Christy Lemire

The film we need right now, from a filmmaker we need right now: French writer/director Coralie Fargeat, who makes her stunning feature debut with a rape-revenge fantasy that’s as brutal as it is thrilling.

It is the kind of movie you watch on an airplane — perhaps on the way to someplace luxurious and relaxing like the South of France, the film’s setting — while falling in and out of naps.

Moana would have been enormously entertaining regardless of when it came out, but its arrival at this particular moment in history gives it an added sense of significance—as well as inspiration.

Writer-director Frank Berry’s film never devolves into melodrama – if anything, it may be understated to a fault – but he grounds her plight in an authentic mixture of daily frustrations and sporadic joys.

The documentary from directors Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes briskly tells the story of The Jane Collective, which helped thousands of women obtain abortions when they were still illegal in the late 1960s and early ‘70s...the story of their daring remains frighteningly relevant nearly 50 years later as it appears that Roe is increasingly in jeopardy, providing an undercurrent of tension throughout.

Entertaining and richly sourced documentary.

The clever details, amusing name-drops, and precisely pointed digs at vapid celebrity culture keep Johnson’s movie zippy when it threatens to drag.

Part of the allure of The Guardians comes from the casting: The radiant, real-life mother and daughter Baye and Smet play mother and daughter Hortense and Solange.

This is a movie that gleefully wallows in the ooey-gooey muck of its insane premise. Similar to “Cocaine Bear” and “M3GAN” (but not quite as successful), Slotherhouse knows exactly what it is and revels in increasingly hilarious violence.

Finally, a woman — Sophie Barthes — has directed and co-written a film version of Madame Bovary, but strangely, that doesn’t result in any more richness or enlightenment.

Holofcener finds both humor and wisdom within the complexity of her cringe comedy, providing rich fodder for conversations afterward. If anything, You Hurt My Feelings might be a little too short; it’s so well-paced and engrossing it just zips by.

It’s a visual feast that succeeds as both a gleeful escape and a battle cry.

Boy and the World is dazzlingly colorful and alive, often resembling a more elaborate version of the kind of childlike drawings you probably have stuck to your refrigerator door right now.

It’s impossible to watch Introducing, Selma Blair and not feel deeply moved.

Swedish director Björn Runge’s approach is no-nonsense and workmanlike, perhaps to give these esteemed actors room to swagger and shine, but a bit more imagination and artistry wouldn’t have hurt.

Slapstick mishaps and—ultimately—feel-good triumph of sorts ensue, with plenty of perky training montages in between.

Midnight Traveler might have carried an even greater emotional wallop if we had a greater understanding of the feelings of the filmmaker whose work has endangered the lives of the people he loves most.

Bad Education also calls to mind the great Alexander Payne film “Election,” with its students who are smarter and savvier than you’d expect and teachers who aren’t as mature and responsible as you’d hope. Finley actually could have used a bit more of Payne’s sharp bite in tackling this material.

What begins in lively and vibrant fashion as the title would suggest gets bogged down in a literal and figurative swamp in Vivo.

Hustlers as a whole is a blast.

All these elements come together with a delicate tonal balance that would have been difficult even for veteran filmmakers to achieve. See “Twinless” with your other half, whoever they may be. This is a movie you’ll want to talk through with someone afterward.

While Puzzle adheres to a bit of a formula in depicting her character’s path of self-discovery, it’s filled with vivid details and lovely grace notes along the way.

There are life lessons here to be learned and shared, for sure. But the film moves with such thrilling pacing it feels more like a celebration.

Part of what’s refreshing about “A Different Man,” though, is that it never condescends to Edward—never treats him as magical or noble, the way many films do in depicting characters with disabilities.

Veteran French director Anne Fontaine approaches a spiritually and emotionally complex real-life slice of history with deftness and understated drama in The Innocents.

Depression is such a personal, intangible, mystifying phenomenon. Signe Baumane tries to make sense of it in unexpected fashion — through colorful animation and dark humor — with Rocks in My Pockets.

With I, Daniel Blake, Loach is using the medium for one of its most crucial purposes: to shine a light on injustices he sees all around him, as well as on our capacity for human decency.

It’s charmingly funny and shamelessly punny.