Barbara VanDenburgh

It’s a film that gets brilliantly to the truth of how and why we fall in love, and replicates that sensation — and the heartache that follows.

The resulting portrait is nothing short of a tiny filmmaking miracle. It’s guaranteed to make you feel something — hopeful, probably, for Grace and her wards. And maybe even for the future of indie filmmaking.

A Hidden Life is less a story than an experience, a spiritual journey made accessible through light and sound. Malick doesn’t transcend cinema. He sanctifies it.

The Tribe is that rare breed of film so masterful in execution it requires watching once, yet so devastating you may never be able to stomach seeing it again.

It breathes youthful life into a tired franchise and makes the smartest transition yet of characters from the comics to the big screen with clever animation and thoughtful storytelling.

It is not hyperbole to say Oyelowo is a revelation. The British actor brings phenomenal humanity, grace and torment to a historical figure who once seemed to loom too large a legend to make flesh on screen.

Farhadi again burrows deep into his characters to tell an achingly intimate story, spinning grand tragedies out of minor lives in which the past lingers in the air, a perfume that haunts long after its wearer has left the room.

It doesn’t just maintain the momentum built in the previous chapters but further ramps up the emotional stakes and physical complexity. It’s like gorging on candy for two hours, only you get to walk away from the theater without a stomachache.

The same effortless chemistry that made the comedians such ideal Golden Globes hosts is on full display in this broad comedy, given extra oomph by a wise and glorious R rating that opens the floodgates of creative vulgarity.

Paddington 2 is a winsome confection. More than just a movie, it’s a necessary mood corrective, a temporary escape hatch from negativity. The world does indeed feel right in the company of this kind and polite little bear.

Particle Fever does an excellent job of laying out what's at stake as it documents the creation and fine-tuning of the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.

It's a well-written rom-com with rascally charm, a modest story of an awkward Brooklyn girl making a go of life. It's irreverent and rough around the edges with an imperfect protagonist, blue language, scatological humor and rambling confessional stand-up monologues, sometimes about bodily fluids. The laughs are frequent and ribald.

It’s clear from the opening shots that a physically and psychically savaged post-war Poland is impossible ground for love to flower, and it’s a testament to Pawel Pawlikowski’s talent that this fatalism makes us more, not less, invested in the romance.

It would be unbearable if it weren’t so completely self-aware.

What seems primed to play out like a by-the-numbers social message movie with a classic redemption arc becomes something much more sophisticated, and much more challenging for the viewer. Schoenaerts' performance deserves much of the praise.

Director Terence Davies dispenses of any gaudy romantic trappings and makes something much more beautiful in A Quiet Passion, a delicate and measured drama that plumbs the depths of the poet’s strange heart and the agony of her intelligence.

Tarantino has always worn his love of cinema on his sleeve, fetishistic and in the form of homage. But here, that love is reverent.

Koreeda makes thrilling the rich inner lives of four young women trying to navigate rocky emotional terrain in the wake of their father’s death.

When executed with love and peopled with actors who breathe life into their characters, Hidden Figures is precisely the delight it aims to be.

Cliff Curtis is staggeringly good as Gen.

Though polished and image-conscious, offering too little insight into the physical and psychological trauma suffered in the bullet’s wake, the film is nevertheless moving without resorting to saccharine overtures.

The strength of Peace Officer is that it doesn’t attempt to pit the viewer against the police. Its target, rather, is the system.

20 Feet From Stardom is frequently sad and frustrating. But while there’s heartbreak aplenty, the film doesn’t function as a pitying paean to unmined talent — it’s ultimately a celebration of the unsung.

This isn’t a war movie; it’s an after-the-war movie. But the battle lines are still drawn, and every ragged breath the film takes braces for an explosion.

In many ways Lady Macbeth is remarkable for what it isn’t. It isn’t a staid period drama. It isn’t romantic. It isn’t predictable. And it certainly isn’t comfortable.

What it lacks in thematic innovation it more than makes up for with enough memorable characters and visual splendor to make Zootopia a perennial Disney favorite.

Widows works best as a slow-burn thriller, a masterclass of patient reveals and cleverly withheld information (which, as any fan of her knows, are Flynn’s hallmarks). But Widows has more to say, touching on the topics of generational power, the dynamics of race in politics and marriage, the institutional racism present in police violence.

It’s disheartening that it took until 2018 to get a gay version of this adolescent staple from a major studio. But at least it was worth the wait.

The film doesn’t need to make a case for Marina’s basic humanity and smartly avoids clichés of persecution storytelling, instead ceding the floor to Vega’s magnetic presence and soulfulness. She is a marvel, and if one doesn’t come away loving her as Orlando did, it’s no shortcoming of the film.

Blue Ruin is a movie about revenge, but it reaches far past the bottom-shelf titillations of fantasy to tell a richer, character-driven story with a protagonist who's less avenging angel than ghost.

City of Ghosts isn’t merely about the personal sacrifices of these men, but a testament to the necessity of a free and open press the world over.

The House That Jack Built is more than just an epic piece of cinematic trolling; it’s von Trier taking a microscope to his creative process in all its obsessive ugliness, creating a sophisticated meta-commentary on his art and daring the audience not to be entertained by his extreme indulgence in all the predilections for which he’s been roundly criticized.

The real power of Beatriz at Dinner is that it isn’t about politics but the human heart. Beatriz and Strutt are not arguing legislation; they’re arguing two visions of the American dream, two visions of the human soul.

Even if its stunted ambitions come as a disappointment, Pieta nevertheless is an expertly crafted thriller and a fine addition to East Asian revenge cinema.

Bell lets the action onscreen tell a story that’s every bit as rousing as a Disney adventure.

It’s a powerfully sensual movie, gorgeously lensed colors and textures conveying its characters emotional states while thoughtfully exploring the range of human sexuality through Adenike’s experience.

Even more than an expose of bad reporting and social hysteria, The Witness is an intimate exercise in grief and healing

It’s a zombie movie that, amidst the giddy bloodshed, allows room for philosophical questions about our fundamental responsibilities to one another. It may not be something we’ve never seen before, but it’s something we can benefit from seeing again.

It’s a film entirely lacking in pomp, but there’s a certain bravado in its delicate reservation. A tender and spare meditation on family unfurls in the stillness of a sleepy, sun-soaked Spanish summer.

There's a purity to the experience of watching a film so naturalistic, like living in someone else's life for two hours.

The Patience Stone largely functions as a one-woman play, with Farahani’s character soliloquizing over her husband’s body.

On the whole it’s a remarkably controlled exercise. It’s to the film’s credit that Moll is the center of attention from start to finish, and not even a romantically damaged bad boy can steal the spotlight from her barely contained wildfire of emotions.

The brutally sparse documentary Rich Hill removes poverty from the realm of the abstract and makes it personal.

What elevates this sequel are stakes.

A delicately balanced, mature drama, What They Had portrays a family devastated by Alzheimer’s with accuracy, empathy and respect, capturing both the heartache and unexpected tenderness of caring for a loved one coming slowly undone and the familial bonds that are tested and forged in the process.

The cultural specificity and fiercely patriarchal setting sets Mustang apart. It’s a timely reminder that, even still, there are few safe havens in the world for a free spirit.

It’s a Fellini-esque carnival of humanity on display, a more debauched phantasmagoria reminiscent of “La Dolce Vita.” But “La Dolce Vita” created the paparazzi; The Great Beauty takes place in a world where the paparazzi have existed for decades.

Monkey Kingdom is a delightful gambol, visually stunning and educational without feeling like it, with a propulsive drama about escaping one's lowly social class at its core that inspires reflection on some uncomfortable truths about ourselves.

The film ricochets between Tammy being an oblivious cartoon goblin and a textured, sympathetic human being who just wants to be loved. Perhaps if the film had catered a little less to McCarthy's comedic gifts — the curse-word fugue states, the slapstick humor, the non sequiturs — the end result would have felt more balanced and rewarding.

The film is less effective, and less focused, when it switches into activism mode. Not that its heart isn't in the right place — we all know about the appalling state of institutionalized elder care. Which is the problem with those segments: We all know this already, and the filmmaking feels like perfunctory, necessary padding.

A great soundtrack can go a long way in smoothing over a decent movie’s rough patches, and Northern Soul’s is fantastic.

The stunning character work is accented with moments of pure cinematic poetry. Audiard uses the camera like a paintbrush, composing lyrical interludes and disorienting transitions with the power to leave you breathless. It’s all so quietly brilliant — until it isn’t.

It’s ambiguity without engagement, art you can admire but not feel.

The Proposal makes for a fascinating and not-a-little-morbid piece of artistic trolling.

Despite the bumpy ride, the final destination reveals a weirdly daring comedy with the familiar, but still necessary, lesson that being popular isn't all it's made out to be in the movies.

There’s more than a whiff of the didactic in Difret, a film overly earnest in spelling out its cause in more-than-occasional exposition. But it is otherwise an affecting drama that is honest and clear-eyed about Hirut’s trauma, and the ongoing struggles she’ll face even if she’s freed, without ever treating her abuse in an exploitative manner.

The characteristics that make Evolution an intriguing piece of cinema also make it a not entirely successful one.

As an exegesis on tortured creative genius, Harmontown proves wanting. It's in the exploration of how "Community" fandom formed its own distinctive community of outcasts that the film excels.

That American Ultra works as well as it does is a testament to its two lead performances.

It’s a compelling journey into the deep, if a meandering one, guided by a moral compass that operates by a different magnetic field than our own, and often leads astray.

To put it in terms Charlie would dig, “Bumblebee” is like an 80s mixtape that’s all hits, no deep cuts. Nothing here surprises save the perspective. But that’s enough to save it.

The film wraps up too neatly to be believed, not leaving questions unanswered so much as failing to ask them.

While Midsommar is too overwrought to be a masterpiece, it’s also too entertaining in its abject lunacy and assured in its craftsmanship to be considered a sophomore slump. Aster is a filmmaker still defining his voice, and despite the growing pains, Midsommar is an intriguing step in its evolution.

The plain facts, presented without commentary, are an effective plea for a more compassionate immigration policy.

Thelma treads the line between the psychological and supernatural, gracefully at first, and then with increasing abandon.

Barbershop: The Next Cut embraces the societal changes and rifts of the past decade, from Chicago’s increased violence and the Black Lives Matter movement to Barack Obama’s historic presidency, making the film an even more heartfelt love letter to Chicago.

This fully animated reboot embraces the Smurfs Saturday-morning-cartoon roots and creates a sprightly, brightly colored, age-appropriate adventure for young children fresh to the little blue woodland creatures.

It’s behind the wheel with Miles that Ford v Ferrari becomes a well-oiled entertainment machine, a thrill ride with a driver’s-eye view of the world’s most exciting track. Everything that doesn’t work is just a distant speck in the rearview mirror.

This cartoonishly violent exercise in cinematic hero worship comes at the audience with chambers loaded and fires off rounds too rapidly to worry about how vapid it all is.

As tiresome as those live-action sequences are, they are more than outweighed by laughs — some riotous, some groaning and some very, very befuddled, but none predictable.

For every crisis there’s a line of homespun wisdom, in every failure a universal lesson to impart. The film highlights each symbol, making explicit that which would be stronger left implicit, until Rex’s glass castle becomes an overbearing metaphor.

It’s aggressively charming, and competitions and training montages are filmed with kinetic whimsy. The film’s chief triumph is in spinning something remotely thrilling out of something as inherently dull as speed typing.

It’s predictable. It’s saccharine. It’s silly. It’s also, thanks to the consummate talents of Stamp and Redgrave, occasionally a joy.

“Raiders!” is as sloppy and imperfect as the kids’ shot-for-shot remake, but it has much the same charm.

It’s a slight film, but one that hits all the tricky emotional and comedic notes without a hint of cruelty.

It’s all joyous silliness, as a My Little Pony movie should be, packed with clean humor and pony puns.

Instead, the story is largely told from Dahmer’s perspective, and we know too much about where he ends up to feel anything like sympathy for him. It’s still a morbidly fascinating peek behind the blood-stained curtains.

Pfeiffer may be stripped of her luminosity, but she is vivid onscreen.

The whole range of human emotion — love, lust, anger, jealousy, despair, grief — is felt through Plympton's animation. It's just a shame that his boundless creativity doesn't extend to the narrative.

It's adorable. It's also very thin. There's a disconcerting literalism to the songs' dramatic representation that chokes the drama.

This is not a flat and lifeless biopic in which a creation loses a bit of its wonder in the dissection of its inspiration. “Becoming Astrid” sidesteps that pitfall by focusing on the writer’s painful passage into womanhood, telling an intimate and unhurried story of quiet triumph over pain.

It makes for a unique sort of concert film, but also a weaker one. It would have been better if it had dispensed with the frail narrative or else committed to being completely bananas. But as die-hard Metallica fans well know, a little buffoonery is worth weathering for the main attraction.

Goodbye Christopher Robin is an emotionally layered story about failures in parenting that gave rise to one of our most enduring joys.

Point and Shoot is a fascinating, frequently frustrating documentary.

It’s safe to say that Tickled is nothing like what its filmmakers set out to make. That's an artistic blessing.

Queen & Slim is strongest when it lets the images and the acting do the lion’s share of the talking.

When it reaches its boiling point, Les Misérables absolutely roils.

Brittany is funny and authentic, but she can also be prickly and stubborn, even hard to like. You know, the way real people are.

“Last Black Man” pulses with undeniable energy and the promise of other, even better films to come. As director Joe Talbot’s first movie, it’s impossible to imagine it will be his last.

Burton reins in his worst impulses, bad habits that he’s been cultivating for over a decade, to make a wickedly dark children’s movie that is, finally, blessedly, fun to look at.

It’s clever. It’s also occasionally a chore to watch, true to the boredom you’d expect to feel listening to computer programmers hash out chess logistics.

A cunning civics lesson about religious pluralism that will have civic-minded citizens throwing up the devil horns even if they’re not quite ready to proclaim mocking allegiance to Satan.

When the material falters, Sumpter and Sawyers suck you back in with their pitch-perfect performances.

First Love might not ultimately mean much, but its wily mix of colorful elements – romance, organized crime, slapstick and ultra-violence – makes for a bracingly weird cinematic experience.

Dom Hemingway is a naughty good time while it lives up to the unpredictable bawdiness of its opening line.

For all its heart and beauty, The Breadwinner sputters a bit to a close. Its themes are undeniable — one walks away feeling angry and empowered. But with the story’s soft focus, one soon forgets why.

You’ve heard this song before and can predict all the emotional high notes before they hit, but sometimes that’s all you need from a summer bop.

Foxtrot is far too interior to be called flashy, but there’s something striking in director Samuel Maoz’s visual confidence, the way he translates his characters’ states of mind into images.