The Reel
Movie news, reviews, and rankings, every week
Fresh writing on what to watch now, what is coming next, and where it lands on our tier lists. The best of it goes out in The Reel every Tuesday.
Ben Affleck's Animals Lands on Netflix at 43 Percent. Critics Call It an Uncredited Kurosawa Riff, and Affleck Won't Say Where He Used AI.
Four of the five films Ben Affleck directed before this one scored above 90 percent with critics. His sixth, a kidnapping thriller with Kerry Washington and Gillian Anderson, is his second-worst-reviewed. Here is what the reviews say, what they praise, and whether it is worth your Friday night.
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What to Watch This Weekend: Other Mommy Skipped the Critics, The Social Reckoning Split Its First Viewers, and the One to See Is a Mahershala Ali Hitman Drama
The two biggest movies opening Friday had no reviews as of early Wednesday. The one critics love stars Mahershala Ali as a hitman. Here is how to spend October 9 to 11, in theaters and on the couch.
Batman and Mission: Impossible Have the Same Owner as of Today. Here Is What the Paramount and Warner Bros. Merger Means for the Movies.
Paramount's roughly $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery is set to close today under a new name, Skydance. Here is who runs the movies now, the promise it made to theaters, and what happens to HBO Max and Paramount+.
Godzilla Minus Zero Is the First R-Rated Godzilla, and It Sits at 97 Percent. Critics Agree It Is Bigger Than Minus One. They Do Not Agree It Is Better.
Takashi Yamazaki's sequel to his Oscar winner premiered to cheers at the New York Film Festival. Here is what the first reviews say about King Ghidorah, the R rating, the long wait for the monsters, and why to see it in IMAX on November 6.
Jesse Eisenberg Said No, Trump Is Never Named, and Critics Are Held Until Wednesday. Here Is What to Expect From The Social Reckoning.
Aaron Sorkin's follow-up to The Social Network opens Friday, with Mikey Madison as Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen and Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckerberg. Here is the story, the cast, the first reactions, and why the tracking sits at a fraction of the original's opening.
Spider-Man Goes Digital Tuesday, Spielberg Hits Peacock Friday, and A24's Hit and Flop Land a Week Apart. Here Are the Summer Movies Coming Home in October.
The summer box office already voted. October is the recount: the biggest movie of the year, Spielberg's UFO thriller, a $5 million Irish ghost story, two A24 releases that went opposite ways in theaters, and the Minions. Here is what lands where, week by week.
Anne Hathaway Has Five Movies From Five Studios in 2026. The Worst-Reviewed One Opens Today, and It Is Tracking to Beat Tom Cruise Anyway.
Verity arrives with a Rotten Tomatoes score near 40 percent and a projected $30 million-plus opening that would give Hathaway her third No. 1 of the year. Here is how a pop-star flop, a legacy sequel, a Nolan epic, a dinosaur movie, and a Colleen Hoover thriller added up.
Elia Kazan Filmed Only the Last Part of East of Eden and Made James Dean a Star. His Granddaughter Adapted the Whole Novel, and Florence Pugh's Cathy Arrives on Netflix Tomorrow.
All seven episodes drop October 1. Zoe Kazan puts back everything the 1955 film cut, including the characters who hold the book together and the villain Steinbeck called a "psychic monster." Here is what to expect.
Sorkin Goes Back to Facebook, DC Goes Full Horror, and a Diver Gets Swallowed by a Whale. Here Is October 2026 in Theaters, Week by Week.
Tom Cruise opens the month in prosthetics, Clayface moved in from September, and Shyamalan's Remain moved out to 2027. Here is every major October 2026 release, what the early reviews say, and which weekends are worth planning around.
Avatar Took the All-Time Box Office Crown Back With a Re-Release. Endgame Just Won the Weekend Running the Same Play.
Seven years after it opened, Avengers: Endgame beat four well-reviewed new releases to finish first again. The real race is worldwide, where it started the weekend $124 million behind Avatar. Here is the math, the history, and what the rest of the weekend said.
Tom Cruise Has Made Nothing but Mission: Impossible and Top Gun for Nine Years. Digger Opens Friday, and the First Critics Cannot Agree on It.
Alejandro G. Iñárritu put Cruise under prosthetics as an oil tycoon who sets off a global catastrophe, shot it on VistaVision film, and skipped every fall festival. The London premiere split the room. Here is what to expect before full reviews land on Tuesday.
Backrooms Made Over $400 Million on a Budget Under $10 Million. Critics Loved It, Audiences Gave It a B-Minus, and Today It Streams on HBO Max.
Kane Parsons's YouTube nightmare became A24's biggest movie ever. Now the most divisive horror hit of the year lands on the couch, and how you watch it matters more than usual.
What to Watch This Weekend: Robert Pattinson Plays Chris Hansen, Brad Pitt Crashes in Alaska, and a Seven-Year-Old Marvel Movie Might Beat Them Both
Four acclaimed new releases open on the same Friday, and the favorite to win the weekend is Avengers: Endgame. Here is how to spend September 25 to 27, in theaters and on the couch.
The Best-Reviewed Video Game Movies, Ranked. The New Number One Opens Tomorrow, and the Billion-Dollar Ones Are Nowhere Near the Top.
Zach Cregger's Resident Evil landed at 97 percent on Rotten Tomatoes this week, the highest score any video game adaptation has ever posted. Here are the ten films it beat, and why the ones that actually made money are mostly at the bottom.
A Horror Comedy About a Cursed Tourist Town Just Won More Emmys Than Any Comedy in History. The Pitt Got 25 Nominations and Two Trophies.
Widow's Bay won 14 of its 19 nominations on Monday night, Matthew Rhys walked out with three statues, and Stephen Root beat Harrison Ford. Here is what actually happened at the 78th Emmys, and which winners you can stream tonight.
Hope Is the Most Expensive Korean Movie Ever Made. It Just Lost the Weekend to Practical Magic 2 by Nine to One. Go Anyway.
Na Hong-jin waited ten years after The Wailing to make a 157-minute alien invasion with Michael Fassbender in motion capture. It is playing on 1,560 screens right now to almost nobody. Here is the case for buying a ticket before it is gone.
Jurassic World Was Universal's Biggest Movie for Eleven Years. A Three-Hour R-Rated Homer Adaptation Just Took the Title.
Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey passed $1.68 billion worldwide on Sunday and became the highest-grossing film in Universal's 114-year history. Here is what the record actually says about Nolan, about IMAX, and about what audiences will still leave the house for.
Venice Gave Its Golden Lion to the Only Film in Competition Directed by a Woman. The Jury Says That Is Not Why.
Woman Unknown took the top prize on Saturday over a Lee Chang-dong drama sitting at 100 percent and a Gaza documentary that drew a 25-minute ovation. John Malkovich won Best Actor from a film set in Montreal. Here is who won, who went home empty, and when you can actually see any of it.
Zach Cregger's Resident Evil Opens Friday. No Leon, No Alice, 95 Minutes, and a Franchise Record on the Table.
The Weapons director spent $80 million of Sony's money on an original story set during the Raccoon City outbreak, then cut most of the jokes because test audiences laughed too much. Here is what to expect from the reboot that is tracking to open bigger than any Resident Evil movie ever has.
What to Watch This Weekend: The Witches Will Win the Box Office. The Best-Reviewed New Movie Is a Korean Alien Invasion.
Practical Magic 2 ends Spider-Man's run at number one, Paul Greengrass gives Andrew Garfield a peasant revolt, and Na Hong-jin's Cannes creature epic is finally in American theaters. Here is how to spend the weekend of September 11.
Toy Story 5 Made $1.13 Billion and Comes Home September 23. The Villain This Time Is a Tablet.
Pixar's summer juggernaut hits Disney+ on September 23, with a 4K and Blu-ray release a day earlier. Here is what it means and where it belongs in the studio's canon.
Supergirl Lost Warner Bros. About $100 Million. Tomorrow It Costs You Nothing. Here Is Whether to Press Play.
The DCU's first real flop lands on HBO Max on September 10, 76 days after it opened. Strip out the budget and the box office and a very different movie is left over: a scrappy, 108 minute space western with a star the whole industry agrees on.
Practical Magic 2 Opens Thursday. Here Is What 28 Years of Waiting Actually Bought.
The 1998 original was a flop that women kept watching every October until a studio finally noticed. The sequel arrives this week tracking to out-open the first film three times over. What to expect from the Owens sisters' return, honestly.
The Force Awakens Has Held the Domestic Box Office Record for Ten Years. Spider-Man Takes It This Week.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day closed Labor Day at $923 million, $13.6 million short of the biggest number in North American box office history. Here is the record it is about to break, the chart it is rewriting, and the one asterisk worth keeping.
Venice at the Halfway Mark: The Ovations, the Split Decisions, and the One Movie Still to Come
Robert Pattinson's Chris Hansen movie got a nine-minute ovation on the Lido today, Martin McDonagh split the critics, and Werner Herzog made the strangest film of the festival. Here is what the first four days of Venice actually told us, and what to write down before the Golden Lion is handed out on September 12.
September Used to Be a Dumping Ground. This Year It Has Brad Pitt, Two Witches, and Raccoon City.
Six wide releases in four weeks, including a Practical Magic sequel 28 years in the making and Zach Cregger's Resident Evil reboot. Here is the September 2026 theatrical calendar, week by week.
What to Watch This Weekend: The Movie Warner Bros. Tried to Bury Is Finally in Theaters
Coyote vs. ACME survived a tax write-off, a bidding war, and three years on a shelf to open this Friday with a 95 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. It shares the weekend with a Ridley Scott apocalypse, a second-weekend Insidious, and a De Niro thriller on Netflix. Here is how to pick.
Summer 2026 Box Office Scorecard: The Record, the $750,000 Miracle, and Three $170 Million Misses
The summer is about $130 million from the all-time record. Spider-Man rewrote the opening weekend book, two micro-budget horror films outgrossed the franchises, and Disney, DC, and Amazon each lit a nine-figure budget on fire. Here is the full report card.
What to Expect From Dune: Part Three, the Other Movie Opening on December 18
Denis Villeneuve closes his trilogy with Dune Messiah: a 17 year time jump, Robert Pattinson as the villain, and a head to head release against Avengers: Doomsday.
The Avengers: Doomsday Trailer Just Hit D23. Here Is Everything It Tells Us.
Marvel closed out its D23 showcase with a new look at the biggest movie of 2026: Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom, a grieving villain, and an army of Sentinels.
The Biggest Movie You Didn't Argue About Is Now Streaming: Michael, Reviewed
While the summer discourse fought over The Odyssey and Spider-Man, Antoine Fuqua's Michael Jackson biopic quietly became the highest-grossing music biopic ever made. It hit Starz on August 10. Here is what you actually get at home.
What to Watch This Weekend: Four New Movies, Four Completely Different Moods
A high-concept rom-com, an Eli Roth slasher, a Broken Lizard reunion, and A24's young Anthony Bourdain movie all hit theaters on the same Friday. Here's how to pick your lane.
The Big Screen Comes Home: 4 Movies Worth Streaming in August 2026
A billion-dollar biopic, an A24 fever dream, a body-horror hit, and a James Cameron concert film all land on streaming this month. Here is what to queue and when.
The Fall Movie Season Starts at Venice. This Year, Hollywood Isn't Coming.
The 83rd Venice Film Festival runs September 2 to 12 with new films from Martin McDonagh, Werner Herzog, Lee Chang-dong and Hirokazu Kore-eda. Not one of the twenty movies in competition comes from a major studio.
A Filmed Broadway Show Just Outgrossed Toy Story 5. Hollywood Should Be Taking Notes.
Hadestown: The Musical opened to $10.2 million from 1,949 screens, took Hamilton's live capture record, and finished third for the weekend. The proshot is not a streaming afterthought anymore.
Project Hail Mary Is Now Free With Prime: The Year's Biggest Crowd-Pleaser, Reviewed
Ryan Gosling's space odyssey broke Amazon MGM's records in theaters and landed a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. Now that it is streaming on Prime Video, here is what holds up on the couch (almost everything).
The Odyssey Is Here: Nolan's IMAX Epic Just Posted the Biggest Numbers of the Year
Christopher Nolan's $250 million Homer adaptation opened Friday to the best previews of 2026 and the best reviews of his career. Here is what the opening weekend actually means, and how to watch it right.
What to Expect From Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Peter Parker is a stranger to everyone he loves, the Punisher is in the cast, and Scorpion is finally cashing a check written nine years ago. Here is everything we know before July 31.
What to Watch This Weekend: The Horror Movie Is the Safe Bet
Live-action Moana landed with a thud and a shrug, Evil Dead Burn is the weekend's real surprise, and there are three genuine events waiting at home. Here is how to spend your July 11 weekend.
Toy Story 5 vs. the Minions: What the July 4th Box Office Really Told Us
America's 250th birthday weekend delivered a franchise-low opening for Minions & Monsters while Toy Story 5 kept rolling. Here is what the numbers actually mean for animation.
Avatar: Fire and Ash Hits Disney+: Is the Third Pandora Trip Worth 3 Hours?
James Cameron's $1.49 billion sequel just landed on streaming. Here is whether the darkest, longest Avatar yet earns its runtime at home.
What to Expect From Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey
Nolan follows up Oppenheimer with Homer's epic, shot entirely on IMAX film cameras and led by Matt Damon. Here is everything we know before it opens July 17.
The Hottest Movies in Theaters This Summer (2026)
From Toy Story 5 to Nolan's Odyssey, the 2026 summer slate is loaded. Here is what is playing now and what is still to come, with dates worth circling.
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