Christian Gallichio

Transition works as both a personal accounting of Bryon’s journey and a fascinating exploration of how gender is treated within conservative societies. That the film can account for both, drawing out the parallels, schisms, and nuances that exist within a society that strongly believes in a gender binary, is something of a minor miracle.

It doesn’t always work as a coherent whole, but The Amusement Park is still a fascinating experiment from a director at the height of his creative skills.

Brighton 4th might be slower and lack the dramatic stakes of other films that dive into this type of criminal activity, it’s still a compelling and somewhat tangential portrait of the Eastern European community that exists in Brighton and features a great performance by Tediashvili, in his first film role.

It’s a weird movie, to be sure, but never an off-putting one. It’s also one that sometimes feels like a chimera itself, pushing various genres and ideas together without fully synthesizing them. But it’s consistently beautiful, watchable, and a truly memorable debut for Oren.

Akoka and Gueret split the difference, inviting the audience to consider the meta-ness of everything going on while really just making a compelling social-realist comedy about what happens when a film crew descends on a working-class town. That the filmmakers end up making the same film as Gabriel seems to be the point.

"Look at Me” provides a fascinating overview of Onfroy’s meteoric rise in the music industry, while also broadly touching on the various legal issues, including appalling allegations of abuse, that dogged his career.

Not only does Ostroy contextualize her life outside of filmmaking, but he also centralizes Shelly’s steady and progressive growth from actress-for-hire to independent filmmaking force, noting how creative autonomy allowed her to develop her own projects but also slowed down the development time in-between movies as she scraped together financing.

Often echoing a thriller — Logan Nelson’s nervy score doing a lot of the heavy lifting — Nothing Lasts Forever is both concise and wide-ranging.

Morris is at the stage of his career where everything he makes is both polished and interesting. But, in recent years, he’s oscillated between sweeping institutional exposés and zoomed-in portraits of characters. If anything, Separated again demonstrates that he’s at his best with the latter, as the documentary’s interests stretch far beyond its grasp.

“Until the Wheels Fall Off” may not, no pun intended, reinvent the wheel of sports documentaries. But it’s a compelling dive into skateboarding culture from 1980 onwards and helps to illustrate just how important Hawk was to legitimize the sport.

While not a complete portrait of Lightfoot, “If You Could Read My Mind” provides enough key insight into the musician to entertain those who are already fans and convert the others who perhaps haven’t heard of him.

If “Planet B” is less than a sum of its parts, ending before the Webb is launched, and lacking overall closure, it’s still a wonderfully observational portrait of exploration.

Nash’at may have started the filmmaking process looking for something resembling humanity in the Taliban fighters, but what he found instead was a shocking level of resolve that we, and the US military, underestimated.

Adopting a fly-on-the-wall approach that prioritizes Muñoz’s subjectivity — sometimes to a fault — Mija is nevertheless a personal and sincere portrait of Muñoz’s struggles, and her ability to adapt in the face of changing social and professional upheavals.

Red Moon Tide is obviously the work of a director willing to push the boundaries of visual narrative, but he doesn’t see that work fully through.

While 7 Days occasionally goes too broad in juxtaposing Ravi and Rita, sometimes pitting them as ideological binaries instead of fully realized characters capable of vacillating in ideas, the film more often than not allows them to develop and shift as they get to know each other.

The film, then, is a useful primer for historicizing and contextualizing the relationship between methods of social control and the rise of policing, both as an unchecked institution and a term associated with the history of the United States. One just wishes the film would slow down every once in a while.

For those willing to spend ninety-plus minutes with Herzog as he riffs on the wonders of space, “Fireball” is a heartfelt tribute to scientific exploration.

Somber, depressing, and ultimately a must-watch, “Four Hours” moves through that fateful day with precise clarity – toggling between the lawmakers and those within the mob as the situation grew increasingly dire.

It might not break new ground, but Babes is nevertheless something quite rare these days: both emotionally complex and hysterical. Adlon has perfected this form of comedic earnestness in her TV work; it’s a welcome move into feature filmmaking.

When the film is focused on showcasing Holiday, it’s a truly captivating documentary.

A portrait of an eccentric town that almost feels like a social experiment, just as much as it’s a murder mystery, Last Stop Larrimah is a shaggy, fascinating tale that marries Duplass Brothers-style absurdity (they act as producers here) with the ever-popular true-crime genre to pretty enthralling results.

Gods Of Mexico is a film less interested in breaking down its conceptual framework — or even pushing forward a fully realized thesis — than it is about creating a structured cinematic experience.

There’s simply too many stories to contain about the Chelsea, but “Dreaming Walls” does well to show how the ghosts of the residents past can, hopefully, inform the hotel’s future.

You Can Call Me Bill isn’t a travesty; hearing Shatner discuss his life is always fascinating. But instead, the film’s a missed opportunity to unpack one of the more enigmatic figures in our public consciousness.

While the story beats may not be surprising, Poser still acts as an impressive debut for not only the directors but also Mix and Kitten, who create a simmering tension between them.

As a showcase of her creative process, as well as a dive into the repetition of touring, it’s a loving tribute to the artist and an invitation to listen to more of her music.

While occasionally dipping into adulation, especially when Fine gently probes Wilson to speak about some aspect of his life, the film is an excellent primer for deeper dives into Wilson’s life and a lighthearted hang with a musical legend.