Previous Rankings
#191-209
#171-190
#151-170
#131-150
#111-130
Frank Grillo is perfectly cast in BOSS LEVEL, a fun action entry into the “stuck-in-a-time-loop” genre. Netflix’s Fear Street trilogy was one of the surprise hits of the year. PART THREE is a thrilling and bloody conclusion. The ideas presented in RON’S GONE WRONG certainly aren’t anything new, but it has enough fun and creativity to offset anything that feels too familiar or contrived.
THE DRY is nice little murder mystery. Nothing wrong with a good slow burn, but it maybe takes its time just a little too much, lessening the impact of the final reveal. THE DIG is just Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes being super British together. You can do a lot worse than that.
Kristen Bell, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Vince Vaughn, and Paul Walter Hauser help mask most of QUEENPIN’S problems. But they’re all so good here that you almost don’t notice the actual issues. BOILING POINT is a fun use of the single-take, showing in real time the course of events of night at a popular restaurant. The single take adds an extra sense of tension and urgency to an already tense and urgent story. ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE is an improvement (though I didn’t hate the original as much as most did), but it’s still way too long and has too much of the vintage Zack Snyder trademarks. For his biggest fans, I’m sure it works, but for those of us on the fence, it likely won’t win many converts.
FEAR STREET PART TWO is still a plenty worthy slasher, but is a slight step down from the first entry. SILENT NIGHT is a dark comedy Christmas doomsday drama that…actually mostly works. It’s a little dire and relentlessly bleak though, so there likely is a cap on how much you’ll enjoy it.
THE GUILTY proves that apparently watching Jake Gyllenhaal talk on the phone for 90 minutes is enough to make a compelling movie. The true story behind GOOD PAPER is better, but the movie does a pretty good job of putting it on film. JUNGLE CRUISE is exactly what you would expect, and that something is 100% right up my alley. It can be a bit clumsy at times, but that doesn’t take away from how fun it can be.
WEREWOLVES WITHIN finds a pretty good blend of horror and humor, but doesn’t quite do enough with its ideas, a common theme among movies in this range. THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD is a no-nonsense, straightforward thriller that maybe could have used just a dash of nonsense and a zig-zag or two.
RUMBLE is, well, it’s a fun animated movie. Nothing special, but nothing terrible. VACATION FRIENDS starts off very strong, but the jokes become incredibly repetitive. It definitely steadily loses steam over the back half or so. But with the strong comedic cast, it still mostly works. THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE follows a similar path of those other biopics ranked around it/below it: great performance (though this time it’s two, with both Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield shining) with everything else around it being so-so.
If you’re looking for an underseen tense drama, WILD INDIAN might be just the ticket. It doesn’t go deep enough into its themes to propel itself into that next tier, but there’s still plenty of good stuff here. While I’ve only seen Sofia Hublitz and Madelyn Cline in their respective Netflix shows (Ozark and The Outer Banks), I’m a fan. WHAT BREAKS THE ICE gave them the chance to show their stuff in something more their own, and more mature in Cline’s case. It’s not great, but for an 80 minute dramatic thriller, it’s hard not to recommend.
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