Year: 2026

April 27, 2026 · Watch the official trailer

With the proliferation of musical biopics, it’s only a matter of time before every major pop icon becomes immortalized on the silver screen.

And yet, for the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, the world’s greatest showman doesn’t quite receive the level of spectacle one might expect for the hitmaker behind “Billie Jean,” “Thriller,” and “Beat It.”

Director Antoine Fuqua’s simply titled “Michael,” released in theaters this weekend, may prove popular and profitable thanks to worldwide familiarity with its subject’s music. But as a film, it’s so thinly written, functioning more as a partial jukebox musical, that no collection of classic Motown and ’80s synth-pop hits can overcome the fact that it’s an underwhelmingly written and shot mess.

The film covers Jackson’s early life as the youngest and lead member of the infamous Jackson 5, as well as the group’s complicated relationship with their controlling manager and father, Joe Jackson. It also tracks Michael’s breakout into solo superstardom through “Off the Wall” and “Thriller.”

Fuqua’s film spans more than two decades, but only scratches the surface of its subject, focusing more on showcasing Michael Jackson as a spectacle than as a person. The film gestures toward his body dysmorphia, his struggles with fame, and the isolating weight of the spotlight, but these ideas are only hinted at and never fully realized, particularly for a narrative that ends in 1987.

That said, the film does find strength in its two central performances. Jackson’s nephew, Jaafar Jackson, melts into the role of his uncle during his rise to mega-stardom. There’s a thoughtful, emotional, introverted respect for Michael’s legacy and charitable spirit that comes through in his performance.

It’s clear the younger Jackson understands the weight of inhabiting this figure, and that awareness carries throughout the film. The physical resemblance is striking and almost unrecognizable at time as someone playing Michael rather than the man himself, especially in performance sequences, most notably during the recreation of the iconic “Thriller” video.

Jaafar also goes to great lengths to replicate the high-pitched vibrato of Michael’s speaking voice during this era. However, that faithfulness leaves little room for him to fully express the inner turmoil and loneliness that defined so many of Michael’s most pivotal moments.

Meanwhile, Colman Domingo’s turn as Joe Jackson elevates what could easily read as moustache-twirling villainy into something far more grounded, a rigid, overbearing father whose presence looms over every scene.

In lesser hands, moments of discipline or confrontation with industry figures might feel disjointed or exaggerated, but Domingo brings a measured physicality and controlled intensity that keeps Joe from slipping into caricature.

The supporting cast, while undeniably talented, isn’t given nearly enough screen time or development to become particularly compelling. Nia Long brings much-needed warmth as Michael’s mother, and her scenes with Jaafar Jackson are among the most genuinely affecting in the film.

But “Michael” moves far too quickly between moments for any of the Jackson brothers to receive meaningful attention, with several members of the family omitted entirely. The result only deepens the film’s disjointed feel.

When the film does lean into its theatricality, however, it briefly comes alive. There are several large-scale musical sequences that capture the larger-than-life persona of the King of Pop, most notably a pitch-perfect recreation of the making of the iconic “Thriller” music video, as well as an awards show performance of “Billie Jean” midway through the film.

The closing sequence, built around the “Bad” tour, delivers the kind of show-stopping energy the film too often lacks elsewhere. There’s a dynamic visual approach in these moments that gives them a sense of scale and immediacy, and Jaafar Jackson’s ability to embody his uncle’s innovative stage presence genuinely transports audiences back to the height of 1980s pop.

Unfortunately, those moments are few and far between. Screenwriter John Logan and producer Graham King, the latter having previously found far greater success with the Queen biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody,” overload the narrative with half-measures and partially developed side stories. These threads hint at deeper explorations of Michael’s humanity but never coalesce into a cohesive or satisfying structure.

While other musical biopics have more seamlessly integrated an artist’s discography into the fabric of their storytelling, “Michael” does not. Instead, it treats these classic pop songs not as extensions of Michael Jackson’s personality, but as a separate persona he adopts when stepping on stage. The music becomes less a window into who he is, and more a performance mask the film never fully removes.

It’s also clear the film has undergone significant reshaping. Whether through reshoots or heavy intervention in the editing room, Fuqua and the producers appear to have pieced together a version of the story that feels fragmented rather than cohesive. Scenes often play like isolated moments rather than parts of a unified whole, reinforcing the film’s uneven structure.

And yet, the elements that do work, the performances, the scale of the musical sequences, and the recreation of iconic moments, are strong enough to make “Michael” worth experiencing on the big screen.

Even in its most frustrating and incomplete form, there’s still value in seeing the legacy of one of music’s most influential figures brought to life in a theatrical setting, though cinephiles may find little reason to seek it out beyond that spectacle.

April 20, 2026 · Watch the trailer

Not too long ago, Peter Farrelly’s career was at an all-time high when “Green Book,” the film he directed and co-wrote, won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

That kind of success typically affords a filmmaker carte blanche to shape the rest of their career however they see fit, often allowing for more personal, passion-driven projects rather than a return to safer studio fare.

Farrelly, also known for co-directing classic comedies with his brother Bobby like “There’s Something About Mary” and “Dumb and Dumber,” has instead returned to his mainstream comedic roots, though the choices he has made in doing so are baffling, to say the least.

His latest comedy, the direct-to-Prime Video feature “Balls Up,” is laughable from start to finish, though moviegoers are more likely to gawk at the bizarre downturn of an Academy Award-winning director than laugh at anything the film actually intends as a joke.

Written by Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese, “Balls Up” follows two marketing executives who botch a pitch to make their company the official condom sponsor of the World Cup, only to, through a series of increasingly implausible events, draw the ire of the entire nation of Brazil. What follows is a jungle escapade that quickly devolves into juvenile, sophomoric humor rather than anything resembling inspired comedy.

Mark Wahlberg plays Brad, a sales executive with an antagonistic smarm that lightly evokes his work in better comedies like “Ted” and “The Other Guys.” Here, though, that smarm rarely comes with the requisite heart that typically counterbalances Wahlberg’s more egotistical characters, leaving Brad as an entirely stilted, one-dimensional meme of a character.

Conversely, Paul Walter Hauser’s Elijah is afforded some semblance of development as a stuffy, altruistic scientist thrust into a fish-out-of-water narrative that skirts the edge of cliché without fully toppling into it.

Hauser is far more adept at finding nuance physically, both through facial expression and movement, though there’s little in the screenplay to allow him to generate meaningful comedy. His performance carries clear shades of Chris Farley, particularly the naive charm of “Tommy Boy,” but “Balls Up” is hardly a film worthy of that comparison.

The largely unmemorable supporting cast is most notable for how it leans into and amplifies ethnic stereotypes. Benjamin Bratt fully commits to the bit as an executive relapsing on his sobriety to an absurd degree, while Sacha Baron Cohen dominates scenes with an outlandish accent as a drug kingpin Brad and Elijah encounter on their journey.

There isn’t much in the visual direction of “Balls Up” that actively drags it down, but there’s just as little that elevates it beyond its streaming origins. From a technical standpoint, the film’s shortcomings stem almost entirely from its screenplay, which operates under the assumption that there are real jokes to be found where there simply aren’t any.

The film leans heavily on dated, sophomoric humor that would have struggled to land even two decades ago. Instead of building comedic momentum or character-driven payoff, “Balls Up” relies on crude, often lazy gags rooted in outdated homophobic and racial stereotypes, mistaking provocation for humor.

The result is a film that lacks both originality and intent, frequently feeling less like the work of seasoned screenwriters and more like something cobbled together without a clear comedic voice. What should feel irreverent instead comes across as uninspired, leaving the film stuck in a cycle of jokes that never quite materialize.

Films produced specifically for streaming don’t inherently suffer from a lack of quality. In fact, platforms like Netflix have, over time, established a relatively consistent baseline in both narrative structure and production value, making a concerted effort to offer films that can appeal to cinephiles across a range of tastes.

Amazon, however, continues to feel far less discerning in its approach, often appearing to throw money at projects without a clear sense of creative direction. “Balls Up” is yet another example of a film that feels fundamentally misaligned with any kind of theatrical ambition, instead landing squarely as disposable streaming content.

It plays less like a fully realized feature and more like something designed to be passively consumed, the kind of film casual viewers might put on out of convenience before inevitably deciding it isn’t worth their time.

“Balls Up” stands as a baffling low point in Farrelly’s career, trading the balance of irreverence and heart that once defined his work for a hollow barrage of jokes that never land. There’s no sense of narrative flow or character development, no justification for its excess, and no evidence of the filmmaker who once understood how to ground even the most absurd premises. It’s not just forgettable; it’s difficult to understand why it exists at all.

April 6, 2026 · Watch the official trailer

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? It’s a simple question, but one that becomes the foundation of writer-director Kristoffer Borgli’s wedding-set romantic dramedy, “The Drama,” a film that takes the conventions of a traditional love story and steadily twists them into something far more psychologically complex and emotionally volatile.

What begins as an innocent conversation between four friends quickly fractures into something deeper, pushing a seemingly stable relationship into morally complicated, introspective territory.

The central revelation is likely to alienate some viewers outright, challenging the emotional contract audiences expect from a film framed as romance. More than a shock, though, it serves to destabilize everything audiences believe understand about Emma and Charlie. But Borgli’s intentions extend beyond shock value, and the film ultimately finds its footing in the layered nuance of its screenplay and the precision of its performances.

Known primarily for her work in blockbuster franchises like “Spider-Man” and “Dune,” Zendaya rarely gets the space to fully explore the depth of her dramatic range. With “The Drama,” her performance stands alongside “Malcolm & Marie” as the most compelling work of her young career.

As Emma, an idyllic bride determined to hold everything together, Zendaya navigates a rapidly unraveling emotional landscape with striking control. When a drunken revelation disrupts the foundation of her relationship, she leans into the quiet complexity of the moment, allowing the audience to track Emma’s internal processing in real time.

There’s a distinct sense that she is playing multiple emotional realities at once, weighing, recalibrating, and reacting beneath the surface. It’s a performance defined as much by restraint as expression, where what remains unsaid carries equal, if not greater, weight than what is spoken.

Even within the film’s largely serious tonal framework, Zendaya brings a natural authenticity that occasionally gives way to uncomfortable, almost involuntary humor – moments where the tension becomes so precise that the audience finds itself reacting in unexpected ways.

Robert Pattinson has long been uniquely adept at playing variations of the buffoon, and while his Charlie isn’t a complete fool, there’s enough texture in his increasingly erratic behavior for Pattinson to shape him into someone quietly cratering beneath the weight of love and creeping horror, in keeping with Borgli’s twisted, psychologically intricate vision. It’s in the details where the performance truly takes hold.

With a slight turn of the shoulder or subtle tilt of the head, Pattinson uses his physicality to keep the audience just off-balance, fully engaged but never entirely comfortable in how to read him. That unease carries into his facial work, which is put to devastating use in a brutally awkward photography studio sequence that may stand as one of the year’s most painfully enjoyable scenes to revisit.

For a narrative so dependent on the interplay between two performances, success is far from guaranteed. Films built on this kind of layered, volatile chemistry often collapse under their own weight. “The Drama,” however, holds because both Zendaya and Pattinson remain acutely aware of where their characters exist individually and as a couple in every moment.

There’s a constant recalibration happening beneath the surface, a push and pull between affection and distrust that feels authentically lived-in rather than theatrically constructed. The degree of difficulty in sustaining that balance – between love and psychological mistrust – is immense, and what ultimately makes the film so compelling beyond its initial revelations is the dynamic precision of their chemistry. They weave tenderness and resentment together with such control that neither ever fully overtakes the other.

From the director’s chair, Borgli takes a notably restrained approach, allowing his actors to dictate the film’s rhythm. The cinematography remains largely neutral, with minimal camera movement and an absence of stylistic flourishes that might otherwise offer the audience relief. Instead, scenes are allowed to linger just beyond the point of comfort, forcing viewers to sit within the tension rather than escape it.

Daniel Pemberton’s score subtly accentuates the film’s central conflict, using restrained, textural cues to heighten tension without ever overwhelming the performances or intruding on the narrative’s emotional precision.

Where Borgli’s control becomes most apparent is in the editing. Through careful cross-cutting and overlapping timelines, he heightens the emotional impact by juxtaposing fragments of Emma’s life before Charlie with the present, or by introducing moments out of linear sequence to provide context at precisely the right time. The result is a structure that deepens the psychological weight of the story without disrupting its momentum.

“The Drama” will likely prove too polarizing for major awards consideration, though its provocative premise and the questions it raises should far outlive any initial controversy surrounding its narrative mechanics.

What ultimately lingers isn’t the specifics of what Emma or Charlie have done, but whether they can live with what they learn about each other. The result is an introspective, quietly unsettling film that derives its power not from revelation, but from endurance, asking its audience to remain with these characters as they attempt to remain with one another.

It’s a bizarrely provocative experience, one that rewards viewers willing to sit with its discomfort rather than resist it. In the end, “The Drama” isn’t concerned with what the worst thing someone has ever done is, but with whether anyone can truly live with the answer.

April 5, 2026 · Watch the official trailer

Crafting a sequel is a tricky thing for filmmakers.

On one hand, it’s important to give the audience more of what they loved about the original and expand that world faithfully to keep moviegoers engaged and continuing to want more. On the other, it’s easy to fall into a studio-driven trap to make something quickly that drives world expansion to a level that requires multiple movies to explain everything that just happened.

This is especially true of animated films, which don’t require actors to commit their entire lives to roles or worry about becoming too old to play their beloved characters.

Nostalgia played a significant factor in how light-hearted and fun the 2023 animated comedy “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” was to watch in theaters, taking classic Nintendo characters from the video game series and bringing them into modern cinema in a vibrant, fresh way.

Universal Studios capitalized on the commercial and critical success by instantly green-lighting a sequel, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” which released in theaters April 1. “Galaxy” instantly jumps the shark within its first act, mistaking scale for progression and excess for evolution. In many ways, it plays less like story extension and more like a calculated attempt to capitalize on the franchise’s longevity, a glossy, overstretched celebration of Mario’s 40th anniversary that feels engineered to monetize nostalgia rather than build on it.

“Galaxy” greenlights the introduction of a second Princess, Rosalina, from the titular video game and then shelves her for most of the film, while Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Toad and the iconic Yoshi all galivant around trying to rescue her and each other from the son of the villainous Bowser. Rather than play within linear storylines, each sequence feels like a disjointed video game level that ultimately puts everyone on a collision course for a lackluster conclusion.

The result is stitched together moments that feel like cutscenes from a video game franchise. Multiple plotlines – each with the potential to anchor their own film – are tossed together with side quests becoming primary threads and character introductions doubling as exposition dumps.

The voice work should be strong throughout with the majority of the ensemble cast of the original returning and “Captain Marvel” actress Brie Larson joining as Rosalina, though the comedic timing just doesn’t land the same.

Most notably, “Galaxy” sidelines and shortchanges Jack Black’s sidesplittingly funny yet problematic villain Bowser – the highlight of the original with his Golden Globe nominated song “Peaches” – and with it, most of the humor and lighthearted fun.

“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” worked in large part because of the original storyline and humor that made sense surrounding all the Mario canon and nostalgia factor. This film leans so heavily into increasingly niche corners that it begins to feel less like an adaptation and more like a content dump. It’s as if the filmmakers skipped over multiple games’ worth of storytelling progression just to arrive at a version of the universe that feels bigger on paper.

Visually, Illumination Studios and their track record with films like the “Despicable Me” and its offshoot “Minions” animated franchise bring the world of Mario to life in unique and inventive ways despite how all over the place the storytelling is. There’s almost always something compelling to look at and engage with visually, especially for fans hunting for specific hidden Easter eggs or teasers.

In trying to expand the world, introduce new characters and fast-track its way through multiple eras of the franchise, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” loses sight of what made its predecessor work in the first place.

Bigger doesn’t translate to better here, just busier. For a film built so heavily on nostalgia, it’s a surprisingly hollow experience and one that cinephiles won’t need to make a trip to the theater for.

March 30, 2026 · Watch the trailer

Cinephiles doomscrolling through streaming services in search of something new might quickly land on “Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice,” the latest film to drop on Hulu, watch the trailer, and assume they’ve found a spiritual successor to the COVID-era cult favorite “Palm Springs.”

The through line is certainly there: a quirky time-travel comedy that modernizes and twists the narrative structure popularized by Harold Ramis’s Groundhog Day, aiming to make it more broadly appealing to a contemporary audience.

But while “Palm Springs” arrived at a moment when theaters were shutting down, there’s far less justification for a Vince Vaughn–led comedy to bypass the theatrical model altogether. “Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice” instead feels quietly dumped onto Hulu just two weeks after its debut at the South by Southwest Film Festival.

Written and directed by BenDavid Grabinski, “Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice” is a science fiction comedy set within the world of anonymous, mid-tier gangsters, built on a premise that suggests far more than the film ultimately delivers. A retiring hitman, Mike, is pulled back in by his closest ally, Nick, as the two are forced to navigate a job complicated by the arrival of a time-traveling version of Nick himself.

It’s a concept that should invite inventive storytelling, yet the film struggles to articulate its own rules, leaving its plot increasingly convoluted and difficult to track. The rules of the film are, in theory, simple – just incredibly stupid. The film writes itself in and out of its time-travel premise so cleanly that, by the end of the first act, it becomes almost entirely irrelevant, reduced to a hollow gimmick that drags the narrative down to subpar comedic standards.

Playing two versions of Nick, Vaughn brings an irreverent energy that is noticeably restrained, attempting to layer emotional depth into a screenplay that never meaningfully supports it. While it remains visually clear which version of Nick occupies any given scene, simply assigning regret to the present-day iteration does little to establish the kind of character development or internal conflict necessary to sustain a compelling narrative.

James Marsden plays his usual dopey straight-man persona to a T as Mike, a man disillusioned by violence and desperate to get out. But it’s hard to ignore just how aware Marsden seems of the film’s limitations, delivering a performance that never attempts to push beyond familiar ground.

His chemistry opposite Vaughn is serviceable for a film like this, though there’s a noticeable absence of the kind of sharp buddy-comedy banter or repartee that audiences have come to expect from a Vaughn-led vehicle.

Eiza González, best known for “Baby Driver,” works as Alice largely because she plays the role straight – a woman caught in a complicated dynamic with both Mike and Nick. The confusion embedded in her performance mirrors how the character is written on the page, and somewhat ironically, it makes her the most effective of the three leads.

The film’s larger ensemble is bafflingly underwritten and bizarre, with Keith David cast as an African-American mob boss paired with a stereotypically white gangster son, and Dolph Lundgren appearing in a cameo that wastes nearly every second of his screen time. Most disappointing, however, is that the film’s strongest comedic presence, “Parks and Recreation” standout Ben Schwartz, is written out entirely, a casualty of the increasingly convoluted narrative maneuvering that Grabinski employs to escape the structural holes the film creates for itself.

Visually, there’s nothing obtrusive about the technical aspects of “Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice” that adds to or detracts from the viewing experience. It’s safely directed and shot in a way that feels standard for a typical studio comedy, and while the film’s climactic action sequence plays like a clear imitation of a “John Wick”-style shoot-’em-up, it stands as perhaps the most engaging moment in the entire film.

Thankfully, any moviegoer drawn in by Vaughn or the film’s outlandish premise won’t have to make the trip to a theater to see this largely underwhelming effort on a big screen, as “Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice” will likely fade into the background of Hulu’s interface within a matter of weeks.

March 23, 2026 · Watch the official trailer

It is easy, and often reductive, to say that a film does not work without one key actor or performer doing something specific to make the narrative function.

Whether it is a part written for a particular person or a performance that elevates the material as a whole, casting can make or break the quality of a motion picture. That becomes even more true when a narrative forces one actor to play against very little at all — like Tom Hanks stranded on an island with a volleyball in “Cast Away” or Sandra Bullock acting opposite revolutionary visual effects in the Academy Award-winning “Gravity.”

Films like that demand the right person at the center, and “Project Hail Mary,” the long-anticipated studio blockbuster inspired by Andy Weir’s novel of the same name, is one such film.

Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and adapted for the screen by Drew Goddard, who previously brought Weir’s “The Martian” to theaters, the film places Ryan Gosling in the largely unenviable position of spending much of its running time isolated in space. Gosling stars as Ryland Grace, a middle school science teacher with a doctorate in molecular biology who is tasked with traveling into deep space to stop the sun from dying.

Goddard’s screenplay is largely faithful to the source material, though it occasionally struggles to balance its comedic and dramatic impulses. Even so, “Project Hail Mary” succeeds because Gosling carries each moment with the right degree of relatability, grounding a much larger-than-life science-fiction story in something recognizably human.

There is a unique gravitas to Gosling’s performance as Grace that leans into just how overwhelmed and out of place he feels in space.

That sense of isolation, constantly clashing with a greater sense of purpose, becomes the emotional driving force of the film, and it is only through Gosling delivering a well-rounded, textured performance as the protagonist that “Project Hail Mary” works as well as it does.

Audiences may be surprised to learn that the anthropomorphic rock-like spider creature Grace encounters early in the film — Rocky, as the character comes to be known — is largely a feat of practical wizardry rather than computer-generated imagery. The character was created, designed, and performed by a team of six puppeteers, with lead puppeteer James Ortiz also providing Rocky’s voice.

This approach not only allows Lord and Miller to have Rocky interact with the film’s fully realized sets in real time, but it also gives Gosling a tangible screen partner for much of the film rather than forcing him to emote into the void.

As a result, his reactions to discovering and communicating with Rocky feel more immediate and authentic, and the natural chemistry he develops with a puppet evokes the enduring magic of practical creations like Yoda in the “Star Wars” franchise, as performed by Frank Oz, or the richly realized creatures of Jim Henson’s “The Dark Crystal.”

While the film does not feature much of an ensemble, with Grace’s time on Earth largely conveyed through intermittent flashbacks, “Anatomy of a Fall” star Sandra Hüller provides a compelling counterbalance to Gosling’s more singular turn.

As the head of Project Hail Mary, Hüller delivers a stoic, staccato performance that may read as overly severe to some viewers, but remains dynamically true to the character as written in Weir’s novel. Her presence in these sequences helps ground the film’s broader scientific stakes in something more immediate and human, even as the narrative ultimately returns to Grace’s isolation.

Practical, fully built sets and a near-total absence of green screen help create the world of “Project Hail Mary” in a very realistic fashion, further enhanced by the work of cinematographer Greig Fraser.

Fraser’s precision and attention to detail allow the film to treat its spacecraft as moving in multiple directions simultaneously, so audiences never feel like they are watching space vehicles simply move from left to right.

This creates a richer cinematic visual language that allows audiences to suspend disbelief and more fully connect with the film’s scientifically accurate narrative. That visual inventiveness is further elevated by Lord and Miller, whose background in animation informs a more playful and creative approach to spatial storytelling, adding texture to the film’s layered narrative. Daniel Pemberton’s score further accentuates that immersion, underscoring the tonal duality between the isolation of deep space and the grounded familiarity of Earth.

Although it arrives early in the calendar year, “Project Hail Mary” is likely to be among audiences’ favorite films of 2026 and could surprise come awards season, particularly in technical categories such as Production Design, Cinematography, and Visual Effects, where the artistry behind Rocky’s practical creation should receive strong consideration.

A genuine crowd-pleaser from start to finish, “Project Hail Mary” is both dynamic and epic in scale, with equal charisma and character development that make it a cinematic experience worth seeing on the largest screen possible.

March 16, 2026 · Watch the official trailer

For many cinephiles, Paul Thomas Anderson – the mind behind “Boogie Nights” and “The Master” as well as his masterpiece oil drama “There Will Be Blood” – was the greatest living filmmaker never to win an Academy Award.

That all changed Sunday evening when PTA, as the veteran auteur is known among moviegoers, won three Oscars including Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture as his revolutionary thriller dramedy “One Battle After Another” took home six awards.

His tenth feature film, adapted from the 1990 Thomas Pynchion novel “Vineland,” speaks with conviction and presence to the division and isolation of modern times, following burnout ex-revolutionary Bob and his daughter Willa hiding conspicuously in the sanctuary city of Baktan Cross from an eccentric, obsessive military official hellbent on tracking them down.

As Bob, Oscar nominee Leonardo DiCaprio is a perfect extension of the recent character evolution that he began with the self-righteous mania of Jordan Belfort in "The Wolf of Wall Street," through the outlandish goofiness of Rick Dalton in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," to the alcoholic buffoon he portrays here.

While there are broad comic moments in his performance, DiCaprio grounds Bob with core principles of morality that stem from his revolutionary roots and unrelenting loyalty to family, most notably his daughter, Willa, played astonishingly well by relative newcomer Chase Infiniti. Audiences are transported through the world of “One Battle After Another,” largely through DiCaprio's bloodshot eyes and there's a deep, rich, layered texture to his work that is far more nuanced and considered than it might appear at first glance.

Opting to not even appear to accept his Best Supporting Actor award, Sean Penn turns in his best work in decades as the film’s primary antagonist – a morally repugnant and deeply conflicted version of Brian Dennehy’s sheriff from “First Blood” and General Ripper from “Dr. Strangelove.” The hyper-vigilant stoicism and militarism that Penn exudes in his performance is perhaps the most audacious of his entire career, with the actor building a textured performance from an overly chiseled and unmoving jaw, as well as a ridiculously over-the-top walking gait where his Lockjaw always maintains perfectly squared shoulders.

The film’s ensemble cast – which won “One Battle After Another” the first ever Academy Award for Best Casting – enhances the world Anderson seeks to create in every single moment of the film, from major stars playing secondary roles to relative unknowns coming in with truly mesmerizing and often terrifying portrayals.

Benicio del Toro, who could have arguably been a better Best Supporting Actor winner here than Penn, provides boundless levity in the film’s “Midnight Run”- inspired second act as a Zen sensei keeping a paranoid Bob from completely going off the rails, while Teyana Taylor’s brash, relentlessly self-confident turn as leader of the revolution Perfidia wonderfully sets the stage for the mania to come.

It is almost impossible to separate the social commentary this film makes from the horrific events of political violence happening in the real world. “One Battle After Another” does little in its first hour to lessen the discourse.

From a purely cinematic perspective, however, Anderson remains at the top of his game, both in narrative and visual aesthetic, bringing his elegant, sophisticated, and exacting eye to the world of modern action thrillers with a movie that truly looks the part of a pristine drama.

One climactic car chase scene is relatively straightforward, yet the intensity created by camera placement – as cars go up and down California’s rolling hills set to the beat of Jonny Greenwood’s impactful score – is beyond next-level moviemaking.

Using 35 mm film with vintage VistaVision camera that feels as if it is shot using almost entirely natural light, “One Battle After Another” is a tapestry of visual cinematic artistry, as Anderson teams with the cinematographer Michael Bauman to create the world of the film with a robustness that is more than meets the eye.

Moment by moment, frame by frame, Anderson and the cinematographer elevate individual scenes far beyond what’s on the page, using a constantly changing frame that showcases Anderson’s deliberate intentionality in giving the audience perspective – or keeping them from it.

The filmmaker makes the most out of every second of the nearly three-hour running time, slowly building visual and emotional moments of foreboding anticipation, with scenes demonstrating the organic, methodical ways the revolutionaries are hunted down and his partnership with Andy Jurgensen led to a Best Editing win, one of six Oscars won Sunday by the film.

“One Battle After Another” demonstrates an intense grasp of place and geography within the context of each scene, and the fluidity of the camera motions, cuts, and editing reinforces a foreboding presence of what’s right around the corner. Viewers are literally taken within layers and layers of hallways and corridors to visually showcase the depths characters go to maintain secrecy.

While the film will undoubtedly be polarizing from a narrative perspective, the technical and visual mastery that Anderson showcases in “One Battle After Another” as well as the original storytelling on display makes it one of 2025’s singular and signature films well worth of its place as the Academy’s top film and something worth revisiting on HBO Max.

March 9, 2026 · Watch the official trailer

Originality in modern filmmaking is often talked about as if it’s disappearing, or worse yet, that a “singular vision” by a filmmaker other than a traditional auteur can be considered risk-taking to be kind in outright dismissal of a piece of avant-garde cinema.

This was largely the reaction to Emerald Fennell’s unique twist on the classic Emily Bronte novel “Wuthering Heights” last month and will certainly be used in a similar fashion to dismiss the audacious narrative writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal brings to her take on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, “The Bride!”

There’s a deep sense of irony in the fact that a similarly unique and bizarre twist on the source material – Yorgos Lanthimos’ dark comedy “Poor Things” – was widely celebrated upon its release on its way to four Academy Awards and yet “The Bride!” which is just as confident in its cinema will be widely lampooned despite some equally strong highlights

Rather than offering a straightforward retelling of the Frankenstein mythology like the recent Guillermo del Toro film for Netflix, Gyllenhaal twists the entire premise on its head by pushing Shelley herself into the spotlight as a ghostly figure haunting the mind of a woman that would become the titular character through Shelley’s twisted imagination.

Jessie Buckley – who’s likely to win an Academy Award this weekend for her portrayal of Shakespeare’s wife in the Chloe Zhao film “Hamnet” – leaps with full force into this strange dual performance as both the eccentric author and her psychotically saccharin and charming creature, reanimated in 1930s Chicago to be the bride of a lonesome Frankenstein’s monster played by Christian Bale.

As both Shelley and the Bride, Buckley continues her deeply intense work, pushing herself to the fringes of the screenplay with multiple accents and distinctive physicality to show both halves of a single psyche that feels reminiscent of Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscar winning turn in “Joker.”

While the screenplay meanders about in tone from gothic horror to musical comedy and noir detective drama, Buckley holds nothing back with an unbridled performance that elevates what could have been a very poorly constructed amalgamation of cinema styles into one relatively cohesive, albeit loose narrative.

Her chemistry with Bale doesn’t fare as well, though it’s less about the pairing of two method actors boldly taking chances on screen and more about how Gyllenhaal never truly sees the two lead characters connecting as a romantic pair despite Frank literally bullying a doctor played by Annette Bening into bringing the Bride back from the dead.

Bale’s Frank is a much more unique take on a classic monster villain with it being implied that years of loneliness and wandering about the world have made Frank lonely and emotionally fragile, transposing his identity onto a vaudevillian actor played by Gyllenhaal’s brother Jake, to the point where Frank’s idolatry of his cinematic hero proves to be his downfall.

The film’s ensemble cast is strong, though both Peter Sarsgaard and Penelope Cruz are woefully underutilized as detectives on the trail of the undead couple as the film turns them into Bonnie and Clyde adjacent fugitives.

That unevenness carries over into parts of Gyllenhaal’s screenplay, which occasionally struggles to reconcile haphazard tonal shifts, though technical elements of “The Bride!” keeps things afloat for cinephiles willing to ride the bumpy narrative waters.

Cinematographer Laurence Sher approaches the material with a visual language that firmly plants the film inside the aesthetic of the early 1930s. Working with a rich, often changing color palette of smoky interiors and carefully composed wide shots, Sher creates a world that feels rooted in the visual grammar of Depression-era Hollywood while still taking advantage of modern filmmaking scale.

Those choices become even more striking in IMAX, where the wider frame allows the world of “The Bride!” and production designer Mark Tildesley’s inhabited work to come to life on a broader, almost VistaVision scale, giving the film a visual confidence that the narrative occasionally struggles to maintain.

Gyllenhaal’s screenplay moves freely from gothic horror to musical comedy to noir detective drama in ever changing homage to films throughout cinema history, and while tone shifts almost seem to happen by random in the editing, they tend to work far better visually. Sher and Tildesley maintain such a strong sense of time and place that the film’s shifting moods still feel anchored within the same cinematic world.

“The Bride!” has the hallmarks of a traditional awards season contender a visually ambitious studio production anchored by a daring director and a high-profile ensemble cast operating at the height of its craft. Yet despite the strong technical work and intense lead performance, Gyllenhaal’s sophomore directorial effort is far too out there and to survive nearly a year of awards scrutiny.

Originally developed for Netflix before eventually landing at Warner Bros., “The Bride!” arrives at a moment when the studio itself faces an uncertain future as its parent company moves toward another round of consolidation. That uncertainty comes even as Warner Bros. appears poised to release two of the year’s strongest Best Picture contenders in “One Battle After Another” and “Sinners.”

As a result, “The Bride!” feels like the kind of ambitious studio gamble in a Hollywood landscape that may become overly homogenized.

Cinephiles intrigued by the strangeness of the premise or the strength of its trailers should make an effort to seek out this unique and original twist on a classic horror tale in the biggest screen possible, though some casual movie fans might find it too jumbled or bizarre to take a chance on before it hits a streaming service later this year.

March 2, 2026 · Watch the official trailer

Obsession with money and power has long served as a dramatic through line for filmmakers seeking cinematic conflict and spectacle.

Especially in a post–Occupy Wall Street world, the notion of “eating the rich” as a means of rectifying perceived wrongs has become even more prevalent.

Writer-director John Patton Ford’s latest darkly comic drama, “How To Make A Killing,” takes that idea and cranks it up to an even more caustic extreme, a warped vision of justice built on balancing the scales by any means necessary.

Ford’s sharply misanthropic film stars Glen Powell as the youngest and most marginalized heir to a billion-dollar family fortune, who sets out to right the perceived wrongs inflicted upon his mother by murdering his relatives and inching ever closer to his inheritance.

Powell is arresting, charming, and somehow disarmingly humble as Beckett, a man propelled by his mother’s dying words not to quit until he achieves the life he believes he deserves. The native Texan leads with an unassuming warmth that belies the technical precision in Beckett’s thinking and makes it almost unsettlingly easy to see how and why Beckett can quite literally get away with murder.

Neither the actor nor Ford attempt to justify the systemic elimination of a prominent family’ one by one. Instead, the film examines the moment when grievance curdles into entitlement and when “enough” becomes a dangerously loose concept.

It is within those moral quandaries that Powell is strongest, reflecting Beckett’s unease with genuine warmth and love, while simultaneously convincing both himself and the audience that the violence must continue.

“How To Make A Killing” presents Powell with a unique challenge as he must generate instant rapport with a wide ensemble cast in fleeting interactions, bouncing between social circles and power structures while keeping Beckett’s emotional core intact.

There is a sharp nuance to the humor Powell and Ford uncover in the film’s quieter moments, and Powell excels at finding levity without inflating the joke beyond its scale.

Margaret Qualley is wonderful in a flirtatious, intentionally underwritten role as Beckett’s first romantic interest, walking a delicate line between friend and potential foe. The pair’s occasionally uneven chemistry feels less like imbalance and more like a deliberate reflection of Ford’s tonal aims. Meanwhile, a deep supporting cast – including Bill Camp, Zach Woods, Topher Grace, and Ed Harris – expands the world of the film’ and helps to crystalize Beckett’s motivations.

Ford also makes the interesting choice to frame “How To Make A Killing” through Beckett’s narration – a rare, character-driven device that allows audiences into his thinking as events unfold. The screenplay does the tricky job of subverting audience expectations early to pull off this effect and structurally it carries shades of “The Usual Suspects,” not because of a twist, but because of how much control the storyteller holds over perspective.

The narration succeeds largely because Powell’s natural charm makes it easier to accept brief departures as an way into Becket’s thoughts rather than feeling intrusive. Powell’s warmth tempers the character’s logic, making his reasoning understandable even when it edges toward the indefensible.

Ford has openly discussed how “How To Make A Killing” underwent significant structural changes during a year-long editing process, and attentive audiences may feel those seams while viewing. The film occasionally carries the feeling of ideas being reassembled rather than unfolding organically and while Powell’s strong narration helps smooth some of those transitions, the pacing still feels uneven tonally, especially once the film enters its final act.

“How To Make A Killing” ultimately reveals itself to be a different film than it first appears. What begins with the promise of a sharp, eat-the-rich thriller gradually shifts into something more introspective and morally tangled, which may prove to be somewhat jarring for audiences expecting a more straightforward dark comedy.

Fans of Powell’s filmography intrigued by the premise or the engaging trailer should still head to theaters to catch this uniquely twisted dark comedy on the big screen.

February 22, 2026 · Watch the trailer

As Baz Luhrmann was researching and developing his Oscar-nominated film “Elvis” for the big screen, he stumbled upon reel after reel of lost footage of Elvis Presley preparing for—and performing in—his signature showcase at the International Hotel in 1970s Las Vegas.Originally intended simply as background material and reference points for his biographical tale, Luhrmann began assembling more and more of the footage, to the point where creating a separate, standalone film became undeniable. The restoration and compilation of hours of previously unreleased material finally reaches the big screen in the form of “Baz Luhrmann’s EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert,” which debuted one week early on IMAX screens before its wide release.The astonishing depth of material Luhrmann showcases across his hundred minutes—part documentary, part concert film—reveals the mastery of its titular icon at work. And once the film shifts into the concert experience in earnest, that scale begins to take hold. Audiences are transported backstage, onstage, and into the rehearsal space, watching Presley quite literally curate his sound—first with a small rhythm and blues band, and then with an increasingly expansive orchestra and choir.To bring these reels to life, Luhrmann turned to Peter Jackson—whose revolutionary World War I documentary “They Shall Not Grow Old” set the standard for archival restoration. Jackson’s meticulous work stabilized shaky reels, revitalized color, and enhanced sound using cutting-edge techniques. And just as Jackson restored the visuals, Luhrmann’s team—facing incomplete original sound tapes—reconstructed audio using archival sources and lip-readers, blending it with new gospel orchestration to create a fully immersive soundscape. This deepens the emotional resonance: nuances in Presley’s expressions, his rapport with the band, and the sheer electricity of the live performance become vividly apparent—moments that might otherwise have been lost.Yet for all the meticulous restoration, Luhrmann’s signature flair often overshadows the King himself. His modern visual embellishments—like hyper-stylized transitions and layered digital effects—break the suspension of disbelief. The film at times feels like a glossy, hyper-modern Vegas sheen layered atop the faded neon authenticity of Presley’s era—diluting the raw charm with Luhrmann’s unmistakable stamp.What truly sets this concert film apart is the interplay between rehearsal and final performance. Watching Presley fine-tune a song behind the scenes, and then seeing it come alive on stage, adds a rare layer of insight. Luhrmann’s back-and-forth cutting lets the audience witness the evolution of each track, making the final concert feel like the culmination of raw creative process.One of the most striking moments comes when Presley subtly covers Beatles songs like “Get Back” and “Something.” In those moments, the connection between these icons feels tangible—not through comparison, but because it’s Presley himself interpreting their sound. It’s a rare, authentic bridge between two musical legacies.While “EPiC” aims to educate newcomers to Elvis’s legacy, it assumes a baseline familiarity with his musical journey. Without that foundation, some of the deeper resonances may feel elusive, leaving the film more rewarding for longtime fans than for total newcomers.The pacing evolves notably: the first 20 minutes lean into a heightened documentary tone, contextualizing Presley’s era with Luhrmann’s unmistakable stylistic stamp. But as the film transitions into the concert footage, it’s Presley who begins to speak for himself. The more the concert is allowed to unfold, the more it feels like Elvis is reclaiming the narrative, offering pure performance with minimal interference.Though “Baz Luhrmann’s EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” is designed for IMAX, there’s nothing so essential in the restored footage or concert scale that demands the premium format. The energy, performances, and restored moments resonate just as effectively in any theater—or even in a future home viewing—without losing their impact.