Alan Zilberman

Morrison, at 88, is as clear-eyed and sharp as ever. What’s most surprising about her interviews is not her candor, but her humor, revealed, as she speaks, in a way that makes you want to lean closer. (Her gifts as a storyteller are not just on the page.)

Unlike the traditional issue-driven documentary, which typically unfolds like a newsreel, this one plays like a thrilling jungle adventure.

Pacing notwithstanding, Fast Color succeeds on the strength of its ideas.

McCarthy is not (yet) a celebrated director, but The Prodigy may change that. As with his under-seen debut film “The Pact,” his greatest asset here is his patience, followed by his evocative use of light, shadow and negative space. He’s a filmmaker who recognizes that the buildup is more fun than the payoff, and he manages to generate suspense with seemingly little happening on the screen.

As a director, Abrahamson uses that sense of the detached observer as a scalpel, whittling away at our expectations of horror films until we have no choice but to look at — and really listen to — what is happening. It’s an approach that requires patience, on his part and ours, but the rewards are worth it.

The result is an unabashedly violent B-movie throwback, the sort director John Carpenter used to make, with moments that resonate with real life.

This shrewdly observed story asks another question: Is civilization possible in a nation where discrimination has such deep roots? In Sweet Country, the answer arrives with a tough fatalism.

It is not exactly a thriller, yet its plausibility will inspire very real anxiety.

The Kennedy dynasty has its share of admirers and critics alike, and — to the film’s credit — director John Curran and his screenwriters do not appease either camp. The result is a challenging character study, punctuated by moments of uneasy suspense and dark humor.

This is a film that encapsulates the anxiety of the present moment, complicated by friendships that lean, at times, toward outright hostility.

Nothing about this film feels remotely safe. Unlike the “Fifty Shades” series, Double Lover has little interest in romance, instead considering the psychological impulses that inform it.

No Greater Love gets at the camaraderie — and the contradictions — of military service in a way that few films ever have.

Writer-director Jason Hall astutely conveys these and other facets of the modern veteran’s experience, generating authentic drama, in scenes that play out in unexpected ways.

Director Reginald Hudlin handles the story with just enough finesse to make its details more thrilling than uneasy.

Defiantly inscrutable, Woodshock can test a viewer’s patience, yet the filmmakers’ consistent self-confidence creates an alluring, oddly hypnotic effect.

This is slow, almost languid filmmaking, yet it’s a delight to watch the countless ways in which the library is still capable of lifting us.

“Corner” is a deeply sympathetic tale, using the possibilities of animation not just to pique curiosity, but to devastate.

By focusing on the details of his characters’ lives, Weinstein finds common ground on both sides of the religious divide.

Strange Weather is wise about loss, showing the ripple effects of an untimely death. It is hardly an original concept, yet it handles this subject with the care and integrity it deserves.

"Farewell to Europe” is a little like Zweig himself: smart, overly fastidious and remote to a fault. By avoiding Zweig’s inner life, his eventual collapse seems all the more perfunctory.

Malek’s talents serve a much more personal, ultimately touching story.

O’Shea follows his twisted premise to its inexorable conclusion, so his film is ultimately more unnerving than sad.

Few films are both genuinely erotic and off-putting enough to inspire the occasional walkout. Raw succeeds at both.

This is not a film about Neruda’s life or controversial death. This is a film for folks who are unfamiliar with the writing of Neruda, or maybe even skeptical about poetry in general. They may not cherish every word of the poet’s most heartbreaking lines, but they’ll understand the man who wrote them a little better those who already do.

The idea is unabashedly silly, yet Monster Trucks is more involving than it sounds. Characters and conflicts are sharply defined, and director Chris Wedge handles the action with clarity.

By observing the struggle of the miner with a mix of resignation and resolve, the movie hints that this struggle is the struggle of every worker.

By showing animals in all their mundane splendor, Seasons makes a case for conservation.

What elevates the film is not just its beautiful setting in the French Pyrenees but also how the beautiful mountain exteriors serve as a metaphor for characters’ inner lives. Téchiné keeps his distance from his subjects, allowing their emotions to reveal themselves and delivering a payoff that is ultimately a delicate one.