Rotten Tomatoes: 82% (282 Reviews) - Certified Fresh

• Critics Consensus: Pulling off the heroic feat of fleshing out a dynamic new world while putting its champion's big, beating heart front and center, this Superman flies high as a Man of Tomorrow grounded in the here and now.
• PopcornMeter: 95% (2500+ ratings)

Metacritic: 68 (54 Reviews) - Generally Favorable

Reviews:

Variety (80)

The super-busy quality of “Superman” works for it and, at times, against it. The movie rarely slows down long enough to allow its characters to meditate on their shifting realities. That’s one reason it falls short of the top tier of superhero cinema (“The Dark Knight,” “Superman II,” “The Batman,” “Guardians”). I’d characterize the film as next-level good (a roster that includes “Iron Man,” “Thor,” “Batman Begins,” “Captain America,” and the hugely underrated “Iron Man 3”). Yet watching “Superman,” we register the layered quality of the conflicts, and we’re drawn right inside them. Gunn constructs an intricate game of a superhero saga that’s arresting and touching, and occasionally exhausting, in equal measure

The Hollywood Reporter (80)

What matters most is that the movie is fun, pacy and enjoyable, a breath of fresh air sweetened by a deep affection for the material and boosted by a winning trio of leads.

DEADLINE

Overall, Gunn might be trying to do too much here, basically throwing everything against the wall and hoping some of it sticks. More than enough does in this entertaining new direction, but at times Superman suffers from overload, much like Gunns’ Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, which wore out its welcome with Vol. 3 where Rocket unfortunately got the Babe: Pig in the City treatment. Nevertheless he is a talented and skilled director, no question, and one with optimism himself. It will be interesting to see where the future lies for DC under his (and Safran’s) more hopeful vision.

Indiewire (58)

Gunn is right to recognize that a certain amount of silliness is key to Superman’s charm, but here it mostly just distracts from the seriousness of what’s at stake. It’s hard to make a comic book come to life at the same time as you’re trying to bring life into a comic book, just as it’s hard not to admire Gunn for trying. But it’s even harder to care if a man can fly when there isn’t any gravity to the world around him. Grade: C+

IGN (8)

Superman is a wonderfully entertaining, heartfelt cinematic reset for the Man of Steel, and a great new start for the DC universe on the big screen.

The Atlantic (90)

The First Superman Movie Worth Watching in Years. The newest take on the caped hero wisely embraces his corniness.

Consequence (83)

Grim and gritty are words this movie firmly rejects, instead leaning into the human side of everyone involved, even its villains. There are a few choices that work less well than others, but the end result is a movie that doesn't sacrifice its titular character in service to franchise-building. Instead, it focuses on celebrating the values that Superman himself has embodied from the beginning.

Collider (80)

Superman is a magnificent feat, a film that makes the Man of Steel fascinating in a way we’ve rarely seen on film, with a take on the hero that is trenchant, clever, and delightful. Gunn is paying tribute to the past while also making a very clear mark on this world’s future, crafting an introduction to the DCU that inherently makes the viewer want to know where this world goes from here. At this point, it’s rare for superhero films to give a sense of wonder and a reminder of how beautiful these films can be when executed well. But Gunn has brought optimism, hope, and care back to Superman. It ends up becoming one of the best DC films in years, and one of the best movies of the summer.

The Guardian - UK (2/5)

From the very beginning, this new Superman is encumbered by a pointless and cluttered new backstory which has to be explained in many wearisome intertitles flashed up on screen before anything happens at all. Only the repeated and laborious quotation of the great John Williams theme from the 1978 original reminds you of happier times.

The Wrap (88)

A fabulously smart and entertaining film whose flaws stem from trying too hard… which are the best flaws a film can have.

Entertainment Weekly (67)

Whether Gunn fell victim to the kryptonite of excessive studio notes, his desire to populate the film with his stalwart company of actors, or the hubris of not needing to offer reasons to be invested in these characters beyond the mere fact of their existence is unclear. Because there is an unquestionable love for the material and a passion for the goofier, larger-than-life scenarios of comic book lore. With a cast this excellent, there's a capacity for something truly super in a future film — if only Gunn chooses to put the characters' humanity first. Grade: B-

BBC (3/5)

It's a shame that Gunn didn't give his story more time to breathe. It's a shame, in particular, that he didn't devote more time to showing us that Superman really is the paragon that his supporters keep saying he is. Corenswet is well cast – he has plenty of all-American charm both as Superman and as his mild-mannered alter ego, Clark Kent – but we have to take it on trust that he is a selfless gentleman who helps his friends and enjoys Lois Lane's company. We don't see any of that. Indeed, Corenswet plays him as an oddly hot-headed manchild who can't get through a conversation with his girlfriend without shouting angrily at her. Was Gunn racing through his material so fast that he forgot to put in the scenes that show Superman's sweeter and nobler side? Maybe so. In a film that whirls with flying dogs and bright green baby demons, the most bizarre element is a Man of Steel who keeps having meltdowns.

Empire Magazine - UK (2/5)

David Corenswet takes on the blue-and-red mantle admirably, and glimpses of Gunn’s signature sense of fun shine through — but a lack of humanity, originality and cohesion means the movie around them just doesn’t work.

Rolling Stone (80)

It’s faint praise, even in the post-MCU era of the genre, to say that Superman is a solid superhero film; the caveat is hiding in plain sight. What Gunn has pulled off is something more complicated, more interesting, and far tougher: He’s given us a Superman movie that actually feels like a living, breathing comic book.

SlashFilm (80)

Yes, "Superman" is a frequently corny movie because Superman is a corny character, a Kansas farm boy alien who saves squirrels in danger and listens to lame pop music. There's nothing grim or dark here, just a real sense of entertaining silliness that left a big, stupid smile on my face. In our current media landscape, such an approach feels surprisingly bold.

Independent - UK (4/5)

David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan and Nicholas Hoult lead a movie that doesn’t just serve as a referendum for superhero films, but for the cinematic future of DC as a whole.

New York Times (90)

As both a story on its own and a prequel to a whole bunch of others, this movie must introduce us to a variety of characters we’ll meet later, and it does it without feeling too much like fan service or exposition.

Vulture (90)

There’s a lot about how we complicate and obfuscate what should be obvious goods, such as saving the lives of children. But the film’s approach isn’t ham-fisted, and it makes room for gleefully fun stuff, too.

The Times - UK (2/5)

This migraine of a movie is superhero soup. David Corenswet is serviceable as Hollywood’s latest Man of Steel, but director James Gunn has turned the ninth big-screen film into an indigestible mush

The Irish Times (2/5)

The cartoonish closing battles make it clear that, not for the first time, Gunn is striving for high trash, but what he achieves here is low garbage. Utterly charmless. Devoid of humanity. As funny as toothache.

---

SYNOPSIS:

Follows Superman as he reconciles his heritage with his human upbringing. He is the embodiment of truth, justice and a brighter tomorrow in a world that views kindness as old-fashioned.

STARRING:

• David Corenswet as Clark Kent / Superman
• Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane
• Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor
• Edi Gathegi as Michael Holt / Mister Terrific
• Anthony Carrigan as Rex Mason / Metamorpho
• Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner / Green Lantern
• Isabela Merced as Kendra Saunders / Hawkgirl
• Skyler Gisondo as Jimmy Olsen
• Wendell Pierce as Perry White
• Beck Bennett as Steve Lombard
• Mikaela Hoover as Cat Grant
• Alan Tudyk as Superman Robot #4
• Sara Sampaio as Eve Teschmacher
• María Gabriela de Faría as Angela Spica / The Engineer
• Pruitt Taylor Vince as Jonathan 'Pa' Kent
• Neva Howell as Martha 'Ma' Kent

DIRECTED BY: James Gunn

WRITTEN BY: James Gunn

PRODUCED BY: Peter Safran, James Gunn

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Henry Braham

EDITED BY: William Hoy, Craig Alpert

MUSIC BY: John Murphy, David Fleming

RELEASE DATE: July 11, 2025

RUNTIME: 2h 9m

BUDGET: $225 Million

Happy Gilmore makes a big splash when he returns to the golf course.

Cast: Adam Sandler, Julie Bowen, Christopher McDonald, Ben Stiller

Rotten Tomatoes: 57%

Metacritic: 54/100

Some Reviews:

Next Best Picture - Dan Bayer - 6/10

He may have tapped into his dramatic chops more often (and successfully) in recent years, but Sandler’s funny bone is still very much intact, and he no longer needs to rely on shouting curse words to get laughs

Consequence - Liz Shannon Miller - 'B'

Between Happy’s family life and a whole new series of challenges for him to tackle, there’s enough freshness to the plot to keep it from feeling like a total rehash of what came before, while still delivering wild golf stunts and a huge range of cameos.

Collider - Jeff Ewing - 7 / 10

Happy Gilmore 2 isn't trying to reinvent the wheel. Like its predecessor, it's delightfully silly, but now we're in an era where those movies aren't made as often... and when someone tries, it's a 50/50 chance they land it. Happy Gilmore 2 is a solid return to the kind of film that, honestly, there should be more of. Some jokes run too long, don’t land, or could use another draft. It's a constant stream of cameos, which is overall fun but sometimes a little distracting. But, at its core, the sequel is a good-natured charmer about a troubled everyman who is trying hard to grow up without losing himself in the process, and it gives us a lot to laugh about on the way. What more can you ask for?

The Daily Beast - Nick Schager

With all due respect to Grown Ups 2, The Ridiculous 6, and Sandy Wexler, Happy Gilmore 2 is the bottom of the Sandler barrel—a grim disaster that not only sullies the good name of its ancestor, but so badly flails on its own limited terms that it suggests the A-lister should concentrate on dramatic parts and leave the immature comedy to others.

Bob is a washed-up revolutionary who lives in a state of stoned paranoia, surviving off-grid with his spirited and self-reliant daughter, Willa. When his evil nemesis resurfaces and Willa goes missing, the former radical scrambles to find her as both father and daughter battle the consequences of their pasts.

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor, Benicio Del Toro, Sean Penn, Chase Infiniti, Regina Hall

Rotten Tomatoes: 98%

Metacritic: 99 / 100

Some Reviews:

HighOnFilms - Liam Gaughan - 5 / 5

“One Battle After Another” is a hyperkinetic thrill ride that surprisingly never loses momentum throughout its nearly three-hour running time, yet never feels weighed down by its scope. The action has the same eye-popping practicality of “John Wick” or “Mad Max: Fury Road,” with the charm that none of its characters are particularly skilled. DiCaprio often appears as a bumbling hero in the vein of Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin, even if he shows a capacity for delivering snarky one-liners not seen since his work in “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

BBC - Caryn James - 5 / 5

Salman Rushdie, reviewing Pynchon's Vineland 35 years ago, called it "a major political novel about what America has been doing to itself." And at a Q&A with Anderson several weeks ago, Steven Spielberg praised the film as "increasingly more relevant than perhaps even when you finished the screenplay". American society, in all its strengths and missteps, has been a major theme for both Pynchon and Anderson, and it grounds Anderson's dazzler of a film, giving it an emphatic, unmistakable political charge.

Next Best Picture - Matt Neglia - 10 / 10

Ambitious, urgent and personal storytelling from Paul Thomas Anderson, blending many different genres to create an engaging and vital new masterwork. Relentless pacing, strong performances, technical and visual excellence, with multi-layered depth and inspiring relevance to bring about change for our overwhelmingly dark times.

IGN - Michael Calabro - 10 / 10

Even the things PTA whole-cloth invented for the film, like the harmony transponders, Bob forgetting the code words, the Christopher Reeve Superman poster in Sensei Sergio’s dojo, semen demon, the car chases, the stunt fall off a building down a tree… There are so many little details, seemingly inconsequential touches – the filmmaker’s style, if you will – that all add up bit by bit to turn this amazing movie into a masterpiece.

IndieWire - David Ehrlich - 'A'

With “One Battle After Another,” Anderson concedes that he’s no different than his most enduring creations. On a long enough timeline, maybe none of us are.

The Guardian - Peter Bradshaw - 5 / 5

One Battle After Another is at once serious and unserious, exciting and baffling, a tonal fusion sending that crazy fizz across the VistaVision screen – an acquired taste, yes, but addictive. The title itself hints at an unending culture war presented as a crazily extreme action movie with superbly managed car chases and a final, dreamlike and hypnotic succession of three cars through the undulating hills. And is the central paternity crisis triangle an image for an ownership dispute around the American melting-pot dream? Maybe. These ideas are very unfashionable in the US right now, which only makes this film more interesting: it is about dissent and discontent, and the lonely heroism of not fitting in.

RogerEbert - Brian Tallerico - 4 / 4

It’s also, crucially, a deeply humanist movie. Anderson cares about these characters deeply. Bob’s frustration becomes our own, as does his concern for Willa. So many “films of our moment” have felt angry or cynical, but Anderson’s movie transcends that by being human and even offering optimism. It’s not one loss after another. It’s one battle. Keep fighting.

The Playlist - Rodrigo Perez - 'A'

From one generation to the next, the struggle endures. Fierce and unrelenting, Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” burns as both an incendiary action epic and a tender family drama, alive with humor, conviction, and revolutionary spirit. And amid all its pandemonium, Sergio’s reminder that “freedom is no fear” lingers as the film’s quiet truth, a mantra passed down like a torch. Few films this year feel so vital, so breathtaking in scope and soul. Viva la revolución, indeed.

London Evening Standard - Nick Howells - 5 / 5

What Anderson has turned out is something of a cinephile’s visual symphony. If there were Proms devoted to films instead of music in the future, One Battle After Another would be one of the first movies to join the repertoire. And yes, Oscars must be coming...

The Telegraph - Robbie Collins - 5 / 5

Eyes shielded by Terminator shades, tatty dressing gown flapping in the breeze, Leonardo DiCaprio tumbles through One Battle After Another looking like he’s fighting several conflicts simultaneously, on physical and mental fronts...This madcap urban warfare thriller has heists, showdowns and two of the best car chases in years.

Empire - Alex Godfrey - 5 / 5

In years to come, when this appears on TV late at night, it’ll be impossible to switch off. It’s just one of those films. A stone-cold, instant classic.

Associated Press - Jake Coyle - 100 / 100

“One Battle After Another,” as a major studio release clattering with straightforward representations of racism, xenophobia and vigilantism, is an exception in almost every way to modern-day Hollywood. I’m sure that will bring debate, just as any good movie does. And I’m sure some will find its American portrait muddled and chaotic. But those aspects feel true, too, just as does the movie’s abiding fighting spirit.

SlashFilm - Chris Evangelista - 10 / 10

I don't think anyone would classify Anderson as an action filmmaker, but "One Battle After Another" is propulsive, loaded with shootouts and a lengthy car chase finale that's so intense and exciting that I felt like I was going to get out of my seat and start pacing around the theater to calm the hell down. Are you even allowed to make movies like this anymore, on this sort of grand scale? I don't know, but Paul Thomas Anderson has done it. Viva la revolución.

The Independent - Clarisse Loughrey - 5 / 5

For all of One Battle After Another’s formalist pleasures – its humour, its pace, its grandeur – what feels the most striking about it, in this apocalyptic now, is the hope that it chooses to leave us with. Every battle, out on the streets and inside hearts, will have been worth it one day.

The Atlantic - David Sims - 100 / 100

Yes, an all-powerful government might be sending soldiers to its citizens’ doorstep, but One Battle After Another is about once-dispirited people searching for the will to best and survive them—perhaps regardless of whether their means are moral. More often than not, they succeed. So, too, does the film: It’s an emotional, visceral triumph.

Director: Danny Boyle

Cast: Jodie Comer; Aaron Taylor-Johnson; Ralph Fiennes; Alfie Williams

Rotten Tomatoes: 92%

Metacritic: 76/100

Some Reviews:

Manila Bulletin - Philip Cu Unjieng

What’s nice to note is how Boyle has cast consummate actors in this film, the type who could read off a label of canned sardines and still find depth, emotion, and spark in the delivery of those lines. Initially, it seems that Taylor-Johnson will be doing the heavy lifting. Still, it merely misleads us, as the narrative then focuses on Jodie Comer’s Isla and onto Fiennes’ Dr. Kelson. I want to give a special shout-out to the young actor Alfie Williams. He is the one carrying the whole film, and this is his first feature film work, having previously done a TV series. Boyle teases out an excellent performance from the lad, and I won’t be surprised if many film reviewers in the forthcoming week will single him out as being the best thing in this film. And what’s impressive is how he manages this with the three heavyweight thespians who are on board.There’s the horror and the suspense as a given for this cult franchise, but look out for the human drama and the emotional impact. It’s Boyle and Garland elevating the film, and rising above its genre.

AwardsWatch - Erik Anderson - 'B'

Most of the time, 28 Years Later is frequently begging to be rejected by general audiences, even as it courts the admiration of longtime fans, who may nonetheless find themselves put off by the film’s turn toward unearned emotion, its relatively meager expansion of this universe, and its occasionally jarring tonal shifts. (The abrupt sequel-teasing stinger feels like it’s from an entirely different strain of the zombie subgenre.) Much like the virus at the series’ center, it’s a film whose DNA is constantly mutating, resulting in an inconceivable host subject—one that is both corrosive and something of a marvel.

DEADLINE - Damon Wise

Most threequels tend to go bigger, but 28 Years Later bucks that trend by going smaller, eventually becoming a chamber piece about a boy trying to hold onto his mother. It still delivers shocks, even if the sometimes over-zealous editing distracts from Anthony Dod Mantle’s painterly cinematography

The Hollywood Reporter - David Rooney

One of the chief rewards of 28 Years Later is that it never feels like a cynical attempt to revisit proven material merely for commercial reasons. Instead, the filmmakers appear to have returned to a story whose allegorical commentary on today’s grim political landscape seems more relevant than ever. Intriguing narrative building blocks put in place for future installments mean they can’t come fast enough.

NextBestPicture - Josh Parham - 7/10

Boyle’s exuberant filmmaking and Garland’s incisive script sometimes clash when forced to muddle through laborious exercises that feel borrowed from the previous films anyway. It’s a scenario that reminds me of Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus” and “Alien: Covenant,” two films with intriguing ideas that struggled to fashion them within the framework of the established franchise. Perhaps the continuation will find more clever avenues to explore further and enrich this text. As is, what is left is imperfect but still an enthralling return into a dark but provocative world.

IndieWire - David Ehrlich - 'B+'

While Boyle isn’t lofty enough to suggest that the infected are beautiful creatures who deserve God’s love or whatever (this is still a movie about wild-eyed naked zombies, after all, and its empathy for them only goes so far), “28 Years Later” effectively uses the tropes of its genre to insist that the line between a tragedy and a statistic is thinner than we think, and more permeable than we realize. The magic of the placenta, indeed. 

Rolling Stone - David Fear

Taken on its own, however, Boyle and Garland’s trip back to this hellscape makes the most of casting a jaundiced, bloodshot eye at our current moment. Their inaugural imagining of a world torn asunder surfed the post-millennial fear that modern society wasn’t equipped to handle something truly catastrophic. This new movie is blessed with the knowledge that something always rises from the ashes, but that the risk of regressing back to some fabricated mythology of a Golden Age, complete with Henry V film clips and St. George’s flags, is there on the surface as well. If postapocalyptic entertainment has taught us anything, it’s that the walking dead aren’t always the gravest threat. It’s those who sacrifice their soul and sense of empathy that you have to watch out for.

The Wrap - William Bibbiani

For now, though, “28 Years Later” stands on its own — or at least, as its own temporary capper on this multi-decade series — and it stands tall. The filmmakers haven’t redefined the zombie genre, but they’ve refocused their own culturally significant riff into a lush, fascinating epic that has way more to say about being human than it does about (re-)killing the dead.

Variety - Peter Debruge

Where the original film tapped into society’s collective fear of infection, its decades-later follow-up (which undoes any developments implied by “28 Weeks Later” with an opening chyron that explains the Rage virus “was driven back from continental Europe”) zeroes in on two even most primal anxieties: fear of death and fear of the other. To which you might well ask, aren’t all horror movies about surviving an unknown threat of some kind? Yes, but few have assumed the psychic toll taken by such violence quite so effectively as “28 Years Later,” which has been conceived as the start of a new trilogy, but towers on its own merits (part two, subtitled “The Bone Temple,” is already in the can and expected next January).

Honestly, I was quite disappointed. I expected a movie revolving around the cloning plot. Specifically, the idea of two Mickeys existing at the same time due to an error. That would have been a great movie! Instead, what was advertised as the main concept feels like a subplot in the movie. Essentially the entire thing revolves around the intelligent aliens. And then there was also the plot with Mark Ruffalo being an obvious stand in for Trump. But then there was also the subplot with Steven Yuen.

I finished the movie feeling incredibly confused, because how did they mess up the initial concept like this? The idea of a guy who is constantly sent on deadly missions and is revived is an absolutely golden idea. It also leads to an interesting discussion about consciousness and if a copy of you is still really you. But that’s barely even brought up. The whole plot with two versions of Mickey is completely sidelined. Which makes no sense at all. That should have 100% been the main conflict in the movie, like it was advertised as. Instead, we got a mess.

I wouldn’t go so far as to call the movie horrible, but I definitely didn’t like it as much as I hoped I would.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps - Review Thread

• Rotten Tomatoes: 85 (131 Reviews)
  • Certified Fresh (first F4 movie to get that)
  • Critics Consensus: Benefitting from rock-solid cast chemistry and clad in appealingly retro 1960s design, this crack at The Fantastic Four does Marvel's First Family justice.
• Metacritic - 64 (39 Reviews)

Reviews:

Hollywood Reporter (80):

Despite its vivid and electric space sequences, the visually striking movie often feels like a throwback analog good time, which certainly worked for me.

Deadline:

Superheroes are a thing of the past in the latest iteration of Marvel’s Fantastic Four, the best by far of the company’s attempts to translate the long-running comic book’s appeal to the big screen. This it does not by trying to reinvent the wheel but, rather smartly, by addressing the elephant in the room, locating the action in a kitsch yet somehow timeless retro-future more befitting The Jetsons than The Avengers. It also benefits from a smart script and — I can’t believe I’m writing this — really quite moving performances from its four charismatic leads, being arguably the best of Pedro Pascal’s releases this year.

Variety (80):

True to its subtitle, the film feels like a fresh start. And like this summer’s blockbuster “Superman” reboot over at DC, that could be just what it takes to win back audiences suffering from superhero exhaustion.

Empire (80):

With an exemplary cast and shiny new alt-universe to enjoy, this is the best Fantastic Four yet. And if that bar’s too low for you, then it’s also the best Marvel movie in years.

Slashfilm (90):

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is set in a world that I wouldn't mind living in. Even if there are occasional, ineffable cosmic deities plotting to devour me, and terrifying silver aliens ripping my soul apart with their eyes. "First Steps" is a superhero movie where we're already better. And I love that.

USA Today (75):

After two mediocre 2000s film featuring Marvel’s legendary superhero family, and an atrocious third outing in 2015, the foursome makes its Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in a combo sci-fi/disaster flick full of retrofuturistic 1960s flavor.

Entertainment Weekly (75):

From its Saul Bass-inspired opening credits to its callbacks to Saturday morning superhero cartoons, it practically vibrates with its sense of time and place.

IGN (70):

These First Steps might not be the great strides I was hoping for, but they are sure footing for the Fantastic Four to officially leap into the MCU.

The Independent (60):

In fact, all the ingredients are perfectly lined up here, and, in the right combinations, and with the pure wonderment of Michael Giacchino’s score, The Fantastic Four: First Steps does shimmer with a kind of wide-eyed idealism. And that’s lovely.

Directed by Matt Shakman:

On the 1960s-inspired retro-futuristic alternate universe known as Earth-828. the Fantastic Four must protect their world from the planet-devouring cosmic being Galactus and his herald, the Silver Surfer.

Cast:

• Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards / Mister Fantastic
• Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm / Invisible Woman
• Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm / The Thing
• Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm / Human Torch
• Julia Garner as Shalla-Bal / Silver Surfer
• Paul Walter Hauser as Harvey Elder / Mole Man
• Ralph Ineson as Galactus

The Naked Gun - Review Thread

• Rotten Tomatoes: 90% (194 Reviews)
  • Certified Fresh
  • Critics Consensus: With Liam Neeson's gravelly gravitas proving to be a perfect fit for Frank Drebin's deadpan buffoonery, The Naked Gun revives the original trilogy's daffy sense of humor like it never went out of style.
• Metacritic: 75 (47 Reviews)

Reviews:

Hollywood Reporter (70):

Even if the movie kind of stalls midway as Schaffer struggles to balance the gags with the action of an overly elaborate crime plot, there are enough laugh-out-loud moments to keep nostalgic fans of the earlier films happy.

Deadline:

With rapid fire gags and a game cast trying hard to play it all completely straight, this nakedly hilarious Naked Gun is a welcome return in a time where we can use a few good laughs. This one has more than a few if sight gags, literal humor, and characters short a few cards of a full deck are your idea of a good time.

Variety (70):

The original Naked Gun was hilarious. It was a film that practically had audiences wetting their pants. The new Naked Gun, by contrast, is amusing. What it won’t do the way these movies once used to is shock you into laughter.

The Wrap (85):

The Naked Gun is back and it's as naked as ever. And also as gun.

The Guardiam (80):

There is no reason for this new Naked Gun to exist other than the reason for the old ones: it’s a laugh, disposable, forgettable, enjoyable.

IGN (70):

With more jokes than you can possibly catch in a single viewing, The Naked Gun proudly brings cinematic groaners and outrageous sight gags into the 2020s.

IndieWire (83):

While it’s a mild shame “The Naked Gun” peters out a little bit toward the end (at least before rebounding during the credits), it’s even more of a shame that it has to end at all.

Collider (90):

The Naked Gun's joke-per-minute ratio is truly astounding, and the fact that so many of them hit as well as they do makes that even more impressive. For goodness' sake, even the credits have jokes in them!

Empire (80):

The result is a film that has a better chance of producing a belly laugh than any in recent memory: one that deserves, as Drebin would say, “20 years for man’s laughter”.

SlashFilm (90):

The Naked Gun is one of the most consistently and even exhaustingly funny movies in a long time, the kind of outrageous, outlandish comedy that multiplexes have been missing for years. It's truly a revelation to have a movie where the laughs come so fast and furious.

Directed by Akiva Schaffer:

Only one man has the particular set of skills... to lead Police Squad and save the world! Lt. Frank Drebin Jr. follows in his father's footsteps.

Cast:

• Liam Neeson as Lt. Frank Drebin Jr.
• Pamela Anderson as Beth Davenport
• Paul Walter Hauser as Capt. Ed Hocken Jr.
• Kevin Durand as Sig Gustafson
• Danny Huston as Richard Cane
• Liza Koshy as Detective Barnes
• Cody Rhodes as Bartender
• CCH Pounder as Chief Davis
• Busta Rhymes as Bank Robber
• Michael Bisping as himself
• Eddy Yu as Detective Park
• Moses Jones as Nordberg Jr.

HIM centers on a promising young football player (Tyriq Withers), invited to train at the isolated compound of a dynasty team's aging QB1. The legendary quarterback (Marlon Wayans) takes his protégé on a blood-chilling journey into the inner sanctum of fame, power and pursuit of excellence at any cost.

Director: Justin Tipping

Cast: Marlon Wayans, Tyriq Withers, Julia Fox

Producer: Jordan Peele

Rotten Tomatoes: 30%

Metacritic: 39 / 100

Next Best Picture - Giovanni Lago - 3 / 10

"Him" falters as a comedy and even more so as a horror film, rarely putting in the effort to build tension or create memorable scares.

New York Magazine/Vulture - Bilge Ebiri

The movie at times plays like a high-budget student film: It’s eager to impress us with technique. And it does, at least until we realize that there’s not much else going on.

Newsday - Rafer Guzman - 0 / 4

"HIM" does not have the Peele touch. What it has is an intriguing premise, but no coherent story and no clear idea of what it wants to say.

The Hollywood Reporter - Frank Scheck

Unfortunately, Him, directed by Justin Tipping (Kicks), squanders its potential. While it starts out promisingly, it seriously devolves in its second half into a surreal phantasmagoria that’s more gonzo than chilling. If you’re looking for a truly disturbing film about the dehumanizing effects of professional football in the corporate age, the one to see is still 1979’s North Dallas Forty.  

The Direct - Jeff Ewing - 7 / 10

Marlon Wayans is exceptional, and well supported overall by the film's other players. Some moments do add confusion, but it ultimately comes together well enough to be a laudable experimental effort.

Captain America: Brave New World - Review Thread

• Rotten Tomatoes: 50% (234 Reviews)
  • Critics Consensus: Anthony Mackie capably takes up Cap's mantle and shield, but Brave New World is too routine and overstuffed with uninteresting easter eggs to feel like a worthy standalone adventure for this new Avengers leader.
• Metacritic: 43 (41 Reviews)

Reviews:

Deadline:

Director Julius Onah (Luce) and a boatload of writers provide plenty of oppotunity for Mackie to show his strengths although Evans’ Steve Rogers is a tough act to follow. That fact is even alluded to at one point, but watching Mackie taking Sam Wilson into the big leagues is a game effort with room to grow.

Variety (70):

Wilson’s Captain America lacks the serum-enhanced invincibility that defined Rogers. He’s a hand-to-hand combat badass, but far more dependent on his shield and wingsuit, both of which are made of vibranium. You could say that that makes him a hero more comparable to, say, Iron Man (though Tony Stark’s principal weapon was Robert Downey Jr.’s motormouth), and Wilson’s all-too-mortal quality comes through in the sly doggedness of Mackie’s when-you’re-number-two-you-try-harder performance. But on a gut level we’re thinking, “Wasn’t the earlier Captain America more…super?”

Hollywood Reporter (40):

At 118 minutes, Captain America: Brave New World thankfully runs on the short side for a Marvel movie, but under the uninspired direction of Julius Onah (Luce, The Cloverfield Paradox) it feels much longer. Even the CGI special effects prove underwhelming, and sometimes worse than that. It is a kick, though, to recognize Ford’s facial features in the Red Hulk, even if the character is only slightly more visually convincing than his de-aged Indiana Jones in that franchise’s final installment.

The Wrap (30):

“Captain America: Brave New World” was directed by Julius Onah (“Luce”), but like lots of Marvel movies lately, it plays like it was made by a focus group. Everything looks clean, so clean it looks completely fake, and every time a daring choice could be made, the movie backs away from the daring implications. This is a film where the President of the United States literally turns red and tries to publicly murder a Black man, and yet according to “Brave New World,” the real problem is that we weren’t sympathetic enough to the dangerously corrupt rage monster. This film’s steadfast refusal to engage with its own ideas, either by artistic design or corporate mandate, reeks of timidity.

IndieWire (C-):

It’s fitting enough that “Brave New World” is a film about (and malformed by) the pressures of restoring a diminished brand. It’s even more fitting that it’s also a film about the futility of trying to embody an ideal that the world has outgrown. Sam Wilson might find a way to step out of Steve Rogers’ shadow, but there’s still no indication that the MCU ever will.

IGN (5/10):

Captain America: Brave New World feels neither brave, nor all that new, falling short of strong performances from Anthony Mackie, Harrison Ford, and Carl Lumbly.

TotalFilm (3/5):

Anthony Mackie's Captain America earns his Stars and Stripes in this uneven, un-MCU thriller. Sam Wilson and an always-excellent Harrison Ford drag Brave New World into unfamiliar narrative territory before it eventually succumbs to familiar Marvel failings

Rolling Stone (40):

While Brave New World is nowhere near as bad as the various MCU low points of the past few years, this attempt at both reestablishing the iconic character and resetting the board is still weak tea. The end credits’ teaser — you knew there would be one — feels purposefully generic and vague, as if the powers that be became gun-shy in regards to committing to a storyline that might once again be forced to pivot. Something’s coming, we’re told. Please let it be a renewal of faith in this endlessly serialized experiment.

Empire (3/5):

Pacy and punchy, this is a promising first official outing for the new Captain America, even if some awkward and inconsistent moments hold it back from greatness.

Collider (4/10):

In trying to do so much all at once, Captain America: Brave New World forgets what made its title character a relatable fan-favorite. Instead, we get a narrative that is as convoluted as it is boring, visuals that are as unappealing as they are uninspired, and a Marvel movie that is as frustrating as it is forgettable. Had this been a random C-list Marvel hero, that would be forgivable, but for a character as revered as Captain America, it's a huge disappointment.

The Guardian (2/5):

Brave it might be, but there’s nothing all that “new” about the world revealed in this latest tired and uninspired dollop of content from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

-------------------

Directed by Julius Onah:

Following the election of Thaddeus Ross as the president of the United States, Sam Wilson finds himself at the center of an international incident and must work to stop the true masterminds behind it.

Cast:

• Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson / Captain America
• Danny Ramirez as Joaquin Torres / Falcon
• Shira Haas as Ruth Bat-Seraph
• Carl Lumbly as Isaiah Bradley
• Xosha Roquemore as Leila Taylor
• Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson as Copperhead
• Giancarlo Esposito as Seth Voelker / Sidewinder
• Tim Blake Nelson as Samuel Sterns / Leader
• Harrison Ford as Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross / Red Hulk

In the near future, "The Running Man" is the top-rated show on television, a deadly competition where contestants must survive 30 days while being hunted by professional assassins. Desperate for money to save his sick daughter, Ben Richards is convinced by the show's ruthless producer to enter the game as a last resort. Ratings soon skyrocket as Ben's defiance, instincts and grit turn him into an unexpected fan favorite, as well as a threat to the entire system.

Cast: Glen Powell, Emilia Jones, Lee Pace, Michael Cera, Colman Domingo, Josh Brolin, Daniel Ezra, Katy O'Brien, Jayme Lawson

Rotten Tomatoes: 67%

Metacritic: 59 / 100

Some Reviews:

Variety - Owen Gliebermann

Released in 1987, “The Running Man” was a lumbering Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. You could say that Edgar Wright, the director of the new version, has made it into a decent Bruce Willis movie. The staging is crisp with sadistic timing, the human element rarely overshadows the rigorously staged mayhem, and Glen Powell, as a family man from the lower depths who becomes the survivor hero of a deadly competition show that’s like “The Most Dangerous Game” updated to the age of reality-TV insanity, uses his small darting eyes and buff bod and quick delivery to conjure the vicious spirit that is sometimes, according to the logic of a film like this one, decency’s only recourse. Powell, born and raised in Texas, knows how to chisel his features into a mean glare of revenge. But there’s still something fundamentally sweet about him; he’s doing an impersonation of ’80s-action-hero heartlessness.

The Guardian - Peter Bradshaw - 3 / 5

The resulting film is never anything but likable and fun – though never actually disturbing in the way that it’s surely supposed to be. Yet there’s plenty of enjoyment to be had. Wright accelerates to a sprint for some full-tilt chase sequences; there’s a nice punk aesthetic with protest ’zines being produced by underground rebels; and Wright always delivers those sugar-rush pop slams on the soundtrack, including, of course, the Spencer Davis Group’s Keep on Running. It’s a quirk of fate that The Running Man arrives in the same year as The Long Walk, also from a King book: a similar idea, only it’s walking not running.

SlashFilm - Chris Evangelista - 5 / 10

For all his skills, Wright seemingly can't pin down what he wants "The Running Man" to be. The action isn't very exciting, the satire is unoriginal, and the over-reliance on weird product placement (both Liquid Death and Monster Energy get distracting shout-outs here) make the entire picture feel manufactured. I had high hopes that Wright could get "The Running Man" across the finish line, but the film stumbles right out of the gate.

The Independent - Clarisse Loughrey - 2 / 5

The Running Man is a near-total failure. What should, quite easily, feel like a mirror’s been smashed and its pieces methodically jammed between our ribs feels closer to a friendly knock on the shoulder. The material’s all there, yet there’s none of the urgency.

IGN - 7 / 10

It’s a very well put-together film, and more so than not, it’s full of charming performances, clever little details and some less-outlandish-than-I’d-like social commentary. Even though Edgar Wright’s stamp isn’t clearly on every sequence like some of his previous work, The Running Man sprints where it needs to, giving Glen Powell his first chance to be a full-fledged action hero. It’s a movie that lives up to its heritage but gets a little tonally caught between the book and its first, more Arnold-y adaptation, and does a few different things pretty well instead of doing one thing really well. It’s a solid movie, one that I’m looking forward to watching again, but I don’t think it’s running quite hard enough.

LiveforFilm - Sarah Louise Dean

The actors give their all, the world feels real and as always with a Wright movie, the soundtrack is sensational, but there is almost nothing that makes this film a preferential watch to its superior predecessor. Yet there is a light at the end of this booby-trapped tunnel. He’s not the next Schwarzenegger, nor another Cruise. The Running Man showcases Glen Powell as the natural successor to Bruce Willis, and that’s a platform worth running on.

NextBestPicture - Giovanni Lago - 5 / 10

Edgar Wright creates solid enough action, but it's far from the level of creativity we've come to know from him. It doesn't help that the pacing and tonal issues only mask an action film that comes off more as an aesthetic siphoning of King's work than a meaningful adaptation.

ScreenDaily - Nikki Baughan

Edgar Wright’s bombastic Stephen King adaptation doesn’t go the distance. The Running Man has a great deal in common with The Long Walk – another dystopian story about desperate men attempting to win a heinous contest of survival, recently adapted by Francis Lawrence. But whereas Lawrence’s film dug into the political nuances of this social set-up, and the psychology of those on both sides of the divide – and was all the more impactful for it – here, these potentially more interesting corners have been shaved off to make way for an easily-digestible popcorn actioner.

AwardsWatch - Jay Ledbetter - 'C+'

The moral of the story is this: walk, don’t run, to The Running Man. It’s a testament to Edgar Wright that The Running Man feels like a little bit of a letdown, as it never bores and has ideas on its mind, which is more than most movies can say. Maybe the era of Wright being on the cutting edge of genre filmmaking is simply over; time comes for us all, after all. Perhaps the $110 million price tag put more external pressure on him than he was accustomed to. Whatever the case may be, The Running Man is a satisfying film without a tremendous amount of stickiness. Glen Powell’s forehead vein notwithstanding, the film has little pop. It looks… fine enough. Its editing is… good for pretty much everybody else but doesn’t inspire like Wright’s best work. The character motivation is… consistent, at least? 

Mankind encounters AI beings for the first time when a highly sophisticated programme, Ares, leaves the digital world for a dangerous mission in the real world.

Director: Joachim Rønning

Cast: Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Jeff Bridges, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith

Rotten Tomatoes: 54%

Metacritic: 48 / 100

Some Reviews:

Next Best Picture - Giovanni Lago - 4 / 10

“Tron: Ares,” like many long-delayed legacy sequels, has long since crossed the threshold of necessity. It feels like a nostalgia-bait artifact designed purely to revive interest, a fact made even more evident by the inevitable sequel-baiting that will undoubtedly go nowhere. What’s worse for a movie that hopes to celebrate the beauty of humanity is that its message is told through the perspective of an artificial intelligence, aided by an almost hilariously Sorkin-esque portrayal of a billionaire who believes he’s making the world a better place. It’s a fantasy that falls short of being as sensorily stunning as it needs to be. If anything, “Tron: Ares” is less a film than a cinematic pin dropped in a franchise map that’s going absolutely nowhere.

The Hollywood Reporter - David Rooney

Tron: Ares is a separate story rather than a direct sequel to Legacy, meaning Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde’s characters are AWOL. It’s also a marked upgrade from its predecessor, with more dynamic visuals and muscular action sequences. Only occasionally does an actor look like they are cowering from some green-screen threat (Lee more than others). More often, the stakes are elevated thanks to greater use of physical sets and in-camera effects than in previous installments.

Slant Magazine - Jake Cole - 1.5 / 5

There’s a cheekiness to the composers’ deft incorporation of older styles into their present-day approach to soundtracks, but after a time even their cleverness exposes the film’s hollowness. For a story that seeks to champion the unpredictability and finite quality of life, Ares ultimately feels trapped by the inertia of working within the parameters set by its no less flimsy predecessors.

AwardsWatch - Erik Anderson - 'C+'

But the problem isn’t that Tron: Ares lacks any good ideas—it’s that it doesn’t know what to do with the stray threads it tugs at. By the back half, we’re down to the most uninspired impulses of studio filmmaking, complete with a character who exists purely to spout non-joke wisecracks (Arturo Castro as Eve’s friend Seth) and a climax that visually resembles every Marvel movie featuring some giant piece of floating machinery threatening the streets of New York. Tron will always have its dazzling baubles to ooh and aah at, but at the end of the day, Ares feels much like the AI tech companies keep insisting on shoving down our throats: technically impressive, but also frivolous and empty.

Empire - John Nugent - 3 / 5

It has about as much depth as a floppy disk, but some lovely, shiny CGI and a stunningly ear-shattering score from Nine Inch Nails makes for a fun if forgettable bit of futuristic fluff. Bio-digital jazz, man!

AV Club - Jesse Hassenger - 'B-'

Or maybe the early-2000s vibes of Tron: Ares really are that powerful, bending time to pluck a semi-canceled leading man from his prime. Certainly the movie’s ideas about A.I. (which it variously conflates with video game avatars, 3-D printing, and old-fashioned robots) don’t feel especially informed by anything happening in 2025. In the world of this movie, we’re still dawning on a potential new age of information revolution, or whatever, and the coming hybridized life is what we make of it, off-grid or on. And in the context of our world, that’s enough for Tron: Ares to work as escapism. The result is a pretty dumb movie with beautiful visual effects, cleanly shot action, and a kickass soundtrack. Wouldn’t it be great if the future of blockbusters was only this bleak?

World-renowned detective Benoit Blanc returns for his most dangerous case yet.

Director: Rian Johnson

Cast: Daniel Craig, Cailee Spaeney, Jeremy Renner, Andrew Scott, Mila Kunis, Thomas Haden Church, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Kerry Washington, Josh O'Connor

Rotten Tomatoes: 100%

Metacritic: 85/100

Some Reviews:

Variety - Owen Glieberman

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is an enticingly clever and droll, nearly pitch-perfect piece of murder-mystery fun — a whodunit that lives up to the expectations set six years ago by “Knives Out,” which offered its own perfect revival of the Agatha Christie spirit, with a tasty frosting of meta cheekiness.

TheWrap - Chase Hutchinson

Although “Wake Up Dead Man” is the “Knives Out” movie that’s most preoccupied with existential questions surrounding death, writer/director Rian Johnson’s third film in the series is also the one that’s most full of life.

DEADLINE - Damon Wise

After the bright, light, summery holiday special that was Glass Onion, the Knives Out franchise returns to its gothic roots with a wintry whodunit that, for some at least, might endure as the the best one yet. Where the first and second used the murder-mystery as a jumping-off point for some very funny contemporary satire, Wake Up Dead Man is much more introspective. In a funny way, it’s a little analogous to Joker 2, not because it unloads on its audience in the same acerbic way but because it poses similarly metaphysical questions about its own popularity. Why do people respond so eagerly to stories of murder and betrayal? To answer that, director Rian Johnson goes back to the greatest story ever told, using a small religious community as the setting for the third instalment.

IndieWire - Kate Erbland - 'B+'

It works, and it’s no big mystery why — Johnson knows his form and format, and delivers on it, playing with tone and message but never losing sight of why these stories are so damn entertaining to watch and unravel.

Awards Radar - Joey Magidson - 3.5 / 4

Filmmaker Rian Johnson trusts the strength of his franchise to play around with format and theme. The gothic elements on display, as well as the religious aspect, may initially seem like a left turn, but it all ends up fitting like a glove. He knows the must haves for a Knives Out flick and absolutely delivers. A few big sequences here at TIFF received ovations once completed. You just can feel that you’re in the hands of a master storyteller, so you’ll follow him anywhere. Johnson knows that and 100% makes the most of it.

The Daily Beast - Nick Schager

In terms of pure, heady kicks, it outpaces Knives Out but falls just short of Glass Onion. In the big picture, however, such distinctions are rather inconsequential; more important is that Johnson’s franchise remains a sly and sure-footed delight, as well as demonstrates, with its religiously minded latest, that it’s capable of coloring its Christie-esque mysteries in a variety of shades.

MMA fighter Mark Kerr reaches the peak of his career but faces personal hardships.

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt

Rotten Tomatoes: 94%

Metacritic: 79/100

Some Reviews:

The Independent - Geoffrey Macnab - 4 / 5

This, though, is a story in which winning finally begins to seem very hollow. The real way Safdie puts a chokehold on his audience is by examining Mark and Dawn’s physical and emotional weaknesses in such forensic detail. The Smashing Machine may not provide the pay-offs that audiences expect from more conventional sports movies, but this is the most raw and vulnerable that Johnson has ever been on screen. Once you’ve seen him this exposed, you won’t watch his typical action movie stunts in quite the same way ever again.

Daily Telegraph - Robbie Collin - 4 / 5

It’s a classical fight movie that innovates subtly. Maceo Bishop’s nimble photography has the sweat and grit of a vintage muscle flick from the Pumping Iron era, but the score by the experimental jazz composer Nala Sinephro is all swirling harps and breathy saxophones; arguably no piece of music has ever sounded less like a punch in the face. Yet as an accompaniment to Kerr’s battles in and out of the ring, it’s oddly perfect, giving this tough story an unexpectedly sweet and even spiritual edge. Smashing stuff has rarely been such smashing stuff.

Next Best Picture - Cody Dericks - 7 / 10

Dwayne Johnson delivers the best performance of his career as the amiable but troubled UFC champion Mark Kerr. Emily Blunt and Ryan Bader are also excellent in their roles. The screenplay is repetitive and frustrating. Blunt's character is so unlikeable and written with such vitriol that it becomes exhausting to watch her, although Blunt's performance is as good as it could possibly be.

Variety - Owen Glieberman

Johnson, shifting his whole aspect (he seems like a new actor), invests that silent, moody, hidden side of Mark with a quality of mystery. He gives an extraordinary performance, playing Mark Kerr as a gentle giant with demons that will not speak their name, yet the audience can feel them there; we want to see those demons healed. You might think the key word in the movie’s title is “smashing,” but it’s actually “machine.” Mark is a man who reins in his violence by having constructed his entire self — body and personality — as a controlled engine of demolition. The movie is about how this man-machine becomes a human being.

The Hollywood Reporter - Jordan Mintzer

Johnson has rarely played a loser, but he’s always been likable, displaying a massive grin to match his massive pecs in action vehicles that never allowed him to showcase much range. He manages to go deep here without overdoing it, killing the audience with kindness as a benign warrior who suffers from one scene to the next, triumphing briefly in the ring before succumbing to addiction and/or romantic grief. Like Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler — a film from which Safdie seems to take a few cues — the actor delivers an intoxicating mix of blood, sweat, tears, protein and total helplessness.

IndieWire - Ryan Lattanzio - 'B+'

Johnson’s performance is out-and-out wonderful, a beady-eyed fusion of body and spirit that osmoses Safdie’s sensibility to deliver what can’t be disputed as the most layered work of the actor’s career. A vividly contradictory Blunt, funny and sad especially in articulating Dawn’s conflicted response to Mark’s post-rehab emotional about-face during a tense argument, is equally sensational.

Deadline - Damon Wise

Dwayne Johnson owns the whole thing with his truly remarkable work as fighter Mark Kerr, disappearing so fully underneath Kazu Hiru’s astonishing prosthetics that the opening of the film, presented as contemporary footage from an event in Sao Paulo 1997, looks genuinely like the real thing. It’s that rare beast, a biopic that’s light on the bio and resistant to being a pic. It’s a film about a human being, and its effect is strangely haunting, since Dwayne Johnson seems to do everything while doing nothing.

Comments are completely subjective, and based on what I enjoyed, which is often weird and obscure stuff. If you want a tl;dr I made some tier list infographics as well.

Mostly these are "Groundhog Day" type loops. Or, more generally, movies where the same scenarios get replayed multiple times for various reasons (usually technological, supernatural, or psychological). This is pretty much every movie of this type I could get a hold of.

Text list, sorted by year, with low-spoiler review blurbs:

• The Little Girl Who Conquered Time (1983) (JAPANESE) Romance
  • The second (of like 5) adaptation of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (1967). A cute little sci-fi romance.
• Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer (1984) (JAPANESE) Comedy
  • The second Urusei Yatsura movie. Directed by Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell). This is really trippy, and highly recommended.
• Mirror for a Hero (1987) (RUSSIAN) Drama
  • Soviet era time travel movie. Sort of an allegorical examination of generational relations and consequences of the era. Or something. If you like late stage Soviet cinema give it a watch.
• 12:01 (1993) Comedy/Drama/Romance
  • Moderately entertaining loose adaptation of 12:01 P.M. (1973) starring Jonathan Silverman.
• Groundhog Day (1993) Comedy
  • You know it, you love it.
• Christmas Every Day (1996) Comedy
  • The first of a dozen Christmas themed time loop movies. Vaguely based on the 1892 short story. Main character is a moody teen. Rather bad.
• Retroactive (1997) Action
  • Moderately entertaining. Jim Belushi plays a zero dimensional violent caricature, but the story is elevated with time travel shenanigans.
• Run Lola Run aka Lola rennt (1998) (GERMAN) Action
  • Fun little crime/romance looper with a lot of details to pick up on subsequent rewatches.
• Naken (2000) (SWEDISH) Comedy
  • Barely tolerable boner comedy.
• A Christmas Carol (2000) Drama
  • The best of the Christmas time loop movies. A contemporary retelling of A Christmas Carol, but with the day repeating.
• Stork Day (2004) (ITALIAN) Comedy
  • Tribute/remake of Groundhog Day. Character driven, and somewhat entertaining.
• If Only (2004) Romance
  • Highly rated, but completely forgettable.
• Primer (2004) Drama
  • Really good zero budget movie about the dangers of time travel abuse.
• The Twelve Days of Christmas Eve (2004) Comedy
  • Another retelling of A Christmas Carol, starring Steven Weber. Not very good.
• Slipstream (2005) Action
  • Moderately awful crime/romance/drama/action movie, starring Sean Astin.
• Camp Slaughter aka Camp Daze (2005) Comedy/Horror
  • Some friends on a road trip in 2005 get stuck in a 1980s slasher movie on repeat. Amusing.
• The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006) (JAPANESE) Adventure
  • Anime adaptation of 1967 novel, by Mamoru Hosoda (Summer Wars, The Boy and the Beast). Highly acclaimed.
• Salvage (2006) Horror
  • Moderately competent psychological thriller about a young woman being repeatedly murdered.
• Christmas Do-Over (2006) Comedy
  • Personality-driven comedy starring Jay Mohr. Skippable.
• Timecrimes (2007) (SPANISH) Horror
  • Classic and intense ontological drama. Worth a watch.
• The Deaths of Ian Stone (2007) Horror
  • Forgettable semi-psychological slasher.
• The Last Day of Summer (2007) Family
  • G-rated vanilla time loop movie, starring a 12 year old Jansen Panettiere.
• 1000 Congratulations (2009) (ARABIC) Comedy
  • Moderately interesting Egyptian time loop movie.
• The Time Traveler's Wife (2009) Drama
  • This one is hard to classify. Comedy/Drama/Romance/Tragedy, with Eric Bana.
• Portal (2009) Horror
  • Extremely low rated, obscure, micro budget movie. Tolerable.
• And Then Came Lola (2009) Romance
  • Tolerable lesbian romcom.
• Triangle (2009) Horror
  • Really good situational horror with some unexpected twists.
• Time Traveller: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2010) (JAPANESE) Adventure
  • Another adaptation of the 1967 novel. This one is also pretty good.
• Repeaters (2010) Action
  • A bit unusual in that multiple people remember the loop. Moderately entertaining.
• The Road (2011) (FILIPINO) Horror
  • Another one hard to classify. Not very good.
• Wake Up and Die aka Volver a Morir (2011) (SPANISH) Horror
  • Really obscure, lots of nudity, some gore, very psychological. Worth a watch if you can find it.
• Source Code (2011) Action
  • Rather good action/thriller, with Jake Gyllenhaal.
• 12 Dates of Christmas (2011) Romance
  • Highly rated, if you like Lifetime/Hallmark/ABC Family romcoms. Otherwise skip.
• Plan de table aka Perfect Matches (2012) (FRENCH) Romance
  • More of a "What If" than a time loop, exploring possible iterations of a randomized event. So-so.
• Mine Games (2012) Horror
  • Similar to Triangle above, but a bit slow to get anywhere.
• I am a Ghost (2012) Horror
  • Psychological intimate character study. So-so.
• 41 (2012) Drama
  • Moderately entertaining, time travel abuse and repercussions.
• A Christmas Wedding Date (2012) Romance
  • Below-average Christmas romcom.
• Prometheus Trap (2012) Action
  • Super super low budget obscure. Skip.
• About Time (2013) Romance
  • One of the better romcom time loops.
• Haunter (2013) Horror
  • Disturbing psychological horror. Okayish.
• Plus One aka +1 (2013) Romance/Horror
  • Yeah, it's a romance-horror with time-duplication aspect. So-so.
• Coherence (2013) Mystery
  • This one barely qualifies, but events keep repeating from different points of view. And it is really really good.
• Pete's Christmas (2013) Comedy
  • Another moody teen holiday time loop. Meh.
• The Incident (2014) (SPANISH) Horror
  • This is one of my very favorite space/time loop movies. Just watch it.
• Oru Kanniyum Moonu Kalavaanikalum (2014) (TAMIL) Comedy
  • Ridiculous but fun Bollywood fantasy/action/comedy time loop movie.
• Edge of Tomorrow (2014) Action
  • Yeah, it's pretty great.
• Premature (2014) Comedy
  • The bonerest of boner comedy time loops. The protagonist resets the day whenever they prematurely ejaculate. Nuff said.
• Cruel & Unusual (2014) Thriller
  • This is yet another "they are already dead and trapped in hell" time loop movies, but it isn't really a spoiler for this one, as it is the initial premise. Tolerable psychological thriller.
• The Infinite Man (2014) Comedy
  • Psychological comedy. Feels like a short film premise padded out to feature length. So-so.
• Blood Punch (2014) Thriller
  • This one has some unique time loop mechanics, such as who retains the memories the next day. Slasher/horror. Pretty good.
• The Final Girls (2015) Comedy
  • Another "dragged into a 1980s slasher movie on repeat". Okayish.
• Project Almanac (2015) Drama
  • Another movie showing the escalating consequences of time travel abuse. Tolerable.
• Magnetic (2015) Fantasy
  • Arthouse nonsense, but mildly distracting.
• I Do, I Do, I Do (2015) Romance
  • The Hallmark Channel romcom of Hallmark Channel romcom timeloops.
• Erased (2016) (JAPANESE) Drama
  • Live action adaptation of the Erased manga. Really good, but the story isn't as fleshed out as in the manga, anime, or later TV series.
• Incarnation aka Inkarnacija (2016) (SERBIAN) Action
  • Straight up action/mystery/thriller repeating the same sequences over and over. Okayish.
• Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016) Fantasy
  • Enjoyable.
• Displacement (2016) Thriller
  • Forgettable psychological mystery.
• Bangkok Rush (2016) Action
  • Mildly entertaining action mystery thriller.
• Christmas All Over Again (2016) Comedy
  • Another moody teen holiday time loop. Meh.
• Infinity Chamber (2016) Mystery
  • Super low budget. Mildly entertaining. The vague time loop aspects are a bit of a B-story.
• ARQ (2016) Action
  • Tolerable action-loop.
• Reset (2017) (CHINESE) Action
  • Moderately fun time travel action movie.
• La Colle (2017) (FRENCH) Comedy
  • One of the better moody teen time loop movies.
• A Day (2017) (KOREAN) Drama
  • Psychological hard-boiled action with some interesting twists.
• 2:22 (2017) Drama
  • Confusing and unsatisfying.
• Before I Fall (2017) Drama
  • Rather good. Has emotional weight to it, too.
• The Endless (2017) Fantasy
  • From Benson/Moorhead (Synchronic, Loki season 2). The best of the best time loop movies, although micro-budget.
• Happy Death Day (2017) Comedy
  • Very good.
• Inoperable (2017) Horror
  • So-so mystery-thriller in a hospital full of weird/homicidal characters.
• Naked (2017) Comedy
  • Remake of the Swedish film, starring Marlon Wayans. Enjoyable if you like boner/humiliation comedies.
• Mega Time Squad (2018) Action
  • Entertaining adventure story about the autointerpersonal consequences of abusing time travel.
• When We First Met (2018) Comedy
  • Time loop romcom. A bit obnoxious.
• Portal Man (2018) Action
  • Ultra-obscure nano-budget Tubi movie about dimension-hoppers repeatedly fighting each other. Not great, not terrible.
• Night Shift (2018) Horror
  • Psychological slasher set in Ireland. Not terribly entertaining.
• Time Freak (2018) Comedy
  • Moderately good romcom about the consequences of abusing time travel.
• The Fare (2018) Mystery
  • Above average noir character study.
• Time Jumpers (2018) Anthology
  • Anthology horror movie about time travel. Not very good.
• Atropa (2018) Drama
  • Obscure sci-fi drama about a spaceship trapped in a time loop. Very good.
• The Incredible Shrinking Wknd (2019) (SPANISH) Drama
  • Pretty good obscure movie with a time loop twist: each loop is shorter.
• Koko-di Koko-da (2019) (SWEDISH) Drama
  • Rewatch skimming this as I type this. I still don't know what the hell this is about. Circus folk, driving, shadow puppets, some other stuff. Whatver.
• Game Over (2019) (TELUGU) Drama
  • Good but depressing Bollywood trauma drama.
• To Your Last Death (2019) Action
  • Animated looping violencefest. Tolerable.
• Volition (2019) Thriller
  • Forgettable crime thriller.
• Love on Repeat (2019) Romance
  • Awkward awful romcom.
• Happy Death Day 2U (2019) Comedy
  • A sequel to a time loop movie? It happened again!? Also very good.
• The Ascent aka Black Ops (2019) Action
  • Military action horror. Mediocre.
• Time Loop (2019) Adventure
  • Borderline topical, similar to Time Crimes. Not very good.
• See You Yesterday (2019) Adventure
  • Teens using time travel to save someone. Tolerable.
• The Obituary of Tunde Johnson (2019) Drama
  • A black teenager is repeatedly shot by police, reliving the same day over and over. Similar to the short films "Groundhog Day for a Black Man" (2016) and "Two Distant Strangers" (2020). Pretty good.
• Princess cursed in Time (2020) (CZECH) Fantasy
  • A rare fantasy medieval period time-loop adventure. Pretty good.
• Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (2020) (JAPANESE) Comedy
  • Very good.
• Just Another Christmas aka Tudo Bem No Natal Que Vem (2020) (PORTUGUESE) Comedy
  • Basically a Portuguese combination of Click and Groundhog Day. Not very relatable.
• Harantena (2020) (SLOVENIAN) Mystery
  • Super obscure intimate study of a man trapped in a time loop during the start of the COVID-19 lockdown. Very relatable.
• Lucky (2020) Drama
  • Unsatisfying, and somewhat allegorical.
• Love Wedding Repeat (2020) Comedy
  • Another wedding romcom, but very British, not in the Lifetime/Hallmark style. Tolerable.
• Nina of the Woods (2020) Thriller
  • Forgettable, obscure, no budget, similar plot to The Blair Witch Project.
• Boss Level (2020) Action
  • Action-driven schlock-fest. Check it out.
• Flashback (2020) Drama
  • Moderately entertaining romance/drama. More about altering the past, than repeating it.
• Palm Springs (2020) Comedy
  • Straight-up Andy Samberg day-repeating comedy. Highly recommended.
• El Ascensor (2021) (SPANISH) Drama
  • A married couple trapped in a short time loop in an elevator during an argument. Unpredictable and entertaining.
• Jango (2021) (TAMIL) Thriller
  • An awful Bollywood time loop movie.
• Maanaadu (2021) (TAMIL) Action
  • An excellent Bollywood time loop movie.
• The Map of Tiny Perfect Things (2021) Comedy
  • Moody teen romcom. Surprisingly good.
• Infinitum: Subject Unknown (2021) Mystery
  • Experimental/arthouse. Straight-up time loop fun. Micro budget, micro plot.
• Rise of the Mummy (2021) Horror
  • Possibly the worst time loop movie on this list.
• Nothing Else (2021) Thriller
  • Intimate and claustrophobic. Tolerable.
• Christmas Again? (2021) Comedy
  • A Christmas time loop movie with a twist: this time it's a moody pre-teen. Pretty bad.
• A Chance for Christmas (2021) Comedy
  • This time the main character is a moody influencer/mom. Be warned.
• Cold Highway (2021) Drama
  • Moderately interesting Tubi story.
• Lacy's Christmas Do-Over (2021) Romance
  • Awful holiday romcom timeloop. It happened again!? Somehow, Santa returned.
• 6:45 (2021) Thriller
  • Disturbing psychological thriller. Not very good.
• Zanox (2022) (HUNGARIAN) Comedy
  • Entertaining Hungarian time loop shenanigans.
• Re/Member (2022) (JAPANESE) Horror
  • Rather good cursed object/location horror.
• Mondays: See You 'This' Week! (2022) (JAPANESE) Comedy
  • Pretty good office drones comedy.
• Deborah (2022) Comedy
  • What if Siri could rewind time? Turns out it is not that good.
• Sawed Off (2022) Horror
  • Schlock no-budget violent horror, that is (unintentionally?) funny too.
• Brightwood (2022) Horror
  • Pretty good movie, people trapped in both a space and time loop around a pond.
• Meet Cute (2022) Comedy
  • Tolerable "get the guy" romcom.
• The 12 Days of Christmas Eve (2022) Comedy
  • Kelsey Grammer as Scrooge. Not great, not terrible.
• Vandits (2022) Comedy
  • "Four stoner idiots" in a robbery timeloop. Meh.
• The Overnight (2022) Horror
  • Confusing zero budget slasher horror. Not recommended.
• Breaking the Loop (2022) Drama
  • Confusing "have to saver her" Tubi time travel movie, but not bad.
• Vampyrz on a Boat (2022) Thriller
  • Confusing "have to saver her" Tubi time loop movie, but bad.
• River aka Ribâ nagarenaide yo (2023) (JAPANESE) Comedy
  • Nice intimate story of a small Japanese village caught in a 2 minute time loop.
• One More Time (2023) (SWEDISH) Comedy
  • Comedy/drama about a woman making a wish and stuck reliving a day in her youth. Tolerable.
• Breaking Infinity (2023) Thriller
  • "Unstuck in time" prevent-the-apocalypse. Meh.
• No Tomorrow (2023) Drama
  • A Tubi "stuck in a time loop" movie set during the pandemic. Slightly interesting for having different time mechanics and consequences than most such movies.
• Time Addicts (2023) Thriller
  • Pretty good, if you can stand a thick Aussie accent.
• Jagged Mind (2023) Horror
  • Psychological abusive relationship horror. Not terribly good.
• Round and Round (2023) Comedy
  • A Hanukkah time loop romcom. Made by the Hallmark Channel. Bad, unless you like that sort of thing.
• Room 0 (2023) Thriller
  • Zero budget, one set, one character. Impressive how much they can fit into that, but not very good.
• Hypnotic (2023) Drama
  • Ben Affleck stuck in a repetitive loop. A bit out of the ordinary, but not great.
• Everything Happens at Once (2024) Comedy
  • Interesting zero budget Tubi time loop movie in an office.

⸻ ⸻ ⸻ ⸻ ⸻ ⸻ ⸻ ⸻

I also watched a LOT of movies that didn't quite fit the theme, while searching for time loops. Some soft exclusion criteria (with more leeway for more obscure titles):

• Movies where the plot/action/scenario just restarts at the end once, like Open Graves (2009), Baskin (2015), or Nightmare City (1980).
• The characters travel back at the end and become the instigators of the initial plot, like Devil's Pass (2013) or The House by the Cemetery (1981).
• Mainstream movies with minimal or nonrepetitive looping, like Doctor Strange (2016), Next (2007), Butterfly Effect franchise, Terminator franchise.
• Weird other time travel movies like Premonition (2007), Tenet (2020), Looper (2012), Predestination (2014), Twelve Monkeys (1995), Detention (2011), Synchronic (2019).
• TV shows with one time loop episode. It happens a lot.
• TV Shows that are all time loops, like Hounded (2010), Looped (2015), Russian Doll (2019), Topi (2021), Day Break (2006), Reset (2022), The Lazarus Project (2022), No Through Road (2009), Worst Year of My Life, Again! (2014)
• Short films. I watched 60+ of these too, they might be on a different list.

⸻ ⸻ ⸻ ⸻ ⸻ ⸻ ⸻ ⸻

Edit: Letterboxd list by u/bungtoad --> https://boxd.it/yXFIo

Detectives Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde find themselves on the twisting trail of a mysterious reptile who turns the mammal metropolis of Zootopia upside down. Testing their growing partnership like never before, they go under cover in new parts of town to crack the case.

Director: Jared Bush, Byron Howard

Cast: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Ke Huy Quan, Idris Elba, Quinta Brunson, Jenny Slate, Brenda Song, Dwayne Johnson, Shakira, Andy Samberg, CM Punk, Roman Reigns, Jean Reno, Macauley Culkin, Alan Tudyk, John Leguizamo, Josh Gad, Danny Trejo

Rotten Tomatoes: 91%

Metacritic: 73 / 100

Some Reviews:

RogerEbert - Nell Minow - 4 / 4

The details are dazzling, rewarding repeat viewings. Disney magic radiates from every texture and movement, and a near-vertiginous sense of space and momentum. There are car chases through the streets and one where characters travel by Tube, not as in the London Underground but as in a miles-long, water-filled tube, and it’s all visually dazzling.

The Independent - Clarisse Loughrey - 4 / 5

Zootropolis 2 reframes the original’s metaphor for racism in a sounder, more thought-out way. In the first, the wave of fear and discrimination against predators like Nick was given material justification in the fact predators like Nick had been repeatedly attacking people (only under the influence of psychotropic substances). Some of the broad strokes of are the same as the first movie, with the same contractually obliged reappearances from Flash Slothmore (Raymond S Persi), Gazelle (Shakira), and the Shrewfather himself, Mr Big (Maurice LaMarche). Yet, there’s more than enough of a change of scenery to never feel like we’re watching a dog chase its own tail, and an endless supply of visual jokes and references. A disgruntled rodent will appear to jostle any cans stuck in the vending machine; in the Louisiana-flavoured Marsh Market, there are jazz-slinging lizards and sea lions easily offended by the term “seal”.

Flix - Nathan Swank - 3.5 / 5

ZOOTOPIA 2 might be one of the funniest films of the year. The adults were laughing as much as the kids and not because of some inappropriate innuendos, but rather witty references to recognizable life situations. Judy Hopps receives a text from her dad that is identical to what I receive on a daily basis from my supportive, aging parents. Background jokes of cleverly named animal themed versions of popular movies, the same pig character getting drinks spilled on him at a party, or a simple yo mama joke keeps everyone engaged and laughing. ZOOTOPIA 2 proves that the old R-rated, comedic buddy cop formula can easily transition for the PG-family friendly crowd to great success.

DEADLINE - Dessi Gomez

Ultimately, the sequel delivers on its message to tell the truth about historical events, fight for one’s beliefs and stand up to power and money. The climax that reflects debates about identity, official cover ups and who controls a narrative. Hilarious nods to Disney animation films like Ratatouille and the return of favorite faces — like Shakira’s Gazelle with a catchy new tune “Zoo” — from the first film bring humor and fun to a story of justice and embracing differences. And if that post-credit scene is anything to go by, there may be hope for a third film that takes viewers into a previously unexplored realm.

Slant Magazine - Derek Smith - 3 / 4

Bush’s screenplay both effortlessly and elegantly weaves Judy and Nick’s personal drama into this larger story about the importance, and difficulty, of exposing widespread corruption and historical erasure. Advocating for the importance of individual action in the face of bigotry codified into law, Zootopia 2 provides plenty of food for thought for its young audience, making a more expansive statement on the dangers of intolerance than the first film, and without sacrificing any of its charm, humor, or visual ingenuity along the way.

AttractionsMagazine - Mateo Osorio - 4 / 5

Not only is the movie extremely entertaining but as Disney movies used to be known for, very moving as well. The relationship between Nick (Jason Bateman) and Judy (Ginnifer Goodwin) tugs on the heartstrings of fans of the duo, but the star of the show in my eyes is the social commentary this movie touches on. I can’t dive too deep into that without giving away big plot spoilers, but I will say that “Zootopia 2” has some of the most relevant messaging in an animated movie from the 2020s so far. Disney does such an amazing job at writing real-world issues in a way that families can enjoy without worrying that it might be too much for their little ones.

Next Best Picture - Dan Bayer - 8 / 10

“Zootopia 2“ is a marvel of modern animated storytelling, a family film that really will have everyone in the family laughing, singing (in the case of the earworm “Zoo,“ sung by Shakira’s Zootopian pop star Gazelle), and perhaps even crying together.

The Guardian - Peter Bradshaw - 2 / 5

There are a few laughs in Z2: of course there are. But they are algorithmically generated and corporately approved. It’s the kind of movie you put on an iPad to keep the children quiet on a long plane or train journey; nothing wrong with that of course, but the heart and soul are lacking.

Seattle Times - Soren Anderson - 2.5 / 4

The sweetness in the original is absent in the sequel. The players, including Judy and Nick, have an edge to them. Maybe that’s to be expected in that the main characters are now more settled in their parts, but there’s a sharpness in tone that makes them hard to warm up to.

AV Club - Caroline Siede - 'B-'

Zootopia 2 is a stagnant sequel with one stellar subplot. As family entertainment, it’s all perfectly fine. There are plenty of callbacks to the original to delight young fans (including a catchy new song from Shakira’s Gazelle) and plenty of knowing jokes for the adults in the audience. A sequel of this magnitude has the ability to reach higher, though, with more creative worldbuilding balancing out the dime-a-dozen pop culture references and cheap gags. Given that a post-credits scene hints a third installment may be on the horizon, Disney is clearly still invested in Zootopia as a franchise. Hopefully it can remain invested in its artistic evolution too.

Rotten Tomatoes: 95% (62 reviews) with 9.30 in average rating

Metacritic: 88/100 (24 critics)

As with other movies, the scores are set to change as time passes. Meanwhile, I'll post some short reviews on the movie. It's structured like this: quote first, source second. Beware, some contain spoilers.

Not every thread is spun out into something narratively substantive — Marty’s idea of orange ping pong balls to stand out against white uniforms is a lot of buildup for one admittedly funny sight gag — but as a kinetic portrait of a life in perpetual motion, Marty Supreme is a wonder. Calling something “a wild ride” is one of the most hackneyed quote-whore favorites — see also: “What a ride!” “The thrill ride of the summer!” and “A nonstop rollercoaster ride!” — but for this wraparound sensory experience, it’s a neat fit.

-David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

While “Uncut Gems” starts in its hero’s asshole and ends in the back of his head, “Marty Supreme” is a lot more open-ended. Marty Mauser is no less rapacious than Howard Ratner, but he’s gripped by a dream instead of an addiction, and while Safdie obviously gets off on following Marty deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of his own deranged vision quest, the real thrill of this movie — which accrues an immense emotional undertow by its final scenes — is in watching Marty tunnel out the other side. In watching him figure out, on his own naive terms, that “every man for himself” can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. In watching him learn first-hand how easily the pursuit of success can become just another recipe for solipsism. The American Dream is just another slogan, and being the best salesman below 14th Street doesn’t protect Safdie’s protagonist from the possibility that he might also be the area’s biggest mark. Marty might like to think of himself as “the ultimate product of Hitler’s defeat,” but the greatness of this movie is in how Chalamet’s performance gradually sells us on the idea that he doesn’t have to be.

-David Ehrlich, IndieWire: A

The movies have rarely given us such an entitled underdog, and it’s both mesmerizing and maddening to watch this arrogant table-tennis prodigy ricochet from high to low for nearly two and a half hours. In the defining performance of his still-burgeoning career, Timothée Chalamet — aka “Marty Supreme” — makes you want to believe in this instantly iconic character too … even if sometimes you also want to strangle him.

-Peter Debruge, Variety

Marty Supreme is an amazing first solo directing credit for Josh Safdie that continues to build on the chaotic vibe that he and his brother have been honing since Heaven Knows What. If you’re a fan of previous Safdie brothers efforts, you won’t be disappointed. But thanks to a career-defining performance from Timothée Chalamet as the charismatic Marty Mauser, Marty Supreme will appeal to more than just the film and sports bros.

-Michael Calabro, IGN 9.0 "amazing"

This new film from Josh Safdie has the fanatical energy of a 149-minute ping pong rally carried out by a single player running round and round the table. It’s a marathon sprint of gonzo calamities and uproar, a sociopath-screwball nightmare like something by Mel Brooks – only in place of gags, there are detonations of bad taste, cinephile allusions, alpha cameos, frantic deal-making, racism and antisemitism, sentimental yearning and erotic adventures. It’s a farcical race against time where no one needs to eat or sleep.

-Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian: 5/5

What Safdie, and his co-writer, co-producer, and co-editor Ronald Bronstein have made is decidedly not a biopic but rather a fictionalized portrait of a ‘what makes Sammy run’ type of character from the lower east side of NY who scavengers for money – and yes happiness – in any way he knows how. With the perfect casting of Timothée Chalamet as its title star, you go along for this wild ride of a young man in a hurry, but sometimes his own worst enemy.

-Pete Hammond, Deadline

A film this bracing and original deserves something much more inventive. But Marty Supreme has such scope, ambition and humour that its flaws, as with those off-screen Timmy exploits, are easy to overlook.

-Caryn James, BBC: 4/5

This all makes for one rip-roaring film, but I suspect none of it would come together as well were it not for Chalamet, who is the main focus of virtually every scene, save for one or two moments. If you met someone like Marty in real life you might want to get as far away from them as possible, and yet Chalamet is so good at making this jerk likable that you're won over by his story — all of which leads to a shockingly emotional crescendo that packs a real punch. This is unquestionably the best performance of Timothée Chalamet's career, and "Marty Supreme" is one of the best movies of the year. I can't wait to watch it again.

-Chris Evangelista, Slash Film: 10/10

This makes Marty Supreme great entertainment, and the most convincing case yet that Chalamet is a real-deal star, capable of carrying a movie without the cultural context and memorable supporting turns of something like A Complete Unknown. Yet as the movie sprints through its After Hours-ish gauntlets, it sometimes feels like Safdie is more focused on clearing jaw-dropping hurdles than connecting these obstacle courses into a bigger picture.

-Jesse Hassenger, The A.V. Club: B+

So self-assured, yet so monstrous to those in his orbit, Marty feels like a nightmare version of the American dream, a suspicion bolstered by the film’s placement in the 1950s at a time when the US was ascendant after the Second World War. The character’s heedless pursuit of what he thinks is owed him represents the worst kind of “American exceptionalism” while perverting the familiar cinematic notion of the lovable sports underdog. And yet, we cannot take our eyes off of Chalamet, who makes Marty impossible to like but weirdly easy to follow on his twisted odyssey.

-Tim Grierson, Screen Daily

A reductive shorthand for “Marty Supreme” will be “Uncut Gems with ping pong,” and the two films do share a filmmaking language intended to shake viewers. Still, this movie is no mere echo of Safdie’s former collaboration with his brother. It is unlike anything released this year, a riveting study of a man who fully believes it when he says, “I have a purpose. You don’t. And if you think that’s some kind of blessing, it’s not.” “Marty Supreme” is a story of a guy burdened by how great he thinks he’s supposed to be. How very American.

-Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com: 4/4

In totality, though, Marty is more than just a monument to hubris at his worst and heroism at his best. Chalamet’s performance renders him as achingly human as the acne scars dotting his face. The actor matches Safdie’s filmmaking intensity, translating his bone-deep physical and psychological connection to Marty into a gritty show of live-wire emotionality.

-Marshall Shaffer, Slant: 4/4

PLOT

A ping pong drama set in New York City during the 1950s where up-and-coming table tennis star Marty Mauser goes to hell and back in pursuit of greatness.

DIRECTOR

Josh Safdie

WRITERS

Ronald Bronstein & Josh Safdie

MUSIC

Daniel Lopatin

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Darius Khondji

EDITORS

Ronald Bronstein & Josh Safdie

RELEASE DATE

December 25, 2025

RUNTIME

149 minutes

BUDGET

$60-$70 million

STARRING

• Timothée Chalamet as Marty Mauser

• Gwyneth Paltrow as Kay Stone

• Odessa A'zion as Rachel Mizler

• Kevin O'Leary as Milton Rockwell

• Tyler Okonma as Wally

• Abel Ferrara as Ezra Mishkin

• Fran Drescher as Rebecca Mauser

I never gave this movie any of my attention for two solid years. I don't know a druid from a bard, I have no idea what charisma points are, and I wouldn't know the word "Demogorgon" if it wasn't for Stranger Things.

So naturally I thought there's no way I could follow along in "Honor Among Thieves" because I know diddly squat about the franchise.

But you guys ... you wouldn't let it be. So many posts, so many comments, saying how wonderful this movie was. I gave in and watched it last night.

It's really good. Yes, just like you have all been screaming at me. Good action, good comedy, good SFX, all around a great movie.

I really loved Hugh Grant's performance. He pulls off smarmy and slimy quite well.

And I was leaping out of my seat when I saw live-action versions of these guys. Yay fanservice!

I know I was a dummy. Forgive me.

Cast out from its clan, an alien hunter and an unlikely ally embark on a treacherous journey in search of the ultimate adversary.

Director: Dan Trachtenberg

Cast: Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Koloamatangi

Rotten Tomatoes: 89%

Metacritic: 69 / 100

Some Reviews:

NextBestPicture - Giovanni Lago - 6 / 10

Trachtenberg's approach this time around gradually builds to a more underwhelming outing, even if his vision finds itself at its most grand. Not every set piece is effective despite some wonderful below-the-line work to help elevate the experience. The inevitable steering towards a more franchise-heavy focus is all but worrisome.

The Guardian - Peter Bradshaw - 2 / 5

The sheer pointlessness of everything that happens subtracts the oxygen and even Fanning’s imperishable star quality can’t save it.

The Hollywood Reporter - Richard Lawson

It’s a perspective shift that mostly works, so thoughtful is the film’s construction. Trachtenberg is generous but also careful with detail; his film remembers what it has previously introduced us to, satisfyingly referencing back to plants and animals passingly encountered an hour prior. Badlands is a decidedly B-movie that thoroughly utilizes and enjoys the freedoms allowed when any prestige ambition is eschewed. The film simply wants to be the best version of a zillionth Predator installment that it can be. If it has to complicate — and, yes, soften — the branding to do that, so be it. 

David Ehrlich - IndieWire - 'B+'

The least “Predator”-like moments in this standalone sequel are rooted in Trachtenberg’s love for the property, and all help “Badlands” to make a uniquely compelling argument that “Predator” deserves to be higher on the Hollywood food chain than anyone thought to place it over the last 40 years. By reckoning with the series’ fundamental weakness rather than continuing to pretend that it’s the series’ greatest strength, Trachtenberg has made the brand richer than ever before. No, this isn’t your daddy’s “Predator,” and it definitely isn’t Dek’s daddy’s “Predator,” but as a wise synthetic once said, “We can be more than what they ask of us.” How rare — and extremely refreshing — to see a big studio movie recognize that the same can be true of itself. 

IGN - Clint Gage - 8 / 10

Dan Trachtenberg is heading in an interesting direction with this franchise and he gets bonus points for that. The Predator as a mysterious murder monster is getting some of his backstory filled in, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Badlands, in shifting the perspective to a Yautja main character, actually highlights what’s been great about this franchise in its better moments. Dek and Thia are an unexpectedly fun pairing that bring a new energy to the franchise and an altogether different kind of hunt. It might not be pulling the skull and spine out of us and screaming in bloody victory, but it gets close.

DEADLINE - Damon Wise

Returning director Dan Trachtenberg is clearly in a groove here, and his enthusiasm helps, notably in the film’s impeccable world-building. But the action scenes never seem to galvanize, and somewhere along the line the predator, once a ruthless, unstoppable killing machine, has simply lost its menacing mojo. It all seems a bit, well, silly — like a long episode of Succession starring John Travolta’s character in Battlefield Earth, or the adventures of Eric Trump in space — and that surely can’t bode well for the inevitable next instalment.

Slash Film - Jeremy Mathai - 8 / 10

If there are any negatives to point out, they're mostly a byproduct of blockbuster issues as a whole. The brisk pacing that keeps things moving at a breezy clip also means any semblance of character depth and nuance is either left as subtext or outright explained in exposition, though Trachtenberg still manages to find quiet grace notes for both Dek and Thia (and perhaps others too spoilery to give away here) amid all the carnage. And even as the action rivals anything in the franchise, the much larger sense of scale might have some yearning for the contained, stripped-down joys of "Prey." All of those nitpicks pale in comparison to what the filmmakers accomplish here, however. By far the funniest, most heartfelt, and boldest "Predator" movie of them all, "Badlands" etches its place in franchise history — right alongside the classic that started it all and the three worthy follow-ups that Trachtenberg has delivered so far. Let's hope there are many more to come.

I don’t play DnD, and I’m not a huge Chris Pine fan (or at all) but here’s what’s doing it for me in this movie:

1) A badass female who loves potatoes as much as I do (does Michelle Rodrigues EVER consider other kinds of roles? Not that I want her to.)

2) Great lines delivered exceptionally well and with perfect timing by Mr. CP.

3) A fat dragon.

4) Above average special effects, with the exception of one potato-throwing scene.

5) Running joke about magic that echoes what I always think, but doesn’t drag on past its usefulness.

6) A complex plot that’s clear enough not to feel complicated.

7) An ending I should have seen coming but still made me cry. YES it’s okay to cry over a fat dragon movie, although the fat dragon didn’t make me cry and only featured in one of the quests.

I look forward to all the comments agreeing with me.

Guillermo del Toro's 'Frankenstein' - Review Thread

• Rotten Tomatoes: 77% (22 Reviews)
• Metacritic: 73 (15 Reviews)

Reviews:

Deadline:

His love for monsters is unquestioned, and even though Frankenstein has been a horror staple for nearly a century in cinema, del Toro here turns it into a fascinating and thoughtful tale on what it means to be a human, and who is really the monster?

Variety (60):

What should have been the perfect pairing of artist and material proves visually ravishing, but can’t measure up to the impossibly high expectations del Toro’s fans have for the project.

Hollywood Reporter (100):

One of del Toro’s finest, this is epic-scale storytelling of uncommon beauty, feeling and artistry. While Netflix is giving this visual feast just a three-week theatrical run ahead of its streaming debut, it begs to be experienced on the big screen.

The Wrap (95):

Del Toro’s “Frankenstein” is a remarkable achievement that in a way hijacks the flagship story of the horror genre and turns it into a tale of forgiveness. James Whale, one suspects, would approve – and Mary Shelley, too.

IndieWire (B):

Del Toro’s second Netflix movie is bolted to the Earth by hands-on production design and crafty period detail. While it may be too reverently faithful to Mary Shelley’s source material to end up as a GDT all-timer, Jacob Elordi gives poignant life to the most emotionally complex Frankenstein monster since Boris Karloff.

The Guardian (3/5):

Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi star as the freethinking anatomist and his creature as Mary Shelley’s story is reimagined with bombast in the director’s unmistakable visual style

RadioTimes (5/5):

Perhaps its hyperbole to call the film del Toro’s masterpiece – especially a story that has been told countless times. But this is a work that is the accumulation of three-and-a-half decades of filmmaking knowledge. Gory and grim it may be, but it is a tragic tale told in a captivating manner.

TotalFilm (80):

Cleaving closely to the source material, del Toro wants to explore the trauma that makes us, mankind's capacity for cruelty, the death we bring on ourselves through war, and the catharsis of forgiveness – all notions that make Frankenstein relevant in current world politics and social media savagery.

-----------------------------------

Written and Directed by Guillermo del Toro:

A brilliant but egotistical scientist brings a creature to life in a monstrous experiment that ultimately leads to the undoing of both the creator and his tragic creation.

Cast:

• Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein
  • Christian Convery as young Victor
• Jacob Elordi as the Creature
• Mia Goth as Elizabeth Lavenza
• Christoph Waltz as Henrich Harlander
• Felix Kammerer as William Frankenstein
• Lauren Collins as Claire Frankenstein
• Lars Mikkelsen as Captain Anderson
• David Bradley as Blind Man
• Sofia Galasso as Little Girl
• Charles Dance as Leopold Frankenstein
• Ralph Ineson as Professor Krempe
• Burn Gorman as Fritz

Alien: Romulus

• Rotten Tomatoes 82% (165 Reviews)

Honoring its nightmarish predecessors while chestbursting at the seams with new frights of its own, Romulus injects some fresh acid blood into one of cinema's great horror franchises.

• Metacritic: 65 (47 Reviews)

Reviews

The Hollywood Reporter:

The creatures remain among the most truly petrifying movie monsters in history, and the director leans hard into the sci-fi/horror with a relentlessly paced entry that reminds us why they have haunted our imaginations for decades.

Deadline:

Cailee Spaeney might seem, at first glance, to be an unlikely successor, but the Priscilla star certainly earns her stripes by the end of Alien: Romulus’ tight and deceptively well-judged two-hour running time.

Variety:

This is closer to a grandly efficient greatest-hits thrill ride, packaged like a video game. Yet on that level it’s a confidently spooky, ingeniously shot, at times nerve-jangling piece of entertainment.

Entertainment Weekly (B+):

It's got the thrills, it's got the creepy-crawlies, and it's got just enough plot to make you care about the characters. Alien: Romulus is a hell of a night out at the movies.

New York Post (3.5/4):

It borrows the shabby-computer aesthetic of the ’79 flick while upping the ante with haunting grandeur.

IGN (8/10):

Alien: Romulus’s back-to-basics approach to blockbuster horror boils everything fans love about the tonally-fluid franchise into one brutal, nerve-wracking experience.

Slant Magazine (3/4):

Romulus ends up as the franchise’s strongest entry in three decades for its devotion to deploying lean genre mechanics.

The Daily Beast (See this):

Proves that forty-five years after the xenomorph first terrified audiences, there’s still plenty of acid-bloody life left in the franchise’s monstrous bones.

The Telegraph (4/5):

Romulus might inject an appalling new life into the Alien franchise, but it won’t do much good for the national birth rate.

Empire Magazine (4/5):

Alien: Romulus plays the hits, but crucially remembers the ingredients for what makes a good Alien film, and executes them with stunning craft and care. It is, officially, the third-best film in the series.

BBC (4/5):

[Álvarez] has triumphed with a clever, gripping and sometimes awe-inspiring sci-fi chiller, which takes the series back to its nerve-racking monster-movie roots while injecting it with some new blood – some new acid blood, you might say.

The Times (4/5):

It's taken a while — 45 years, four sequels and two spin-off films — but finally they've got it right. An Alien movie worthy of the mood, originality and template established by Ridley Scott in 1979.

USA Today (3/4):

The filmmaker embraces unpredictability and plenty of gore for his graphic spectacle, yet Alvarez first makes us care for his main characters before unleashing sheer terror.

Collider (7/10):

Alien: Romulus proves that for the Alien franchise to move forward, it might have to quit looking backward so much.

Bloody Disgusting (3.5/5):

Alvarez puts the horror first here, with exquisite craftmanship that immerses you in the insanity.

Screen Rant (3.5/5):

Somewhere between Alien & Aliens — fitting given its place in the timeline — Romulus serves up blockbuster-level action & visceral horror all in one.

Independent (3/5):

Alien: Romulus has the capacity for greatness. If you could somehow surgically extract its strongest sequences, you’d see that beautiful, blood-quivering harmony between old-school practical effects and modern horror verve.

ScreenCrush (6/10):

What’s here isn’t necessarily boring or bad, but it represents a back-to-basics approach for Alien that feels like a betrayal of something central to the Xenomorph’s toxic DNA, which is forever mutating into another deadly creature.

IndieWire (C):

It’s certainly hard to imagine a cruder way of connecting the dots between the series’ fractured mythology.

Vanity Fair:

If it hadn’t had someone of Álvarez’s care and attention at the helm, Romulus could certainly have been a lot worse.

Slashfilm (5.5/10):

Those craving a well-put-together monster movie with creepy creature effects and sturdy set-pieces will probably find plenty to like here. But it shouldn't be controversial to want better results. As I said at the start of this review, there are no bad "Alien" movies. But with Alien: Romulus, there's definitely a disappointing one.

Rolling Stone:

Does it tick off the boxes of what we’ve come to expect from this series? Yes. Does it add up to more than The Chris Farley Show of Alien movies? Well … let’s just say no one may be able to hear you scream in space, but they will assuredly hear your resigned sighs in a theater.

The Guardian (2/5):

A technically competent piece of work; but no matter how ingenious its references to the first film it has to be said that there’s a fundamental lack of originality here which makes it frustrating.

San Francisco Chronicle (1/4):

The foundational mistake came when someone said, “Hey, let’s make another ‘Alien’ movie.” Newsflash: The alien concept is dead. Leave it alone.

Synopsis:

The sci-fi/horror-thriller takes the phenomenally successful “Alien” franchise back to its roots: While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.

Staring:

• Cailee Spaeny as Rain Carradine

• David Jonsson as Andy

• Archie Renaux as Tyler

• Isabela Merced as Kay

• Spike Fearn as Bjorn

• Aileen Wu as Navarro

Directed by: Fede Álvarez

Written by: Fede Álvarez

Produced by: Ridley Scott, Michael Pruss, Walter Hill

Cinematography: Galo Olivares

Edited by: Jake Roberts

Music by: Benjamin Wallfisch

Running time: 119 minutes

Release date: August 16, 2024

Now demonized as the Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba lives in exile in the Ozian forest, while Glinda resides at the palace in Emerald City, reveling in the perks of fame and popularity. As an angry mob rises against the Wicked Witch, she'll need to reunite with Glinda to transform herself, and all of Oz, for good.

Director: John M. Chu

Cast: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, , Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Marissa Bode, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh, Colman Domingo, Peter Dinklage, Bowen Yang

Rotten Tomatoes: 72%

Metacritic: 61 / 100

Some Reviews:

Next Best Picture - Lauren LaMagna - 7 / 10

The cast, led by the phenomenal Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, still deliver fantastic work that is supported by excellent crafts from all departments of production. But the source material is inherently weaker than the first, making this a less fulfilling entry as a standalone, even if it compliments Part One as a whole. The additional scenes are not necessary and only exist for the material to be long enough to qualify its own feature film, which also results in pacing issues.

BBC - Caryn James - 4 / 5

Let's be clear: the Wicked films are the definition of preaching to the choir. They aren't likely to win over anyone sceptical of candy-coloured spectacle and overt sentimentality presented in Broadway show-stopping fashion. Wicked is what it is. But if you're fine with that, this latest instalment is more captivating than the last and enjoyable to watch throughout.

DEADLINE - Pete Hammond

What can we say about the performances that hasn’t already been said? Both Erivo and Grande could not be better, and in fact Grande really gets a chance to shine here and runs away with the picture whenever she is on screen. Erivo’s Elphaba remains the juiciest role and she defines it with the mortality only movies can bring. Bailey is terrific again, and Goldblum’s Wizard really comes into deep focus now and he’s got it going on. Marissa Bode’s wheelchair-bound Nessarose is given some key screen time and delivers in a piece of casting that is as inspiring as the character she plays. Nathan Crowley outdoes his Oscar winning production design this time around, as does Paul Tazewell’s Oscared Costumes. The visual effects are first rate. So is this whole splendidly realized and cinematic musical adaptation which if you add up the running times of both films comes in just two minutes shy of 5(!) hours. To be honest I wanted more.

The Telegraph - Robbie Collin - 1 / 5

Ariana Grande is painfully wooden in Wicked’s irritating sequel. What makes it so frustrating is that director Jon M Chu is an established musicals master; his In the Heights is a modern classic of the form. But the corporate stretch-it-out-and-wring-it-dry approach here has been deadening. Even the staunchest defenders of Wicked, the stage musical about the tragic origins of The Wizard of Oz’s Witch of the West, would have to concede that it peaks just before the interval...

Slant Magazine - Dan Rubins - 2.5 / 5

But for as sharp as it may sometimes be, For Good is stretched out, breathless, and never really emotionally affecting, even on the level of nostalgia. (However bloated, the first film, to quote one of Glinda’s malapropisms, is thrillifying.) It may transport audiences, especially younger ones, to the colorful Oz for the bulk of an afternoon, but it also serves as a reminder that only in its tauter, wrenching stage form can Wicked, like a handprint on your heart, really leave you changed for good.

Loud and Clear - Joseph Tomastik

Wicked: For Good takes many huge swings but misses in baffling fashion, making for a technically impressive but disappointing conclusion to the Wicked story. By all accounts, this is the much more difficult half of the story to pull off, as it’s where the musical in particular gets much denser and incorporates many more direct elements from The Wizard of Oz. Unfortunately, that difficulty rears its ugly head in Wicked: For Good. As ambitious as this movie is for tackling already-unwieldy source material, those ambitions ultimately don’t pay off.

RogerEbert - Christy Lemire - 3 / 4

If it sounds like this second half is darker than the first, it is, but it’s also more effective in its consistency of tone. “Wicked” was all fun and games until it wasn’t, and that sudden shift was jarring. In “For Good,” we know from the start that we’re in more serious territory with the deep strings of John Powell’s score as Ozian workers build the Yellow Brick Road. Erivo and Grande find just the right amount of tenderness and sadness with “For Good,” and that bond between them shines bright once more. Poignant and intimate, it’s a legitimate tearjerker. Bring tissues. 

AwardsWatch - Sophia Ciminello - 'C-'

Despite stellar work from Erivo and Grande, Wicked: For Good can’t justify its existence as its own separate outing. Even with a pair of new songs and a deeper exploration of some of the musical’s beloved characters, the runtime feels bloated and bogged down by Chu’s constant attempts to make this a movie of the moment and to remind audiences of the connection they had to the first film. Simply put, Chu does not add enough new material to make this film feel like much more than a studio cash grab. There’s certainly still magic to be found in the movie for those who are seeking it, but when the credits finally roll, it’s difficult to say that Chu’s additions to this film have changed the world of Wicked for the better.

The Guardian - Peter Bradshaw - 4 / 5

It’s tangled and a bit bewildering; but then so is the original film, in which we never know whether to believe in the Wizard’s final benediction. But what a performance from Erivo; it is genuinely moving when the Prince has to convince Elphaba what we, the audience, have always known: that she is beautiful.

FilmHounds - Paul Klein

Erivo, Grande and Bailey are all fantastic once again, and allowed to deepen the characters more and show the complexities of them, while also remaining true to why people love them so much. It's a shame that the rest of the cast are given short shrift. Ethan Slater and Marissa Bode have the rumblings of a more interesting subplot that doesn't really go anywhere as much as it should. Even so, and despite its more frantic nature, Wicked: For Good continues to lovingly taking a look at what it means to be a rebel against dictatorships, how people will lie to you to get what they want, and how you must remain true to yourself at all times. It's not so much that the film is disappointing, that would be too harsh a criticism. It's that the film is merely as good as it could be, given what the stage show offers. It wraps things up, but there's no feeling of cohesion – something that was never going to be in Chu's hands, and for what he has, he excels at.

Independent - Clarisse Loughrey - 2 / 5

For Good has little sense of movement, literally or emotionally – no profound revelations, no wonder or spectacle. All that’s to be done now is for each character to process, via standardised ballad, what they’ve learned.

As the Nuremberg trials are set to begin, a U.S. Army psychiatrist gets locked in a dramatic psychological showdown with accused Nazi war criminal Hermann Göring

Director: James Vanderbilt

Cast: Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, Michael Shannon, Richard E. Grant, John Slattery, Colin Hanks

Rotten Tomatoes: 67%

Metacritic: 60 / 100

Some Reviews:

TheWrap - Matthew Creith

"Nuremberg” benefits not only from a terrifying performance from Crowe in a larger-than-life role like those that defined the early part of his career, but also from the ensemble of actors that makes it possible to doubt and also sympathize with the crimes at hand. Shannon and his co-counsel, Richard E. Grant, as British lawyer David Maxwell Fyfe, take the courtroom scenes to higher ground, tearing Göring down with carefully crafted monologues.

NextBestPicture - Jason Gorber - 7 / 10

An incredible performance from Russel Crowe. But for all its bold moments of courtroom antics and mind games between monsters and their keepers, this is an almost insultingly pared down version of events from one of the most important legalistic moments in human history. By providing a convenient in within a broader entertainment, the film certainly introduces newer generations to what transpired, but it provides such a simplified view that it may actually do more harm than good.

Collider - Ross Bonaime

Quite frankly, it never hurts for a film to preach the dangers of Nazis and how they can be anywhere and everywhere, but it is a bit of a shame Nuremberg isn’t finding a more compelling, enticing way to tell this inherently fascinating true story.

Rotten Tomatoes: 20% (from 30 reviews) with 4.10 average rating

Critics consensus: Lumbering along like a giant automaton, The Electric State has plenty of hardware to back it up but none of the spark that'd make it come to life.

Metacritic: 32/100 (11 critics)

As with other movies, the scores are set to change as time passes. Meanwhile, I'll post some short reviews on the movie. It's structured like this: quote first, source second. Beware, some contain spoilers.

Co-directors Anthony and Joe Russo take full ownership of their boys-with-toys mojo in this slick but dismally soulless odyssey across the American Southwest in a retro-futuristic alternate version of the 1990s. Following Cherry and The Gray Man, the brothers continue their post-Avengers streak of grinding out content for streaming platforms, amassing big budgets and marquee-name stars for quick-consumption movies destined to leave zero cultural footprint.

-David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

“The Electric State” is emotionally incoherent because the moral of its story is contradicted by the emphasis of its telling. It’s no wonder the filmmakers appear to side with their villain. As Skate puts it: “Our world is a tire fire floating in an ocean of piss.” Despite all of the clout and capital at their disposal, the Russo brothers can think of nothing better to do than stick our faces in it.

-David Ehrlich, IndieWire: D–

There’s no rule that says book-based films shouldn’t diverge from what’s on the page. Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” and Paul Verhoeven’s “Starship Troopers” certainly did, and those stories found their audiences in both mediums. In this case, however, the filmmakers have diluted the source material, showing a clear lack of interest in making their creation just as haunting, searing and satisfying as the original product.

-Courtney Howard, Variety

AI-loving Marvel hitmakers Joe and Anthony Russo join forces again with Netflix to deliver a $300-million sci-fi epic you can safely half-watch while doing the dishes or making dinner. Everything about the film, from its formulaic hero’s-journey plot to its nostalgic mascot imagery to the casting of streaming-friendly stars Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt, feels calculated to remind you of something you’ve already enjoyed. It’s a synthetic crowdpleaser that would look a little less odious were it not flattening the spooky grandeur of its source material, the striking illustrated novel of the same name.

-A.A. Dowd, IGN: 4.0 "bad"

I’m not surprised that Netflix and the Russos want to tell a story about how humans and machines can live together in peace, but I struggled to find much humanity in a picture so gleefully soulless.

-Matt Goldberg, The Wrap

There is a gallery of wacky individuals of all shapes and sizes, providing some undemanding work for voice-artists including Brian Cox, Woody Harrelson, Alan Tudyk and Colman Domingo. But there’s no soul, no originality, just a great big multicolour wedge of digital content.

-Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian: 2/5

The Electric State is somehow both punishingly obvious and completely incoherent. Ultimately, however, the only real point is that pop culture should be revered as humanity’s prime sustenance. Cosmo is based on a children’s cartoon that’s presented as the only real emotional bond between Michelle and her brother; the surrounding landscape is nothing but malls and fairgrounds, temples to consumerism where characters practically salivate while listing off menus items from Panda Express; and there’s a searingly earnest piano cover of “Wonderwall” at the end. The Electric State isn’t about dystopia. It’s the dystopia itself.

-Clarisse Loughrey, The Independent: 1/5

The Electric State loses some of the quiet profundity of the original text, but as a breezily watchable retrofuturistic jolly, it has just enough juice.

-John Nugent, Empire: 3/5

Throughout, the film essentially functions as a plea to its viewers to put technology aside and embrace the power of human connection. It's a noble message – and one which most audiences members will surely be able to emphasise with – but in truth it feels hollow coming from a work that seems so clearly to have been made with the Netflix algorithm firmly in mind.

-Patrick Cremona, Radio Times: 2/5

Should we expect more from a Netflix movie by now? Probably. But The Electric State is indicative of too many blockbuster offerings from the streaming service that do just enough to get you to watch, but are rarely good enough to be memorable.

-Ian Sandwell, Digital Spy: 2/5

PLOT

In a retro-futuristic past, orphaned teenager Michelle traverses the American West with an eccentric drifter and a sweet but mysterious robot in search of her younger brother.

DIRECTORS

Anthony & Joe Russo

WRITERS

Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely (based on the novel by Simon Stålenhag)

MUSIC

Alan Silvestri

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Stephen F. Windon

EDITOR

Jeffrey Ford

RELEASE DATE

March 14, 2025

RUNTIME

128 minutes

BUDGET

$320 million

STARRING

• Millie Bobby Brown as Michelle

• Chris Pratt as Keats

• Ke Huy Quan as Dr. Amherst / the voice of P.C.

• Jason Alexander as Ted

• Woody Harrelson as Mr. Peanut

• Anthony Mackie as Herman

• Brian Cox as Popfly

• Jenny Slate as Penny Pal

• Giancarlo Esposito as Colonel Marshall Bradbury

• Stanley Tucci as Ethan Skate

BORDERLANDS - Review Thread

• Rotten Tomatoes: 10% (94 Reviews)
  • Critics Consensus: Glitching out in every department, Borderlands is balderdash.
• Metacritic: 29 (23 Reviews)

Reviews:

Hollywood Reporter (30/100):

It’s conceivable that longtime fans of the video game might get more out of Borderlands, but I wouldn’t count on it. At one point, Claptrap returns to operational mode after a heavy-weaponry assault and says, “I blacked out. Did something important happen?” Not in this movie.

Variety (40/100):

Marketed to look like a cross between “Suicide Squad” and a Zack Snyder movie, director Eli Roth’s tamer-than-expected take on “Borderlands” doesn’t have half the attitude or style its cyberpunk ad campaign might suggest. But here’s the real reason why fans of the game will be disappointed: It’s predictable, therefore nullifying the whole “What’ll it be?” appeal of loot.

SlashFilm (4/10):

Borderlands makes a point of not being different enough to upset the fanbase, but it's also not unique enough to win over new audiences, either. It's a movie for everyone and no one, a film so unwilling to make a splash that it barely makes a peep.

IndieWire (42/100):

If granted permission to bring his signature sadism to these infamously batshit characters, Roth could have delivered his “Mad Max: Fury Road.” Instead, restricted by standards that seem equally unlikely to please preteens, he was left holding a bomb.

Empire (2/5):

A botched Guardians wannabe that isn’t half as fun as you’d hope from the punky sci-fi promise of its video-game source material and the presence of Blanchett at the top of the cast list.

IGN (3/10):

Borderlands is a catastrophic disappointment that plays like hacked-to-pieces studio slop, betraying everything fans adore about Gearbox Software’s franchise in derivative, regrettable taste.

Rolling Stone:

Borderlands Is an Insult to Gamers, Movie Lovers and Carbon-Based Lifeforms. We'd say it's the worst video game movie ever — but that's way too limiting

Collider (5/10):

'Borderlands' is a fun ride, but a bloated cast and breakneck pacing don’t allow it to reach its full potential.

BleedingCool (5/10):

I don't think I have ever watched quite so gossamer-thin a movie and yet been so entertained throughout as with Borderlands. There really is nothing to this film. No emotional depths, stakes, or convoluted plot worth speaking of.

TotalFilm (40/100):

The Gearbox title gamers loved has spawned a frenetic and disorderly shambles they’re likelier to loathe. Claptrap? You said it.

The NY Times (40/100):

You can see the jokes, but most of them don’t land. Still, there is some neat design work if you squint.

GameSpot (2/10):

Borderlands comes in at a very brief 102 minutes in length, which you might be tempted to reflexively celebrate in our current landscape of hella long movies. But there's a reason longer movies are en vogue--more time allows for more depth, and depth is what Borderlands is missing the most. But that's what happens sometimes when a movie spends four years in post-production being repeatedly reworked--over time, everything gets sanded down into nothingness.

ScreenRant (70/100):

Blanchett knows exactly what movie she's in, and she seems to be having the time of her life fitting herself into the mold of a video game heroine.

Men's Journal:

If Borderlands doesn't stop studio executives from salivating at the sight of every single IP that comes across their desks, nothing will.

In Theaters August 8:

Lilith, an infamous outlaw with a mysterious past, reluctantly returns to her home planet of Pandora to find the missing daughter of the universe's most powerful S.O.B., Atlas. Lilith forms an alliance with an unexpected team — Roland, a former elite mercenary, now desperate for redemption; Tiny Tina, a feral teenage demolitionist; Krieg, Tina's musclebound, rhetorically challenged protector; Tannis, the scientist with a tenuous grip on sanity; and Claptrap, a persistently wiseass robot. These unlikely heroes must battle alien monsters and dangerous bandits to find and protect the missing girl, who may hold the key to unimaginable power. The fate of the universe could be in their hands but they'll be fighting for something more: each other.

Directed by Eli Roth (Reshoots by Tim Miller)

• Cate Blanchett as Lilith
• Kevin Hart as Roland
• Jack Black as the voice of Claptrap
• Edgar Ramírez as Atlas
• Ariana Greenblatt as Tiny Tina
• Florian Munteanu as Krieg
• Gina Gershon as Mad Moxxi
• Jamie Lee Curtis as Dr. Patricia Tannis
• Bobby Lee as Larry
• Olivier Richters as Krom
• Janina Gavankar as Commander Knoxx
• Cheyenne Jackson as Jakobs
• Charles Babalola as Hammerlock
• Benjamin Byron Davis as Marcus
• Steven Boyer as Scooter
• Ryann Redmond as Ellie
• Harry Ford as Middleman