The secrets to Zach Cregger’s Barbarian have been closely guarded since its premiere at San Diego Comic-Con in July, and for good reason: There are some nasty tricks hiding in this basement. Gore-hounds and squirm-fiends with appetites for sick thrills will have a great time with the film’s surprisingly funny descent into madness, but Barbarian’s fizzling atmosphere and payoffs make it this year’s not-quite-Malignant. Minor spoilers ahead…

Dan Trachtenberg’s Prey is an absolute corker. The latest installment in a flagging franchise, the film weaponizes its simple formula into a sleek, sci-fi action missile. With powder keg tension, gnarly kills, and a formidable Amber Midthunder as a Comanche huntress facing off against a hi-tech alien foe, Prey is living proof that bigger isn’t always better. Minor spoilers ahead…

Action maestro David Leitch (John Wick, Deadpool, Atomic Blonde) returns with Bullet Train, a mile-a-minute, star-studded bloodbath. It’s a bombastic actioner that coasts by on kinetic fisticuffs and spectacular carnage, but not even Brad Pitt’s charisma nor Leitch’s eye for brutal violence can save it from its hollow Tarantino pastiche and its excruciatingly unfunny attempts at cleverness. Minor spoilers ahead…

A sprawling, sci-fi procedural anchored by weighty performances, white-knuckle set pieces, and thunderous soundscapes, Nope is director Jordan Peele’s most mature and layered work, exploring our primordial obsession with spectacle and our desperate need to capture it. A slowly unfolding puzzle box that is as alluring as it is exhilarating, Peele assembles his formidable image-making around what he knows best: terror and wit. Minor spoilers ahead…

Detonating its staid biopic formula with supernova movie star Austin Butler and lunatic, maximalist filmmaking, Baz Luhrmann — with maniacal glee — paints an irresistible portrait of a tortured artist. You won’t learn anything from Elvis you can’t glean from the skim of a Wikipedia page, but its boilerplate, breakneck procession is upended by hair-raising voltage and an astonishing capture of The King’s mythic charisma. Minor spoilers ahead…

Thor: Love and Thunder — for better or worse — is Ragnarok redux, down to its goofy lark humor and its undercooked A-list star as villain. But even with its superhero comedy dialed up to eleven and struggle with tone, its fleet adventure feels like a tonic, free from multiverses, cameos, and the seemingly requisite MCU buildup to the next “thing.” It’s one of the stronger Phase Four entries. Minor spoilers ahead…

Scott Derrickson’s highly anticipated The Black Phone is a fractured, slack exercise in lukewarm horror. Undermining Joe Hill’s short story of the same name with multiple threads that never come together and a villain as thin as he is forgettable, The Black Phone makes weak-willed grasps at the intelligent thriller it could have been. At least Ethan Hawke got paid. Minor spoilers ahead…

With the parallel announcement of its second season renewal with the release of its season finale, “Chapter Eight,” we had a chance to speak with Soo Hugh, the executive producer, showrunner, creator, and writer of Pachinko about her groundbreaking series. We discuss key differences between the novel and the series, working with directorial talents such as Justin Chon and Kogonada, and the universal resonance of its very specific story of a very real people.

Body is reality. Surgery is the new sex. David Cronenberg’s first feature in eight long years acts as a furtive peek into a carefully crafted, crumbling dystopia. In a world where graphic surgeries are the only form of entertainment remaining, Crimes of the Future explores — with a demure thoughtfulness — the complexities of art and performance in an increasingly uninhabitable society. Come for Cronenberg’s body horror resurgent, stay for the perfect weirdo performances from Viggo Mortenson, Lea Seydoux, and Kristen Stewart. Minor spoilers ahead…

Tom Cruise — just like Pete “Maverick” Mitchell — battles obsolescence with tropes and cheese in Joseph Kosinski’s Top Gun: Maverick, but his absolute commitment to analog spectacle is exhilarating; real actors in real planes equals real fun, and it’s unlike anything you’ve seen. Leaving its predecessor in the dust with visceral, aerial daring, Top Gun: Maverick puts you right in the cockpit of one of the year’s best action films. Minor spoilers ahead…

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is neither very mad nor very multiversal, but it’s likely the most the Marvel Cinematic Universe has ever allowed a filmmaker to reach out from its steel cage house style. Despite its bloat, inelegance, and sheer refusal to do anything interesting with the multiverse concept, this is as close as the MCU is going to get to pure horror and an auteur’s vision. Sam Raimi’s influence is invigorating and his winking verve is a balm: Multiverse of Madness brings the splatstick terror and a surprising brutality to its unwieldy superhero story. Minor spoilers ahead…

Following The Witch and The Lighthouse, Robert Eggers completes his cinematic hat trick by stamping his stylish verve upon a violent, metal as hell revenge odyssey. Breathing new life into sword and sorcery, The Northman returns Hamlet back to its Nordic roots with an epic scope, a bigger budget, and a thirstier bloodlust. Powerful visuals and searing performances combine with atavistic, otherworldly details for one of the best films of 2022 so far. Minor spoilers ahead…

Everyone is yelling, everything is exploding, and nothing makes any sense in Michael Bay’s breakneck heist actioner, Ambulance. And that’s exactly why it’s delightful. Detonating what should be a crackling thriller into a deranged, maximalist odyssey, Bay’s latest exercise in spectacle finds a stolen ambulance full of cash careening through Los Angeles. Blockbuster filmmaking where every decision is extra for no reason other than to pull some more exhilaration from your lungs, Ambulance hits with the force of a hundred exploding suns, eventually leaving you sated — and exhausted. Minor spoilers ahead…

Nicolas Cage plays Nicolas Cage in Tom Gormican’s The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. Plumbing the shallower end of the “meta” pool for an irreverent, sweet-natured action comedy, the film explores the multitudes within the celebrated actor’s storied career. Cage delivers crowd-pleasing laughs — working best when sharing the screen with Pedro Pascal — that reminds audiences that he’s always been a movie star. Minor spoilers ahead…

Moon Knight brings a pulpy, globe-trotting spirit to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Breathing life into the little-known Marc Spector, the Fist of Khonshu, Oscar Isaac commits wholeheartedly to dual roles defined by instability, British cheek, and bloody fisticuffs. A standalone six-episode series, Moon Knight is stuffed to the brim with fascinating possibilities, but only time will tell if it can traverse its tricky tightrope stretched between superheroics and mental illness. Four episodes watched for review. Minor spoilers ahead…

Welcome to my dispatch from this year’s SXSW Film Festival. As usual, I won’t be writing full reviews of everything I see at the festival, but there are plenty of great films in this year’s slate that deserve attention. Here are the capsule reviews for SXSW: The Lost City, Deadstream, Jethica, and The Cellar. Minor spoilers ahead…

Combining familiar, 70s grindhouse terror with modern sensibilities, X is director Ti West’s best film since 2009’s House of the Devil. With bloody slasher mayhem unspooling on a porn set, West’s latest slice of brutality brings the nudity and gore, but underneath its vintage horror pastiche lies a sex-positive, beating heart that examines the cutting power of jealousy and the unforgiving cruelty of time. Mia Goth, Brittany Snow, and Jenna Ortega form a new Scream Queen triumvirate. Minor spoilers ahead…

Exploding intimate family drama into a multiverse-jumping, martial arts, sci-fi epic, Everything Everywhere All at Once is a blast of inventive genre fiction. Directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, collectively and affectionately known as just Daniels, follow up their feature debut of Swiss Army Man with lunatic glee, stretching the limits of visual and kinetic storytelling to its absolute breaking point. Steadied with the incredible - and very game - cast of Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, and James Hong, Everything Everywhere All at Once is the most fun you’ll have at the movies this year. Minor spoilers ahead…