It’s these life-or-death stakes that Happening puts front and center, as it forces viewers to not just confront the stigma associated with abortion — a word, by the way, that’s never uttered in the film — but to immerse themselves in the same dread and paranoia that Anne feels.

What Raimi has done with his contribution, however, is construct not another roller coaster but one hell of a haunted house, one fueled by an abundance of eccentric creativity, imagination, and finely honed chops. The methods he employs to his Madness are what makes this movie stick out, in this or any other universe.

Once you’ve seen this deft blend of genres and tones, all of the inspired laughter and the lumping of throats, you see exactly how Hit the Road fits all of its elements together with remarkable seamlessness.

It’s an oft-stunning visual feast and an entertaining peek into Eggers’ instincts as a choreographer not only of historical detail but of bloody action. It is also an instructive example of how the most visionary intentions can’t always enliven an otherwise rote story.

Sciamma is weaving a spell here, so pure in its emotional resonance that it breaks your heart even as it heals wounds.

It’s comically postmodern to the point of feeling almost retro, which also describes Everything Everywhere’s sense of action, its enriched sense of comedy colliding violence, practical materials (like fanny packs) taking their ranks amid the physically superhuman feats of choreography — a mix many of us rightly associate with Jackie Chan.

Apollo 10 1/2 starts off as a fantasy, a family comedy and a loosey-goosey flashback. It exits as a tribute to imagination, which — like so many of Linklater’s best movies — uses something personal as a jumping-off point for something poignant, funny, expansive, and ultimately moving.

Come to West’s celebration of the movies’ darker underbelly for the adrenaline rush of sex and violence. Exit it having witnessed something that marks the spot where baser impulses meets artistry, in more ways than one.

The Outfit is a crime thriller made to order, and one that takes pride in how it looks, how things fit on it, the shape it cuts when it moves.

Turning Red is definitely a persuasive manifesto for “releasing the Red Panda” to be added to that list of menstruation euphemisms, but that’s not all it is. It is also a bright, moving, funny, happy film about adolescent angst, that doesn’t condescend but also doesn’t overload. It is, perhaps most remarkably, a movie about 13-year-olds that 13-year-olds might actually enjoy.

As you find yourself instinctively reviewing those own seemingly insignificant moments in your own life, the ones that you hold so dear, while following this cyber-compassionate movie to its conclusion, it’s almost impossible not to be moved by the long game that the film’s creator is playing.

At its best, The Batman is a helluva tough-guy yarn — an entertaining pulp-fiction epic under the guise of sure-thing blockbuster. At its worst, it’s the cinematic equivalent of a mixtape.

Forget the title: Jackass can’t go on forever. Just enjoy one last chance to see these beautiful f*ck-ups do what they do best before they limp and hobble off into the sunset.

The Tragedy of Macbeth is Joel’s first outing on his own but, in this regard, he’s made a movie that suits the broader world of his work. That he’s done so most cogently through a character most other approaches to this play have barely noticed only makes it that much more thrilling.

For a long stretch, Italian Studies turns this trip down memory-loss lane into a low-wattage livewire, an unpredictable stroll into the unknown. Its hero will slowly, eventually come back around to remembering her life before the reset. The movie itself, however, is unforgettable from the jump.

Yet you have to applaud how boldly this fifth entry tries to flip the bird to the entire rinse-repeat-regurgitate idea of trapping film series in amber, while also delivering you the thrill of the familiar and those dopamine bumps that come with the pang of recognition.

For those of us who’ve been enthralled by what Collins has done on the periphery, the chance to see him occupy center stage — and in something so suited to his skill set — is enough to make this worthwhile. But the way in which he keeps both the rest of the cast and the story itself in the pocket without making it feel like a showreel, even down to his final here’s-the-big-payoff sequence, is what makes this special.

Cyrano may sometimes feels like its struggling to find a way to say something new about a beloved, centuries-old work of art, one that’s been updated and deconstructed and reconstructed ad infinitum. Once the sex-symbol movie star starts whispering in its ear what to say, however, and how to act, and why it’s the well-spoken sadness of it all that makes it so swoonworthy — those are the moments that make this musical positively sing.

Colman brings Ferrante’s creation to life with all the withering pathos she deserves. Gyllenhaal catches it handsomely, awe-struck, as if even she didn’t know how painfully real this woman Leda could seem or, in Colman’s hands, be.

I was moved, impressed — far more than I expected to be. The emotional engineering of The Matrix Resurrections is exacting and rapturous.

You can always count on del Toro to put the “grand” in Grand Guignol. Nightmare Alley is no exception, though it’s a little dreamier than it should be.

No Way Home is a perfectly fine superhero movie.

This West Side Story proves someone can still leave their mark on the legend without building it from the ground up. It’s a classic Spielberg joint, a classic hat-tip to Hollywood, and a classic, period.

The movie may want you to see the best of us in the dingiest of places. But you’re as delusional as Mikey Saber if you think it will avert its eyes from showing us the worst of us as well.

Every one of the performances is, to say the least, an example of what talented actors can bring to a piece of character-driven tragedy; there’s not a single weak link in this chain, while the collective chemistry suggests an instant history of affection, conflict, and shared cringing.

Anderson may be concocting his own personal flashback to a funkier age of innocence, but he lets these two make it their own double-act as well. Then he generously invites an audience in as well.

With House of Gucci, you get a jumble of stories jockeying for screen time, and then you get a supernova blazing at the center of all of it that burns everything superfluous away. If the film is remembered for anything, it’s for being Exhibit A as what a great actor she is. Forget Gucci. Long live the house that Gaga built.

Deeply felt sincerity of the kind that Mills offers can be a tough pill. You kind of have to be in the mood. But this isn’t a film that works despite those excesses. Instead, it makes a case for them.