Bill Goodykoontz

The Shape of Water is a fantasy, a myth, a fairy tale, all that.

It Comes at Night is soaked in uncertainty. It makes us uncomfortable because we want answers and can’t have them. And if there’s anyone who knows how to make an audience uncomfortable, it’s writer and director Trey Edward Shults.

In the hands of three gifted actors — Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen and Carrie Coon — it is a beautiful film, one of the best of the year.

Throughout the film Famuyiwa, who also wrote the script, uses split screens and backs up the film and jumps around and freezes the action, but he's not showing off. He uses these techniques to tell his story, and doesn't overuse them to the point of annoyance.

Frank is a true original, a film that heads in one direction only to veer off in another, yet never loses sight of where it's going.

It's a fine line between being gratingly self-conscious and really smart; more times than not, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl comes out on the winning side of that equation.

In addition to the performances — truly, everyone is good — what stands out is Sachs' direction. It's measured, patient. The scenes play out as one imagines the characters' lives would.

David O. Russell's film makes use of some terrific performances - Christian Bale is brilliant, as is Melissa Leo, even by their lofty standards.

My interpretation is that it’s a scary, funny film with a lot beneath the surface. And it’s certainly preferable to watching the news.

There is not a frame of The Power of the Dog, based on the Thomas Savage novel, that isn’t essential to the movie. This includes the first and certainly the last.

There is so much love and understanding of all the genres the film is skewering that What We Do in the Shadows transcends its lowbrow inspirations. It's a real treat.

McBaine and Moss expertly build tension leading toward the election. Last-minute surprises and frustratingly cynical attacks only increase the edge-of-your-seat aspect of the film.

It's a joy to watch Beckinsale attack the material — Lady Susan is one of those people whose interest in themselves and their own well-being is so great that it becomes contagious.

What Rukun wants, one suspects, is closure. What he gives the rest of us is a face in which to see the pain the butchers caused, a reminder that the architects of a massive tragedy remain present and unrepentant, the personification of the evil men do and a warning that it could happen again.

Olsen makes us understand, as best we can, Martha's plight. She has a tenuous grip on reality, and, thanks to Olsen's performance and Durkin's sure hand, by the film's end, so do we.

This is one of the strangest yet most satisfying movie experiences of the year, one of those films in which you can’t really appreciate what you’ve seen until it’s over. You just have to trust that the trip is worth the trouble. And it is.

A host of British acting royalty, meanwhile, roams around the film: Derek Jacobi as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Claire Bloom as Queen Mary, Timothy Spall as Winston Churchill and so on.

Only Yesterday is a mature work of art, no matter what the genre, no matter what the format, no matter what.

Kaufman and King somehow give felt puppets an independence they might otherwise have lacked. How? The magic of movies, I guess. Or, more likely, the magic of Kaufman’s mind.

Its images are classic, its story immediate and urgent. That's a pretty vital combination.

The acting is outstanding all the way around. But Stewart is brilliant. She looks, sounds and moves amazingly like the real Diana, but this is no impersonation. Instead it’s Stewart getting to the heart of the truth through her performance, her Diana a prisoner of the fame and adherence to tradition at all costs that trapped her.

There is so much beauty in Monster, and so much sadness.

Spare, haunting and in its own way beautiful, Ida is an absorbing film about discovering the truth, and the attendant price we pay to learn it.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a terrific film, if you give yourself to it. You should, because, with Amirpour's blending of influences and pop culture, she has created a true original.

Paul Schrader’s First Reformed is an amazing examination of faith, a film that stays with you long after you have left the theater.

Leave No Trace is a beautiful film, heartbreaking in the self-awareness — both existing and burgeoning — of its characters.

It’s a sumptuous movie, with gorgeous cinematography (also by Dweck and Kershaw). It won’t necessarily make you want to rush out and pay a fortune for truffles to shave over your eggs. But it will make you appreciate people whose love for something has so fully informed their lives.