Ben Kenigsberg

It shows how the lingering disputes of war ripple through lives after guns have ostensibly been laid down.

The movie has the pleasingly demented texture of early Tim Burton. It bears the logo of Steven Spielberg’s Amblin company and is seen from a Spielbergian child’s-eye view.

in covering the repercussions of the branching cases, A Crime on the Bayou shows how superficially straightforward, courageous acts — like refusing to plead guilty unjustly or defending the unjustly accused — are hard.

It seems best to view Serendipity as one component of a much bigger project (a book on Nourry’s work with the same title was published in 2017) — a body of work in which life and art are inseparable.

First and foremost, the movie, written by Nicole Taylor and directed by Tom Harper, is a superb showcase for Jessie Buckley. Doing her own singing, Buckley is a rich, startling vocalist who if anything seems to under-excite the crowds she performs for.

Dancing in the Dust shows Farhadi’s early confidence with using framing and cutting to create tension and parallels — skills that would serve him later.

The harms conversion therapy causes, and the tactics it uses, aren’t news at this point, and Pray Away is more interesting when it focuses on how most of its subjects eventually embraced gay and bisexual identities despite having formerly been so public in their homophobia. Some shifts weren’t long ago.

The adventure plot in the Brazilian feature Tito and the Birds, directed by Gustavo Steinberg, Gabriel Bitar, and André Catoto, is no great shakes — it wouldn’t be out of place on a Saturday-morning cartoon — but visually, the movie leaves room for the viewer to synthesize, and to dream.

They Remain, directed, edited and scripted by Philip Gelatt, from a short story by Laird Barron, shows that it’s possible to a make an engrossing genre piece on limited resources.

Riegel has said that Ruth’s story was inspired by her own challenges leaving the area. Even the medium — Super 16-millimeter film, in the era of digital — adds to the ambience of rusting, abandoned machinery.

Audrie & Daisy is strongest when it investigates what it regards as shortcomings of justice, for reasons technical and implied.

In Maryam Touzani’s Adam, certain stylistic choices — a muted palette, the absence of a melodramatic score, hand-held camerawork — help temper sentimentality with verisimilitude.

While not everything that Bock does is equally fascinating — a director’s personal connection to a subject can be both an advantage and a hindrance — a fair amount of it is endearing, even inspiring.

The real achievement here is in going beyond the buzzwords of newscasts and talking points to convey a sense of what’s happening on the ground — and to give it a sense of urgency.

My Father the Spy doesn’t have a tidy point to make, but it succeeds at bringing a turbulent reminiscence to life.

The Human Factor presents a cogent and involving view of the Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, mainly from 1991 until the end of Bill Clinton’s first term, told through the recollections of United States negotiators charged with brokering a peace.

Despite the film’s syrupy sweetness, it takes some risks ... and its relentless earnestness is tough to resist, even as the film sugarcoats intimations of real danger.

Absorbing and finely wrought, 1945 is not perfect.

You can’t beat the access or the clips, although the absence of Hudson (whom Roher apparently filmed) from the present-day interviews is peculiar. His voice might have provided a valuable counterpoint to Robertson’s recollections.

Antarctic Edge illustrates its points effectively, providing vivid evidence of how shrinking ice at the South Pole affects climates across the globe.

It can be tough to say whether the movie is productively or arbitrarily baffling, but it is never boring, and it achieves a balance between natural flow and purposefulness that suits its subject matter.

Marcus Vetter and Karin Steinberger’s sprawling documentary probably dives into the weeds too quickly and could have used a tighter edit. Still, drawing on a wealth of courtroom video, the film lays out a persuasive argument for reasonable doubt.

Although the odds of implementing all these ideas might seem steep, “2040” is a rare climate documentary with an optimistic message.

This debut feature from the Spanish-born director Miguel Llansó can’t claim a coherent mythology, but it has a lo-fi charm and humor.

The most barbed aspect of the movie, a National Geographic release, is its acknowledgment of the role that National Geographic itself has played in exoticizing groups like the North Sentinelese.

A close-range film about distance, the short, poignant documentary “I’m Leaving Now” unfolds like a character study.

A lovely ending makes up for the filmmakers’ giving this triangle one blunt side.

Entertaining enough that it leaves one wishing for more in the way of android mythology—a pint-sized Blade Runner or A.I. The screenplay goes on autopilot, grinding toward a happy ending just when it has a shot at something darker and more memorable.