Here are some reviews of films coming out at the theater this week as well as others that may be in theaters or newly on home video.
Opening: Jun. 13, 2025
Wide (United States)
How to Train Your Dragon
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Materialists
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Expanding (United States)
The Life of Chuck
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Limited (United States)
Meeting with Pol Pot
Chris Barsanti @ Slant Magazine
- Excerpt: Rithy Panh’s film is hard-hitting yet illusive, much like the story its characters are hunting.
2025 Films in Theaters Now in Select Areas
Ballerina
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Dangerous Animals
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Drop
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Karate Kid: Legends
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Lilo & Stitch
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Phoenician Scheme
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Surfer
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Astronaut in the Ocean
- Excerpt: Making waves for life
Bad Shabbos
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: at its best when its humor is character driven, but the dead body driving the plot is often a dead weight for the comedy.
Barron’s Cove
- Excerpt: “Barron’s Cove” is a pulpy thriller awkwardly tied to a soapy story of bad dads and the wreckage they leave behind.
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: It may often look like just another generic thriller with dark subject matter, but it always surprises by putting character and emotion above a desire to deliver hollow clichés for mainstream appeal.
Best Wishes to All
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Expanding his 2022 short, writer/director Yûta Shimotsu appears to have lost his way, a potent idea about deriving happiness from the misfortune of others garbled along with the logic behind his horror concept.
Dog of God
Drop
Sebastian Zavala @ MeGustaElCine.com [Spanish]
- Excerpt: The central concept is well utilised by a simple and direct script; the direction is stylish and attractive; the pace remains brisk and energetic, and the performances help make a potentially absurd situation feel believable.
Echo Valley
Chris Barsanti @ Slant Magazine
- Excerpt: Very little about this murkily shot film generates much in the way of thrills or emotion.
Hurry Up Tomorrow
Jeff Schaefer @ The Marquee Topic
- Excerpt: Abel Tesfaye and Jenna Ortega star in Hurry Up Tomorrow, a companion film to The Weekend’s latest album.
I Was Born this Way
- Excerpt: No one is a mistake
The Last Twins
- Excerpt: His kindness and the example of his humanity were of crucial importance in giving the boys a sense of the possibility of survival and a life of purpose.
Man Finds Tape
The Occupant
Pai Nosso
Paulo Poerugal @ Insider.pt [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Em Pai Nosso – Os Últimos Dias de Salazar, um dos filmes mais consistentes da Competição Nacional, no IndieLisboa, José Filipe Costa aproxima-se de uma trama shakespeareana onde a máxima autoridade do rei rima com uma total dependência paliativa.
The Polar Passage
- Excerpt: How extremely timely that this short doc makes its début just as the apparent “America First” president sets his greedy eye on Greenland and Canada. At the top of his shameless ambition is the Northwest Passage that has the potential to readily join our biggest oceans together for commerce, exploration and cruise ship voyeurs.
A Prisioneira de Bordéus
Paulo Poerugal @ C7Arte.com [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Em “A Prisioneira de Bordéus”, Patricia Mazzuy assina um cuidadoso estudo de contornos psicológicos e sociais, focado do trajeto de duas mulheres de diferentes meios sociais e com soluções diversas para resolver os impasses da vida.
Paulo Poerugal @ [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: A Prisioneira de Bordéus, o novo estudo psicológico de Patricia Mazuy, chega esta semana às salas. Com tremendas prestações de Isabelle Huppert e Hafsia Herzi.
Resurrection Road
- Excerpt: What would you do for freedom and 40 acres?
The Ritual
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: We receive all the usual clichés of better exorcism titles populating a psychological study of a priest that wants to be a horror film so bad it relies on loud music cues to jolt us awake during jump scares [they] didn’t think were effective on their own.
The Scout
- Excerpt: A contemplative and funny portrait of a city, an industry, and the sacrifices needed to live in both.
Sew Torn
- Excerpt: It’s a production well worth a view if only to kindle the thoughts of anyone who’s ever wished for a do-over once a difficult decision has been made.
Songs of Black Folk
- Excerpt: How refreshing in our current era of anti-woke, obliterate DEI, that a film celebrating music and those who make it comes along focussing its main event on the celebration of Juneteenth in Seattle, Washington.
Starwalker
- Excerpt: Here’s a refreshing queer musical that works on many planes: memorable tunes and lyrics (also from Payette), a convincing mix of a First Nation character (frequently stealing the limelight from and with a covey of comparative “newcomers” to Canada), eye-catching costumes for a queen, along with invigorating choreography courtesy of Ralph Escamillan. And, as with countless other musicals, don’t worry too much about the plot (at times cheesy, weepy and too predictable), just enjoy the show and savour the performances.
- Excerpt: Here’s a refreshing queer musical that works on many planes: memorable tunes and lyrics (also from Payette), a convincing mix of a First Nation character (frequently stealing the limelight from and with a covey of comparative “newcomers” to Canada), eye-catching costumes for a queen, along with invigorating choreography courtesy of Ralph Escamillan. And, as with countless other musicals, don’t worry too much about the plot (at times cheesy, weepy and too predictable), just enjoy the show and savour the performances.
Stolen
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Sunlight
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: And all the while Conti and Allen refuse to turn Jane and Roy’s pain into the punch line. Every joke is instead born from the humanity their torment has yet to fully defeat.
Tardes de Soledad
Paulo Poerugal @ C7Arte.com [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: O catalão Albert Serra impõe em “Tardes de Solidão” um cinema puro e observacional, em que a soledad entre toiro e matador se prolonga em nós como o delírio de um voyeur diante a barbárie.
Paulo Poerugal @ [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: O catalão Albert Serra impõe em “Tardes de Solidão” um cinema puro e observacional, em que a ‘soledad’ entre toiro e matador se prolonga em nós como o delírio de um voyeur diante a barbárie.
Paulo Poerugal @ [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: O catalão Albert Serra impõe em “Tardes de Solidão” um cinema puro e observacional, em que a ‘soledad’ entre toiro e matador se prolonga em nós como o delírio de um voyeur diante a barbárie.
Titan: The OceanGate Disaster
- Excerpt: Another disposable streaming documentary from a viral news story.
2024 Films
Bird
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Janis Ian: Breaking Silence
- Excerpt: “I’m still standing here”
We Are Guardians
- Excerpt: “Without the forest we are nothing”
About the Author
