‘Nouvelle Vague’ may be Avengers: Endgame for the Cahiers du Cinéma crowd, but the film is devoid of any substance beyond the aesthetic recreations of one of the most groundbreaking motion pictures that forever changed cinema.

Joachim Trier offers a profoundly affecting meditation on the healing – and life-affirming – power of art in ‘Sentimental Value’, anchored by a devastatingly brilliant Renate Reinsve, who gives this year’s most soulful performance. 

Jennifer Lawrence gives the best performance of her career in Lynne Ramsay’s ‘Die My Love’. However, the fragmented structure of the movie may prove alienating for audiences, especially as it purposefully antagonizes at almost every turn.

Joel Edgerton delivers his best performance to date in Clint Bentley’s ‘Train Dreams’, a complex and emotionally powerful elegy for a lost soul searching for meaning in a life that has left him and the contributions he made to society behind.

Sydney Sweeney and Ben Foster are spectacular in David Michôd’s ‘Christy’, but that’s about all this tediously generic sports-biopic has going for it.

Director Bradley Cooper has decided to scale things back for his third feature film ‘Is This Thing On?’, a tender and often very funny comedy that makes great use of its talented cast and emotionally accessible story.

‘Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere’ may be the worst biopic of the decade thus far. Inert in ways that few movies on “tortured artists” are, the movie is entirely disinterested on the singer’s struggles with depression and the making of his ultimate masterpiece.

Jafar Panahi crafts his most daring film yet with the Palme d’Or-winning ‘It Was Just an Accident.’ With an admittedly simple premise, the Iranian filmmaker defies authority with simple gestures that speak louder than a thousand words.

Chris Stuckmann certainly has the cinematic baggage to craft ‘Shelby Oaks’, but he cannot effectively transcend any of the influences he cites in this painfully underdeveloped horror film.

More exhausting than it is compelling, Richard Linklater fails to meaningfully illustrate who Lorenz Hart is in his chamber piece, ‘Blue Moon’.

Yorgos Lanthimos remakes Jang Joon-hwan’s ‘Save the Green Planet!’ with ‘Bugonia’, and the results aren’t as successful as his previous collaborations with Emma Stone, despite its staggering VistaVision photography and solid turns from its lead stars.

‘This Too Shall Pass’ is an 80s movie that never pretends to have all the answers. Rather, by the end of the film, it is clear to the filmmakers and the audience that the destination is less important than the journey itself.

Noah Baumbach reflects on the dwindling nature of stardom in the metafictional ‘Jay Kelly’, which sees George Clooney grapple with the finitude of a career inside an era that Hollywood now rejects.

The Grabber may have met his maker, but that hasn’t stopped him from clawing his way back to terrorize Finney and Gwen yet again in ‘Black Phone 2’, a horror sequel that provides chilling scares and an exciting expansion of the overarching mythology.

‘After the Hunt’ may be the most contemptuous movie of the year, and that’s precisely why it works. Luca Guadagnino confronts the audience’s conception of the truth and forces them to rethink how they perceive and view movies as he rejects dialogue to focus on the strongest images of his career.

From director Joachim Rønning, who has blockbuster experience in both the Maleficent and Pirates of the Caribbean franchises, Tron: Ares takes on a visual identity rather unique to the general crop of big movies releasing on a regular basis nowadays

‘Anemone’ should only be watched by those craving another performance from Daniel Day-Lewis, because the film surrounding his incredible, controlled turn does not work at all.

For better or worse, ‘The Oval Portrait’ is the exact sort of film which a Hammer horror fan will appreciate.

Thanks to a painterly sense of image-making and captivating turns from Marion Cotillard and Clara Pacini, Lucile Hadžihalilović creates a unique atmosphere with ‘The Ice Tower’, blending the artifice of cinema with the trauma-inducing dread of a child’s fantasy.

Shane Black has fun in the cartoonishly glorious adaptation of Donald E. Westlake’s work with ‘Play Dirty’, containing Mark Wahlberg’s best performance in years as he dons the mantra of Westlake’s most iconic character.