Claire Shaffer

Javier Mariscal and Fernando Trueba’s They Shot the Piano Player is an astoundingly vibrant animated project, fitting for its subject matter.

The real nail in the coffin is the film’s messaging about the power of family, which is about as tacked-on and stilted as they come — hardly a shock in light of the rest of the Netflix holiday movie lineup.

Leo sometimes has trouble identifying its audience.

At barely 80 minutes (and ending with a musical number from Brandy), Best. Christmas. Ever! resembles a television holiday special more than a feature film, and its plot follows the predictable Christmastime themes of love, acceptance, and being thankful for what you’ve got.

Despite its title, You Were My First Boyfriend is at its most effective when Aldarondo moves beyond teen lust and into the more complicated aspects of her upbringing.

While it’s unlikely to join the rom-com pantheon, its charming leads and humorous truths do invoke the spirit of Ephron, to whom the film is dedicated. It’s a worthy tribute to her, delivered by perhaps the most qualified person to create one.

True to classic folklore, this is a story that delivers fantasy and queasiness in equal measure.

The film has no shame in being formulaic in plot or execution. Skye’s zero-to-hero plot arc is predictable as they come, though it’s easy to see why younger audiences may find it relatable.

The whole effort comes across more as an advertisement for Thomas’s genius — and Cousins’s obsession with him — than a true portrait of a discerning producer of outsider cinema.

Petersen’s bare-bones, on-the-ground production works well for a story like this, highlighting how vital these small workshops in homeless shelters and community centers can be.

The pacing of the film, set in the 1950s and directed by Michael Chaves, is too neat: It runs like haunted clockwork, shoving characters down dark alleyways or abandoned chapels every five minutes with little justification.

Predictability aside, Choose Love resembles less of a comforting rom-com than it does the forgone conclusion to streaming’s algorithm-powered media: a series of disconnected, shallow interactions, each leading to a different predetermined cliché.

Scrapper is tender without falling into sappiness.

Landscape With Invisible Hand mashes up the teen romantic comedy and alien-invasion horror genres to campy, mixed results.

Underneath its ridiculous framing and outer-space high jinks, “Jules” is full to the brim with empathy for its elderly characters and their desire for personal agency.

While it can occasionally seem as though Pohlad is eking out conflict to support a narrative, the film’s restraint ultimately works in its favor, offering a thoughtful meditation on music, creativity and what it really means for talent to be “overlooked.”

Happiness for Beginners is inoffensive to a fault.

Schiller and Weiss’s direction is utilitarian, cutting together talking-head interviews with montages of the occupation set to era-appropriate protest songs. But to its credit, the lack of flashiness puts the students’ struggles for racial justice front and center, and ultimately serves to highlight a less-remembered aspect of the countercultural student movement.

Nabatian is sympathetic to all three characters and their lack of easy choices, and his eye for small cultural details and rituals. . . enforces how identity continues to shape their lives even as they’re far from home.

Oleff, Argus and Metz succeed in depicting both the frustrations and the compassion associated with caring for relatives who continuously harm themselves.

Lafosse’s empathy as a director is admirable, but The Restless falls short of putting a compelling story to film.

Blume has always been an open book, despite the flurry of controversy around her. That may not make for the most exciting documentary, but it does make Blume herself even more endearing.

It works well as a visual companion for fans of the author’s work, and as a flawed enigma for everyone else.

It’s not a spoiler to say that at its conclusion, Rye Lane comes together as only the best rom-coms can, with one of those classic payoffs that’s designed to have you cheering at the movie screen. How Allen-Miller chooses to balance those moments with the unconventional is one of the film’s greatest strengths.

The entertainment value of The Innocent lies not in the actual heist — which amounts to little more than a shipment of caviar at a truck stop — but in its lighthearted comedy, its by-the-numbers romance plot and its relatable family drama grafted onto an absurd premise.

Gassmann clearly wants to explore the state of love and sexuality in the 2020s — there are more than a few passing parallels to Joachim Trier’s “The Worst Person in the World” — but he succeeds only in conveying the pathologies of two people who can’t figure out what they want from each other.

Jordan Tetewsky and Joshua Pikovsky, the filmmaking duo who wrote and directed the movie, are natives of the semirural townships southwest of Boston, and their familiarity with the region and its people is what makes “Hannah Ha Ha” transcend — or, in many cases, take full advantage of — its shoestring budget.

Remember This is, quite literally, a filmed play, and Goldman and Hutchens don’t make any attempts to define or elevate itself outside the confines of the stage.

While its new sequel, Hocus Pocus 2, may be a blatant attempt by Disney to continue propping up its streaming platform Disney+ (where the movie has its debut), it manages to capture the same hokey magic of the original while creatively updating its humor.

The narratives in This Land are compelling, even if each of them would benefit from more screen time. (The Covid-19 pandemic affected the shooting schedule, and it shows.) On the whole, the film is best seen as a collage, rather than a definitive report, of the array of opinions brought on by the Trump-Biden race.

The one bright spot of Adopting Audrey is the acting from Malone and Hunger-Bühler, who imbue their characters with more pathos than they probably deserve.

To see the villagers take matters into their own hands, capturing proof of the encroachment on their land that the government chooses to ignore, is a special kind of thrill.

The film achieves its goal in raising awareness for these volunteer efforts, casting a spotlight on a chronically overlooked crisis.

All in all, “Rise” is as dependable as a Manhattan slice: not mind-blowing in the slightest, but just delightfully cheesy enough to keep kids and adults alike satisfied.

The film wallows in contrived plots and subplots, made worse by the dearth of chemistry between the two leads.

Despite its risqué origins, “Paws of Fury” manages to dish out lighthearted fun, swashbuckling action and surface-level messaging about following your dreams, though not every joke lands.

Even for viewers with no relationship to Ikuta or his prior roles, “Sing, Dance, Act” provides a fascinating look into Kabuki theater and the particular sets of skills that are required to pull off such idiosyncratic performances.

Liu lends a frankness and sensitivity to the topic that would make A Sexplanation suitable to be shown in a classroom, which was perhaps his intention all along.

Provocative as it may be at first glance, A Taste of Whale, in theaters and on demand, offers a refreshingly multidimensional take on the controversy around whale hunting in the Faroe Islands, a tradition that dates back to the 9th century.

The four wartime stories in “Bad Roads” fall short on delivering any meaningful insight into the nature of conflict, relying instead on moments of lackluster tension and shock value that greatly overstay their welcome.

To its credit, Polar Bear isn’t just playing in the snow; there’s a very conscious through-line of conservation, highlighting how climate change has negatively affected the Arctic’s ecosystem

What could make for a captivating story involving a transgressive love triangle is, even on a micro level, ineffective.

Ortega nails her role as a levelheaded teen who, nevertheless, is still a teen, reeling from an unthinkable event on top of the usual growing pains.

Even as the lockdown accelerates intimacy and conflict between the protagonists, their actions feel inconsequential compared with the greater world outside.

Though there are no real secrets to be uncovered regarding Alex Lowe’s motivations for climbing, nor his infectiously exuberant personality in life . . . the film unavoidably feels confessional and cathartic.

If your holiday dinner table sees some heated arguments this year, just be glad if it doesn’t result in an actual melee, with armed standoffs in front of a blow-up Santa Claus.

Simple as Water is anything but simple when it comes to its technical achievements, weaving together familiar immigrant narratives in ways that still manage to surprise and stun.

While it is gratifying to hear each woman speak on her art in her own terms, the documentary’s most illuminating moments are those that demonstrate how each musician’s work has been received by others over the years.