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: May 16, 2025
Wide (United States)
Final Destination Bloodlines
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Limited (United States)
Jane Austen Wrecked My Life
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: the romantic comedy as coming of age story for a woman who’s put her life on ice until she learns how to melt.
The Old Woman with the Knife
Kristian Lin @ Fort Worth Weekly
- Excerpt: This South Korean action thriller is for the senior and literary sets.
Sister Midnight
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: This uproariously funny, completely bonkers feature debut…utilizes everything from camera movement, editing, silent screen acting techniques and eclectic musical selections to create a comedic atmosphere for its audacious heroine.
Raissa Ferreira @ raissaferreira.com [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Karan Kandhari usa a fantasia para retratar a natureza feminina em rebeldia contra as tradições de uma sociedade
2025 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
Black Bag
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Fight or Flight
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Surfer
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Thunderbolts*
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Warfare
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Wedding Banquet
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Absolute Dominion
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: The cast has the earnest charm to lean into the genre’s inherent cheesiness and not subvert the message Alexander has instilled as the film’s backbone. The same goes for the obvious budgetary constraints.
- Excerpt: “What will they do with power?”
Another Simple Favor
Caught by the Tides
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Zhangke achieves a meditative, lyrical quality as we hear Chinese rock and pop as he pans along Datong street scenes, frames Qiaoqiao on a ferry on the Yangtze or follows her wandering the devastated streets of Fengjie…a melancholy contemplation of lives lived.
The Cinema Within
James Wegg @ The Cinema Within
- Excerpt: By journey’s end, no film lover will ever quite look at the big screen the same way again, focussing more than ever on just what the production’s mechanical eyes want to share with the viewer’s.
Clown in a Cornfield
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: [There’s] a disingenuous undercurrent of older allies playacting today’s youth’s authentic rage. I’m sure Craig and Blanchard mean well, but this property needed filmmakers in their twenties or thirties behind the wheel rather than fifties and above.
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The Death of Snow White
- Excerpt: German flag US flag 3.53.5 by S. James Wegg110 min.Sponsorship available for this articlePublish Date: April 3, 2025 A new version that definitely dwarfs its predecessors
”
Desert of Namibia
- Excerpt: As Desert of Namibia progresses, and our (anti-)heroine’s behavior grows more erratic and destructive, it’s hard to maintain interest in and empathy for her, even with an incredibly talented actress embodying the character.
The Diplomat
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Drop Dead City
- Excerpt: Tells a serious story about NYC’s 1975 financial crisis with wit, gusto, and occasional profanity
The Encampments
- Excerpt: But how did we get here?
Friendship
Henry Fonda For President
Dennis Schwartz @ dennisschwartzreviews.
- Excerpt: A fantastic unconventional documentary on the iconic movie actor Henry Fonda.
Henry Johnson
Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: [Mamet] has weaponized our collective cynicism to create a character who is so willing to think the best of people that he’ll continue doing so even as that trust sinks him deeper and deeper into despair.
Last Bullet
Maxance Vincent @ Awards Radar
Lavender Men
- Excerpt: As good as the acting is, the real star of the production is the writing trust (Holder and Mason—who also wrote the stage play).
The Legend of Ochi
Jeff Schaefer @ The Marquee Topic
- Excerpt: Isaiah Saxon leads us on an adventure through Carpathia in this whimsical offering from A24.
Locked
- Excerpt: Do enjoy the trip in a super-luxurious vehicle, but be wary of its fate ending up like just another Tesla truck.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: something of a letdown, pushing the impossibility of the mission to such extremes over and over that the whole thing becomes preposterous, rendered with a solemnity unrelieved by humor and exacerbated by Max Aruj and Alfie Godfrey’s score…
Christopher Cross @ Asynchronous Media
- Excerpt: Cruise and McQuarrie continue to breathe rarefied air in the blockbuster space as Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is a satisfying, though slightly frustrating, celebration of the series that maintains its quality craftsmanship and thrilling spectacle.
Scott Davis @ WWW.THEPEOPLESMOVIES.COM
- Excerpt: Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning may not hit those lofty dreamlands we have been graciously invited to over the last decade, but it’s still a ferocious, absorbing, eye-popping action spectacular when it finds its feet, one that is worlds better than anything else trying to keep pace with it. Light that fuse one last time.
Most People Die on Sundays
- Excerpt: “I’m afraid of ending up alone”
Nonnas
Maxance Vincent @ The Cinema Spot
On Swift Horses
Jeff Schaefer @ The Marquee Topic
- Excerpt: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jacob Elordi, Diego Calva, and Will Poulter are all in search of their American Dream in Daniel Minahan’s On Swift Horses.
Seneca
- Excerpt: Once again, it can be proved that there truly is nothing new under the sun.
Summer of 69
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: While its parallel roads towards self-actualization leans into its wholesome center, this is still a raunchy R-rated comedy. So, don’t expect the journey to be a conventional one even if the trajectory proves familiar.
Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: uses unconventional methods to tell us a fascinating musical history. And it’s just a plain old great hang.
The Ugly Stepsister
Jeff Schaefer @ The Marquee Topic
- Excerpt: Emilie Blichfeldt inverts the classic tale of Cinderella for Shudder with The Ugly Stepsister.
Vulcanizadora
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: This is a film that has elements of both James Wan’s “Saw” and Kelly Reichert’s “Old Joy,” an indelible mix of friendship, doubt, despair and expiation.
Yadang: The Snitch
- Excerpt: Do enjoy the ride, but then offer a quiet prayer to the real world that this cinematic buffet of revenge will remain the on-screen exception rather than the real-life norm.
2024 Films
La Cocina
Jeff Schaefer @ The Marquee Topic
- Excerpt: Alonso Ruizpalacios adapts Arnold Wesker’s farcical play and delivers a loving ode to the working class.
2023 Films
The Boy and the Heron
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Our Son
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Texan Reviews
- Excerpt: Our Son is well-intentioned. I just would have liked it to have been better.
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