The chemistry between Bateman and McAdams explodes in every scene and only grows stronger when, over the course of one very long and dangerous night, their characters get caught up in conspiracy

The narrative is needlessly complicated, and it all seems crafted just to build to a single joke voiced in the third act

The only fantasies Fifty Shades Freed convincingly fulfills are those of boutique publishers who would like to believe that a debut novel can acquire 250,000 preorders and that a local glossy can employ upward of 50 full-time staffers, both of which occur in this film.

In the tense but hearty Chilean drama A Fantastic Woman, actress Daniela Vega plays a transwoman, Marina, who must navigate life after the death of her lover

Lover for a Day seems at times almost a parody of Garrel’s work, a throwback to a time when a filmmaker’s artistry or hubris often excused, for many viewers, melodramatic characterizations of women …

It’s a sad day when the cinematographer carries the full burden of storytelling, but in this instance it’s also at least a wonderful opportunity to marvel at Laustsen’s work

The film drags when Haneke pulls focus to the other, duller characters, perhaps inevitably, as it seems his intention for those people to lack interiority or thoughtfulness

The Post tells the story of the late Katherine Graham (Meryl Streep), the longtime publisher of The Washington Post, who took over its operations after her husband committed suicide in the 1970s

Those expecting camp or catfights won’t find them in Gillespie’s movie, which instead offers thoughtful and somewhat objective critiques …

Hugh Jackman is charming as ever, and two dance scenes are mildly inventive and well-executed, yet Jackman’s goodwill and a splash of inspired choreography are not enough to earn the “greatest” in the title

Chastain seems at times to be both the lead and her own supporting actor in this story, as she oscillates between traditionally feminine and masculine modes of behavior

Guadagnino adeptly captures not just physicality of a burning love but also the emotional and intellectual components, and the film is all the more salient for that careful, realistic interpretation

Some of them gave me hope for America, others invited me into foreign-to-me cultures and one even made me delightfully nauseous

Here are some quick U.S. stats: White women won the vote in 1920; some Native American women could vote in 1924, while the rest could not until 1947; Asian-American women first voted in 1952; and black women had to wait until the 1960s to freely exercise this fundamental right. But…

… In Three Billboards, where livid, grieving mother Mildred (Frances McDormand) taunts the local police for not solving her daughter’s rape and murder (by being burned to death) from nine months prior, McDonagh has taken on a situation that demands we take it seriously.

Despite the bright cinematography, there’s something quaint and comforting about this film and its brand of old-fashioned storytelling …

Why is Mel Gibson in the holiday family comedy Daddy’s Home 2? When Gibson’s relentlessly bloody, morally incoherent 2016 film Hacksaw Ridge inexplicably became a critical darling, I watched in horror at the love and attention lavished on the director. In what world were we living where, when Gibson’s name…

One year, back in the early 1990s, an uncle of mine didn’t show up to our family Christmas. I was only 10 and didn’t understand his sudden departure and why nobody would speak of it. A year later, I was at his funeral. He was a playwright and actor in…

My Friend Dahmer, from a graphic memoir of the same name by the pseudonymous Derf Backderf, is a kind of coming-of-age tale that dissects a troubled kid’s descent into murder. Backderf was a high-school pal of the boy who would grow up to become the serial killer and cannibal Jeffrey…

On Sept. 11, 2001, renowned primatologist and environmental advocate Jane Goodall was in New York on business. She had planned to catch a flight out to visit a high school to give a talk on how we can find a reason to hope. That didn’t happen, of course. She stayed…

When I first saw Brett Morgen’s 2002 documentary The Kid Stays in the Picture, I was shocked that the film somehow matched the rollicking, mercurial energy of its subject, producer Robert Evans. Morgen reimagined the use of archival footage and voiceover, and the style he pioneered has now been mimicked…

Joan Didion has set an impossible standard for any documentarian who would want to cover her life. She’s essentially already done it herself, brilliantly, in her essays, novels and films. Still, Didion’s nephew, actor/director Griffin Dunne, takes a shot with his new Netflix film Joan Didion: The Center Will Not…