Justin Chang

The directors Josh and Bennie Safdie have attracted a passionate critical following with their films "Daddy Longlegs" and "Heaven Knows What" - both portraits of troubled New Yorkers in desperate circumstances. Continuing in the same vein, their latest film, "Good Time" stars Robert Pattinson in a change-of-pace role as an amateur bank robber. Fim critic Justin Chang has a review.

There's nothing pretentious or inflated about the latest Planet of the Apes film. Rather, it's a suspense-driven movie in which it's "impossible not to root for these brave and beautiful apes."

You'll root for 13-year-old Mija at every step of this new Netflix film. And Okja, the huge, genetically modified pig, is among the most touching and realistic computer-generated characters ever made.

Comedian Kumail Nanjiani steps into the leading role in a semi-autobiographical love story. It's a quietly groundbreaking crowd-pleaser, though some characters aren't as fully dimensional as others.

Salma Hayek plays a Mexican-American massage therapist who attends the dinner party of a wealthy client in Beatriz At Dinner. Reviewer Justin Chang calls the film an "elegantly acerbic new comedy."

The title of Cate Shortland's new film, Berlin Syndrome, is a sly riff on "Stockholm syndrome," that condition in which a hostage begins to feel sympathy for her captor. It's never clear what sets the Berlin version apart, and in some ways Shortland and the screenwriter, Shaun Grant, seem to be figuring it out as they go along.

British filmmaker Terence Davies turns his attention to the gifted New England poet in his new movie. Critic Justin Chang calls the film a "sharp, sensitive portrait" of a woman ahead of her time.

If you were to mash together Carrie and The Joy Luck Club, and somehow still get away with a PG rating, it might look a bit like this movie, says critic Justin Chang.

Steven Soderbergh's engrossing new movie, No Sudden Move, is an ensemble crime thriller set in 1954 Detroit, a gorgeously designed world of fedoras and trenchcoats, smoky wood-paneled offices and vintage automobiles. Like the classic '50s noirs that inspired it, Ed Solomon's densely plotted script is full of double-crosses and dirty dealings.

Justin Chang says there's more going on in any five minutes of Drive My Car than in some movies in their entirety.