adventure. – Tom Jorgensen

The Bad Guys

From our review : The Bad Guys is a slick, hilarious heist movie with buckets of laughs and a lot of heart. It’s Ocean’s Eleven meets Little Red Riding Hood with Sam Rockwell’s Wolf going on a charm offensive to stay out of jail… and he might just win you over in the process. Richard Ayoade has a blast as the sanctimonious Professor Marmalade and the entire voice cast brings their A-game with some stellar gags that will get you roaring with laughter. The Bad Guys is a fun, family-friendly caper that’s bursting with action and brimming with laughs. Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? Not us. – Ryan Leston

The Banshees of Inisherin

From our review : Colin Farrell plumbs emotional and comedic depths in Martin McDonagh’s witty and wistful period drama, with Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan on solid supporting duty. Set against the stunning vistas of Ireland, The Banshees of Inisherin tells an effective and corrosive tale of friendship. – Hanna Ines Flint

From our review : Barbarian is barbaric, comedically brutal, and the antithesis of contemporary horror trends. Some will despise exactly that, but it’s the risk of challenging viewers to reach or surpass their boundaries in one sitting. Zach Cregger embraces extremism in horror cinema that is a sensory overload of hyper frights, grindhouse lawlessness, and the ugliest characterization of society this side of 2022. It's not always sublimely successful and doesn't waste time on subtlety in a way that's a bit too much, but as a horror fan, my chin had to be peeled from the floor multiple times. Fire this one with a crowd and howl the night away — Barbarian comes out swinging and never stops. – Matt Donato

Bodies Bodies Bodies

From our review : Bodies Bodies Bodies’ great ensemble and delightfully chaotic script make for a tense and laugh-out-loud funny film. Though it falters a bit in portraying Gen Z talk, it still manages to capture the wild energy of the very best Among Us sessions. – Rafael Motamayor

Bones and All

From our review : A lush, richly conceived cannibal road-trip romance, Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All lives in the intimate space between love and self-hatred, with characters who connect over their shared hunger for human flesh. Everything from its performances to its music feels fine-tuned to tell a story about reaching out through the void, no matter what reaches or bites back. – Siddhant Adlakha

From our review : Clerks III delivers all the inappropriate cuss-cluttered humor and pot smoke that is Kevin Smith's trademark but evolves his sentimentality beyond bong-rip wisdom. The third Clerks installment is a moving ode to working-class nobodies that amplifies Smith's touchstone sincerity above Randal's not-so-passive aggression or Jay's lit-for-days attitude. Smith might be the most in touch he's ever felt as a filmmaker, and it's a semi-departure that presents Clerks III as a precursor for what's still to come from the rebooted writer/director. Whatever my quibbles are with the film's length and less successful humor when being just another Clerks sequel are a critic's nitpicks — a critic who still felt satisfied by Clerks III in 36 more ways than presumed possible. – Matt Donato

Confess, Fletch

From our review : Confess, Fletch is a clever soft-baked cookie of a mystery, never getting too intense or presenting massive stakes, which is the perfect sandbox for a wise-cracking investigator like Fletch to play around in as he relies on a mix of charm, smarts, and luck to make it through to the other side. Jon Hamm is pitch-perfect as Fletch, a kittenish case-cracker designed to make you almost feel angry that you like him. – Matt Fowler

From our review : Devotion’s a respectful introduction to heroes the world should know and celebrate. Between J.D. Dillard’s thoughtful direction, the shocking clarity of Erik Messerschmidt’s cinematography, a rousing soundscape, and the tight editing, it’s a riveting drama ready to give even the best aerial war story a run for its money. – Ro Moore

From our review : Dual is a bleakly funny sci-fi story that puts a dying woman, Sara (Karen Gillan), on a collision course with her cloned replacement. Writer-director Riley Stearns transforms depression and disappointment into a hilarious confrontation of death and a peculiar tale of self-image in an uncanny film with a precisely bizarre lead performance. – Siddhant Adlakha

From our review : The Duke is a searingly funny, quintessentially British comedy with some truly joyous performances from Jim Broadbent and Dame Helen Mirren. The laughs are undercut with themes of social justice and progressive thinking, turning this almost-heist flick into more of a social satire. The Duke pokes fun at the establishment with a Robin Hood lead who might make you think twice about the TV licence fee. – Ryan Leston

From our review : Emergency is a generational stunner when it takes its stances. Stars Donald Elise Watkins, RJ Cyler, and Sebastian Chacon are authentic in their imperfect navigation of an absurd scenario, as the addition of cultural stakes obliterates buddy-comedy molds. KD Davila doesn’t lessen his script’s underlying protest, much like how director Carey Williams won’t sugarcoat climatic moments that intend to make our stomachs drop. Emergency grapples with multiple genres and wrestles its prevailing themes into a place of passionate pleas for better tomorrows, all unified by its final few minutes. The point of a gun, a puff of vape smoke, and the slam of a door in the face of white guilt is all it takes. It walks a tightrope with its topics, but Williams is delicate and confident with every step — his performers following close behind, dominating the screen. – Matt Donato

From our review : Fresh delivers a full-course meal with dazzling cinematography, disturbing imagery, and one of the best horror performances of the past few years. Sebastian Stan joins the pantheon of horror psychopaths as this delightfully gory movie explores the world of modern dating. – Rafael Motamayor

The Best Movies of 2021

Funny Pages

From our review : Owen Kline establishes himself as heir to the Safdie brothers' brand of stressful underworld cinema with Funny Pages. While this story of an arrogant aspiring comic book artist will be entirely off putting to some, it’s that very cringeworthy energy that makes it well worth your time, reveling in an often cruel teenager’s misguided flailing in brutal fashion. – Esther Zuckerman

The Good Nurse

From our review : The Good Nurse shines a light on the inherent darkness of a for-profit healthcare system while exploring the even darker recesses that allow a serial killer to thrive. Based on a true story, it’s a terrifying examination of systemic failures, not to mention a wild cover-up from self-interested hospitals. A creeping soundtrack and long, lingering zooms heighten the tension while Eddie Redmayne puts in a disturbingly believable performance as Charlie Cullen. Jessica Chastain casts a tense shadow as Nurse Amy, who grows more anxious with every scene. The Good Nurse is a wild combination of exposé and serial killer drama that cuts a stark storyline through the grim landscape of U.S. healthcare. After all, who can you trust with your life? – Ryan Leston

From our review : Hellraiser is a soulful revival of a soulless horror legend that never tries to oust Clive Barker's original. Director David Bruckner — alongside writers Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski — examines Hellraiser's themes with spectacle styles through addition. Jamie Clayton is the Pinhead a new generation deserves, awash in Bruckner's colder cinematography that stashes redder lighting to signify humanity is where true monsters reside. Hellraiser might be comparatively less grotesque, but a heady calibration of "pain or pleasure" storytelling brings Hellraiser 2022 screaming with glee into a reinvigorated ready-to-franchise configuration. It's cleverly calculated by saving gore for maximum impact and valuing the psychological edginess inherent in Cenobite storytelling, never getting lost in gooier intentions just for masochistic midnighter distractions. There are developments that feel slighter and less explored even at almost two hours, but that doesn’t stop Bruckner from delivering one of the best Hellraiser films since the original. – Matt Donato

The Innocents

From our review : The Innocents is a slow-burner that stars a majority small-fry cast and yet is far more poised and impactful than those descriptions suggest. Eskil Vogt commands a superhuman story that exposes the wild extremes of childhood experiences and throws in some unsupervised horror for good measure. Audiences of all ages can learn from knee-high characters discovering themselves, recognizing consequences, and standing up for what's right. The pace of this gorgeously shot Norwegian pseudo-fable will be a roadblock for some, but give Vogt a chance. Storytelling rewards are bountiful once The Innocents executes its conflicts well above the expected maturities of players on screen. – Matt Donato

From our review : Steven Soderbergh’s KIMI follows an agoraphobic tech worker forced to venture outside when she finds digital traces of a violent crime. With a simple but effective script and some fun visual experiments, it's an entertaining conspiracy thriller set in (and very much about) the post-pandemic world. – Siddhant Adlakha

From our review : Lou is a tight, gripping thriller that opens up a whole new genre for the ever-fabulous Allison Janney. Working off a smart script from Maggie Cohn and Jack Stanley, director Anna Foerster proves her skills as an action/thriller director. Janney, Jurnee Smollett, and Ridley Asha Bateman make a winning trifecta who sell the realistic physical and emotional aspects of the script without resorting to melodrama. They’ll have you rooting for them and perhaps wishing for more. – Tara Bennett

Lucy and Desi

From our review : A worthwhile documentary debut from Amy Poehler, Lucy and Desi chronicles the I Love Lucy couple from birth to death, while trying to mirror their personal lives with the stories they told on screen. It may not always succeed, but it arrives with an energy worthy of the TV comedy legends. – Siddhant Adlakha

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On

From our review : Marcel the Shell With Shoes On suffers from an aimless plot that feels stretched too thin, but it provides one of the most endearing and adorable animated characters since Paddington Bear. It delivers enough heart, laughs, and innocence to forgive its shortcomings. – Rafael Motamayor

From our review : Director Mariama Diallo explores the creeping horrors of America’s past in Master, her New England-set feature debut about three Black women navigating a mostly white college built atop a Salem-era gallows. With a layered performance by Regina Hall as the university’s first Black dean of students, the film plays with familiar tropes and images from American horror, but re-fashions them into an unexpected, subdued story with a chilling emotional payoff. – Siddhant Adlakha

Master Gardner

From our review : Master Gardener rounds off Paul Schrader’s informal trilogy about tortured men reckoning with the past, present, and future, and may be his most accomplished film in years. Joel Edgerton plays a horticulturist with a dark history who mentors the mixed-race grand niece of his stern benefactor, leading to a domino effect of violence, mercy, and unearthed secrets. – Siddhant Adlakha

Norm Macdonald: Nothing Special

From our review : Norm Macdonald: Nothing Special — a one room, one take stand-up routine recorded before Macdonald’s death — captures what made him so uniquely and absurdly funny. It’s also followed by a fitting eulogy from six of his comedian friends, who share stories about him and try to unlock the person he was. – Siddhant Adlakha

The Northman

From our review : Robert Eggers’ viking revenge saga The Northman works best when it dives head-first into dreams and disorienting visions, but it slows down when it becomes a more traditional Hollywood narrative. With viciousness relegated to its margins, it often feels neutered and bloodless, but still ends up on the right side of entertaining thanks to its pulsating music and measured performances. – Siddhant Adlakha

Official Competition

From our review : Official Competition is a sharp black comedy that skewers grandiose wealth, egocentric artists, and how quickly art is swallowed by money and celebrity. Writer/directors Gastón Duprat & Mariano Cohn distill the worst cliches of narcissists and place them into four characters who torture one another because they get the funding to do so. Penélope Cruz is witty and beguiling in her curly red wig, trying to break two prestigious actors of their narcissism so they can make some art together. Cruz, Antonio Banderas, and Oscar Martínez continue to prove how versatile they are as actors, shifting from comedy to drama on a dime and making it all work seamlessly. And if peeling back the curtain on filmmaking is a genre of interest, this would make a fine viewing pairing with HBO's Irma Vep. – Tara Bennett

On the Count of Three

From our review : A buddy comedy about a suicide pact, On The Count of Three follows Val (actor-director Jerrod Carmichael) and Kevin (Christopher Abbott) on their final day alive, when the rules of tomorrow no longer apply to them. Thoughtfully conceived and brilliantly acted, it’s one of the most bleakly funny films to come out this year. – Siddhant Adlakha

From our review : Dan Trachtenberg’s Prey never lets up. It’s full of the Predator franchise’s trademark violence and tension, but it’s the ferocious, star-making turn from Amber Midthunder that stands as its greatest strength. The movie’s sole focus on her lead character, Naru, means that the supporting roster comes off a little wooden, but when Prey’s tracking the young warrior’s duel with the Predator -- full of powerful imagery and creative kills -- it rarely falters. – Tom Jorgensen

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

From our review : Not only does Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie function as a superb entry point for new fans, but it also commits to tonal and stylistic makeovers that elevate the franchise in unexpected ways. Not all of its emotional beats will stick beyond the credits, but it’s still fun to see just how much the Turtles have to grow in order to become the crime-fighting unit we adore. – Hayden Mears

From our review : Rosaline is charming, energetic, and gives Kaitlyn Dever another opportunity to shine. She proves to be just as adept at comedy as she is in the array of dramas she usually takes on. The script is an inventive romp through Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, giving the tragedy a lighter touch and a slight skewering regarding its approach to portraying acts of true love. – Tara Bennett

The School for Good and Evil

From our review : The School for Good and Evil goes full blockbuster scale in telling the stories of small-town besties – and potential witches – Agatha (Sofia Wylie) and Sophie (Sophia Anne Caruso). It’s their friendship and care for one another that roots the sometimes over-the-top world into succeeding as a story that still feels intimate and true when all kinds of crazy is swirling around them. In particular, Wylie is the beating heart of the movie who sells both the unfiltered candor of Agatha’s disdain for the shallow motivations of the “Ever” students and her heart-on-her-sleeve support for her tempted friend, Sophie. Director Paul Feig also does an impressive job world-building a story that manages to differentiate itself aesthetically and tonally from other high-end, magic-centric movies and TV series. – Tara Bennett

Scrooge: A Christmas Carol

From our review : Netflix’s Scrooge: A Christmas Carol was bound to be somewhat decent considering its timeless foundation. Its premise, slight deviations aside, is as worn as Tiny Tim’s shoes at this point. Thankfully, it does manage to stand out in the smallest, but still impactful, of ways. The animation is vibrant, with a bright color palette that nicely contrasts the tonally dark story, and the cast does a splendid job of portraying the film’s assorted characters. Scrooge won’t win over those who’ve grown tired of this tale, but it’s still more than enough to get folks in the holiday spirit. – Kenneth Seward Jr.

Shin Ultraman

From our review : Shinji Higuchi and Hideaki Anno's Shin Ultraman manages to do for the tokusatsu superhero what the duo did for Godzilla, updating the classic character to modern times with a new origin and outlook while preserving the sensibilities and uplifting themes of the original show. It’s a joyful, uplifting ode to tokusatsu and to superhero tales, and well worth a watch no matter your level of familiarity with the character. – Rafael Motamayor

From our review : Showing Up tells the muted story of an artist suffocating beneath feelings of inferiority as she struggles to carve out a place amid her artistic community. The weight of expectation bears a staggering toll on Michelle Williams’ Lizzie as she prepares to make her mark, all while juggling the responsibilities others place upon her. Director Kelly Reichardt paints a subtle picture with fine strokes, painting in the details as we learn more about Lizzie’s history with those around her. It’s a beautiful portrait created by a master at work, with lingering shots that highlight the internal struggles of the starving artist while exposing the thoughtlessness of those around her. Showing Up takes a unique look behind the canvas, laying the artist bare. – Ryan Leston

Significant Other

From our review : Significant Other is a tight and well-constructed thriller that offers some genuine surprises and showcases the talents of Maika Monroe and Jake Lacy. A character study that takes some interesting story swings, it makes you wish more films of a similar ilk would take the same care and precision in finding fresh ways to mesh the intimate with high-concept ideas. – Tara Bennett

Something in the Dirt

From our review : Something in the Dirt is another genre-bending winner for filmmaking duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, a highly entertaining and mind-melting sci-fi film about two neighbors encountering mysteries much larger than themselves and getting trapped by their own obsession with truth and fame. Before they likely explode in popularity from their involvement in Marvel's Moon Knight series, this film encapsulates what makes them some of the most unique and important voices in genre filmmaking today. – Rafael Motamayor

Speak No Evil

From our review : Speak No Evil isn't for the faint of morality and weak constitution. Its message is simple — our world is full of monsters. Christian Tafdrup doesn't coddle his audience, nor does the film pad its landing. Speak No Evil hits with the impact of leaping off the Empire State Building and greeting 34th Street at full force, with the aftermath to match. Patience is rewarded by knock-down, soulless-nasty payoffs that cast an exquisitely malevolent cloud over humankind, which will lose some viewers — it's excessively backloaded, one of my only criticisms. But it's also proficient and tactical in its momentum buildup, meticulous in its naive stroll-about pace, which viciously sells an epic heel turn that will make you want to cancel plans for the next 24 hours of recovery. – Matt Donato

Thirteen Lives

From our review : Much like he did with Apollo 13, Ron Howard takes an outsized moment in history, the 2018 Thai soccer team rescue, and reshapes it into an intimate event that allows the audience to experience the intensity and stakes of the ordeal. Utilizing his recent skills in documentary-making, Howard highlights the timeline of the flooding, and subsequent rescue attempts, to create a subtle but effective ticking clock undertone that heightens the stakes and gives us a visceral sense of how overwhelming the endeavor was. As cameras follow the divers from the water-line into the impossibly cramped spaces they had to navigate, it makes for some unbearably intense cinematography that captures the claustrophobia needed to put viewers in the fins of everyone involved. The grounded and understated performances of the Thai and western actors, meanwhile, ensure that the story doesn’t veer into bombastic territory. – Tara Bennett

From our review : With a stunningly raw performance from Danielle Deadwyler, Chinonye Chukwu’s Till lives in the body of a traditional biopic — about Mamie Till-Mobley in the aftermath of her son Emmett’s lynching — but it turns real events into regretful, wistful memories, with a camera that refuses to look away from a mother’s pain. – Siddhant Adlakha

Triangle of Sadness

From our review : Triangle of Sadness pokes fun at the ultra-rich, playing their undoing for laughs in the worst of situations. It’s a masterclass in cringe comedy with Harris Dickinson playing it straight throughout as he finds himself in appallingly toe-curling situations. A spectacular turn from Woody Harrelson amps the laughs up even more, and while toilet humor literally erupts in the second half, it’s the performances of the film’s stellar cast that keep this ship on course. The script could’ve been tighter, but Triangle of Sadness keeps the laughs coming thick and fast, even well into the home stretch. Who knew class politics could be this much fun? – Ryan Leston

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

From our review : It probably goes without saying that Nicolas Cage obsessives will get precisely what they’re looking for out of The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent’s meta-exploration of the actor’s persona, but the real heart and soul of the picture is Cage’s on-screen bromance with Pedro Pascal’s Javi. Their chemistry carries the movie into far more memorable territory, and more than makes up for a few of the film’s less-interesting elements. – Alex Navarro

From our review : War Pony tells a surprisingly personal story of two young men trapped by their circumstances. Challenging perceptions of life on the poorest Native American reservation, the film highlights the struggles they face while desperately trying to grasp at a better life. Jojo Bapteise Whiting and Ladainian Crazy Thunder play two sides of the same coin and could easily be the same boy seen at different periods in his life. But their similarities, it seems, are a product of their environment. It’s up to them to change it. An effective debut feature from director Riley Keough, War Pony is a rare breed – a native story told by an outsider seeking to uplift the community rather than exploit it. – Ryan Leston

Wendell & Wild

From our review : Henry Selick returns to our screens with Wendell & Wild, a new stop-motion nightmare that brings an edgier and darker tone, more mature subjects, and even more laughs to the director's toolbox. Partnering with Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key, this is a feast for the eyes; a hilarious, spooky, empowering story; and a movie you'll want to add to your Halloween rotation. – Rafael Motamayor

We're All Going to the World's Fair

From our review : A technological horror drama with lingering transgender subtext, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair follows an online role-playing challenge connected to an urban legend. With a stunning debut performance from Anna Cobb, as a teenager in search of connection, the result is a moody, meditative film about loneliness in the digital age. – Siddhant Adlakha

When the Screaming Starts

From our review : When the Screaming Starts is a clever, cleaver-waving mockumentary that deals in the price of infinite recognition paid in flesh. Commentary behind Aidan's ambitions, Amy's gratifications, and Norman's obsession skewer why all these people would rather be known forever as malevolent bastards than live average, upstanding lives. Conor Boru might have directed When the Screaming Starts as a razor-sharp horror comedy, but it's effectively a morbid tragedy about the state of contemporary media. "Serial killers don't get forgotten — no one remembers the victims." A pointed screenplay and stellar ensemble of slashers slice-and-dice their way through true-crime obsessions that hold the audience accountable for what they're watching, presenting one of the year's surprise horror favorites like a body bag with a bow on top. – Matt Donato

When You Finish Saving the World

From our review : When You Finish Saving the World sees debuting director Jesse Eisenberg ironing out his visual wrinkles, as he spins an awkwardly funny, emotionally intricate tale about a disconnected mother and son. Led by moving performances from Julianne Moore and Finn Wolfhard, the film takes a roundabout approach to its drama, resulting in a realistic portrait of a relationship in stasis. – Siddhant Adlakha

The Woman King

From our review : The Woman King overcomes the perils of its overstuffed script with a collection of performances that elevate the whole. As expected, Viola Davis is the emotional center of the piece, masterfully fine-tuning her performance to go from fierce to vulnerable as needed. More surprising is breakout star Thuso Mbedu as the Agojie’s new recruit, Nawi. She drives the majority of the story and lands everything the movie asks of her and then some. What results is a crowd-pleasing movie featuring an inspiring array of female heroes who, even in 1823, are more than capable of saving themselves, and do it quite thrillingly. – Tara Bennett

Women Talking

From our review : A harrowing tale rooted in real events, Women Talking takes a stage-like approach to its debate between victimized women in a commune, but imbues it with cinematic flourishes. It’s also one of the rare ensemble movies where every single performance makes it worth watching. – Siddhant Adlakha

From our review : While its gnarly payoffs eventually peter out, X is filled with fun and intense setups that harken back to classic slasher fare. A story of a doomed porn crew shooting in the middle of nowhere, it has the makings of a traditional splatter-fest, but injects its story with an unexpected sympathy for its cleverly conceived villains. – Siddhant Adlakha

You Won't Be Alone

From our review : You Won’t Be Alone forges a melancholy coming-of-age nightmare that touches on all aspects of humanity. Elements of body horror and traditional folk horror carve a bizarre niche, while star Sara Klimoska traverses this strange new world with wide-eyed naivete. A stirring performance by Anamaria Marinca elevates a role that could exist within classic horror tropes to that of a Shakespearean tragedy. Less of a straight-up horror movie and more creeping dread, You Won’t Be Alone explores the spectrum of human emotion with an otherworldly curiosity. Perhaps it takes someone on the fringes of society to find out what it really means to be human. – Ryan Leston

Worst Reviewed Movies of 2022

Review Score: 9 ("Amazing")

The adam project.

From our review : The Adam Project is a thoughtful, witty mash-up of all the movies from my childhood. It’s Back to the Future meets The Last Starfighter with a slew of wonderful performances from a cast that clearly loves the concept as much as I do. Ryan Reynolds is on top form as Adam, while Walker Scobell matches him punch for punch with a great debut performance. The Adam Project is a love letter to the family sci-fi flicks of the ‘70s and ‘80s, packed full of Amblin-like charm. – Ryan Leston

From our review : A tale of love and death told through an android’s vivid memories, After Yang is a gorgeous, heart-wrenching sci-fi mystery about an aloof couple (Colin Farrell and Jodie-Turner Smith) discovering the secret life and hidden emotions of their artificial son (Justin H. Min). With melancholy performances and an eye for natural beauty, Kogonada’s second feature film draws from masters of the past to create a glowing and moving future. – Siddhant Adlakha

All Quiet on the Western Front

From our review : All Quiet on the Western Front is just as bleak as you might imagine, with an unflinching examination of the horrors of war. It’s a brutal, exhausting, and raw reminder of the evil humanity is capable of inflicting upon each other, and it couldn’t be more timely. Felix Kammerer stuns as Paul Bäumer with stand-out performances from Albrecht Schuch and Edin Hasanovic. The attention to detail is phenomenal, with director Edward Berger retelling this classic story in a new and interesting way. All Quiet on the Western Front is a grim, harrowing march towards an inevitable conclusion that’s held together by a minuscule thread of humanity. It’s a tough watch, but believe me, it’s worth every wince-inducing moment. – Ryan Leston

From our review : A dreamlike fictional biopic about Marilyn Monroe, Blonde features a stunning, volatile performance from Ana de Armas, whose daring vulnerability is matched by director Andrew Dominik’s equally daring formal approach, which keeps Marilyn in constant conversation with her iconic photographs, with the camera, and with the public at large. – Siddhant Adlakha

From our review : Bubble captivates both as commentary on the cyclical nature of existence and also a bittersweet sci-fi romance. Featuring gorgeous hand-drawn animation melded with fluid computer-generated graphics, a unique take on the beleaguered post-apocalyptic landscape, and a romance you'll want to root for right until it fizzles out, this is an anime film you'll want to add to your permanent collection right away. – Brittany Vincent

Catwoman: Hunted

From our review : Catwoman: Hunted proves Selina Kyle hardly needs Batman around to have a good time. This new DC Universe Movies release benefits from a strong, efficient script and a talented voice cast as it explores a jewel heist gone horribly wrong. But above all, it succeeds in merging DC's superhero universe with a strong anime aesthetic, resulting in a globetrotting adventure with strong echoes of Cowboy Bebop and Lupin III. That's great company to be in. – Jesse Schedeen

Cha Cha Real Smooth

From our review : "If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day." Those words by the great Jim Valvano apply to film as well. Movies like Cha Cha Real Smooth that make us laugh, think, and cry deserve special celebrations for encouraging viewers to feel less alone, filling our hearts with courage to weather life's oncoming storms. Cooper Raiff cements himself as an invaluable contemporary voice shaping American cinema's future through something so authentic and without emotional restraints. If all Raiff's stories are this vulnerable, reassuring, and spoken like a whisper in our ear during one long hug? I'll be first in line without even reading a tagline. – Matt Donato

Decision to Leave

From our review : Decision to Leave is Park Chan-wook’s unabashed ode to Hitchcock and Wong Kar-wai. Park Hae-il and Tang Wei have such potent, simmering chemistry that even when they’re just eating across from one another, they’re riveting. Portraying their shift from cat and mouse adversaries to unrequited soulmates is a journey that’s mature, surprising, and rather enthralling. – Tara Bennett

The Fabelmans

From our review : Steven Spielberg goes autobiographical with The Fabelmans, his warmest and most personal film to date. With a coming-of-age story that is universal in its portrayal of misunderstood artists and broken homes, but hyper-specific in its portrayal of the childhood that formed a legendary filmmaker, this is a therapy session turned into a hugely entertaining movie, aided by a fantastic cast, and one of John Williams' best scores in years. – Rafael Motamayor

Fire Island

From our review : Indie director Andrew Ahn creates a mainstream queer classic with the romcom Fire Island, his inventive modern adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Following a group of gay friends on a wild vacation, it features some of the funniest and most tension-filled scenes in any movie this year. As complete as any piece of entertainment can be. – Siddhant Adlakha

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

From our review : Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is a bigger, bolder, funnier, angrier sequel that improves on almost every aspect of its predecessor. Rian Johnson plays with an air-tight script that targets the absurdity and stupidity of the one percent while delivering a hilarious murder mystery on the most luxurious private island not owned by a Bond villain. – Rafael Motamayor

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande

From our review : Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is a heartfelt dramedy about a middle-aged woman and the sex worker she hires and their candid conversations about life, shame, and acceptance. Director Sophie Hyde and writer Katy Brand beautifully explore aging women’s desires and needs and what it means to finally love yourself. Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack’s chemistry is intense and each give brilliant performances. – Laura Sirikul

Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special

From our review : The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special delivers all the Christmas cheer, sentiment, catchy musical numbers, and laugh-out-loud moments you could ask for in a quick 43 minutes. Kevin Bacon is hilarious as he plays himself in an insane situation, as is Dave Bautista’s Drax, but the real star here is Pom Klementieff as Mantis. James Gunn gives this former background character tons of layers, and Klementieff brings it all home with a charming performance. It all makes for a delightful addition to any MCU fan’s annual Christmas rotation. – Alex Stedman

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio

From our review : Guillermo del Toro sprinkles his signature dark whimsy on a fairytale classic with stunning puppetry and catchy original songs. Filled with heart, humor, and historical grounding, it’s a phenomenal feat of animated cinema. – Hanna Ines Flint

From our review : The desire for justice becomes warped in A Hero, the story of a prisoner named Rahim, whose good deeds make him a micro-celebrity before his past comes back to haunt him. Told through director Asghar Farhadi’s signature brand of neo-realism, it pulsates with anxiety even in its quieter moments, thanks to the mounting realization that Rahim’s decency may not be enough to save his dignity. – Siddhant Adlakha

Hit the Road

From our review : Hit the Road is a masterful debut film for writer/director Panah Panahi. His skill at capturing this bittersweet chapter for this family so naturalistically, yet cinematically is breathtaking at times. The chemistry of the actors, who all give top-tier performances, is so potent that there isn’t a moment where you don’t believe they are an actual family, navigating this final road trip together with humor, sorrow, and vulnerability. – Tara Bennett

I Love My Dad

From our review : James Morosini’s shockingly funny I Love My Dad builds on the actor-director’s real-life tale of being catfished by his distant father. The story is told from the point of view of his dad, a character played with hilarious desperation by comedian Patton Oswalt, resulting in a bizarre act of cinematic empathy that’s as moving as it is intense. – Siddhant Adlakha

Jackass Forever

From our review : The final chapter in American comedy’s most chaotic saga, Jackass Forever is a hilarious last hurrah for its original crew. An extravagant stunt show filled with more cinematic homages (and more bodily fluids) than ever before, it takes an ill-advised trip down memory lane and raises the stakes in maniacal fashion. Few recent films have been funnier or more delightfully nostalgic. – Siddhant Adlakha

Jujutsu Kaisen 0

From our review : Jujutsu Kaisen 0 manages to work as both a standalone introduction to the anime and also a satisfying prequel to those familiar with this world. With stunning animation, complex and memorable characters, and a healthy dose of horror imagery, this is one of the best shonen anime films in a while. – Rafael Motamayor

From our review : The Menu is a hilariously wicked thriller about the world of high-end restaurants, featuring a stellar cast led by a phenomenal Ralph Fiennes, some of the most gorgeous food shots in recent film history, and accompanied by a delicious hors d'oeuvres sampling of commentary on the service industry, class warfare, and consumerism. – Rafael Motamayor

From our review : A hilariously bleak vision of the American dream, Jordan Peele’s Nope is a farcical love letter to Hollywood filmmaking. A sci-fi-horror-comedy that builds cinematic myths before casually knocking them over, it’s one of the most effective and purely entertaining summer blockbusters in years, from a studio director at the peak of his craft. – Siddhant Adlakha

Odd Taxi: In the Woods

From our review : Odd Taxi was one of the best anime of 2021, if not the past decade as a whole. In the Woods manages to make its epic, interconnected, funny, thrilling story more streamlined by focusing on its central mystery and peppering it with the character beats and hilarious banter that made the original so special. Fans of the show may not feel the need to revisit the whole story — though a new epilogue provides a satisfying closure — but newcomers may find a great gateway to both the world of Odd Taxi and anime in general. – Rafael Motamayor

One Piece Film: Red

From our review : One Piece Film: Red breaks the mold of the typical anime shonen film, capturing the magic of the series. It’s confidently a musical, too, with J-Pop star Ado providing several fantastic earworms as Uta Shanks doesn’t get as much screen time as fans may hope, but it’s still satisfying to spend more time with him. It’s not the movie that will convert non-believers into fans – it feels more like a lost episode than a cash grab for newcomers – but by heavily integrating itself with the main series and understanding the humor that makes it shine, Film: Red ranks at the top of One Piece’s features. – Just Lunning

Project Wolf Hunting

From our review : Project Wolf Hunting goes for broke in terms of exquisite beatdown violence in the pursuit of primal genre happiness. Writer/director Kim Hong-seon executes like there’s a going-out-of-business sale on fake blood, and we reap the benefits as showstopping displays of action-horror devastation take center stage. Fugitives and coppers aren't just killed; they're pummeled into oblivion until maybe half their identifiable traits remain — if lucky. Project Wolf Hunting is a cornucopia of killing-machine kookiness that keeps reminding us why South Korean horror frequently reigns supreme, and leaves us wanting more even after Boat to Busan docks for a refuel. – Matt Donato

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

From our review : Puss in Boots: The Last Wish takes not only the Shrek franchise, but DreamWorks Animation to exciting new places. This is a spaghetti western-inspired tale of an aging cowboy on one last adventure with some rather mature themes, aided by stunning animation that mixes 3D with 2D effects, and a painterly style that gives the film a unique look. – Rafael Motamayor

Resurrection

From our review : Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth deliver explosive, career-best work in Resurrection, a psychological thriller that takes shocking and upsetting turns. The film is powerful both in its quietly disturbing scenes — which toy with the perspective of a troubled mother who believes her traumatic past has returned — and in its most deranged and violent movements. – Siddhant Adlakha

From our review : The latest addition to the Scream franchise expertly blends reverence for the source material while creating something that feels almost completely new. All of the performances are pitch-perfect as the new generation of Woodsboro teens step into their futures, the kills are gnarly, and no version of toxic fandom is left unmocked. – Amelia Emberwing

The Stranger

From our review : The Stranger might just be one of my favorite films out of Cannes 2022. It’s dripping with gritty realism, cloaked in the shadows of a muted palette, and finished off with some truly inspired style choices. It’s the kind of thriller that only comes along every once in a while – truly unsettling and with enough twists and turns to not only keep you interested but on your toes. There’s plenty of great acting, too, with both Joel Edgerton and Sean Harris throwing their characters up against a wall and dissecting them with brutal efficiency. There’s a lot to love in The Stranger, and even more to wrap your head around. The reward is a rich, dark thriller that will be on your mind for some time. – Ryan Leston

From our review : Todd Field’s first feature in 16 years, TÁR is a richly detailed portrait of power and creative genius, led by Cate Blanchett’s towering performance as a world-famous composer whose private and professional life enters the public spotlight. A pressing film that feels distinctly of-the-now. – Siddhant Adlakha

Turning Red

From our review : A story of magical transformation as a metaphor for personal and cultural change, Turning Red (from Bao director Domee Shi) is Pixar’s funniest and most imaginative film in years. It captures the wild energy of adolescence, uses pop stars as a timeless window into puberty, and tells a tale of friendship and family in the most delightfully kid-friendly way. – Siddhant Adlakha

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story

From our review : Weird: The Al Yankovic Story does for the music biopic what the real Weird Al did for many a hit pop song: it makes fun of it, reveres it, remixes it, makes it weirder, and improves it. With Daniel Radcliffe in the role he was born to play, Weird tells the definitive and totally true story of one of our greatest musicians and comedians while making you wish all music biopics were this funny or bizarre. – Rafael Motamayor

Werewolf By Night

From our review : Werewolf by Night is a wondrous homage to the classic Universal monster movies. It’s about as scary as those original films are to a modern audience, but that doesn’t matter – it faithfully evokes the kind of classic horror that we haven’t seen in decades. The style may be old, and the tropes may be well-worn, but the film’s Marvel twist is enough to keep it feeling relatively fresh while tapping into the nostalgia of horror film fans. Gael Garcia Bernal is excellent as Jack, and the dynamic between him and Laura Donnelly warrants further screentime. Werewolf by Night may not make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, but it will keep you on the edge of your seat with a slow, creeping tone that captures the very best of classic horror. – Ryan Leston

From our review : The Whale forces us to face some uncomfortable truths, not just concerning its grotesquely proportioned protagonist, but about ourselves, too. Much of its power comes from breaking down the barrier between the audience and the film’s subject, forcing us to accept that there’s a human being beneath the fat. A powerhouse performance from Brendan Fraser explores every facet of the deeply complex man, while Sadie Sink digs deep for a quirky role that keeps you guessing. A sharp script is delivered with slow brutality by Darren Aronofsky who gets to the heart of what it means to be Charlie. The Whale isn’t just a great film – it’s an important one, too, delving into our own humanity with the dogged relentlessness of Ahab himself. – Ryan Leston

White Noise

From our review : White Noise holds up a mirror to contemporary America, forcing a self-examination that both amuses and terrifies. It may be set in the ‘80s but it’s as prescient as ever, forcing us to examine the failings of postmodern culture and face the comedy and terror inherent in our society. It may be funny, even light-hearted in places, but White Noise confronts heavy, poignant topics with a level of awareness that will make you laugh while your skin crawls. A flamboyant performance by Adam Driver drills down into our own inadequacies, while Greta Gerwig’s Babette keeps the whole sorry mess together with a graceful banality that’s beautiful in its ordinariness. White Noise is an overtly weird yet almost mundane take on some heavy existential issues. After all, aren’t we all tentatively scheduled to die? – Ryan Leston

The Worst Person in the World

From our review : Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World features a stunning lead performance and peppers its realism with occasional dreamlike flourishes. It explores several years of millennial uncertainty through the eyes of Julie (Renate Reinsve), an indecisive, self-loathing 20-something who switches careers and languishes in a doomed romance until she’s able to find fleeting moments of joy amidst emotional turns that twist like a knife. – Siddhant Adlakha

Review Score: 10 ("Masterpiece")

From our review : The Batman is a gripping, gorgeous, and, at times, genuinely scary psychological crime thriller that gives Bruce Wayne the grounded detective story he deserves. Robert Pattinson is great as a very broken Batman, but it’s Zoe Kravitz and Paul Dano who steal the show, with a movingly layered Selina Kyle/Catwoman and a terrifyingly unhinged Riddler. Writer/director Matt Reeves managed to make a Batman movie that’s entirely different from the others in the live-action canon, yet surprisingly loyal to Gotham lore as a whole. Ultimately, it’s one that thoroughly earns its place in this iconic character’s legacy. – Alex Stedman

Watch The Batman on HBO Max on April 18, 2022.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

From our review : Everything Everywhere All at Once is a complex film that encompasses a variety of subjects, but it does justice to each of them with a carefully written script, marvelous performances, and a healthy dose of bizarre humor to counter its bleak story. Michelle Yeoh in particular gives a powerhouse performance in a story that puts a fresh, welcome spin on the idea of the multiverse. – Rafael Motamayor

This story was originally published on February 11. It was most recently updated on December 13 with the latest information.

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Hollywood reporter critics pick the best films of 2021.

A Japanese meditation on grief and art, a psychosexual Western chamber piece, a splashy movie-musical makeover from Steven Spielberg and striking directorial debuts from Maggie Gyllenhaal and Rebecca Hall were among this year's standouts.

By David Rooney , Jon Frosch , Lovia Gyarkye , Sheri Linden December 14, 2021 6:45am

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The stampede back to the multiplexes that was predicted for early 2021 didn’t quite happen, and the post-pandemic landscape for theatrical releases is still an uncertain blur, with the emergence of the Omicron variant unlikely to quicken the pace.

Still, getting away from our televisions and laptops and back to physical screenings provided an invigorating booster shot for lockdown-fatigued film critics, as did the return of Cannes, which bounced back from a year in limbo with one of its strongest editions in recent memory.

Likewise, the fall festival trail of Venice, Telluride, Toronto and New York, all of which delivered their share of jewels, suggesting that the pervasive anxiety in the ether over the past 18 months hasn’t hurt creativity. All but one of my Top 10 and one Honorable Mention came from those festivals, or from Sundance and Berlin earlier in the year.

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There were several others I would love to have included that got narrowly inched out — among them Jonas Carpignano’s A Chiara , Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter , Robert Machoian’s The Killing of Two Lovers , Rose Glass’ Saint Maud , Edgar Wright’s The Sparks Brothers , Emma Seligman’s Shiva Baby , Oliver Hermanus’ Moffie , Sian Heder’s CODA and Michael Sarnoski’s haunting debut, Pig , led by Nicolas Cage giving his best performance in years.

I was mixed on one of the year’s most widely embraced critical darlings, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza , which felt more like a meandering string of vignettes than a cohesive narrative. But its evocative sense of a place and a vibe — the San Fernando Valley in the early ‘70s — and the beguiling gift of Alana Haim, who holds the screen with effortless command in her first movie role, provided much to savor.

In terms of studio releases, a weak villain and a sluggish midsection prevented No Time to Die from being top-tier Bond, but the action thriller gathered steam in its emotional conclusion, ending Daniel Craig’s tenure as 007 with a powerful valedictory salute.

Although we all grumble about the world domination of the superhero flick, I found plenty to enjoy to my surprise in three distinctive MCU entries this year — Black Widow , Eternals and especially the exciting spectacle of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings .

Read on for my picks for best of the year, followed by those of my brilliant colleagues Jon Frosch, Lovia Gyarkye and Sheri Linden. — DAVID ROONEY

1. Drive My Car In Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s quietly ravishing masterwork based on a sliver of a short story by Haruki Murakami, the death of his wife leaves an experimental theater director — played by Hidetoshi Nishijima with a stoicism that conceals complex depths — to process his grief through art with a multilingual staging of Uncle Vanya . But it’s in the deepening bond he forms with a guarded young woman assigned as his driver, and the shared sense of loss that emerges during their rhythmic daily journeys in his beloved red Saab, that this symphonic exploration of the mysteries of human connection reveals its shimmering truths about forgiveness.

2. The Power of the Dog Jane Campion ’s first feature in 12 years is a departure from her forensic studies of the female psyche, delving instead with equal perspicacity into corrosive masculinity and repressed sexuality. A Big Sky Western like no other, this adaptation of the 1967 Thomas Savage novel casts a transfixing Benedict Cumberbatch as rugged Montana cattle rancher Phil Burbank and Jesse Plemons as his gentlemanly brother George, who upsets the household’s equilibrium when he brings home his fragile wife Rose, played with aching delicacy by Kirsten Dunst. Rose becomes the prey in Phil’s cruel games, but her sensitive beanpole son Peter, in a knockout performance from Kodi Smit-McPhee, defies expectations by shifting the power balance, turning the chamber drama into a startling queer revenge thriller.

3. The Worst Person in the World A key realization for me while watching Joachim Trier’s gorgeously melancholy account of the chaotic mess we make of our lives as we fumble our way to self-knowledge was how seldom we get a romantic comedy-drama in which the abrasive edges aren’t sanded off the protagonist. Played by the luminous Renate Reinsve with a flinty exterior and a churning inner restlessness, Julie is unapologetic in her mistakes as she pings between two men, Anders Danielsen Lie’s successful older underground comic book artist and Herbert Nordrum’s contentedly underachieving barista. The pressing nature of time chafes at Julie, but Trier deftly expands the lens as she confronts unresolved issues from her past and navigates shattering sorrow to glimpse a future in which she might finally own her choices.

4. Parallel Mothers Pedro Almodóvar is among the most generous of contemporary directors, lovingly contouring roles for an unofficial repertory company of which Penélope Cruz, like Antonio Banderas, is a core member. And as he did with Banderas in Pain and Glory , he coaxes career-peak work from Cruz in this sumptuous melodrama about the tangled knots of past and present. She plays Janis, a photographer digging into painful family history when she conceives a child with an archeologist supervising her case; a friendship formed in the maternity ward with a young mother adds another layer of turbulent mystery.

5. The Lost Daughter Maggie Gyllenhaal ’s assured debut as writer-director relocates Elena Ferrante’s novel to a Greek island, where Olivia Colman’s divorced academic, Leda, seems to identify a fellow traveler in maternal ambivalence in Dakota Johnson’s visiting American. Bringing a probing, often caustic perspective to its reflections on female relationships, motherhood and women’s struggle to carve a professional space outside it, this dark dream of a film dives into Leda’s murky interiority via another astonishing performance from Colman, equaled in flashbacks by Jessie Buckley playing the character in her younger years.

6. The Souvenir: Part II The rare sequel that reframes and expands upon the original in illuminating ways, Joanna Hogg’s autobiographical portrait of a young filmmaker trying to rebound from a toxic relationship that ended in tragedy is, like Drive My Car , a cathartic exploration of the healing power of art. Honor Swinton Byrne again brings emotional transparency and a rawness beneath the posh reserve of the director’s alter ego as she walks the tricky lines between artifice and authenticity, insecurity and creative vision.

7. West Side Story Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner’s thrilling reimagining of the 1961 classic combines the Technicolor exhilaration of large-scale vintage movie musicals with a distinctly contemporary awareness of the complexities of racial intolerance and the importance of dignified representation. The Puerto Rican characters in this Manhattan gangland clash are given dimensions they previously lacked, but then again, everything about this spectacular remake surges with fresh vitality, including the tragic romance.

8. Petite Maman Many films sailed beyond the two-hour mark this year, some less justifiably than others. Céline Sciamma followed her international breakthrough, Portrait of a Lady on Fire , with this perfectly compact curio, which packs more into a mere 73 minutes than many filmmakers can explore at any length. The time-matrix magic of a girl experiencing loss for the first time and meeting her own mother as a child in the woods would seem antithetical to Sciamma’s limpid naturalism. But the dream logic of childhood games is translated here in tangible everyday terms, finding wonder in simplicity.

9. Passing Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga provide the pulsing emotional center of first-time writer-director Rebecca Hall’s exquisite adaptation of Harlem Renaissance author Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel about two Black women on either side of the “color line.” The atmospheric evocation of Jazz Age New York — rendered in richly textured black-and-white — ripples with the constant threat of people being unmasked in a thoughtful and moving consideration of identity in relation to race, gender, class and sexuality.

10. The Tragedy of Macbeth Joel Coen ’s stripped-down take on the Scottish play is furious and fleet, anguished and elemental, instantly taking its place among the great screen adaptations of Shakespeare, with spellbinding chiaroscuro visuals that evoke Dreyer. As the murderous Scot who would be king and the manipulative wife fueling his thirst for power, Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand lead a superlative ensemble, embodying not just ruthless ambition but also the panicked race against time to secure their place in history. And what Kathryn Hunter, playing all three witches, achieves with her diminutive physicality and harsh croak of a voice is extraordinary.

Honorable mentions: Compartment Numbe r 6 , Flee , The Green Knight , The Hand of God , I Carry You With Me , Identifying Features , Spencer , Summer of Soul , The Velvet Underground , Zola

Jon Frosch’s Top 10

1.  The Power of the Dog 2.  Drive My Car 3. West Side Story 4.  The Souvenir: Part II 5.  CODA 6.  Spencer 7. Annette 8.  The Lost Daughter 9.  Bergman Island 10.  Summer of Soul

Honorable mentions: Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar , Compartment Number 6 , The French Dispatch , Moffie , Parallel Mothers , Passing , Saint Maud , A Son (Un fils) , Sublet , Summer of 85

Lovia Gyarkye’s Top 10

1. Drive My Car 2. The Power of the Dog 3. Faya Dayi 4. Passing 5. Summer of Soul 6. Parallel Mothers 7. Ailey 8. The Humans 9. Spencer 10. The Green Knight

Honorable mentions: The Inheritance , Jockey , The Lost Daughter , Plan B , Prayers for the Stolen , Procession , 7 Prisoners , Shiva Baby , Test Pattern , Zola

Sheri Linden’s Top 10

1. Summer of Soul 2. The Power of the Dog 3. Drive My Car 4. Passing 5. Compartment Number 6 6. The Lost Daughter 7. West Side Story 8. All Light, Everywhere 9. I’m Your Man 10. The Humans

Honorable mentions: Atlantis , Azor , Cyrano , Fever Dream , Jockey , The Killing of Two Lovers , Lamb , Petite Maman , Procession , What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?

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Liam Hemsworth’s 7% Rotten Tomatoes Mystery Sets a New Streaming Date

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Just one year after Gary Oldman played Commissioner Gordon for the last time in The Dark Knight Rises , he featured in a star-studded ensemble that just got a massive streaming update. Oldman stars alongside Liam Hemsworth , Amber Heard , and Julian McMahon in Paranoia , the 2013 mystery film which has set a September 1 premiere date on Max. The film follows an entry level employee at a large corporation who is gifted a corner office so long as he spies on his boss's old mentor to give him a leg up. In addition to Oldman, Hemsworth, Heard, and McMahon, Paranoia also stars Harrison Ford , Embeth Davidtz , and Richard Dreyfuss , yet despite the star-studded cast, the film boasts atrocious scores of 7% from critics and 30% from general audiences on the aggregate site, Rotten Tomatoes .

The screenplay for Paranoia was written by Jason Hall and Barry L. Levy , who adapted it from Joseph Finder 's novel. Hall most recently wrote the screenplay for the Orlando Bloom and David Harbour -led Gran Turismo movie, and also wrote the script for the 2014 Oscar-winning war movie starring Bradley Cooper , American Sniper . Before working on Paranoia , Levy wrote the script for Vantage Point ( Dennis Quaid , Forest Whitaker ), and Wolves of Wall Street, not to be confused with the Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio team-up, The Wolf of Wall Street . Robert Luketic helmed Paranoia , and is best known for directing Ashton Kutcher in Killers (2010) and Gerard Butler in The Ugly Truth (2009), with Katherine Heigl starring in both films.

Liam Hemsworth Is Fresh off More Extraordinary Streaming Success

Earlier in the year, Hemsworth starred alongside Russell Crowe in Land of Bad . The film premiered on Netflix earlier this summer and found extraordinary success , spending a considerable amount of time as the most popular movie on the platform. Hemsworth also had the chance to work with his brother Luke on the project which undoubtedly has made its success this year that much sweeter for the Hemsworth family. Hemsworth will next be seen on October 11 later this year opposite Laura Dern in the spicy romance drama Lonely Planet , which recently had its first look images released .

Paranoia stars Liam Hemsworth, Harrison Ford, and Gary Oldman, and was written by Jason Hall and Barry L. Levy and directed by Robert Luketic. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates and watch Paranoia on Max starting September 1.

• Liam Hemsworth

‘Reagan’ Review: Embarrassing Presidential Biopic Treats Dennis Quaid’s POTUS as the Second Coming

Jon Voight costars in what may be the most tedious presidential biopic in 80 years

Politics are always divisive, but regardless of your party affiliation (or lack thereof) I think we can all agree that “President of the United States” is a pretty tough job. The complexity is unfathomable, the stakes enormous. Every day, the president makes decisions that directly affect the lives of not just Americans, but every human being on the planet. Whether you love a president or hate their guts, or know nothing about them — sorry, Chester A. Arthur — every commander-in-chief has a complicated legacy, full of some (hopefully many) successes and some (hopefully few) missteps.

But you wouldn’t know that from watching “Reagan.”

Sean McNamara’s fawning and superficial biopic about the 40th president of the United States treats the political figure as a godlike messiah who was placed on this Earth to vanquish America’s enemies, foreign and domestic, and fall perfectly in love with the perfect woman while riding horses dramatically across the California hills. Criticisms of Reagan warrant no more than a brief montage about how weird the 1980s were — except for the Iran-Contra scandal, which adds up to a whopping “whoopsie-daisy.”

It’s no great sin to have a perspective on the subject of a biographical motion picture, positive or negative, but “Reagan” doesn’t just love Ronald Reagan. It idolizes him so much that it makes you wonder if it defies that commandment about not worshipping false idols. McNamara’s picture, written by Howard Klausner (“The Identical”), gives such a one-sided and celebratory account of Reagan’s life that it doesn’t even serve the function of being informative. Audiences might walk away from this movie knowing a bit more trivia, but they’ll understand less about Reagan’s life and presidency if they take this love letter too seriously.

“Reagan” has a bizarre framing device, in which a young Russian politician visits aging KGB agent Viktor Ivanov, played by Jon Voight, who spends a whole day just telling this guy how great Ronald Reagan was. The Soviets dubbed the American actor and eventual politician “The Crusader,” and according to one anecdote, he was literally prophesied to become president and bring about the fall of the Soviet Union. Ivanov spent decades warning his superiors that Reagan was Communism’s worst nightmare, even when he was starring in “Bedtime for Bonzo,” but they would not believe him. 

Dennis Quaid plays Reagan, who rose from the ranks of Hollywood — the film is, at least, willing to admit his acting career was underwhelming — to become a leader in the Screen Actors Guild. Reagan stands up against communists in the industry, nuance about the Hollywood blacklist be damned. Except when he meets Nancy Davis (Penelope Ann Miller), his future wife, who asks him to remove her name from the blacklist because it’s all a mistake — another “Nancy Davis” attended communist gatherings, not her. And because he finds her attractive, he does so immediately, no questions asked, no confirmation needed, undermining (presumably by accident) the portrayal of Reagan as a hardliner.

Then again, “Reagan” seems weirdly eager to portray Ronald Reagan as easily manipulated. The first half of the movie finds young Reagan changing his whole life on a whim whenever something in the media wanders into his frame of vision. He reads a dime-store novel that makes him want to go into politics. He hears one public speaking engagement about communism and his views are solidified forever. He has one conversation with studio executive Jack L. Warner (Kevin Dillon) and it permanently affects his position on unions. In the film’s zeal to cover all the bases, it doesn’t explain how the game worked, and despite its reverent cinematography and music and speeches, it makes Reagan look like an empty vessel (again, presumably by accident).

Reagan’s film career dwindles on the vine, so he decides to pursue politics. He flashes a charismatic smile that didn’t make him a big star in Hollywood, but stands out against career politicians who weren’t camera-ready. To hear “Reagan” tell it, Americans were gobsmacked that a politician was capable of a witty rejoinder, and frequently stopped whatever they were doing to watch debates unfold with slack-jawed wonder. Did this politician actually make a joke? Can they  do  that?

Of course, it’s fair to say that Reagan took advantage of his experience as a performer to deliver his message to the American public, but “Reagan” suggests he practically invented the idea of confident leadership. Even when the film dramatizes undeniable facts, its worshipful presentation oversells his remarkable qualities and undersells any valid critiques — when it mentions them at all. So little effort goes into actually exploring Reagan’s life that the film plays like a laundry list of accomplishments, not a drama. Wikipedia pages have more oomph.

The cast of “Reagan” flounders, to say the least. Quaid, normally a strong actor, seems to be exerting most of his energy keeping Reagan’s trademarked, cheery rasp in constant play, and comes across as childlike when he doesn’t come across as weirdly hardened. Then again, the movie does suggest (again and again, presumably accidentally) that his convictions may have stemmed from his naiveté. So maybe that’s a more clever acting decision than it appears at a glance.

Jon Voight is in full exposition mode, and rattles off information like a college professor who’s got tenure and just editorializes now. Every scene portraying Ivanov as a younger man suffers from Voight’s deeply unconvincing makeup, which doesn’t so much make him look younger as it does make it look like he, you know, applied bad makeup. Voight does get the film’s one shining moment: a genuinely funny montage of multiple Soviet leaders dying in quick succession. As he hands each one paperwork, they each cough ominously, and then it cuts to their funeral, one after another. History is wild sometimes.

Penelope Ann Miller emerges with her respectability intact, trying to bring some energy and, when possible, a modicum of depth to a role that’s staggeringly underwritten. Nancy Reagan was born to be a supporting player, the way “Reagan” tells it, dutifully falling in line with whatever her husband wants and supporting him in every endeavor, only pushing back when he needs an ego boost.

“You look twenty years younger than you are!” Nancy yells at him, apparently oblivious to Quaid’s also-unconvincing makeup. It’s a thankless role, but Miller should be thanked anyway for trying as hard as she does.

Eventually Reagan becomes president and does  everything right — even the stuff he did wrong. His controversial decision to fire air traffic controllers for going on strike, which had lasting negative consequences, is portrayed as a simple heroic act. A few fleeting shots of queer protesters grossly diminishes his egregious and deadly mishandling of the AIDS epidemic and suggests it wasn’t a big deal at all. His support for South African apartheid is suspiciously unmentioned. The part he played in empowering Osama bin Laden apparently wasn’t historically significant either. Reagan, according to “Reagan,” had no flaws and made no mistakes, no matter what the people who lived through it say.

Director Sean McNamara has had a remarkably eclectic career, directing hit films like “Soul Surfer,” beloved shows like “The Secret World of Alex Mack” and “That’s So Raven,” and oddities like “3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain” and “The King’s Daughter.” It’s not easy to navigate an extensive production like “Reagan” and he manages that task, but the footage never coalesces into a meaningful story.

It’s a series of one thing that happens, followed by another, often without real connective tissue. There probably hasn’t been a presidential biopic this tedious in 80 years, not since Henry King’s “Wilson” back in 1944. That once-notorious, now-forgotten box office dud somehow won five Oscars. “Reagan” probably won’t, not unless they introduce five new categories just for hagiographies. Or for unintentional comedies.

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‘Reagan’ the movie: Just say no

Dennis quaid stars in this interminable hagiography..

“Reagan” is the worst kind of hagiography. It’s a wretched 2½-hour bore that’s uncurious about its subject. This poorly constructed, hole-filled biopic is also so sanitized that it feels like Darryl Zanuck or Reagan’s old boss Jack Warner would have slapped it onscreen back in the 1940s.

I’m not surprised a movie about Reagan would lean so heavily into the myth of Saint Ronnie. I’m more stunned by the terrible performance of Dennis Quaid, an actor I’ve liked in many films from “The Right Stuff” to “Innerspace” to “Postcards from the Edge.” Made up to look like Reagan, Quaid instead resembles one of those puppets from Genesis’s “Land of Confusion” video ; the movie does him no favors by showing footage of that video at one point.

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Even worse, Quaid’s Reagan lacks any of the spark the genuine article had in his heyday. The contrast is most blatant when the film forces him to act alongside actual footage of politicians like Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale. At least Penelope Ann Miller manages to convey some of Nancy Reagan’s personality.

I don’t think Reagan himself could have saved this execrable, poorly made movie. It’s narrated by Jon Voight, who plays a fictionalized former Russian spy named Viktor Petrovich. It’s Petrovich’s job to school the young Russian who stands in for us, the audience, about Soviet history. Voight’s Russian accent is as bad as his Spanish one in the killer giant snake movie “Anaconda,” but at least that movie was fun.

Here, we have to listen to a guy who sounds like Bullwinkle’s nemesis, Boris Badenov, tell us about Reagan’s life from his earliest childhood days until his presidency. Petrovich refers to Reagan as “the Crusader,” presumably because this film is based on Paul Kengor’s 2006 book, “ The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism .”

“Reagan” is cast with a who’s who of has-beens and questionable choices. Creed’s Scott Stapp plays Frank Sinatra, Kevin Dillon has a small part as Jack Warner. Kevin Sorbo is the preacher who introduces Reagan to religion. And in a scene that must be seen to be believed, Pat Boone plays a reverend opposite an actor who is supposed to be him. The real Boone tells the fake Reagan that he’ll be president if he stays faithful to God.

The relentless religious message is here because this is a movie written by Howard Klausner, the guy who wrote 2018′s “God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness.” So, not only is this a biopic with the kind of clichés shredded by the parody “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story,” it’s also a pander to the Evangelicals who attend those “God’s Not Dead” movies.

This means you get to sit through self-righteous twaddle about how Reagan was ordained by Jesus to defeat those godless communists and student protesters at Berkeley. Though the movie sidesteps all the gay men who died of AIDS whom Reagan ignored in real life (and the Just Say No war on drugs campaign as well), it works the AIDS quilt and ACT UP protesters into a montage of things Petrovich says were enemies of Reagan.

Great movies can be made about polarizing figures — see Oliver Stone’s “Nixon” with its fantastic Anthony Hopkins performance. “Reagan” is too busy pushing a false sainthood to care about complexity.

Directed by Sean McNamara. Written by Howard Klausner. Starring Dennis Quaid, Penelope Ann Miller, Jon Voight, Scott Stapp, Pat Boone, Kevin Sorbo. At AMC Boston Common, suburbs. 140 min. PG-13 (violence)

Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe's film critic.

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Movie Review: 'The Crow' reimagined is stylish and operatic, but cannot outfly 1994 original

• Mark Kennedy Associated Press
• Aug 29, 2024

This image released by Lionsgate shows Bill Skarsgård in "The Crow".

One of the first things you see in the reimagined “The Crow” is the sight of a fallen white horse in a muddy field, bleeding badly after becoming entangled in barbed wire. It's a metaphor, of course, and a clunky one at that — a powerful image that doesn't really fit well and is never explained.

That's a hint that director Rupert Sanders will have a tendency to consistently pick the stylish option over the honest one in this film. In his attempt to give new life to the cult hero of comics and film, he's given us plenty of beauty at the expense of depth or coherence.

The filmmakers have set their tale in a modern, generic Europe and made it very clear that this movie is based on the graphic novel by James O’Barr, but the 1994 film adaptation starring Brandon Lee hovers over it like, well, a stubborn crow.

Brandon, son of legendary actor and martial artist Bruce Lee, was just 28 when he died after being shot while filming a scene for “The Crow.” History seems always to repeat: The new adaptation lands as another on-set death remains in the headlines.

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Lee's “The Crow” was finished without him and he never got to see it enter Gen X memory in all its rain-drenched, gothic glory, influencing everything from alternative fashion to “Blade” to Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy.

Bill Skarsgård seizes Lee's role of Eric Draven, a man so in love that he returns from the dead to revenge his and his sweetheart's slayings in what can be best called a sort of supernatural, romantic murderfest. (The tagline, “True love never dies,” clumsily rips off Andrew Lloyd Webber's “The Phantom of the Opera.”)

William Schneider, who co-wrote the screenplay with Zach Baylin, has given the story a near-operatic facelift, by introducing a devil, a Faustian bargain, blood-on-blood oaths and a godlike guide who monitors the limbo between heaven and hell, which looks like a disused, weed-covered railway station. “Kill the ones who killed you and you’ll get her back,” our hero is told.

The first half drags at it sets the table for the steady beat of limbs and necks being detached at the end. Eric and his love, Shelly (played by an uneven FKA Twigs), meet in a rehab prison for wayward youth that is so well lit and appointed that it looks more like an airport lounge where the cappuccinos are $19 but the Wi-Fi is complimentary.

Eric is a gentle loner — tortured by a past the writers don't bother filling in, who likes to sketch in a book (universal cinema code signaling a sensitive soul) and is heavily tattooed (he's often shirtless). His apartment has rows of mannequins with their heads covered in plastic and his new love calls him “brilliantly broken.” He's like a Blink-182 lyric come to life.

Shelly is more complex, but that's because the writers maybe gave up on giving her a real backstory. She has a tattoo that says “Laugh now, cry later,” reads serious literature and loves dancing in her underwear. She clearly comes from wealth and has had a falling out with her mom, but has also done an unimaginably horrible thing, which viewers will learn about at the end.

Part of the trouble is that the lead couple cast off very little electricity, offering a love affair that's more teen-like than all-consuming. And this is a story that needs a love capable of transcending death.

There are lots of cool-looking moments — mostly Skarsgård in a trench coat, stomping around the desolate concrete jungle in the rain at night — until “The Crow” builds to one of the better action sequences this year, albeit another one of those heightened showdowns at the opera.

By this time, Eric has donned the Crow's heavy eye and cheek makeup. He adds to this ensemble a katana and an inability to die. As he closes in on his target, mowing down tuxedoed bad guys as arias soar, the group movements on stage are echoed by the furious fighting backstage. A few severed heads might be considered over the top at curtain call, but subtlety isn't being applauded here.

If the original was plot-light but visually delicious, the new one has a better story but suffers from ideas in the films built on its predecessor, stealing a little from “The Matrix,” “Joker” and “Kill Bill.” Why not create something entirely new?

“The Crow” isn't bad — and it gets better as it goes — but it's an exercise in folly. It cannot escape Lee and the 1994 original even as it builds a more allegorical scaffolding for the smartphone generation. To use that very first metaphor, it's like the trapped white horse — held down by its own painful past, never free to gallop on its own.

“The Crow,” a Lionsgate release, is rated R for “strong bloody violence, gore, language, sexuality/nudity and drug use.” Running time: 111 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.

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Reagan Reviews

Even at a ponderous 135 minutes, director Sean McNamara’s ineptly made effort fails to provide any actual insight into its subject’s life, instead opting for a bluntly one-sided hagiography which depicts Reagan as a near-godlike figure.

Full Review | Aug 30, 2024

It’s less an insightful look at the man and more of a fawning idealization promoting a political viewpoint.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 30, 2024

It is gravely disappointing that Reagan is roughly on par with Bedtime for Bonzo.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Aug 30, 2024

There probably hasn’t been a presidential biopic this tedious in 80 years, not since Henry King’s Wilson back in 1944.

Full Review | Aug 29, 2024

There is a great deal more hagiography than history in “Reagan,” a worshipful biopic of the 40th U.S. President that often plays like the cinematic equivalent of CliffsNotes.

A remarkable piece of filmmaking that not only brings a popular president to vivid new life, but puts his unlikely story into the broadest possible cosmic context. Dennis Quaid delivers a career-topping performance of stunning breadth--and depth.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 29, 2024

This is a 135-minute film that demands a lot more depth. And, so, to co-opt a political phrase from Bill Clinton, whom Quaid also has played: It’s the script, stupid.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Aug 29, 2024

Mannered acting, dismal cinematography, clunky attempts to enhance excitement via gimmicks such as slow motion, and a musical score like a fountain of goo all serve as flashbacks to Reagan-era network schlock.

Dennis Quaid leads earnest biopic capturing a leader of consequence.

No life, certainly not one so monumental and complicated as Reagan’s, can be satisfyingly condensed into a single feature film, of course. But this is a Coles Notes level of biography that is convinced it’s The Greatest Story Ever Told.

Most of the major events in Reagan’s life are covered, but few of them are recounted in an incisive fashion.

It all makes for a plodding film, more curious than compelling.

Ultimately, the movie work about as well as Oliver Stone’s W., even though there’s nothing about it that feels like mandatory viewing.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Aug 29, 2024

The result is a shallow biography and a hollow piece of political drama.

Audiences who remember the title character will enjoy watching Dennis Quaid bring him to the big screen again.

Full Review | Original Score: 2 1/2 stars | Aug 29, 2024

Reagan is a lot like the Republican Party now; inflated self-importance and terminally unserious.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Aug 29, 2024

A bloated, clunky and shallow biopic.

As history, it’s worthless.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Aug 28, 2024

“Reagan” takes us on a fascinating biographical journey through an extraordinary American life. It's a well-made and well-acted feature that looks at Ronald Reagan through an undoubtedly sympathetic lens yet without ever turning overtly political.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 28, 2024

The film’s treatment of its subject is belligerently hamfisted, disingenuous, and incurious.

Full Review | Original Score: 0/4 | Aug 28, 2024

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‘Rapture’ movie review: This is a daring subject that’s likely to blow everyone away

Not too many people are aware about this film, but if it opens in Cinemas, one should definitely check it out only because it brims with fearlessness and beauty read more

Cast: Celestine K. Sangma, Torikhu A. Sangma, Handam R. Marak, Balsrame A. Sangma

Director: Dominic Sangma

Language: Garo

Rapture (Rimdogittanga) is a film that’s likely to blow everyone away with its craft and theme. The film premiered at the Locarno International Film Festival 2023. It won the Cultural Diversity Award at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards and the NETPAC Award at Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2023. This hauntingly captivating drama is set in a remote village in the Garo hills of Meghalaya. The title of the film actually means immense joy but once you see it, it’s actually the complete opposite. It’s kind of ironic or for some people it could be a mix of both.

What’s it about?

Every night, the village is gripped by the fear of child-kidnappers following an apocalyptic church prophecy. For a ten-year-old boy who suffers from night blindness, the village has never been more terrifying. The director Dominic Megam Sangma is a graduate of Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, India. He opened his own production company called ANNA FILMS and co-founded the Kelvin Cinema Festival of Films, of which he is Artistic Director.

When you happen to graduate from such prestigious university, you are bound to make your films or other pieces of work difficult and different from others. The visuals of this film are a sight to behold and it’s something we don’t often see in modern filmmaking or new age cinema. But there’s a lot more to Rapture than just scale, sweep, and grandeur. The film touches upon many themes that other filmmakers might shy away from.

Not too many people are aware about this film, but if it opens in Cinemas, one should definitely check it out only because it brims with fearlessness and beauty. People on social media often crave about wanting to see something different and this film is Chenin different and deserves a chance.

The screening was organised by MAMI in partnership with Colorists Workshop

Rating: 3 (out of 5 stars)

Working as an Entertainment journalist for over five years, covering stories, reporting, and interviewing various film personalities of the film industry see more

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Best Movies of 2024: Best New Movies to Watch Now

Welcome to our guide of the Best Movies of 2024, featuring every Certified Fresh movie as they come in week by week!

August additions so far: Sing Sing . Dandelion . Kneecap . Starve Acre . Good One . The Substance . Alien: Romulus . Cuckoo . 

July was blockbuster month worthy of the summer season mantle, as Twisters carved its warpath, and fast in its wake Deadpool & Wolverine , Marvel’s sole MCU offering for the year. MaXXXine , Longlegs , and Oddity made a case for one-word horror titles. And in the limited release spectrum, Dìdi is an instant new Asian-American classic , while Hindi-langague Kill thrilled audiences. Those who missed the Hindi-language thriller of course will have their eternal chances to catch it on streaming, or even until the American remake comes out next year-ish.

Let’s talk about the June wide releases that went Certified Fresh. First, there’s Pixar’s Inside Out 2 , which revitalized the box office and brought back the studio in a big, big way . The Bikeriders is a crime drama starring Austin Butler , Tom Hardy , and Jodie Comer . It was directed by Jeff Nichols , who has unassumingly amassed one of the most impressive filmographies of any working director; all six of his directed movies are Certified Fresh. And let’s make some noise for A Quiet Place: Day One , which is now 3-for-3, a true horror rarity outside of George Romero ‘s original Dead trilogy . 

May brought the start of the summer movie season, launching with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt ‘s The Fall Guy . The following weeks saw Mad Max sequel Furiosa , and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes , which built upon the reboot trilogy of the 2010s (how to monkey-see the series in order , if you’re so inclined). Glen Powell ‘s Hit Man saw some limited theatrical play before dropping on Netflix, where it’ll be permanently one of the streamer’s 100 best-reviewed movies . Viggo Mortensen directed his second feature, western The Dead Don’t Hurt , while Pamela Adlon made her directorial debut with Babes . In a Violent Nature took viewers on a (very) slow ride from a slasher villain’s point of view. And check out Daisy Ridley’s crowd-pleasing Young Woman and the Sea .

Horror had an unexpectedly strong month in April , with Universal monster movie Abigail , Nic Cage action-hybrid Arcadian , The First Omen reviving the dormant franchise, and indies I Saw the TV Glow ,  Blackout , and  Infested . A24 had their first #1 box office-debuting film with the heated Civil War . Zendaya continued her Certified Fresh streak with Challengers , and Dev Patel made a major directorial debut with Monkey Man ,  which had its own long journey to go from being dumped on Netflix to theatrical major studio distribution.  Nowhere Special   becomes the highest-rated movie of the year.

In March : Love Lies Bleeding and Problemista , both from A24 . One Life , starring Anthony Hopkins. Ordinary Angels , starring Hilary Swank. In horror, we got You’ll Never Find Me and  Late Night with the Devil , the latter which also tops our best horror of 2024 list . Dialogue-free animation Robot Dreams and Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World jockeying for the top spot here.

And what about February ? Dune pretty good, thanks for asking. Part Two went Certified Fresh within an hour after the reviews embargo lifted on February 21st. With it outclassing the first Dune , we took a look at 20 sequels that got better Tomatometer scores than their originals . Otherwise, things got freaky with horror film Stopmotion and the comic zaniness of Hundreds of Beavers taking the crown for the best-reviewed of the year.

We didn’t have a blockbuster January like we did in 2023 ‘s, when genre surprises M3GAN and Plane went Certified Fresh. But Daisy Ridley got her post-Skywalker win with Sometimes I Think About Dying . Mads Mikkelsen re-teamed with his A Royal Affair director Nikolaj Arcel to find The Promised Land. With The Crime Is Mine , Francois Ozon is getting career-best reviews, and his 10th Certified Fresh film over the past decade-and-change. And Netflix scored with The Kitchen , Orion and the Dark , and Good Grief .

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Good One (2024) 98%

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Dìdi (2024) 96%

Oddity (2024) 96%

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Monkey Man (2024) 89%

Young Woman and the Sea (2024) 89%

Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (2023) 89%

The Kitchen (2023) 89%

Challengers (2024) 88%

Babes (2024) 88%

Disco Boy (2023) 88%

Starve Acre (2023) 86%

The Beast (2023) 86%

The Three Musketeers: Part II - Milady (2023) 87%

Longlegs (2024) 86%

A Quiet Place: Day One (2024) 86%

Problemista (2023) 86%

Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara (2023) 86%

Backspot (2023) 86%

Janet Planet (2023) 85%

The Dead Don't Hurt (2023) 85%

Last Summer (2023) 86%

Widow Clicquot (2023) 82%

The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed (2023) 85%

I Saw the TV Glow (2024) 84%

Ordinary Angels (2024) 84%

Monolith (2023) 85%

Abigail (2024) 83%

I Used to be Funny (2023) 83%

Ultraman: Rising (2024) 83%

The Fall Guy (2024) 82%

Sometimes I Think About Dying (2023) 82%

Civil War (2024) 81%

Alien: Romulus (2024) 80%

The First Omen (2024) 81%

The Idea of You (2024) 81%

Am I OK? (2022) 81%

You'll Never Find Me (2023) 81%

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024) 80%

The Bikeriders (2023) 80%

Wicked Little Letters (2023) 80%

Cora Bora (2023) 80%

Riddle Of Fire (2023) 79%

Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) 78%

In a Violent Nature (2024) 78%

Cuckoo (2024) 77%

More countdown.

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Movies With A 0% Rotten Tomatoes Score That Are Actually Worth Watching

Years ago, in the 1980s or '90s, there was never really a critical consensus around the quality of a movie, unless you paid attention to the stars awarded to films in the TV Guide listings. But fast-forward to 2024, and review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes has just redefined the way we judge films. The site, founded in 1998, sought to bring together movie reviews from scores of critics so moviegoers could get an idea of how reviewers collectively felt about a film, rather than just one well-known critic like Roger Ebert, Peter Travers, or Leonard Maltin.

While it's rare for a movie to receive a perfect 100% Rotten Tomatoes score , there are more movies on the other end of the spectrum than you might think. But can we really give Rotten Tomatoes that much sway? Are movies with a 0% really unwatchable — or have they simply fallen victim to the nature of the aggregating system? That system means that reviews are counted as only "good" or "bad," so even a 2.5-star review might bring down a movie's score. There is no middle ground.

Well, we've sorted out the critical reviews, looked over audience scores, and carefully considered every one of those unlucky losers. While few would ever consider these movies great, we've found quite a few movies with a 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes that are actually worth watching.

Simon Sez is a schlock action masterpiece

If you refuse to turn off your brain to enjoy a silly action movie, that's on you. And there are few sillier than the 1999 schlock masterpiece "Simon Sez." Yes, we use the term "masterpiece" half-sarcastically, because when it comes to this grade of goofy, over-the-top action movie, "Simon Sez" hits the nail on the head — starting with its gimmicky star, controversial NBA great Dennis Rodman.

In the film, Rodman plays smooth-talking, wild-mannered Interpol agent Simon who, with the help of his old friend Nick (Dane Cook), is on a mission to take down a dangerous weapons dealer (Jérôme Pradon). Nick's boss's daughter (Natalia Cigliuti) has been kidnapped, too, of course, because Action Movie Plot, and don't you know it, the two situations are connected. Martial arts fans will appreciate the choreography and stunt direction of Hong Kong stuntman Xin Xin Xiong, while for everyone else, Rodman's involvement makes the whole endeavor worthwhile.

Channeling equal parts Wesley Snipes and — perhaps inadvertently — Robin Williams, Rodman can't match the chops of either but is worth watching for the novelty alone. Sure, the movie makes plenty of nonsensical choices (like casting Rodman as an Interpol agent in the first place), but that's kind of the fun. As a "so-bad-its-good" B-movie, "Simon Sez" will only disappoint if you take it seriously.

The Ridiculous 6 is Adam Sandler as usual

There was surprise all over Hollywood and beyond when it was announced that Adam Sandler had signed a four-picture deal with Netflix in 2014 — a deal that was re-upped six years later for another $275 million dollars. As part of that first deal came "The Ridiculous 6," a slapstick Western with a plot that doesn't matter because it's all about Sandler's ridiculous schtick. Arriving with great fanfare, the movie was a huge hit for Netflix despite its 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes , breaking records on the streaming platform.

While critics rightly called out Sandler's foray into the Wild West as unimaginative and lazy, we have to ask: What did they think they were watching? This is, after all, an Adam Sandler movie — it's not a Spike Lee joint or anything — it never aspires to be anything other than a low-brow comedy, just like every Sandler film before it. Is it anything close to Sandler's previous movies? No. Is it often cringeworthy and offensive, and sometimes downright bad? Yes.

Nevertheless, if you've enjoyed Sandler before, whether on "SNL" or in favorites like "Billy Madison" and "Happy Gilmore," you'll still get at least a few good laughs out of this one. Low-hanging fruit and childish vulgarity have always been Sandler's bread and butter, so maybe the professionals should just relax a bit and let everyone else have a chuckle.

Gotti isn't worth all the hate

Gangster movies have been popular since "The Godfather," but true crime stories are all the rage these days, so when it was announced that John Travolta was to star in a dark biopic of ruthless real-life criminal kingpin John Gotti, it probably perked up a few ears. It didn't have a high-profile director, nor the kind of dazzling supporting cast that a Martin Scorsese film might get, but it was still an intriguing project ... and it didn't deliver.

Professional reviewers raked "Gotti" over the coals, with Glenn Kenny of The New York Times calling it a "dismal mess." Nevertheless, while we'll concede it's not very good, it's also not worthless, and John Travolta is a notable reason why. No, we're not contending that the "Pulp Fiction" star gives an Oscar-worthy performance, but it is an interesting one at least, one that fans of the actor will probably get a kick out of. Even Kenny praised the actor's charismatic performance and accurate depiction of the mobster.

If you're looking for a Michael Mann-esque crime thriller, though, you'll be sorely disappointed, and it could be that expectation that killed "Gotti" with critics. Brutally mediocre at its best, you might enjoy "Gotti" for a look at Travolta outside his modern low-budget direct-to-video comfort zone. It may not be one of the best underrated gangster movies , but the hate it gets is definitely overboard.

Wagons East was one of John Candy's last movies

It might seem overkill to put a second Western comedy on our list, but trust us — this one belongs as much as "The Ridiculous 6." This time we're talking about 1994's "Wagons East," starring John Candy, Richard Lewis, and John C. McGinley. The film follows some misfits in the Wild West who hire a hard-drinking rabble-rouser (Candy) to help take them on a wagon train back home to the East Coast.

First off, critics aren't necessarily wrong to call the movie a "witless, toothless satire" as the Rotten Tomatoes consensus states. It doesn't do nearly enough to effectively lampoon the Western genre — Sandler honestly does a better job — but the movie hardly deserves a zero. Candy and Lewis are delightful, even if the laughs can't match either of their best work. But what makes the film more watchable today than even a few years ago is, in fact, the presence of those two stars who have since left us. 

Candy tragically died a year before the release of the film, and while it wasn't the last of his movies to see a release it was the last movie he filmed. And with Richard Lewis' passing in 2024, the film takes on an even more poignant tone. It's is a time capsule of their careers, particularly for Candy, and even when it's not funny, it's nice to see them both trying their best to make us laugh.

Problem Child is a silly guilty pleasure

Possibly the biggest and goofiest guilty pleasure on this list, it would be a stretch for even the least discerning movie fan to claim "Problem Child" is a good movie. But when it comes to kids' movies in the '80s, it might actually be one of the most underappreciated of its stripe. Starring John Ritter and Amy Yasbeck (who married about a decade later), the film follows a pair of parents whose adopted son (Michael Oliver) is more than just a troublemaker — he's a proverbial demon child whose only mission seems to be making his parents' lives a living hell.

A dark comedy that works for all ages, it's definitely not the sharply written social satire that critics might have wanted it to be, but it never really pretends to be either. The film revels in its ridiculousness and boasts a sterling supporting cast: Gilbert Gottfried plays an uptight adoption agent while Michael Richards is at the top of his game as an escaped crook.

Rotten Tomatoes called it "juvenile" and "mean-spirited," but that's all by design as a twisted black comedy. Ritter is genuinely funny as usual, and the timing and chemistry between he and Yasbeck are worth watching for. Ritter's skill at playing a frustrated, overworked, and underappreciated everyman is on full display, too. If you think we're crazy for recommending it, consider it was popular enough to get two sequels, so clearly lots of people were enjoying it.

Cabin Fever (2016) is better as an academic exercise than a film

If you're wondering why an awful remake of a mediocre horror movie makes our list, hear us out. Because this is one of the few we won't defend as some sort of guilty pleasure. After all, there's already a better version available, the 2002 original from director Eli Roth, which boasts a strong 62% on Rotten Tomatoes . No, it's everything surrounding the film that makes the 2016 remake worth seeing.

Sure, you may get some legitimate enjoyment out of the film here and there, but that's not why we're recommending a watch. Its appeal is comparable to Gus Van Sant's "Psycho" remake. For starters, it's fascinating to watch as an exercise in filmmaking: The "Cabin Fever" remake isn't just a do-over for the studio — Eli Roth actually returned as an executive producer and co-writer to remake his own movie, something incredibly rare in Hollywood.

The chance to see the changes Roth made to his own story — not to mention the alternate choices the production makes in cinematography, camerawork, and even casting — are fascinating if not instructive. No, we're not recommending you sit down with a bucket of popcorn for a fun night watching the 2016 version of "Cabin Fever," but if you love filmmaking, there's plenty about it to keep you watching.

Staying Alive still boogies hard

You might be surprised to learn just how many movies that John Travolta with a 0% Rotten Tomatoes score . It might not look good for him, but at the very least it gives us more opportunities to find Travolta movies for this list. And we found another one: "Staying Alive," the much-maligned 1983 sequel to "Saturday Night Fever."

"Saturday Night Fever," a beloved hit with an 82% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes , was praised for its strong script, heartfelt drama, and Travolta's career-defining performance. "Staying Alive," by contrast, was mocked for focusing too much on all the songs and dance numbers and forgetting that it was the character drama that made its predecessor one of the best movies of the decade. Still, just because "Staying Alive" isn't as good as the original doesn't mean its not good. Because at times it's even better than good, and partly due to the stylish — if unpolished — direction of Sylvester Stallone.

Watching with a fresh set of eyes reveals that, just maybe, critics wanted it to be its predecessor a little too much when it's really a very different kind of movie. Yes, it's a direct sequel and spends lots of time on theatrical musical numbers. But through those numbers, we explore Tony Morano's (Travolta) character, his hopes and dreams, and ultimately his self-acceptance, and that's not to mention how good those musical numbers are.

Return to the Blue Lagoon is about as good as the original

A sequel to the 1980 classic "The Blue Lagoon" starring a young Brooke Shields, "Return to the Blue Lagoon" followed its predecessor 11 years later. The original wasn't very good, so it probably wasn't a surprise that "Return" was also met with bad reviews. Still, it's 0% seems excessive, and like many movies on this list, it's at least worth watching for its star: In this case, a young Milla Jovovich.

Just 15 when she was cast, Jovovich supplants Shields in the role of island castaway, this time as Lilli Hargrave, who becomes marooned with Paddy, the baby from the first movie now all grown up. Make no mistake, "Return to the Blue Lagoon" is slow-moving and tiresome, and the romantic drama will barely get you to the center of your seat let alone the edge. But seeing Jovovich in just her second big screen outing — her first as a lead — is at least something to watch. Despite earning her a Golden Rasberry nomination, her performance has enough innocence and effervescence to give a glimpse of both her eventual star power and her limited range.

Highlander II: The Quickening is as ambitious as it is cheesy

The first "Highlander" successfully blends sci-fi, fantasy, and thriller with a hard-boiled crime story about an immortal warrior (Christopher Lambert) who is being hunted by others of his kind. A rare box office bomb that still got a sequel , "Highlander" landed with as big a thud as its follow-up, "Highlander II: The Quickening." And the sequel's 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes means nobody will ever forget.

In "The Quickening," we find Lambert's immortal hero living in a post-apocalyptic far future, a radical departure from the first movie. But when a new evil emerges, he once again fights alongside fellow immortal Juan Sánchez-Villalobos Ramírez (Sean Connery). It's not as good as the first movie, but "The Quickening" has its redeeming qualities. Lambert and Connery continue to chew the scenery, and there's something that's just so bonkers about the futuristic setting and its maniacal villains that it's hard not to enjoy — even if ironically.

The story, meanwhile, is more layered than you might think, with the futuristic setting populated with elements of social satire and political commentary — however unsubtle or cliched. And just like the first film, "The Quickening" earned itself a cult following on home video — and cable TV — where the film finally found the right audience who could appreciate it for its big themes and ambitious ideas. It will never be considered a classic, but it's worth a watch if you enjoy the first "Highlander."

Merci Docteur Rey is a decent romp that critics hated

We opened this discussion with the caveat that the movies on this list might not be that terrible ... but they're probably not that great, either. "Merci Docteur Rey," however, might be the lone exception. And that's due to its surprising 65% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes — a rare time a movie with a 0% critical rating received a "fresh" score from average moviegoers.

Top critics didn't like the film at all, and it seems they were confused by what they deemed a pointless, contrived story with little meaning. Audiences, though, felt quite the opposite. Many user reviews praised the film's quirky story — involving a sex-starved young Frenchman (Stanislas Merhar) in search of his identity, his narcissistic mother (Dianne Wiest), a renowned psychiatrist, and lots of murder.

An uneven, wild but controlled art film, the sort of thing we'd now compare to a Wes Anderson film, "Merci Docteur Rey" is populated by eccentric oddballs, which is the film's real appeal. It's not so much a tight, clever story as it is a showcase for its offbeat cast of characters and cast including Vanessa Redgrave and Simon Callow.

Stolen sends grizzled Jon Hamm on a murder case

In the era of streaming, gritty crime thrillers have become a dime a dozen, with Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu all pumping out countless films that send grizzled heroes on a quest for justice. Before streaming, though, those kind of low-rent action movies were still common, if easy to ignore, which is probably why "Stolen" flew under everyone's radar in 2010.

Receiving the dreaded goose egg on Rotten Tomatoes , "Stolen" may have gotten a better score if more critics had seen it, as it only received 21 reviews from critics. Those that did see it wrote that it lacks the tension that a thriller needs and is woefully awful in spite of its impressive cast. But that cast is exactly why it's worth more than its 0% suggests, as the movie is led by "Mad Men" star Jon Hamm as a dedicated detective out to solve a cold case that may be related to his own son's disappearance.

He may not exactly give the kind of dazzling Don Draper-like performance that earned him eight Emmy nominations, but for one of his first lead roles in a film, he delivers just enough to keep your attention when the story is lacking. Don't go in expecting "Silence of the Lambs," and you just might have a good time.

Folks! casts Tom Selleck in a decent generational comedy

The late '80s and early '90s saw some of the best comedy movies of all time , from "Groundhog's Day" to "Wayne's World." Unfortunately, the era also produced stinkers like Dan Aykroyd's "Nothing But Trouble" or Sylvester Stallone's "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot!" But few flops from that time got as low a rating as "Folks!," the 1992 box office bomb starring Tom Selleck as an uptight yuppie who takes his parents in when their house is destroyed in a fire.

A movie about the ever-widening generation gap between baby boomers and their aging parents, "Folks!" pokes fun at the elderly a little too much for some people's tastes, something that critics found both dreadful and obnoxious. But while the humor can certainly be cringeworthy at times, it's not the worst comedy film of the decade, nor is it even the worst comedy  Tom Selleck ever did, with the likes of "Three Men and a Little Lady" and "The Love Letter" coming in well below this one on our ranked list of Tom Selleck's filmography .

Sure, the story is trite and the jokes are predictable. But in a certain light, "Folks!" feels like a predecessor to Adam Sandler movies from later that decade — a nonstop cavalcade of borderline-offensive, low-brow laughs mixed with slapstick farce and lots of bodily harm humor.