Movies Update: Cannes and More

Plus, our critics' favorite films.
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By Stephanie Goodman

Film Editor

While Hollywood digests the monster box office results for "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" — is this good news for moviegoing in general or just Marvel? — we on the film desk are getting ready for the Cannes Film Festival, which starts on Tuesday.

Opening the event will be a zombie movie from Michel Hazanavicius ("The Artist"). It's titled "Final Cut" in English, but the original French title, "Z (Comme Z)," was changed to "Coupé" (meaning chopped or cut) after Ukrainians pointed out that Z had become a pro-Russian symbol in demonstrations about the war. By any name, it stars Bérénice Bejo and Romain Duris in a comedy about a film crew making a zombie movie. We're eager to hear what The Times's co-chief film critic Manohla Dargis thinks. She and our Projectionist columnist, Kyle Buchanan, will be on the ground filing reports until Cannes wraps up on May 28.

Stateside, the films our critics are especially excited about include "Pleasure," a feminist look at the porn industry that Dargis calls "smart, gutsy, wholly unexpected"; and "Il Buco," an Italian drama about the 1961 exploration of a cave that her fellow co-chief film critic, A.O. Scott, says is "infused with abstract, even spiritual meanings."

Whatever you decide to see, have fun at the movies!

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Bleecker Street

'Montana Story' Review: A Domestic Drama in Big Sky Country

Scott McGehee and David Siegel's new film follows two adult siblings as they grapple with their terminally ill father.

By Manohla Dargis

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Grasshopper Film

critic's pick

'Il Buco' Review: Notes From Underground

A 1961 Italian spelunking expedition is the subject of Michelangelo Frammartino's contemplative new film.

By A.O. Scott

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Tania Franco Klein for The New York Times

Critic's Notebook

When Motherhood Is a Horror Show

For the onscreen moms in "The Baby," "Umma" and "Lamb" — and for an ascendant class of sardonic mom influencers — the source of psychological torture is motherhood itself.

By Amanda Hess

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Marvel Studios

Critic's Notebook

The Spell 'Doctor Strange' Is Missing: Sam Raimi's Macabre Vision

The auteur put his mark on the new film in a few spots, but his "Spider-Man" movies prove that superhero tales needn't be so visually bland.

By Calum Marsh

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MOVIE REVIEWS

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Boris Martin/Netflix

'Senior Year' Review: Oops! She's Prom Queen Again.

Rebel Wilson stars in a back-to-school comedy that gets its laughs and drama — strained as they sometimes are — from the ways high school experiences have changed for Gen Z teens.

By Amy Nicholson

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Kino Lorber

'Kamikaze Hearts' Review: Truth or Fiction

Juliet Bashore's porn-world quasi documentary is a delirious and distressing portrait of two women's tempestuous relationship.

By Beatrice Loayza

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Disney+

'Sneakerella' Review: Beauty and the Hypebeast

This musical remake follows an orphaned boy in Queens as he falls head over sneaker heels for the daughter of a Manhattan footwear magnate.

By Natalia Winkelman

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Heymann Brothers Films

'Jonathan Agassi Saved My Life' Review: A Gay Porn Star Is Born

The director Tomer Heymann situates the notion of celebrity in the context of not just performance and gay culture but also familial intimacy.

By Kyle Turner

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Historic New Orleans Collection, via Sony Pictures Classics

'Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story' Review: An Event With Unique Flavor

Gumbo, fried oysters, po' boy sandwiches. And then there's the music. This documentary gives an overview.

By Glenn Kenny

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Samuel Goldwyn Films

'Foxhole' Review: A History of Violence

This small-scale dramatic military anthology tells a familiar story of the endless cycle of war.

By Calum Marsh

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Giles Keyte/Courtesy See-Saw Films/Netflix

'Operation Mincemeat' Review: A Bland Hash

In this World War II drama from Netflix, a team of spies uses a vagrant's corpse to outwit the Nazis.

By Lena Wilson

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