Carlos Aguilar

It’s through the alchemy of cinema that the Davies brothers have carried out a resurrection of a soul now frozen intact on the screen.

Less vibrant and proficiently pleasant, the new “Lilo & Stitch” only serves as a reminder to revisit the superior hand-drawn version.

The spontaneity with which the majority of the events seem to occur renders Left-Handed Girl all the more impressive.

All of Mendonça Filho’s aesthetic, genre proclivities, and ideological concerns coalesce in this larger period canvas.

There’s plenty to flinch (or even gag) at when directors Danny and Michael Philippou spill some blood , and Sally Hawkins and young Jonah Wren Phillips commit to the intensity of their roles, but the decidedly unanswered questions posed by the plot contribute to some dissatisfaction

Nonnas repeatedly drives home its point about the unifying force of a homecooked meal as an embodiment of community, and even as it overcrowds its narrative pot with too many unnecessary condiments that get lost in the mix, the result is ultimately palatable.

Said maintains plausibility throughout, never plotting far-fetched tribulations, but just outrageous enough to cause the viewer to cringe nervously.

That spirit-crushing feeling of powerlessness is what director Nabulsi aims to fend off, admittedly through not always effective narrative means, but with emotional sincerity nonetheless.

The King of Kings is a serviceable if uninspired take on a story told countless times in just as varied formats.

One of the most necessary and scorching pieces of nonfiction storytelling in recent memory, “The Falling Sky” offers no comfort and points fingers with a ferocious righteousness as we stare into the abyss of the inescapable environmental catastrophe so-called “developed nations” have wrought.

Taut yet thoroughly laced with levity, Black Bag plays like the filmic equivalent of a skillfully executed espionage mission in how tight and exact it feels.

This sophomore directorial effort proves Clapin’s adept hand for soulful, existentialist tales with an offbeat touch, regardless of the medium he’s creating in.

Steeped in both unfaltering and pleasant humanity, Vargas’ characters are what some might deem “problematic.” But they ultimately depict complicated mentalities, with shades of true-to-life negative and redeeming traits.

Through the eyes of its delightfully brave, yet utterly relatable subject (also the de facto cinematographer), this terrifying, revelatory and poignant exposé offers an unseen human angle on an ongoing conflict that’s continues to be widely addressed in documentary cinema.

More contained than “Strawberry Mansion” but with similarly expansive ideas, “Obex” feels opportune for the modern era.

With The Things You Kill Khatami turns in an absorbing and twisty take on introspection.

While occasionally heavy on exposition, memorable dialogue thrives via the actors’ convincingly comfortable banter.

“Ochi” oozes wonder shot after shot, in part from the eye-popping environments produced through a combination of Evan Prosofsky’s lambent cinematography and the use of matte paintings.

Between Borders runs on didactic writing that renders the Petrosyans’ plight into a derivative period drama.

A humble marvel, Omaha introduces a filmmaker with a privileged sensibility to translate these opposing forces into a tapestry of scenes imbued with loving compassion for the characters experiencing them.

I’m Still Here brilliantly distills an agonizing chapter of a nation’s recent past into a sophisticated portrait of communal endurance.

In “Pepe,” a formally imaginative and thought-igniting experimental docufiction, Dominican director Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias molds the real-life events around the hippos imported by notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar into an exciting, visually unpredictable consideration of colonialism and human hubris tinged with the fantastic.

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.

Rather than simplistically lionizing the frikis, the directors honor their plight by portraying them as an example of how the human spirit perseveres even when nearly crushed.

Sight gags baked into the production design (the books the Gromit reads or the signs that populate the sets) and gnome puns aplenty make for a ride in which every frame packs a dense layer of comedy, at times conspicuous, others not so much.

Though it leaves one wanting for more hard-hitting, confrontational exchanges with Payá, “Night Is Not Eternal” evinces the road to change as winding, perilous, and far from immaculate.

This sequel doesn’t merit a sing-along and does little to expand on what we already knew about Moana and her friends.

More effective as an aspirational exercise than as a piece of inspired cinema, Say a Little Prayer fulfills the promise of showing Latinos under a different socioeconomic light from what has existed in mainstream media in the past, but not much else.