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• Comedy, Drama, Romance
• Directed by Richard LaGravenese

When Zara (Joey King) realizes that her mom (Nicole Kidman) is dating her boss (Zac Efron), she tries to split them up.

By Glenn Kenny

A Quiet Place: Day One

• Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
• Directed by Michael Sarnoski

The chills are more effective than the thrills in this prequel to the “A Quiet Place” franchise.

By Elisabeth Vincentelli

Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1

• Drama, Western
• Directed by Kevin Costner

In the first of a projected four-film cycle, Kevin Costner revisits the western genre and U.S. history in a big, busy drama.

By Manohla Dargis

Last Summer

• NYT Critic’s Pick
• Drama, Thriller
• Directed by Catherine Breillat

Few directors get as deeply under the skin as Catherine Breillat, a longtime provocateur who tests the limits of what the world thinks women should do and say and be.

Confessions of a Good Samaritan

• Documentary
• Directed by Penny Lane

In Penny Lane’s newest film, she turns the camera on herself to document her experience donating a kidney to a stranger.

By Natalia Winkelman

The Vourdalak

• Drama, Fantasy, Horror
• Directed by Adrien Beau

An endangered French aristocrat is stranded with a benighted rural family in this tragicomic fairy tale.

By Jeannette Catsoulis

• Directed by Angela Schanelec

An ethereal, experimental new drama retells the story of the mythical Greek hero.

By Beatrice Loayza

• Drama, History
• Directed by Jake Paltrow

Jake Paltrow’s film braids three fictional stories around the 1962 execution of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi official and war criminal.

By Nicolas Rapold

Fancy Dance

• Directed by Erica Tremblay

This debut feature about a missing woman on an Oklahoma reservation is an imperfect but palpably emotional portrait of desperation and hard-won hope.

By Brandon Yu

• Directed by Christy Hall

Sean Penn and Dakota Johnson outclass a humdrum script as two people who talk — and talk — in a New York City taxicab.

Chronicles of a Wandering Saint

• Directed by Tomás Gómez Bustillo

It’s clear that Rita’s life in rural Argentina could use a bit of magic. But her willingness to bend the truth to achieve it heralds disaster.

I Am: Celine Dion

• Documentary, Biography, Music
• Directed by Irene Taylor

Dion’s voice made her a star. A new documentary on Amazon Prime Video brings her back to Earth, showing her intimate struggles with stiff person syndrome.

By Chris Azzopardi

Green Border

• Directed by Agnieszka Holland

Agnieszka Holland focuses on the Polish-Belarusian border as a Syrian family tries to make it to the European Union.

Hummingbirds

• Directed by Silvia Del Carmen Castaños, Estefanía Contreras, Miguel Drake-McLaughlin, Diane Ng, Ana Rodriguez-Falcó, Jillian Schlesinger

The young directors Silvia Del Carmen Castaños and Estefanía (Beba) Contreras stargaze, watch fireworks and discuss their lives in this documentary filmed in Laredo, Texas.

By Ben Kenigsberg

Federer: Twelve Final Days

• Documentary, Sport
• Directed by Asif Kapadia, Joe Sabia

A new documentary follows the Swiss tennis star from his 2022 retirement announcement to his final match.

By Amy Nicholson

• Action, Comedy
• Directed by Josh Margolin

The remarkable June Squibb plays a vengeful scam victim in this ludicrous action-movie spoof.

The Devil's Bath

• Drama, History, Horror, Thriller
• Directed by Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz

This stark psychological horror movie tracks the mental deterioration of an 18th-century peasant woman.

Kinds of Kindness

• Comedy, Drama
• Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos

Yorgos Lanthimos returns with a twisted fable triptych about dominating and being dominated.

By Alissa Wilkinson

The Exorcism

• Horror, Thriller
• Directed by Joshua John Miller

Russell Crowe stars as an actor playing an exorcist who’s battling his own demons.

Janet Planet

• Directed by Annie Baker

Annie Baker’s debut feature film is a tiny masterpiece — a perfect coming-of-age story for both a misfit tween and her mother.

The Bikeriders

• Crime, Drama
• Directed by Jeff Nichols

Austin Butler, Jodie Comer and Tom Hardy star in a romanticized drama about a fictional motorcycle club in the 1960s.

Black Barbie

• Directed by Lagueria Davis

A new Netflix documentary explores what led to the release of Black Barbie in 1980, both celebrating her existence and recognizing her limitations.

By Concepción de León

Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution

• Directed by Page Hurwitz

A new Netflix documentary showcases comedy as a source of queer liberation, featuring Margaret Cho, Tig Notaro, Joel Kim Booster and more.

Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult

• Documentary, Crime
• Directed by Derek Doneen

This three-part Netflix documentary examines the supposed scheme to exploit TikTok dancers — and proves why cult narratives shouldn’t be rushed.

Ultraman: Rising

• Animation, Action, Adventure, Comedy, Family, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
• Directed by Shannon Tindle, John Aoshima

A superhero raises a baby monster in this animated film. But the action is dragged down by talky sequences about parental responsibility.

• Directed by Julia von Heinz

Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry star in a Holocaust-memory drama that uneasily doubles as a father-daughter road movie.

Summer Solstice

• Directed by Noah Schamus

A triumph of sensitivity, Noah Schamus’s debut feature tracks a rural reunion between old friends struggling to recover their bond.

Reverse the Curse

• Directed by David Duchovny

The writer-director David Duchovny plays a long-suffering Red Sox fan with cancer who may yet live to see the team defeat the Yankees.

• Directed by Karim Aïnouz

Top-shelf actors and authentic Tudor table-setting fail to quicken this glumly unfocused take on the exploits of Henry VIII’s last wife, Katherine Parr.

Tiger Stripes

• Directed by Amanda Nell Eu

Myth and the changes of puberty combine in Amanda Nell Eu’s fierce, funny debut feature.

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Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, black writers week, spider-man: no way home.

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The best of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” reminded me why I used to love comic books, especially the ones about a boy named Peter Parker. There was a playful unpredictability to them that has often been missing from modern superhero movies, which feel so precisely calculated. Yes, of course, “No Way Home” is incredibly calculated, a way to make more headlines after killing off so many of its event characters in Phase 3, but it’s also a film that’s often bursting with creative joy.

Director Jon Watts and his team have delivered a true event movie, a double-sized crossover issue of a comic book that the young me would have waited in line to read first, excitedly turning every page with breathless anticipation of the next twist and turn. And yet they generally avoid getting weighed down by the expectations fans have for this film, somehow sidestepping the cluttered traps of other crowded part threes. “No Way Home” is crowded, but it’s also surprisingly spry, inventive, and just purely entertaining, leading to a final act that not only earns its emotions but pays off some of the ones you may have about this character that you forgot.

Note: I will very carefully avoid spoilers but stay offline until you see it because there are going to be landmines on social media.

“No Way Home” picks up immediately after the end of “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” with the sound of that film’s closing scene playing over the Marvel logo. Mysterio has revealed the identity of the man in the red tights, which means nothing will ever be the same for Peter Parker ( Tom Holland ). With an almost slapstick energy, “No Way Home” opens with a series of scenes about the pitfalls of super-fame, particularly how it impacts Peter’s girlfriend M.J. (Zendaya) and best bud Ned ( Jacob Batalon ). It reaches a peak when M.I.T. denies all three of them admission, citing the controversy about Peter’s identity and the roles his buddies played in his super-adventures.

Peter has a plan. The “wizard” he met when he saved half the population with The Avengers can cast a spell and make it all go away. So he asks Dr. Strange ( Benedict Cumberbatch ) to make the world forget that Spider-Man is Peter Parker, which, of course, immediately backfires. He doesn’t want M.J. or Ned or Aunt May ( Marisa Tomei ) to forget everything they’ve been through together, and so the spell gets derailed in the middle of it. Strange barely gets it under control. And then Doc Ock ( Alfred Molina ) and the Green Goblin ( Willem Dafoe ) show up.

As the previews have revealed, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” weaves characters and mythology from the other cinematic iterations of this character into the universe of the current one, but I’m happy to report that it’s more than a casting gimmick. My concern going in was that this would merely be a case of “ Batman Forever ” or even “ Spider-Man 3 ,” where more was often the enemy of good. It’s not. The villains that return from the Sam Raimi and Marc Webb films don’t overcrowd the narrative as much as they speak to a theme that emerges in the film that ties this entire series back to the other ones. For a generation, the line about Spidey was “With great power comes great responsibility.” “Spider-Man: No Way Home” is about the modern Peter Parker learning what that means. (It also helps a great deal to have actors like Molina and Dafoe in villain roles again given how the lack of memorable villains has been a problem in the MCU.)

So many modern superhero movies have confronted what it means to be a superhero, but this is the first time it’s really been foregrounded in the current run of Peter Parker, which turns “No Way Home” into something of a graduation story. It’s the one in which Parker has to grow up and deal with not just the fame that comes with Spider-Man but how his decisions will have more impact than most kids planning to go to college. It asks some interesting questions about empathy as Peter is put in a position to basically try to save the men who tried to kill other multiverse iterations of him. And it playfully becomes a commentary on correcting mistakes of the past not just in the life of Holland’s Parker but those of characters (and even filmmakers) made long before he stepped into the role. "No way Home" is about the weight of heroic decisions. Even the right ones mean you may not be able to go home again.

Watts hasn’t gotten enough credit in his other two Spider-Man movies for his action and “No Way Home” should correct that. There are two major sequences—a stunner in a mirror dimension in which Spidey fights Strange, and the climactic one—but it’s also filled with expertly rendered minor action beats throughout. There’s a fluidity to the action here that’s underrated as Mauro Fiore ’s camera swoops and dives with Spider-Man. And the big final showdown doesn’t succumb to the common over-done hollowness of MCU climaxes because it has undeniable emotional weight. I also want to note that Michael Giacchino ’s score here is one of the best in the MCU, by far. It’s one of the few themes in the entire cinematic universe that feels heroic.

With so much to love about “No Way Home,” the only shame is that it’s not a bit more tightly presented. There’s no reason for this movie to be 148 minutes, especially given how much the first half has a habit of repeating its themes and plot points. Watts (and the MCU in general) has a habit of over-explaining things and there’s a sharper version of “No Way Home” that trusts its audience a bit more, allowing them to unpack the themes that these characters have a habit of explicitly stating. And, no offense to Batalon, turning Ned into a major character baffles me a bit. He always feels like a distraction from what really works here. On the other hand, this is the first of these three films that has allowed Zendaya and Holland’s chemistry to shine. In particular, she nails the emotional final beats of her character in a way that adds weight to a film that can feel a bit airy in terms of performance.

“Spider-Man: No Way Home” could have just been a greatest hits, a way to pull different projects into the same IP just because the producers can. Some will see it that way just on premise alone, but there’s more going on here than the previews would have you believe. It’s about what historic heroes and villains mean to us in the first place—why we care so much and what we consider a victory over evil. More than any movie in the MCU that I can remember, it made me want to dig out my old box of Spider-Man comic books. That’s a heroic accomplishment.

In theaters on December 17 th .

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

Rated PG-13 for sequences of action/violence, some language and brief suggestive comments.

148 minutes

Tom Holland as Peter Parker / Spider-Man

Zendaya as Michelle 'MJ' Jones

Benedict Cumberbatch as Stephen Strange / Doctor Strange

Jon Favreau as Harold 'Happy' Hogan

Jacob Batalon as Ned Leeds

Marisa Tomei as May Parker

Alfred Molina as Otto Octavius / Doctor Octopus

Jamie Foxx as Max Dillon / Electro

Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn / Green Goblin

Tony Revolori as Eugene 'Flash' Thompson

Angourie Rice as Betty Brant

Martin Starr as Mr. Harrington

Hannibal Buress as Coach Wilson

J.B. Smoove as Mr. Dell

J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson

Benedict Wong as Wong

Writer (based on the Marvel comic book by)

• Steve Ditko
• Chris McKenna
• Erik Sommers

Cinematographer

• Mauro Fiore
• Michael Giacchino

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