First Man movie review: over the moon
Damian Chazelle finds a dreamlike reverie amidst rocket-powered mechanical brawn. As wonderfully, nerve-wrackingly exhausting as it is movingly intimate.
historical
Jane Fonda in Five Acts documentary review: the political is her personal
An extraordinarily intimate and perceptive new biography of the legendary actor and activist. Fonda reveals insecurities and anxieties that are achingly raw and very personal, but which many women will see themselves in.
The Little Stranger movie review: so many ways to be haunted
A glorious gothic conundrum of obsession, delusion, psychological infection, and just possibly actual malevolent spirits. The most haunting aspect of this eerily enrapturing film may be the sly, maddening ambiguity of it all.
The House with a Clock in Its Walls movie review: good witches and not-so-good witches
Charming entry-level spookiness and nicely old-fashioned eeriness for budding fright fans. A disarmingly goofy Jack Black and a vamping-it-up Cate Blanchett meet in a comic middle that is perfectly pitched.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post movie review: just as she is
Like a black comedy from a dystopia, except the dystopia is real and we are living in it. Chloë Grace Moretz is better than ever as a teen who discovers she may not be able to pray her gay away.
Cold War (Zimna wojna) movie review: chilly romance
This lush throwback to European cinema of the 1950s and 60 looks gorgeous and sounds wonderful, but it never quite gels as the passionate romance it wants to be.
Memoir of War (La Douleur) movie review: woman on the homefront
Marguerite Duras’s semifictionalized memoir of psychological survival and emotional endurance in Paris during the Nazi occupation makes an uneasy, listless transition to the screen.
Alpha movie review: dog tired
The remarkable Ice Age setting is all that distinguishes — and not by much — a depressingly conventional boy-and-his-dog story.
The Bookshop movie review: quiet portrait of a woman of words
It’s weighed down by unnecessary narration and a surprising lack of conflict. But star Emily Mortimer and director Isabel Coixet create a character study of a rarity onscreen: an earnestly cerebral woman.
Sicilian Ghost Story movie review: grim failing tale
A cruel film that hopes to use its fantastical surreality to find some sort of redemption in the senseless, violent, and real-life abuse of a child. There is no magic here, and no meaning.
