Moira Macdonald

The night after I saw Everything Everywhere All At Once I had a dream, in which I took a journey that was chaotic and messy and strangely beautiful. I suspect that dream was heavily flavored by the movie I had just seen, which also fit that description. The dream quickly faded, as dreams do, but the movie is staying with me, turning over and over in my head like stones in a kaleidoscope, ever-shifting.

Bullock and Tatum take hold of the material and turn it into an enchanted screwball.

Rylance (“Bridge of Spies”) anchors it all, creating a character with unexpected layers, like a suit with an elegant silk lining you didn’t realize was there.

Shi and screenwriter Julia Cho present a sweet, graceful ode to growing up.

I don’t know about you, but this particular time in history does not seem like the moment for a movie that will leave you a) miserable and b) wondering why nobody in Gotham City seems to have heard of light bulbs. Your mileage may vary, but for me — who loved both the Tim Burton and the Christopher Nolan “Batman” universes — this one feels like an earnest but bloated misfire.

Dinklage isn’t a strong singer, but it doesn’t matter a whit: his swaggering but vulnerable Cyrano, reveling in words but aching with love, will break your heart

As you have probably seen a movie or two before, you know where this is going. But Lopez’s glossy sweetness and Wilson’s dad-jokes charm blend amiably together, and Marry Me glides along smoothly, full of pop songs and earnestness and very expensive-looking hair.

While Poirot is always witty, few of the other characters are. Michael Green’s screenplay often feels weirdly detached, like we missed some crucial early scenes that tell us why we should care about these people. All that said, it’s no great hardship to watch Death on the Nile; it looks pretty, feels pleasantly old-school and is over within shouting distance of the two-hour mark.

Almodóvar fills the movie with eloquent touches — scenes softly fading to black, music twisting like vines, an old house whose stories whisper in every corner, a baby’s watchful eyes, a past that informs a future. Generations pass, this wise movie tells us; family endures.

Filmed in black-and-white shadow, Coen’s version of Shakespeare’s taut tale of murder and consequences in murky Scotland here seems so creepily ethereal it practically floats in the air, with gorgeous language gliding by on the cold wind.

Gyllenhaal here shows herself as a natural storyteller; The Lost Daughter flows like water as its characters navigate territory not often explored in film.

The movie isn’t terrible, but too often it feels Hollywood-bland; a missed opportunity, served neat.

This is how superhero movies are supposed to be: thrilling and funny and moving and full of popcorn-fueled joy.

Cooper, carrying the movie from start to finish, has a final, devastating close-up that’ll haunt you for quite a while. Darkness has enveloped this man; he won’t wake from his own nightmare.

Sometimes, miscasting can be very interesting, in the hands of an actor who knows what she’s doing — and Kidman is definitely that. Here, she creates a nuanced and believable version of Ball (and of “Lucy,” the character Ball played on her sitcom “I Love Lucy,” though we don’t see much of her), meticulously introducing us to a serious, thoughtful woman obsessed with the details of comedy, who understood what it meant to have power at a time when few women did.

And the 89-year-old Moreno, creating an effortless bridge between this movie and the previous one, gives us a gift late in the film that had me reduced to tears; it’s a deeply touching choice that I won’t spoil.

House of Gucci is no masterpiece, but it’s often crazy good fun.

It’s a unique ride of a movie, beautiful and disturbing and haunting — in other words, it’s a Jane Campion film.

King Richard, though perhaps a tad overlong, is as irresistible as the young legends at its center; you watch with pleasure, thinking of the many future champions it might inspire.

Shot in soft black-and-white, with color occasionally peering in at the movie houses where Buddy spends rapt hours, Belfast is brief, tidy and lovely; a heartfelt story of family and home, and how where the former is, the latter resides.

You watch wishing this story, in the real world, could have had a different ending; and marveling at how Stewart finds new, close-to-the-bone layers in a character we thought we already knew.

It’s a long sit, but a day later I find myself still thinking about Chan’s quiet, mesmerizing presence at the film’s center, and how Zhao had the confidence to let that performance speak so softly. It’s a different kind of superhero movie; not to everyone’s taste, but made for us all.

The plot doesn’t matter in the slightest; young and old fans of the first movie will be lining up for the wit, for the inventiveness of the characters, for the breathtaking visuals — and just the sheer fun of it all.

Though Wright can’t quite sustain the tension through the final half-hour, Last Night in Soho is full of dark pleasures.

Ultimately, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is made enjoyable by its human and feline actors, despite the sadness of the material, and it left me wanting to know more about its subject, which I suppose is the point.

The French Dispatch is an elegant ode to good writing, and to those who quietly stand behind the words.

No Time to Die has moments of pleasure, lots of them, but ultimately it feels heavy in a way a Bond movie shouldn’t; its pacing is off and it can’t quite sell the earnestness and even sentimentality of much of its storyline.

In the film, we’re able to see Ailey during the Kennedy Center honors, watching intently as “Revelations” is performed; he looks like he’s carefully checking it, making sure it’s perfect, wondering if it could be better — the artist watching the art. You leave Ailey hoping that, somewhere, he’s watching still.