You wouldn't want to make them the staple of your cinematic diet, but movies where the main characters are all corrupt or vain are often satisfying because they let us enjoy the audacity of bad behavior without suffering the consequences of it. Never is that more true than when the people in...

It's a family affair in Clara's Ghost, written and directed by — am I reading this right? — “Bridey” Elliott? That seems like a typo. She’s the daughter of Chris Elliott and sister of Abby Elliott. Mom is Paula Niedert Elliott, who was a Late Night with David Letterman staffer when...

Racism is solved one moron at a time in Green Book, a lighthearted, vaguely true story set in 1962, with bigoted Bronx-Italian meathead Tony "Lip" Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen) hired as chauffeur and bodyguard for refined black concert pianist Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) as he tours the racist...

Hannah Grace is already possessed when The Possession of Hannah Grace begins, and she dies during a botched exorcism before the opening credits roll. The movie isn't about her anyway: It's about Megan Reed (Shay Mitchell), a young ex-cop haunted by a mistake she made that got her partner killed,...

Anna and the Apocalypse is a Scottish zombie high school musical comedy set at Christmastime. Does it fulfill every magical possibility of that delicious combination of themes? No, but let’s be reasonable. It’s a remarkably self-assured and polished second feature by director John McPhail...

Suspiria, from Call Me by Your Name director Luca Guadagnino, is a remake of a 1977 cult favorite by Italian horrormeister Dario Argento -- but don't feel bad if that means nothing to you. Argento, a legend in horror circles for his genre-defining work in giallo films, never had mainstream name...

The financial and artistic success of Creed, a Rocky sequel that was thoughtful and character-driven in a way that most Rocky sequels aren't, inspired optimism that subsequent chapters would follow suit. At the center was a dynamic new character, Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan), son of Apollo...

Instant Family may not be the most wonderful movie of the year, but it's certainly the most surprisingly wonderful. Inspired by a true story, the premise threatens a sappy, manipulative Hallmark movie: White childless couple Pete (Mark Wahlberg) and Ellie (Rose Byrne) decide to take in a foster kid...

Ralph Breaks the Internet is a bit of a misnomer. The eponymous hero doesn’t actually “break” the internet (and certainly not in the way a Kardashian might), and the long-awaited sequel to 2012’s Wreck-It Ralph isn’t necessarily about the internet, per se. What it is about is friendship...

In 2008, journalist David Sheff and his son Nic published parallel memoirs, Beautiful Boy and Tweak, detailing Nic's struggles with drug addiction and David's efforts to help him. Both books are credited as source material for the film Beautiful Boy, directed by Felix van Groeningen (Broken Circle...

After countless adaptations and remakes, you’re undoubtedly quite familiar with the tale of Robin Hood, the charismatic and good-hearted thief who robs from the rich to give to the poor. But, as Taron Egerton’s title character instructs in the opening voice over of Robin Hood, “forget...

The Australian filmmaker Joel Edgerton, who directed The Gift and played Uncle Owen in the Star Wars prequels, is not gay. This felt apparent to me, a gay, watching Boy Erased, which Edgerton adapted and directed from Garrard Conley's memoir about having to attend "conversion therapy." It's a...

The biggest crime in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald surprisingly isn’t one perpetrated by Johnny Depp (though he’s definitely a problem). What makes this sequel to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them such a frustrating experience is that everything about it — save for the...

(Streaming on Netflix.) Most of us don't have the exact problems that Alice in Cam has because most of us aren't webcam performers who make a living doing sexy shows online for tips (not that we're judging). But this intriguing if underdeveloped thriller from first-time director Daniel...

On the surface, it would be almost too easy to dismiss the women of Widows as oblivious, naive, helpless, or – worst of all – dumb. But therein lies the brilliance and thematic intricacy of Steve McQueen’s latest film – a ferocious and sophisticated reimagining of the BBC miniseries that...