The Lost Bus (Paul Greengrass, 2025). It’s a bad sign that the worst parts of The Lost Bus are any scenes involving the lost bus. Director Paul Greengrass collaborated with Brad Ingelsby on the screenplay for this adaptation of Lizzie Johnson’s book Paradise, about a devastating wildfire that leveled a huge portion of North Central California in 2018. They focus on one story in particular, that of school bus driver Kevin McKay (Matthew McConaughey) whose rescue of a group of students involved a harrowing drive through the heart of the blaze. Greengrass positions the film in an awkward space between an action thriller and his tense, procedure-centered docudramas United 93 and Captain Phillips. The film almost starts to work whenever Greengrass sticks with the government officials who spread out big maps as they problem-solve their way through this crisis. The scenes with the bus feel phony, full of goosed-up conflict and shammy anguish, often overacted by McConaughey.

The Secret Agent (Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2025). Written and directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho, The Secret Agent addresses the wearying strain of living under a dictatorship. Set in Brazil during the nineteen-seventies, when the military controlled the country and terrorized the citizenry, the film follows Armando Solimões (Wagner Moura), a one-time college professor whose opposition to the despots requires that he spend time in hiding even as he continues working with the dissidents. Mendonça Filho’s storytelling is dense and lithe at the same time. He brings a light touch to the politics, sidestepping any risk of the drama stiffening with didactic nobility. Instead, he confidently allows the simple drama of free-thinking people living their lives under the chilly shadow of an oppressive government to be enough to make his points. Moura is very strong carrying the film, and Tânia Maria crackles in a supporting role. The smattering of unreal touches — such as the story of a disembodied, zombie leg — are less effective here than they were in his previous feature, the marvelous Bacurau.

Jurassic World Rebirth (Gareth Edwards, 2025). This film is astoundingly generic. It should be titled Hollywood Blockbuster: Dinosaurs. The filmmakers were presumably excited when they lured screenwriter David Koepp back for the first time since Steven Spielberg directed these screen romps about towering beasties brought back from extinction by cloning technology. Koepp’s story is so blandly by-the-numbers that the film has a numbing effect. There’s nothing clever, nothing memorable, and not a whit of wit. Every member of the cast — Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, and two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali included — seems to be giving minimum effort, content to be just present enough to be noticed when the paychecks are handed out. Jurassic World Rebirth is dismal.