Movies starring Sydney

The concept of a child creating an imaginary world as a retreat from reality isn’t new to either movies or literature. In fact, one of the most beloved of all family films, The Wizard of Oz, employs this conceit. More recent endeavors like Pa...

Remove Sydney Sweeney from Immaculate and what remains scarcely seems worth the time to watch. Set in a cloistered location, the film builds suspense through the insular nature of the setting but the storyline is muddled, the pacing is uneven, and...

The best animated films are the ones that work on multiple levels, allowing children and adults to engage, often in different ways, with the characters and story. Throughout its history, Walt Disney Pictures has excelled in making those kinds of f...

If there’s a rule to be aware of when it comes to Sony’s so-called “Spider-Verse” movies, it’s this: If Spider-Man isn’t in it, it’s likely to disappoint. That applies to Venom, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Morbius, and now Madame Web...

Romantic comedies sell fantasy. Ultimately, that's their reason for being - to make even the most cynical heart crave true love. Some romantic comedies, this one included, fail because of an inability to convince the audience that the protagonists...

The Maltese Falcon is among the most important and influential movies to emerge from the Hollywood system - as significant in some ways as its contemporary, Citizen Kane. In addition to providing the cinema with a new kind of private investigator ...

When it comes to motion pictures, there are essentially two kinds of thrillers: visceral thrillers, which rely on action to generate tension and excitement, and intellectual thrillers, which burn more slowly but are often more satisfying in the end...

If there’s one adjective I overuse when discussing Blumhouse movies, it’s “uneven,” and I’m going to apply it again with Nocturne, a horror film that grafts a Faustian plot element onto a story about sibling rivalry. Take away the su...

Arguably, some of the issues addressed by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest are not as relevant in 2006 as they were in the mid-1970s, but that realization in no way diminishes the film's dramatic impact. This was the second English language film fo...

Prelude to a Kiss convinced me that Meg Ryan possesses the acting chops to be in more than light romantic fare - a distinction that her best-known movie at the time (When Harry Met Sally) had not claimed. In fact, her performance in this 1992 prod...