The First Power (1990)

Armed with a $400M budget and Tom Cruise’s death-defying stunts, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning delivers pulse-pounding action even as its plot falters. From underwater silence to high-altitude madness, it's pure adrenaline powered by old-school movie magic — but is this really Ethan Hunt’s final mission?

Based on Bethany's autobiography "Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to Get Back on the Board," this heartwarming film tracks the struggle to pursue normalcy and ambition after a major injury.

Netflix’s Shadow and Bone has a complicated relationship with race. It has a diverse cast, but not without its problems. Based on Leigh Bardugo’s two book series, the show features characters from the Shadow and Bone trilogy, which is very straight and white, and the Six of Crows duology, which is much more diverse. When bringing together a cast and writing about these characters, the team behind the show expanded upon some of the representation missing from the first trilogy, then seemed to take away representation from the duology. Shadow and Bone seems to play a bit of a push and pull game when it comes to portraying diversity onscreen.

The Invitation takes a creeping look at two simple premises: reuniting with forgotten friends and new-age spiritualism. Though one seems a bit scarier than the other, the film heightens social awkwardness to a macabre level that puts an uncomfortable look on when the social taboo of grief is put on public display.

Hanna Bergholm's 'Hatching' shows us that the modern version of the cardboard world trope is social media.

The film may be a thriller, but I wasn’t thrilled by it. If anything, I was bored and annoyed.