Carlos Aguilar

For all the technique that she demonstrates in Passing, it’s the way Hall mines praiseworthy turns from her cast that will earn her the most acclaim. Mannered in varying degrees, the actresses’ performances strike a delicate balance of emotional nuance and period-specific affectations.

As Colewell sinks in, it reveals itself as the cinematic equivalent of a deep exhale after having attained peace within.

Porous enough in their philosophical intent though as not to impose a strict meaning, and yet sufficiently potent to make us reassess our priorities, the array of interpersonal conflicts floating in the idiosyncratic “Blind Willow” feel like elegantly animated lucid dreams full of poetic imagery: far from realistic but viscerally truthful.

A gut-punch of a debut that examines race relations in America with unabashed force, Johnson’s present-day interpretation proves, disgracefully, how pertinent Wright’s text remains.

Measured in its pacing but never stagnant, The Chambermaid quietly fleshes out Eve’s subconscious with actions rather than words.

If “Palestine 36” is indeed a filmic history lesson, it’s one worth sitting through. That a traditionally realized historical drama with impeccable production value and consistently effective performances centers the Palestinian perspective makes for an essential endeavor.

Arrebato invokes cinema as an otherworldly entity that possesses, just as addictive and destructive as mind-altering substances injected into the bloodstream.

Amid the trauma that the co-leads undergo, Wang examines the rips and repairs in the connecting tissue between us and the people who, through their action or inaction, mold us into who we are.

Even if a wonder feels minor, it reminds us that everything that Cartoon Saloon invests their talents in results in open-hearted, warm, and affecting art that’s never saccharine but thematically matured in essential drops of wisdom.

If the director’s spell has taken hold as presumably intended, by the time the most outlandish touches appear, one has already surrendered to its visceral, chaotic allure.

Amid tableaus of sundrenched landscapes, Simón’s instinct for eliciting naturalistic performances—displayed in her feature debut “Summer 1993"—marries a remarkably stealth narrative structure that lets us into the lives of these people, collectively and individually.

Fashioned out of fresh faces unable to lie to the camera, “Playground” is a study in human behavior wrapped in equal parts fear and curiosity.

With its image folding onto itself like a wave in unstoppable motion, “The Human Surge 3” envelops the senses until the very end.

Though Sehiri’s third feature offers a seemingly minor concept, it’s certainly bountiful in its power to unearth the unspoken codes that reign over this community, where some men demand reverence from women solely for their gender-based status in the social hierarchy, where the notion of absolute loyalty to one’s extended family guides every decision, and where romantic companionship remains mostly transactional.

While the film loses some of its mesmerizing potency in the climax and subsequent wrap-up, it's still a beautiful and acute rendering of what could be if some of the most implausible lies we tell ourselves were in fact true.

Santambrogio’s extraordinary cast of non-professional actors convey a lived-in, personal, and impossible to fake connection to the pleasures, struggles and intricacies of life in Cuba.

Partly a tribute to the routine occurrences that collectively make a place feel like one belongs, Monica Sorelle’s delicately galvanizing slice-of-life debut “Mountains,” set in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood, overflows with such details.

As with plenty of memorable comedies, what makes “Dad & Step-Dad” a special treat is that beneath its well-mannered raunchiness and stoic silliness there’s an undercurrent of something truthful about the human condition.

For its lucid interpretation of the current global moment without surrendering to paralyzing despair, “Happyend” settles among the most unmissable films to hit U.S. theaters this year.

Mayor doesn’t feature an impassioned speech detailing the Palestinian people’s ardent plight for freedom because it doesn’t need one. Watching the confrontation in near real time, with lives on the line—a testimony to Hadid’s utmost commitment and hands-on leadership—conveys a forthright message.

While the clues of impending horror emerge long before this episode of camaraderie—signaled by Sune Kølster’s unnerving orchestral score from the opening frames—nothing can fully prepare you for the appalling dark places “Speak No Evil” is headed to.

To its mild detriment, Beginning stays on a cerebral plane even at its most ravaging and emotionally intense. But in its muted havoc lies a potent intellectual laceration.

This wickedly funny, blood-soaked portrait of a decaying tyrant hits streaming on the week of the 50th anniversary of Pinochet’s coup against President Allende. Larraín offers no false hopes about eradicating the ideologies that allowed it to happen and last. Instead, he warns that evil never truly perishes—it just transforms to poison new minds.

A hefty order of longing served with a side of crime thrills, Pig is flavorful, fascinating and fancy, crafted by someone who knows how to create a dish that’s accessible yet undeniably gourmet in its complexity.

Many of the mile-per-minute quips and hilariously biting remarks in Theater Camp will surely enter the collective consciousness once the general public has access to them.

Trueba excels at those well-meaning, exquisitely realized, vividly acted human dramas. “Memories” translates those sensibilities to South America, and even if the product can’t exactly be seen as rousing, one can’t entirely resist its affecting charm.

Pike, giving the kind of transformative performance that puts her squarely in the awards-season conversation, manifests Colvin’s brazen outspokenness with candor, and her irreparable brokenness via a cocktail of rage and subdued anxiety.

For a movie that appears to stop and start as it shifts its focus a few times too many, denying us longer introspection into its most magnetic man-to-man rapport, The Power of the Dog thrives on having actors so submerged in the fiction that they are creating a reality. Their subcutaneous labor translates what’s unsaid into fleeting but telling gestures.