Chris Barsanti

Alexandre O. Philippe’s essay film is both dead-serious about its subjects and playfully exploratory.

It draws on the giddily rules-trampling pre-war mood as Chicago. But while its protagonists are as driven by a desire for fame and money as the amoral starlets of the Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse musical, the film has more than grinning cynicism at its core.

Where “Becoming Cousteau” frustrates at times is its thin treatment of Cousteau’s work. The films and shows are represented with plentiful footage but not truly discussed or differentiated. It’s an odd choice, given Cousteau’s cinematic obsession.

Questlove’s Summer of Soul is as much an essential music documentary as it is a public service.

The true drama in the admissions scandal is not the ringleader or the celebrities and hedge-fund magnates who hired him but what this Hunger Games scenario means for all the children whose parents cannot afford his services.

John Maggio’s documentary is workmanlike in presentation but scintillating in its content.

The film views the love of food and romance as all one singular desire for everything beautiful and fleeting in life.

While Ilker Çatak’s The Teacher’s Lounge makes full use of the dramatic possibilities inherent in its setting, it doesn’t exceed its remit by turning the story into a referendum on society.

The films collected in A New Generation speak for themselves even when they don’t necessarily slot neatly into Mark Cousins’s curlicue thinking.

The film’s fantastical meta-commentaries don’t completely cohere but have a winning go-for-it audaciousness.

This is a finely observed and good-natured piece of work that carries some of the creative angst of Bradley Cooper’s other films but without the need to convince us of its main character’s genius.

It incorporates addiction, age-inappropriate romance, mental illness, and terminal disease into its plot without collapsing into a movie-of-the-week black hole.

The film serves as both caustic update to Victor Hugo’s monolithic novel and cautionary tale about the future.

Werner Herzog’s documentary is a rare example of the arch ironist’s capacity to be awed not by nature but by man.

The film looks at times like a stiff-jawed period piece, but it ripples underneath with a prickly modern sensibility.

A thin but heartfelt piece of work ... But with Ferrara content to let his subject mostly drive the show and not impose more of an authorial vision and context that could have created a grander narrative about the history of moviegoing in New York, the passion is missing.

The film deals forthrightly with the question of purpose and whether or not it can be found in a career.

Alison Klayman’s fly-on-the-wall documentary cuts Trump’s Rasputin down to size but doesn’t completely dismiss his power.

The film’s concession to the fungible nature of presented reality comes across not as indecisive but courageous.

This sharp, to-the-point portrait of the crook, fixer, and right-wing pitbull resists the urge to darkly glamorize him.

Ridley Scott’s medieval saga insightfully revels in the complexities of its competing storylines.

A sickened rage and psychological nuance courses through every meticulously arranged frame of the film.

While John Trengrove’s skill is apparent in the slow build of tension, it also stands out in the arguably more impressive way that he holds Ralphie’s view of the world separate from that of the film’s.

The film is affectingly poignant in its frequently uncomfortable presentation of Shane MacGowan’s physical ruination.

Once Taghi Amirani turns his attention to the coup itself, his film snaps into shape, with Walter Murch skillfully knitting together new and old interviews to lay out the story in highly dramatic form.

The documentary is determined not to be a typical rock-god story with predictable rise-and-fall arcs.

Shaka King’s film, anchored by two sterling lead performances, complicates the expected narrative of martyrdom.

Despite hanging back at times too much for its own good, Mayor remains a fascinating portrait of what city politics look like under extreme conditions.