Rock, Smash

As the former UFC and Pride combatant Mark Kerr in Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine, Dwayne Johnson is a walking contradiction: He’s seriously bulked up yet somehow smaller than life, a stranger in his own tanned and tautly muscled skin. Whether working with a top-tier American director can redeem the Rock for having one of the most god-awful A-list filmographies in recent memory—fun fact: Red Notice and Red One are, in fact, different piles of streaming-service slop—there’s no doubt the film is Johnson’s best showcase since Pain & Gain.