Recent articles
April 9, 2026
How ‘The Drama’ Could Redefine A24
Like a lot of people today who care passionately about movies, I love A24. I don’t love every movie they make or release. But I love, and certainly like, enough of them, and I recognize — and salut...
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April 6, 2026
‘Faces of Death’ Review: A ’70s-Style B-Horror Movie Taps into the Growing Appetite for Horror That’s ‘Real’
The idea that a sicko like Arthur isn’t just a serial killer — he’s part of the new anything-goes attention economy! — is a provocative but facile idea. Yet that’s part of what gives "Faces of Deat...
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March 31, 2026
‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’ Review: Frenetic and Disappointing Sequel is a Threadbare Adventure That’s All Video-Game Easter Eggs
In “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” we meet Yoshi, a cuddly green dinosaur in pink boots who looks like a plastic bath toy and will eat just about anything (he’s voiced in a babyish coo by Donald Gl...
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March 31, 2026
‘The Drama’ Review: Robert Pattinson and Zendaya in a Half-Funny, Half-Baked Squirm Comedy of Extreme Marital Jitters
In "The Drama," a squirm comedy that’s supposed to hinge on the ultimate case of marital jitters, Robert Pattinson gives one of the twitchiest performances in the history of twitchy performances.
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March 31, 2026
‘Dog Day Afternoon’ Broadway Review: Jon Bernthal Takes the Al Pacino Role in a Canny Piece of Stagecraft That Can’t Rival the Movie’s Haunting Power
As a piece of stagecraft, "Dog Day Afternoon," directed by Mauk Kaufman, does a canny job of translating the film’s action, keeping the flow taut and exciting. But it also does something that’s ver...
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March 29, 2026
‘The Last Critic’ Review: A Captivating Portrait of Robert Christgau, the Brilliant Mad Professor of Rock Critics, and How He Made the Grade
In "The Last Critic," we meet Christgau as an elder stateman of rock-crit (he’s now 83), a downtown stalwart knocking around the streets of the East Village. He’s a bit more bent than he was, with ...
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March 26, 2026
‘The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist’ Review: A Scary, Dizzying and Essential Deep Dive into the AI Revolution
"The AI Doc" has been structured as a ride into the future — a kaleidoscopic multimedia meditation on what AI is (the film explains it from the ground up), how intelligent it really is (100 times m...
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March 21, 2026
‘Marc by Sofia’ Review: Sofia Coppola’s Documentary About Her Fashion BFF Marc Jacobs Captures but Never Unzips Its Subject
It presents a lot of tasty clips of Jacobs through the decades, going back to his 1980s days at the Parsons School of Design, but the heart of the movie is its chronicle of the 12 weeks in which he...
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March 20, 2026
‘Tow’ Review: Rose Byrne Plays Another Charismatic Pill — a Seattle Homeless Woman Fighting to Get Her Car Back
"Tow" is a minor indie comedy that doesn’t always make the right moves, but Byrne seizes her character and turns the question of whether you like her or not into the film’s dramatic motor.
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March 17, 2026
‘Forbidden Fruits’ Review: The Salesgirls Are Witches in a Depraved Satirical Thriller That’s Like ‘Mean Girls’ Meets ‘The Craft’ Touched with Something Darker
If you see one spicy depraved satirical thriller this year that’s a cross between "Mean Girls" and "The Craft" and something far darker, by all means make that movie "Forbidden Fruits."
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March 16, 2026
The 2026 Oscars Review: A Tasteful and Overly Safe Show Sustained by Just Enough Suspense
In the best of all worlds, the Oscars are exciting: fun and suspenseful, moving and meaningful. At their most supreme, they leave you with the feeling that movies matter. In the worst of all worlds...
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March 15, 2026
‘Power Ballad’ Review: Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas Rule in John Carney’s Most Winning Pop-Music Drama Since ‘Once’
This is a terrific story because of how much we believe it. Rudd makes Rick a fully felt presence, a gifted musician with a dad-rock swagger about him, who's suddenly lost in the despair of seeing ...
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March 15, 2026
‘Over Your Dead Body’ Review: Jason Segel and Samara Weaving Are Out to Kill Each Other in a Mad Thriller That May Be the Quintessential SXSW Movie
It’s a bloody cat-and-mouse game of the most extreme kind — a spectacle of sadistic survivalism gone mad, all staged with a logistically brutal joy.
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March 14, 2026
‘Ready or Not 2: Here I Come’ Review: Samara Weaving Gets Trapped in a More Dangerous — and Luridly Preposterous — Game
Is "Ready or Not 2" the hyper-bloody megaplex bash as knowing midnight movie? Does it combine honest yocks with a general invitation to crack up at its misanthropic cheesiness? Does it make up rule...
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March 13, 2026
‘I Love Boosters’ Review: Keke Palmer Takes Charge in Boots Riley’s Playfully Out-There Riff on Shoplifting, Sisterhood and Fashion Madness
“I Love Boosters” might have had the makings of a more conventional commercial comedy, but the way Riley works it's like a deliberately ticky-tacky version of “The Devil Wears Prada” meets “Set It ...
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March 12, 2026
The Oscar Best Picture Winners Have Long Been a Sign of the Times. This Year Even More So
The Oscar for best picture goes to the best picture (or, at least, a certain collective idea of it). Yet there’s another way to read that most defining and crucial of Oscar categories. If you look ...
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March 11, 2026
‘Reminders of Him’ Review: The Latest Colleen Hoover Movie Is a Pleasingly Restrained Weeper About the Passion of Motherhood
"Reminders of Him" is notably restrained — a good thing more than not, even if the film does turn a bit languid at times. It tells its story without making us feel used.
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March 10, 2026
‘Project Hail Mary’ Review: Ryan Gosling in a Lavish but Derivative Outer-Space Adventure
The film feels padded, whether it’s stopping in its tracks for Eva to do a full-blown karaoke version of Harry Styles’ "Sign of the Times" or spilling over into a finale that doesn’t know where to ...
variety.com
March 7, 2026
‘Heel’ Review: Why Did Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough Sign on for This Contrived Debacle?
"Heel" is like "A Clockwork Orange" remade as the year’s worst Sundance movie.
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March 2, 2026
‘Hoppers’ Review: The Delightful New Pixar Film Is an Out-of-the-Box Critter Comedy That’s Like ‘Bambi’ on Crack
What places "Hoppers" in the first rank of Pixar movies is that the story, while wild enough to begin with, keeps twisting and turning with let’s-try-it-on surrealist nonchalance. The director, Dan...
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February 26, 2026
‘Scream 7’ Review: Neve Campbell Returns for a Back-to-Basics Sequel That’s a Little Too Basic
"Scream 7" has enough shocks and yocks to keep the product churning and the audience, at least for a weekend, turning out. Williamson has gone back to basics, but the result is a "Scream" sequel th...
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February 25, 2026
‘Midwinter Break’ Review: Lesley Manville and Ciarán Hinds in a Touching Wee Drama of Late-in-Life Marital Crisis
The director, Polly Findlay (an acclaimed British stage director making her first feature), presents all of this in a stately and fastidious prestige-teleplay-of-the-week way. Adapting a 2017 novel...
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February 21, 2026
Remembering Tom Noonan, Whose Performance in ‘Manhunter’ Is the Greatest Portrayal of a Psycho Killer in Movie History
Considering all the horror movies I’ve seen, I’m a pretty easy jump scare. I can sit through the degraded slasher-film trash of the week, and when that formula shock cut arrives, synced to a bombas...
variety.com
February 20, 2026
‘I Can Only Imagine 2’ Review: Now That He’s a Christian Rock Star, Bart Millard Has More Problems Than Ever. But Is He Only Imagining Them?
On the tour bus, Bart and his buddies, like the band manager, Brick (Trace Adkins), an aging biker with the voice of Sam Elliott, engage in a form of badinage I would characterize as bro Christiani...
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February 18, 2026
‘How to Make a Killing’ Review: Glen Powell Carries You Through a Screw-Loose Thriller of Money and Murder
It’s a light-fingered drop-dead screw-loose noir — a quasi-satirical mash-up of greed and desperation and Wall Street chicanery and a dash of romance, with Glen Powell, dishy in Brioni suits, turni...
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February 16, 2026
Remembering Robert Duvall, Whose Acting Brilliance Colored in the Light and Dark Sides of Humanity
When you think of the great actors (Brando, Streep, De Niro, Ullmann, Day-Lewis), one of the first qualities that leaps to mind is range. Robert Duvall, who died Sunday at 95 and was most assuredly...
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February 16, 2026
‘Joe’s College Road Trip’ Review: Tyler Perry Lets Out His Inner Bad Grandpa in a Hilariously Profane Buddy Comedy
Perry’s performance is a spectacular piece of high-wire burlesque. There’s an extraordinary spontaneity to it. The outrages just keep spilling of him, to the point that you realize this is Tyler Pe...
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February 15, 2026
The Epstein Files Have Become The Ultimate Disturbing Horror Movie. No Wonder We Can’t Look Away
In the last decade, I’ve occasionally written pieces that compared what’s happening in the world — specifically, in the Trump presidency — to something we’re used to seeing on the big screen. Eight...
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February 11, 2026
‘Crime 101’ Review: Chris Hemsworth and Mark Ruffalo Lead a Tip-Top Cast in a Jewel-Heist Thriller More About Character Than Crime
"Crime 101" includes crime aplenty, but at heart it’s a character study — or, rather, four character studies in one. Based on a novel by Don Winslow, the film is just moody and intricate enough to ...
variety.com
February 9, 2026
‘GOAT’ Review: A Go-for-Your-Dream Fairy Tale With a Bold New Animated Look and a Brashly Winning Attitude
It’s a highly original and rousing animated feature — a sports fable with a hip-hop vibe and an off-kilter cosmology. It doesn’t look or move like other animated features.
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