Ann Hornaday

Neville has created a film that operates both as a dewy-eyed nostalgia trip and stirring appeal for civility.

Filmworker is a tribute to the unsung artisans, assistants, best boys and girl Fridays whose indelible contributions make movies not just possible, but magical.

At its best, The Gospel According to Andre gives viewers the rare chance to get to know someone who, until now, has mostly been known as that impeccably turned-out gentleman who seems to know everybody at the annual Costume Institute gala.

At once ruminative and shocking, godwardly inclined and repellently graphic, First Reformed is indisputably the finest film Schrader has directed since his sensitive adaptation of Russell Banks’s novel “Affliction.”

In this stirring portrait, it’s possible to see evangelism not in hectoring words or holier-than-thou bromides, but in loving action. Who wouldn’t say amen to that?

It has brio, rueful humor and celebratory verve that is nearly impossible to resist.

Solo: A Star Wars Story gets the job done with little fuss, but also with precious little finesse. It might arguably succeed in teeing up the cinematic narrative that would change movies forever. But in both substance and execution, it bears but a whisper of the revolution to come.

It’s when the dream of “Annihilation” collides so felicitously with lived reality that the film coalesces and takes hold. It may be broken eventually, but for a while the spell is a powerful one, and nearly irresistible.

Let the Sunshine In doesn’t offer a consistently pretty picture. Where some viewers might view Isabelle as a hopelessly stunted victim of self-deception, others will see an avatar of empowerment and autonomy.

A diverting bagatelle that could have been tougher, a pastiche that could have probed deeper. Tant pis, as Godard himself might have said: Too bad.

Filmed with widescreen grandeur on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, The Rider reinvigorates tropes from the western genre of men, horses, honor codes and vast expanses of nature with a refreshing lack of sentimentality, without sacrificing their inherent lyricism and poetry.

Sometimes a movie comes along that, devoid of a noisy publicity push or festival buzz, quietly ambushes the unsuspecting viewer with an absorbing, skillfully executed, meaningful and thoroughly entertaining experience. Ladies and gentlemen, Borg vs. McEnroe is just that kind of film.

As beautiful and compelling as Ramsay’s filmmaking and Phoenix’s central performance are, the degree to which viewers will buy You Were Never Really Here depends on the degree to which they accept yet another display of febrile vigilante brutality motivated by sexual violence perpetrated against young girls. One person’s trope, after all, is another’s shopworn cliche.

Beirut is an engaging, well-crafted thriller, offering a showcase not just for Hamm but for Rosamund Pike (playing his levelheaded handler) and an ensemble of terrific character actors, including Dean Norris, Shea Whigham and Larry Pine.

As a celebration of the physical expressiveness and visual storytelling of silent cinema, A Quiet Place speaks volumes without a word being uttered.

Blockers suffers from ungainly, choppy pacing. It feels like a slapdash collection of scenes rather than a balloon sent smoothly aloft, with jokes often falling as flat as Cena’s buzz cut (a running gag centers on his tough-guy character’s propensity for crying, a go-to bit that ages fast).

Rather than probe Giacometti and Lord’s curiously arms-length relationship, Final Portrait is at its best simply watching the artist work — the “artist,” in this case, meaning both Giacometti and Rush.

This taut, emotionally wrenching snapshot of both the mythologies and grim realities of war possesses useful reminders about self-deception and abuse of power, especially at a time when bellicose rhetoric and war cabinets seem to be the order of the day.

Clearly well timed with Lenten reflections on sacrifice, service, suffering and responsibility. But it offers an equally relevant — and inspiring — portrayal of principled steadfastness and spiritual integrity in the face of a petty, corrupt and tyrannical leader.

In its own messy, slightly ungovernable way, this digressive bagatelle feels looser than some of Anderson’s most tightly controlled mis-en-scenes. But the story, for all its busyness, is negligible. The script feels less like an organic whole than an effort to keep building up a scrawny central premise until it felt like a movie.

Graced by superb performances, especially from Ashkenazi and Adler, this gentle but devastating portrait bursts with integrity and tough honesty, even in its most lighthearted moments.

Gorgeously photographed, and with a minimalist score by Fred Frith, Leaning Into the Wind offers viewers a welcome chance to consider the work of an artist who defies the recent commodification cult to embrace the ephemeral and the nominally “worthless.”

Even without every flaw completely ironed out, it offers values worth celebrating across the time-space continuum.

Bolstered by good supporting performances from Kyra Sedgwick, Janeane Garofalo and Ritchie Coster, Submission is a handsome-looking film that aims to fulfill the most meek, well-behaved implications of its title.

A film that fulfills the most rote demands of superhero spectacle, yet does so with style and subtexts that feel bracingly, joyfully groundbreaking.

The moments when A Fantastic Woman takes off come in bursts of magical realism, such as when Marina suddenly finds herself heading off impossible head winds, or leading a sparkly dance number.

With his hard-bitten squint and studied air of scowling detachment, Bale seems to be channeling Clint Eastwood at his most enigmatic and reserved; like Eastwood and his characters, Bale allows both the camera and his fellow characters to come to him, rather than proving his bona fides through more obvious and eager means.

It’s only upon reflection that viewers may realize that, despite its nominal title character, the movie never delves that deeply into who Gloria Grahame was, aside from a femme fatale slinking across a black-and-white screen.