Alan Zilberman

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.

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

If “Chi-Raq” aimed to shock us out of complacency, “The Next Cut” creates a more welcoming groove, encouraging greater openness to outside perspectives.

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.

It isn’t unusual for a good premise to have a faulty execution. The Benefactor suffers from a conclusion that feels inauthentic to the real perils of addiction, as well as to its own story. The only remarkable thing about it is Gere, who really should stick to filmmakers worthy of his talent.

There’s nothing wrong with tackling romantic miscommunication, but Birbiglia’s script leaves little room for surprise or depth. Paradoxically, Don’t Think Twice feels both dramatically thin and overstuffed.

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.)

Wiseman’s voracious curiosity and evenhanded approach to his subject ensures that viewers will have a wide range of responses to the material he has collected.

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.

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

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

Mottola and LeSieur seem to have actively avoided the pursuit of wisdom, settling for broad gags — and the occasional explosion — instead.

7 Prisoners is an angry film, but Moratto, crucially, reserves his most intense judgment for an inhumane system, not the characters who are trapped by it, each in different ways.

The Pearl Button may not answer all the questions it raises, yet it is an absorbing experience — at least for anyone with a taste for beauty over insight.

Demon is not a horror film, exactly, although it can prove disturbing. Wrona jumbles several genres together, including dark comedy, to illuminate larger, more ambitious themes.

What makes Miss Sharon Jones most captivating is how its subject, in spite of hardship, remains a magnetic stage presence.

"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.

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

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.

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

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

Censored Voices is an essential documentary. Its subject is nothing less than loss of innocence, the seeds of hatred and the illusory nature of victory.

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.

Kicks is gritty to the core, and its commitment to verisimilitude is its undoing. All of the characters are selfish, and their sense of loyalty is purely circumstantial.

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

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.

My King brims with intimate details, adding to a sense of authenticity that is rarely found in films.

All of the actors are pitch-perfect.