Daniel M. Gold

In this time of mass displacement across the globe, it is a stark reminder of how traumatic the refugee experience often is.

It shares a side of Mr. Vedder his fans will enjoy: the baseball aficionado who fills out a scorecard and treats Wrigley sod as holy ground.

It powerfully insists on giving a voice to victims whose greatest challenge, apart from their symptoms, is surmounting a world of indifference.

In the end, The Wrong Light is an engrossing cautionary tale teaching one of philanthropy’s oldest lessons: Caveat emptor.

Less of a solemn pilgrimage than a folksy visit, this film is a chance to set a spell, watch longtime musicians play and boast and reflect about their lives on and off the road.

With a soft tone, respectful to opponents but insistent on the data, Food Evolution posits an inconvenient truth for organic boosters to swallow: In a world desperate for safe, sustainable food, G.M.O.s may well be a force for good.

It’s surprising there has never really been an extended cinematic exploration of the band. Long Strange Trip, ambitiously assembled and elegantly directed by Amir Bar-Lev, fills that void.

The film, like its subject, frustrates in its inability to focus; there is no deep inquiry into what makes Anderson tick. It’s like skimming a stone across a lake.

The Ataxian has moments of inspiration, beauty, even euphoria. But its lasting contribution is in making the world a little more familiar with this disease, and a little less lonely for the families struggling against it.

Directed by Matthew Hausle and Steven C. Barber, “Never Surrender” frustrates with its lack of focus.

Directed slickly by Paul Dugdale, “Olé” is less a concert film or travelogue than a historical account — swiftly, smartly assembled, reflecting events only six months old.

An achingly poignant documentary.

As an overview of the issues, the history and the players, Starving the Beast makes a powerful survey course, a prerequisite for further studies.

Other People tries to lighten its heavy load with mixed results.

Mr. Records (the child actor in “Where the Wild Things Are”) is nimble and unsentimental in playing a character who is playing at normal, supported by a solid cast in a well-filmed indie that doesn’t let its low budget get in the way of some true chills.

The wooden dialogue gives Liam Neeson little to do beyond bite on his corncob pipe and berate subordinates who dare question him. Still, in perhaps the only instance when this is a compliment, he’s no Olivier.

Acting chops are occasionally on view — Mr. Sorvino and Mr. Proval play well together — but the plot is weak, the subplots tacked on.

None of the concoctions left me salivating (a basic, I’d think, for any food porn), and the exercise seems silly if not decadent. But foodies with a refined palate might differ — de gustibus, after all — and other viewers can appreciate the manic creativity that drives Mr. Redzepi and his crew.

Free to Run prefers nothing more than an easy jog down memory lane.

The sensibility is more grindhouse gore than spaghetti western, perhaps hoping to mine the same vein as Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight,” but lacking Mr. Tarantino’s lively dialogue and wicked sense of humor.

Smartly directed by Jeremy Sims, this sweet-hearted film mostly manages to avoid triteness even as it casually packs an emotional punch.

By the end, the accelerating plot twists and turns — love, obsession, family obligations, personal honor — become tangled and knotted; a few threads are simply ignored or discarded.

What Class Divide does exceptionally well is capture the sense of change at warp speed.

A chronicle of obsession ought to provide some insights.

Mr. Shirai nicely shuffles in the back stories of several workers, and his shots of sky, sea and early morning landscapes could fit amid Hokusai woodcuts.

As a tribute to NASA, A Space Program is rich in the core elements that have always propelled humanity’s flights of fancy: imagination and the right tools.

Refreshingly free of jingoism, that detachment unfortunately winds up working against the movie, which doesn’t engage emotionally.

Mr. Nadjari, who wrote the screenplay with Geoffroy Grison, may have been intending a minimalist character study, but even so, he has abdicated his responsibility: Too much of this family drama is left to the audience to fill in.

[A] well-paced and cogent seminar.

Mr. Trammell’s drug-induced stammers and tics don’t by themselves add up to a compelling portrayal, nor is this drama of the down and out at all gripping.

The movie touches on some worthy topics — sex, age, ego, desire, reason, insanity, death — but never focuses long on any of them: Some bits are amusing, most are simply tedious.

What starts eerie becomes strictly cartoonish.

Less a documentary than a glittering souvenir, but it’s still a record of a legend.

An essential amendment to the historical record, Censored Voices reminds us that no war is entirely virtuous and makes clear that, even at the time, the dangers of becoming an occupying force were evident.

Ms. Vreeland has paced her documentary well, a chapter to each era, with hundreds of beautiful images spanning decades of artists, galleries, parties, scenes. She also makes good use of interviews Guggenheim gave to a biographer a couple of years before her death in 1979.

Despite its oversights, the film — shot and scored beautifully — is an enthusiastic introduction to this delirious event and its peposo of passion, style and intrigue. As the Sienese like to say, the Palio is life.

The director, Robert Lusitana, who ran for Larsen himself, has assembled a touching celebration of a coach and mentor.

This absorbing account is hardly definitive, but it teaches movement building without denying the high costs paid by true believers.

The movie is thin on true narrative, preferring to study Irene without shedding quite enough light on her background or tracking her development.

Mi America is not just about a murder case but about how residents of divided communities share a history and deal with one another, sometimes hopefully, always warily.

What lingers, though, are stirring vistas of the backcountry West, and admiration — for the Aggies’ achievement, Mr. Masters’s imagination and Mr. Baribeau’s skill in chronicling it all.

The film opts for a somber if gentle tone that, given the story, is equally ill suited.

With its evocative landscapes and its non-narrative, cinéma vérité style, Western is a layered, atmospheric chronicle of living traditions like bullfights and rodeos, mariachi bands and Texas two-steps. Yet the film also records the tremors of change.

The Wildlike landscapes are exhilarating, but when the film works, it’s because of the interiors.

I was just at the right place at the right time,” Mr. Petrov says, a simple truth that becomes shocking when considering the alternative. For that alone, this account of a Cold War near miss deserves a wide audience.

Scattering history lessons and ambiguous imagery amid Ms. Yoo’s engagement with North Koreans, her film implicitly asks: What must they think of us?

Mr. Gotardo uses long, slowly unfolding shots and extended close-ups to aid our familiarity with each set of characters — almost by osmosis, we grasp their domestic dynamics, the rhythm of their routines.

Chloe & Theo is surprisingly amateurish in concept and execution. There’s a line between a narrative that’s deliberately simple and one that’s painfully childish, and it’s not all that fine. But it’s one Chloe & Theo crosses repeatedly.

Fever doesn’t come to a neat ending and ultimately feels unsatisfying. Before then, though, it’s an intriguing and intelligent update of a true crime still chilling more than 90 years later.

Directed breathlessly by John Erick Dowdle (“As Above/So Below”), the movie is filled with jittery shots from hand-held cameras, and hurtles along at a pace that is especially helpful in racing past the holes in the paper-thin plot.

Only a few scenes fail to draw laughs in a movie that’s unexpectedly smart and consistently amusing.

The film tries, unsuccessfully, to walk the same eerie, atmospheric trail as “The Village” by M. Night Shyamalan, or any number of Stephen King works.

[A] rich and fascinating biography.

The title of this biopic, Paulo Coelho’s Best Story, is apt: His own life might well be his greatest work. A pity, then, that the film, directed by Daniel Augusto, doesn’t chronicle his evolution better, leapfrogging among decades instead.

Mr. Gameau’s breezy blend of computer imagery, musical numbers, sketches and offbeat field trips makes the nutrition lessons easy to digest.

The movie is choppy and rushed — a bumper-car ride that somehow fits the rough-and-tumble era it recalls.

This slow-paced, cut-to-the-bone drama ought to be gripping, especially as the jungle and its beasts make their presence felt. But curiously, Ardor lacks tension, maybe because the actors are playing archetypes: Little is said, and there are few surprises.

While affirming the dignity of its subjects, Mala Mala shows there’s little glamour attached to the pursuit of selfhood.

The filmmakers have skillfully laid out a complex and murky story of crime and justice that, more than 30 years on, continues to scandalize.

The only sketch that’s inspired is the final one.

This film maintains its anxious themes throughout, which makes for some tedious stretches because the tension never breaks. Despite that, or maybe because of it, Gabriel is unexpectedly absorbing.

At slightly more than an hour, the film may not be definitive, and its chronology is a little fuzzy. Even so, Rubble Kings is a fascinating, valuable work of social, music and New York history, a celebration of a peaceful revolution by those who helped birth it.

United Passions is one of the most unwatchable films in recent memory, a dishonest bit of corporate-suite sanitizing that’s no good even for laughs.

As the film makes abundantly clear, if left untreated, contagions — of ignorance, fear and conflict — will spread wherever they can.

Know How is a robust, youthful call to be seen, heard and appreciated — to be a little less invisible.

In touching lightly on themes without committing to any of them, the movie falls flat. What should be sweet is saccharine, what might be profound seems trite.

Watching Elliot and his fellows stumble determinedly through shoots, pleasantly delusional about the movie’s prospects, is mildly amusing, a testament to indie film’s appeal for a certain hardy strain of dreamer. But the joke sours, and the documentary, filmed over two years, turns darker.

No role is sketched out beyond brush strokes, and no relationship is meaningfully examined.

This low-budget film is often static and awkward... Smaller scenes, though, like those when Guinevere interacts with her tough-minded lawyer of a sister or an old classmate from high school, have a realness to them.

A fascinating account of off-the-books diplomacy in the 1980s, “Plot for Peace” is that rare documentary that both augments the historical record and is paced like a thriller.

This tribute is overlong and too reverent, conveying little sense of Xiao Hong the person and even less of her talent.

This vivid and haunting essay steps away from the debate about illegal immigration.

Some of this seems like stoner’s paranoia, and some of the film’s talking heads, mainly comedians, don’t make the best advocates. Over all, though, its experts... argue forcefully for decriminalization.

A labor of love and respect.

Hollidaysburg is a pleasant if unremarkable coming-of-age film.

As this smart and sympathetic profile shows, Dock Ellis didn’t need a no-hitter, stoned or otherwise, to define himself; he was his own best work.

For a would-be skin-and-horror treat, though, Cam2Cam is surprisingly prudish. It doesn’t really traffic in sex; the camera mostly averts its gaze from the murders, preferring blood spatter patterns; and the acting is predictably wooden.

While 14 Blades grinds on perhaps a half-hour too long, its ambitions and energies show that for a fresh take on the western, go east.

The Battered Bastards of Baseball is an affectionate scrapbook of a documentary.

Written and directed by Chris Hansen, this romance has its authentic moments. As it happens, Mr. Brumlow and Ms. Vander Broek are married, but their familiarity hurts as much as it helps.

Applying ghoulish special effects and atmospheric slow pacing, the film also maintains a dark palette of blacks, browns and ash grays, the better to serve as a backdrop when the blood starts spattering.

As travelogue, this is a persuasive introduction.

The Hornet’s Nest lets its soldiers do most of the talking. The action — the rapid fire of automatic weapons, the crack of a sniper’s shot, the medevac rescues — is vivid.

The movie’s grittiness — the director, Jim Taihuttu (“Rabat”), shoots Wolf in black and white — its intrigues, its graphic violence and Mr. Kenzari’s performance make for a worthy addition to the annals of gangster films, Interpol edition.

While the detached, deadpan tone and occasionally stilted acting might leave some viewers flat, there’s no doubting the fierce intelligence behind this admirable puzzle box of a movie.

A bit too true to a frugal indie philosophy, where winging it beats reshooting, the film gets more woolly and unfocused; many scenes feel improvised and only occasionally hit their marks.

The director Emilio Aragón wisely trains the camera on Mr. Duvall. A Night in Old Mexico is his baby, and he rocks it.

What elevates the film beyond a video scrapbook, though, are the glimpses of the routines and slow rhythms of the nursing home before and after this adventure.

With jokes and computer-generated spectacles diluting the action, this is not one for fight-film purists.

It’s cruel but must be said: Presented in hushed, reverent tones, Jobriath A.D. often comes across as mockumentary material; each ghastly career move is followed by another. Hampered by limited video of Jobriath, the film lacks a sense of him or his music.

A small, gentle riff on the eternal tug of war between small towns and big dreams.

Roger Gual’s half-baked film hopes to split the difference between romantic comedy and foodie delight but fails at both.

The movie covers almost three decades choppily. But Mr. Camarago and Mr. Miguel convey the stubborn commitment that made the brothers so revered by the tribes.

If the film at times seems only a tender profile of a quiet and quirky individual, it is also a meditation of a private life at its end.

All the film’s segments are smartly assembled and gracefully paced.

Gahan Wilson: Born Dead, Still Weird skillfully introduces this pleasant man with the demented visions and delves into how he got them.

The film’s primary mission is to destigmatize dyslexia, and it achieves that admirably, presenting technical material with a light touch and compassion.

Unfortunately, Linsanity, following the conventions of the sports bio genre, ends at its peak, with only a brief nod to these events. Lin raised his game’s possibilities; you just wish that Mr. Leong had raised his.