Toussaint Egan

It’s a hilarious and touching adventure, made all the more so by its unique and enchanting animation.

There’s little to no fat to be found in this film; it’s a lean, mean action-thriller that threads the needle between speculative storytelling and brutal sci-fi carnage.

In the end, Sloan’s film coheres into a confident psychological thriller that’s more than the sum of its influences.

Alien: Romulus is made up of roughly two parts: a haunted-house story in outer space à la Alien, and a crowd-pleasing horror-action spectacle like Aliens. The former element is stronger than the latter in this case, and the imbalance is one of the reasons Alien: Romulus feels like a by-the-numbers retread of the franchise defining it, rather than the resuscitative breath it so desperately needs.

Ultraman: Rising offers much more than the average animated kids’ film: It rises to stand as not only one of the best Ultraman stories in recent memory, but arguably one of this year’s best animated movies.

Mars Express is the rare example of an animated feature that warrants an almost immediate rewatch upon completion, if only to appreciate the craftsmanship of its presentation. It’s a densely layered sci-fi story that’s light on proper nouns, but heavy on subtext.

No One Will Save You is not just a terrific horror-thriller, but one of the most surprising and entertaining sci-fi films the year has to offer.

An existential mystery-thriller that vacillates between the farcical and the macabre, Taylor’s film isn’t just a rumination on the legacy of gentrification and the exploitation of minorities, but a poignant and darkly funny meditation on the power of one’s own choices and the necessity of cooperation in the face of oppression.

If this movie is well and truly a wrap for The Venture Bros., though, Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart could not be any more worthy or fitting of a farewell to one the greatest animated comedies to air on television.

There are moments in Wakanda Forever where it feels as though the film itself might buckle under the weight of not only the expectations heaped onto it, but of the loss that animates its core premise. When it manages not only to meet the verve and creativity of 2018’s Black Panther, but ultimately to tell its own successful story, it feels no less astonishing than a man with wings on his ankles soaring through the air.