Barry Hertz

“SEE THE MOVIE THAT NO AUDIENCE CAN OUTLAST!” – after actually taking in The Painted Bird, I can confirm that the horror more or less matches the headlines.

There is real emotion and purpose pumped into the tiny picture – it has a heart as big as its title character is small.

Waititi (who’s also responsible for the best comedy of 2015, "What We Do in the Shadows," and will next tackle the third "Thor" film) executes a series of deft narrative U-turns, twisting the tale into 101 minutes of pure comic joy.

Radwanski creates a visceral, impossible-to-ignore document of one man’s fraught reality. It is creative, bold and even dangerous filmmaking.

Bros is a genuinely hilarious, wonderful movie: heartfelt, slick and crafted with such careful comedic care that a good deal of jokes will inevitably be drowned out by audiences still laughing over the punchlines that came just before.

For those looking for a brash new entry in the cinematic landscape, Operation Avalanche is an almost otherworldly gift. The best part of all: No one had to die. I think.

As audiences, we lean toward demanding a near-constant auditory assault – that if we’re not hearing something, we’re missing something. Director Kelly Reichardt has no qualms with upending this, and other pieces of conventional cinematic wisdom with First Cow, a film that takes great care to remind us of the whisper-quiet bones of America’s history – a time when there wasn’t much to hear except what nature was telling us.

A movie perfectly engineered for home viewing. Particularly with the best set of headphones that you own.

The homages that Edwards and his co-writer Chris Weitz make are honest, and instead of stealing the best ideas of other films, The Creator uses them as the source code to create a next-generation story that is pure, foot-on-the-gas entertainment.

A riotous and gleefully delirious assault on the senses. It is vulgar. It is absurd. And it is completely enthralling.

The Painter and the Thief might be the best documentary of the year, if it could be fairly called a documentary. Instead, director Benjamin Ree’s film is more a mesmerizing, and potentially transgressive, investigation into just how far the documentary form can be torn apart and put back together – and whether the audience should accept such a wild reconfiguration.

Maison du bonheur is a thoughtful, affecting study of the space we choose to take up in this world, and what happens when we grow old enough to realize the truth and consequences of those decisions.

In nearly every way Civil War represents the dizzying heights of the genre.

Extraordinarily gross, metaphorically blunt, but also perversely and wildly entertaining, the new Spanish splatter satire The Platform is the perfect movie to watch while the world seemingly teeters on the edge of existence.

There are performances that shock you, that ground you, and that break you apart before building you back up. It is not often when an actor is able to deliver all of those reactions and more in the span of two hours, yet here is Vanessa Kirby proving herself as one of the most capable and ferociously talented stars of the moment.

Brought to life with a smooth and almost restrained kind of animation – all rounded edges and frames designed to breathe, rather than hyperactively cram in as much action as possible – and paced with a confident speed, Orion and the Dark will charm and entrance.

The film hits a truly unexpected high when it introduces Daniel Craig's bank-vault expert Joe Bang, an imprisoned force of comic fury whose unhinged performance elevates Logan Lucky above any notions of genre shtick. Good luck keeping that one locked up.

A sensual and heady stew of romance, family drama, police procedural, political polemic and ghost story, Atlantics marks the debut of a ferocious talent in Diop.

It is beautiful, delirious, frustrating and so wedded to that film-critic notion of the unimpeachable “Kaufman-esque” sensibility that there is little point in arguing with its power, with its immeasurable impact. It works, even (especially?) when it’s not supposed to.

The no-contest wildest comedy of the season, will keep your mind busy for weeks.

A twisty, cerebral drama that just happens to involve aliens, Denis Villeneuve’s film is a truly beguiling take on both the sci-fi canon and what, exactly, a grown-up Hollywood film is supposed to be.

Villeneuve (Prisoners, Incendies) once again proves he can craft a gripping tale that never collapses under its own moral weight. Sicario is not an easy film to watch, but it is a riveting and essential one.

Although sometimes dizzying and disorienting, the visual language of Between the Temples is relentlessly alive, with the camera never considering-slash-allowing for the possibility that its audiences’ eyes might wander.

This is a near-masterpiece, an intimate and nerve-wracking shocker that deserves as big an audience as the mystery box can conjure.

Alternately deploying twisty monologues and quick back-and-forth exchanges, Montague and Sanger are clearly having a ball. They’re not only riffing on obvious inspirations like Orson Welles’s "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast and "Twilight Zone" mastermind Rod Serling, but also the modern ubiquity of podcasts, and their propensity for devolving into audio fabulism.

There is a distinct, and welcome, lack of sentimentality here, too, with Baumbach able to swerve the tone into a more cerebral version of National Lampoon’s Vacation franchise, of all things. Imagine if Clark Griswold studied fascism and carried around a teeny-tiny pistol, and you’ll start to get the idea.

Slipping in references to everyone from Kubrick to Fellini, Gray creates a truly intoxicating experience, overwhelming in the best possible way. It is this close to being an all-time classic, if only Charlie Hunnam’s central performance as Fawcett didn’t slip out of Gray’s period trappings every now and then (you can’t help but wonder what Gray’s long-time collaborator, Joaquin Phoenix, would have done with the role).

It's fierce, it's lean, it's mean, and it has at least three first-pumping "Hell, yeah!" moments.

At times, it approaches self-parody, but that’s just Woo having some much-needed fun.

The Love Witch handily achieves its goals, employing Biller’s strong sense of retro style and Robinson’s wink-wink performance to deliver a subversive homage to a host of out-of-fashion genres.

The film’s many tiny dramas add up to a thoughtful, though sometimes shaggy, study of hopes and regrets, aspirations and reality. It is not groundbreaking, but it is funny and sad and completely relatable.

A documentary as inspiring as it is flat-out bizarre.

A terrifying, pitch-black kind of horror movie that takes up residence in your mind for days, even weeks later – but it is also a family film.

Elvis is as much a ride following the highs and lows of the musician’s fabulously rich and sad life as it is a one-way journey into the extremities of its director’s exhaustive imagination. For better, and worse.

Demanding a full audience of sickos to unlock the film’s true communal madness, Dicks: The Musical is destined for midnight-movie deification. Worship its transgressive power, or denounce it as unholy. The film thankfully offers no in-between.

Arnett delivers something warm and genuine here, especially every time he’s paired against Dern, who perhaps knows this territory better.

Moondi’s film feels of a piece with his previous work – films in which relationships are tested and almost pulverized – while also pushing into new, more emotionally complex territory.

Misha and the Wolves is as much a documentary as it is a wrestling match: filmmaker versus subject, truth versus fiction. Ultimately, the viewer comes out the winner.

Miller’s go-for-broke visuals and his stars’ fiercely committed work allow Three Thousand to speed by on wit, energy, and gushy, bleeding-heart passion.

Whereas the directors’ last project, the Oscar-winning free-climbing doc Free Solo, chronicled an open-air kind of anxiety, The Rescue is a claustrophobic exercise in tension, expertly assembled for maximum emotional impact.

Leave it to a robot to break our puny human hearts.

The Way of Water is the kind of tremendously entertaining, spectacularly ambitious, not-a-little-bit-silly epic that only James Cameron can, and should, make.

There are so many elements that seduce and beguile – including the rusted-out Brutalism of the Li Tolqan prison where the cloning procedure takes place, and Goth’s supremely unhinged work as James’s seductress, a performance more Looney Tunes than human – that the entire thing swallows you whole. There is no more delightful way to drown.

Once you surrender yourself to what King Richard is doing, and what it’s not doing, that’s okay. It’s especially easy to shut up and go along with whatever rosy view the Williams family wishes to preserve because Smith is here the whole time, helping sell the story.

Regrettably, both director and star are constantly fighting uphill battles in Till, which is saddled with a thoroughly conventional screenplay whose narrative energies only rarely attempt to match the incendiary intensity of the history that it obviously cares so much about retelling.

The real charm of Boxcutter is just how Dahya and his cinematographer James Klopko capture the city as Rome criss-crosses it. Without jackhammering the point home, the film’s vision of Toronto is one of a city shedding one skin to wear another, in the process forcing all the creative forces who make it so special further and further outside its boundaries.

Director Michael Sarnoski’s feature debut is more like a Nicolas Cage supercut: alternately ridiculous, bare-bones, heartfelt, puzzling and what-in-god’s-name-y. And more often than not, it works.

If you want a movie to nail-gun you to your seat, then you must visit Greenland.

Although the movie’s energies dip slightly toward its end, when Mia’s plan to rid the world of the cursed hand requires superhuman acts of strength and derring-do, Talk to Me delivers a series of slash-and-burn shocks that last far longer than 90 seconds.

The jokes arrive fast and plentifully, knowing just what will tickle both younger viewers and adults.

The real trick of the film, though, is how it constantly steadies itself in the face of ever-mounting absurdity. This is a movie of such sexual outrageousness and stylized depravity that it should topple over every few minutes. And yet Glowicki and Petrie (who plays multiple roles) ride the razor’s edge of delirium to create something fantastical, even beautiful.

At almost every turn, Project Hail Mary attempts to convince you that it is groundbreaking, innovative filmmaking. But in actuality, the movie lands as a grand act of cinematic recycling – the fusing together of familiar, comforting bits and pieces into something determined to please crowds and warm hearts.

Frankie Freako is designed to melt your brain. The only question is whether you might welcome such cerebral liquefaction or not.

The actor is as engaging and captivating as ever on-screen as Adonis, yet he’s just as present and committed behind the camera, delivering a stirring string of heartwarming and jaw-breaking moments that add up to something if not exactly unique, than certainly rousing, effective and entertaining.

Simply but smoothly animated, and featuring no dialogue whatsoever, director Pablo Berger’s film is a charming fable that rides the line between sentimentality and schmaltz just right.

If you can walk away from a movie with a tune in your heart and a bounce in your step, then it’s safe to say that the film clicked in just the ways that were intended.

Prey is exactly the type of late-summer nastiness that deserves to be enjoyed with fellow hooters and hollerers. But by this point, Predator fans are used to playing the victim.

40 Acres is a top-tier genre film that Trojan-horses a flood of knotty, provocative conversations into multiplexes via the best kind of speculative fiction.

In terms of musical-theatre bona fides and genuine, soaring emotion, Tick, Tick … Boom! drowns out its contemporaries all the way up to the rafters.

The familiar and facile elements are drowned out – often, and loudly – by the impeccable comedic talents of Hill and Murphy, two performers whose very different styles clash and complement one another.

Denis Villeneuve’s Dune is, at its best moments, pure and gigantic cinematic madness.

The deeper that Resurrection goes, the more that Gan’s vision delicately, meticulously, and, of course, slowly envelopes you, no matter your level of comprehension.

Joy Ride is as fantastically filthy as they come, providing enough glorious gags about gagging to carry audiences through the cold, hard winter to come.

The many stumbling blocks, setbacks and eventual (spoiler alert for a three-quarters-of-a-century-old war) triumphs of Operation Mincemeat are handled by a deft crew of real-life stiff-upper-lip types played by the finest U.K. actors working today.

This is a picture as severe as the real-life generational abuse that its director is chronicling, even if a few false steps mean that The Iron Claw ultimately lands as a technical knock-out.

Safdie recognizes that The Smashing Machine is a single-purpose invention, one built to run on the blood, sweat and sometimes even the tears of Dwayne Johnson. Consider the act of watching the movie a double dose of cinematic benevolence: rewarding yourself, and saving the star from his own worst Hollywood instincts. Two birds, one Rock.

Ultimately, The Promised Land is a testament to not only the resilience of Denmark’s agricultural homesteaders . . . but also to the fierce power of Mikkelsen’s presence.

Mostly, Falling succeeds because Mortensen is playing by his own uncompromising rules. The result is a vision that may grate, but will never be lost to memory

The director wisely dives with her whole heart and soul into Goldin’s life, which makes seeing her almost destroyed by an addiction to painkillers so painful. And then, when Goldin resurrects her energies into waging a David versus Goliath war, there is a distinct sense of against-all-odds triumph that hits hard, and lingers long.

Bring Her Back feels less like a movie than a finely tuned instrument of doom. In the devilish hands of Australian filmmaking brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, evil has been concentrated into an exceptionally and impressively nasty 104 minutes.

It is all such gloriously smart stupidity that you cannot help but applaud everyone involved for sticking the landing.

By the time Marguerite’s chapter concludes, laying bare the wrenching source of the story’s tensions, The Last Duel will have you in the palm of its calloused hand, whether you like it or not. It is as ambitious and memorable and impressively messy a storytelling experiment as major-studio films come these days.

Thanks to Lee’s smooth construction and her performers’ carefully calibrated performances – Beirne is particularly engaging in a role that doesn’t automatically earn sympathy – it all clicks together.

If family is everything to the Fast & Furious films – as lead lunkhead Vin Diesel would surely posit – then Fast X is a nuclear family reunion that goes atomic.

It is tender, true and – depending on your interpretation, or understanding, of the finale – intensely heartbreaking.

Atkins, a multidisciplinary artist, proudly doesn’t obey the almost obligatory rhythms of documentary filmmaking. There are no talking heads, no manufactured narrative momentum.

Rapp, who originated the role of Regina on Broadway, is a force-of-nature knockout, honouring but not imitating Rachel McAdams’s beautiful bullying from the first film with a sly kind of menace.