Bill Stamets

This moving, Oscar-nominated documentary is an odyssey of a tragic observer.

Algren admirer Kurt Vonnegut, a novelist and a Long Island neighbor, called the Chicago exile ”the loneliest man I ever knew.” Caplan and Mueller invite viewers to befriend this contrary figure.

Michael Caplan’s Algren is a beguiling appreciation of the novelist, reporter and essayist.

[Kirby Dick's] new documentary enrages, yet makes its case in an even-tempered manner.

Hogtown is the most original film made in Chicago about Chicago to date.

Resisting screen rules is Godard’s forte.

The masterful script deals with telling words.

Servillo charms in his dual turn, then takes it up a notch when one brother shows off his childhood knack for impersonating his look-alike.

A paean to creative impulses, this work channels the vision of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi.

This thoughtful film is designed with taste. Music is minimal. Cuing a little Nine Inch Nails at the end, Poitras enables “citizenfour” to commit an act of reverse surveillance on the NSA.

Level Five (1996) is a poetic if occasionally opaque film essay on the 1945 Battle of Okinawa.

This understated documentary, though, has no agenda to shame any one family or agency.

Writer-director Hiroyuki Okiura, however, does not match the high expectations for story and design set by other Japanese animators.

Puenzo’s initial premise is more promising, though, than her sensational tone.

Filmmaker Todd Douglas Miller unfortunately adopts the format of prime-time docu-tainment.

In the introspective The Last Sentence Swedish director Jan Troell invokes ’50’s and ’60’s Swedish cinema: masterly black-and-white cinematography, philosophical angst, a lifeless marriage and loved ones visiting from the afterlife.

A disquieting film about testing faith.

Instead of venturing outside Outpost Restrepo, we hear what the soldiers feel about their 15-month deployment.

Supermensch sells the impression that its subject is a genuinely good guy.

Despite our narrow angle on Nepal, Manakamana peers into lives at close range.

Snappy graphics channel the info flow like a sugar rush. Scary music cues are overused. Narrator Katie Couric wisely stays offscreen. That keeps Fed Up from feeling like an Oprah special.

Ida reaches spiritual depth through affecting performances rendered in sublime black-and-white compositions.

Lovingly detailed with animated and archival imagery, For No Good Reason shares the fine-grain layered style of its subject.

Focusing on Rumsfeld’s 2001-06 stint at the Pentagon, Morris scrutinizes his rhetoric and rationale for attacking Iraq and Afghanistan. Tactics and costs take a back seat to semantics.

Jim Jarmusch stocks his latest low-key indie with more than his usual characters in low-velocity drift. The Akron-born auteur infuses the title couple of Only Lovers Left Alive with his taste for culture, if not cuisine.

Gripping and at times agonizing.

[A] diverting documentary.

This late adulthood lark is a treat.