Justin Chang

If Asteroid City leaves us with anything, it's the idea that scientists and artists may have more in common than they appear. The desire to create a work of art, or to unlock the mysteries of the universe, spring from the same creative impulse.

Justin Chang reviewed the new film "Past Lives."

Like a lot of its fellow Disney remakes, this Little Mermaid too often feels like a dutiful cover version rather than an inspired reimagining.

The new movie "BlackBerry" recounts the dramatic rise and fall of the Canadian tech company that led the smartphone revolution in the late '90s and early 2000s before the iPhone came along. It was directed and co-written by Matt Johnson, who plays one of the company's three co-heads, along with Jay Baruchel and Glenn Howerton.

With its frank treatment of an adolescent girl's inner life, 'Are You There God?' become a huge bestseller and an enduring touchstone. And now, more than 50 years later, it's been terrifically adapted to the big screen by the writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig, with nearly all its warmth, humor and wry wisdom intact.

Having made a name for himself with the A24-released horror pictures "Hereditary" and "Midsommar," the writer-director Ari Aster has a new movie in theaters. It's called "Beau Is Afraid." And it tells the darkly comic story of a man named Beau, played by Joaquin Phoenix, who's just trying to get home to visit his mother.

The fourth movie that Kelly Reichardt and Michelle Williams have made together, Showing Up is the first Reichardt movie that could be described as a comedy. But like all her films, it's a model of indie realism,

Justin Chang says, if A Thousand and One were just a story about a mother and son overcoming the odds, it would be moving enough. But the writer-director A.V. Rockwell, gives this intimate drama a sharp sociopolitical context.

Justin Chang says of the film Tori & Lokita, "The story is swift and relentless; it runs barely 90 minutes and never slows down. But at every moment, the filmmakers' compassion for their characters bleeds through, along with their rage at the injustices that we're seeing."

Palm Trees and Power Lines marks a confident new filmmaking voice in the director Jamie Dack, who adapted the film from her 2018 short of the same title with her co-screenwriter, Audrey Findlay. They've written a disturbing cautionary tale about grooming and trafficking.