Justin Chang

Magic Mike's Last Dance, directed by Steven Soderberg, isn't nearly as sexy or as deliriously entertaining as its predecessors.

Film critic, Justin Chang, reviews one of this year's Oscar nominees for Best International Feature called "Close." It's a Belgian drama about the friendship between two 13-year-old boys. The movie is the second feature from 31-year-old director Lukas Dhont.

Sarah Polley's superbly acted Women Talking is an adaptation of Miriam Toews' novel of the same name. It's about a Bolivian Mennonite colony in 2009, when a group of men was charged with raping more than 100 girls and women in their community.

Last year, the Iranian writer-director Jafar Panahi, a longtime critic of his country's government, was arrested and imprisoned just a few months before his new movie, "No Bears," premiered at film festivals. Set in a small town, the movie stars Panahi as a fictionalized version of himself. "No Bears" topped the list of our film critic Justin Chang's best films of 2022.

Some of the movies on my year-end list passed quickly and quietly through theaters. Some are still in theaters, and a few will open more widely in 2023. Whether on the big screen or at home, I hope you'll take the time to seek them out.

Two new movies are based on well-known children's stories. One is "Roald Dahl's Matilda The Musical," adapted from the popular stage show. The other is "Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio," a stop-motion animation version of the classic fairy tale. Our film critic Justin Chang recommends them both.

It's been five years since New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey first wrote about Harvey Weinstein's history of sexual assault allegations and helped ignite the #MeToo movement. Now there's a new movie called "She Said," based on their Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation and their subsequent book about their investigation. The movie stars Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan and opens this week in theaters.

Wakanda Forever is both an entertainment and an elegy, in which on and off-screen tragedies merge. It's a moving effort and sometimes an unwieldy one, but I left admiring the director Ryan Coogler's decision to acknowledge the reality of loss and honor Boseman's memory as respectfully as possible.

Our film critic Justin Chang has this review of "The Fabelmans," which begins its theatrical run on Friday.

Armageddon Time, which opens in theaters this week, is based on events from James Gray's 1980s childhood in Flushing, Queens, and features performances by Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong and Anthony Hopkins.