Daphne Howland

There’s still charm in Charm City, despite it all.

It’s a painstaking inspection of parenthood, which is fraught even in less formidable circumstances than what these families face, and often harrowing. But it’s also a contemplation of what it means to be human and, ultimately, optimistic.

Full of such bon mots, the documentary is the epitome of positive thinking, perhaps the closest thing America has to a state religion. Still, like social worker Wendy Lustbader’s book What’s Worth Knowing, which took a similar tack years ago, it’s an opportunity to connect with souls who’ve been around more than a few blocks.

It’s a painfully familiar story in the era of #MeToo and the Catholic Church’s abuse scandal, with the added agony that parents, teachers, and school officials were, to varying degrees, complicit.

It’s a brutal takedown of a practice now warping K-12 education and should embarrass every school that still requires them.

The Judge is packed tight; it’s enlightening and suspenseful and paced for maximum enjoyment. In the end, it’s not just about Kholoud Al-Faqih, but you’ll be very glad to have met her.

It’s quite a story, one that, like all good stories, turns out to have meaning for anyone.

Directors Harris and Sanin provide clear historical and present-day context and furnish alarming proof of Vladimir Putin’s multilayered deceptions.

In an era when the propaganda machines of conflicts like Syria are imperiling photojournalists’ work all the more, Campbell’s homage to his friend is a thorough look at a straight shooter.

James Demo’s The Peacemaker is an intense, intimate portrait of a visionary capable of sophisticated analysis, abrupt anger, self-deprecating wit, and profound insights — all while existing at considerable remove from his fellow man.

The film is a haunting, damning unpacking of history that also reminds us how little progress we’ve made.

Denison keeps up the pace — those television skills coming in handy — and unpacks a lot. But he also allows in some light. There are plenty of Las Vegas police officers who want things to change, and Denison gives them, and the victims’ families, a voice.

Cristina Herrera Borquez’s elegant documentary No Dresscode Required is a masterful, layered story of commissar-crossed lovers.

Take My Nose…Please! rescues plastic surgery from Hollywood’s “did they or didn’t they?” gossip and reality television’s odious voyeurism with a nuanced, empathetic (and often funny) introduction to a few women, mostly comedians, who’ve had work done or are considering it.

Boston, Jon Dunham’s film about that city’s marathon, is a contender — an emotional comeback story, interspersed with thrilling moments in its history, without gloss, cliche or even nostalgia.

It’s a compelling look at a valuable contraption that’s slipping through our grasp, and will send many viewers to flea markets and eBay for one of their own.

The doc is thorough.

The Incomparable Rose Hartman is a gorgeously shot, sharply edited portrait of photographer Hartman.

Angkor Awakens: A Portrait of Cambodia is a superbly balanced picture of Cambodia then and now, a nation in a sort of stupor of post traumatic stress syndrome, denial and survivor's' guilt.

Unlike in so many films, here the actors’ portrayals of psychiatric patients’ conditions — and their humanity — ring true.

The situation is heartbreaking and frustrating. But the film is so persuasive that it could help finally tank Herbalife's shares and validate Ackman's gamble — possibly preventing thousands of others.

The film's a little choppy as Theroux takes side trips to interview other former Scientologists, but it comes together as a chilling look at America's most famous 20th-century homegrown religion.

Rosenstein makes this a suspenseful legal yarn and an essential history lesson.

The movie is slow, quiet, and infuriating, as Binney and his small group are undermined by Gen. Michael Hayden's NSA and inept private contractors.

Desert flowers can be hard to spot, but are often distinctly beautiful, and The Bad Kids has them in focus.

It's the closest most of us will get to spending time with fellow humans who have extraordinary perspectives on ordinary things — and ordinary perspectives, too.

Ree makes things easy for people who don't play chess, deftly pacing Carlsen's triumphs and failures and milking the suspense as "the Mozart of chess" employs his intuition to win, in an age when many players depend on computers to hone their skills.

The film is a riveting feat of editing considering the material, the legalistic conundrums, and the profusion of detail.

This film is valuable on account of its singular vantage point, and not just because of the firsthand description of the jihadist group’s brutality, which is unsurprising.

Palast slices through all the B.S., and while he may be over-the-top in his presentation, keep in mind, he’s got just the facts, ma’am.

It's a wonder of photography, animation, and sound, and it's a testament to its editors that the many interviews with activists and scientists are compelling and informative, sometimes even poetic.

The gutting of America's public universities is, as Steve Mims says in his documentary Starving the Beast, "one of the nation's most important and least understood fights." His film goes far in correcting that, thanks not just to his thorough research, but also a strong narrative and compelling cinematography.

These are stories crafted with care, with glimpses of the filmmaking process — a chance to see the camera operators and director themselves at times in awe of the fortitude they're witnessing.

Despite the complexities, though, it's enjoyable, thanks to the crew's substantial expertise.

This well-researched investigation is loaded with credible facts and has a workaday, broadcast-newsmagazine feel.

Footage of the now-wealthy Smiths being deposed is damning, the brothers' legal jiujitsu is appalling, and the stories of deaths are heartbreaking.

In her provocative documentary Drone, Tonje Hessen Schei shows how, actually, the U.S. and its military-industrial complex treat war like a video game.

Shah Bob may be languid, interrupted by Rockford-style freeze-frames, but it's also intimate and captivating, and it calls to mind indie films from before Sundance made them mostly another Hollywood commodity.

The film suffers from some rookie problems.... But through it we can see the history and ramp-up of the military-esque police methods that have become our current crisis.

The film fosters a very human connection to these pickers, whose eloquence comes from their plainspoken arguments, the austerity of their situation, and the modesty of their demands.

The film's editing is masterful, though, and with ample footage from the time and up-to-date storytelling from many key players from the African, Cuban, and U.S. governments, among others, Plot for Peace proves enthralling.

The documentary All You Need Is Love does a nice job of showing how, when it comes to children's lives, the ordinary is inescapable, even in extraordinary circumstances.

In this portrait, we are treated to an acquaintanceship with a woman in an almost constant search for a creative life, and that might be its most moving feature.

It helps that Earle and her oceanographer colleague at the Smithsonian Institute, Jeremy Jackson, are both scientists with unusual abilities to speak not just in understandable terms but also in eloquent ones. And it helps, too, that the music, images, storytelling, and editing are all so tight, and so enjoyable.

There are many reasons to see this very difficult film, not least to face the grim realities in Liberia, and to wonder what more could be done to save lives and preserve the human spirit when it is so clearly yearning to burn bright given any small small chance.

This film is like another work in the canon of baseball poetry.

Vargas lingers for long stretches over his personal story and his complicated relationship with his mother, still in the Philippines -- a place he dare not visit for fear of being unable to return. But his story is a vivid illustration of the pickle we're in.

It all remains cohesive, even poetic, and puts what had to have been formidable reporting to excellent use.

Medalia, as an Israeli, knows this bumpy territory well and serves up her story sensitively, but with its difficulties unvarnished and unsolved. She focuses on a few children whom we get to know well enough to care very much about their progress.

This film is one of our best documents of the civil rights era, but it is also a portrait of someone with a singular perspective, a big mind, and a joyous aptitude for conversation.

Solnicki's spliced-together, back-and-forth approach at first seems a jumble, but of course his choices are deliberate, and they pile up into revealing art.

This is a sober look at how seaboards are vulnerable to a rise in ocean levels, made worse by storms and massively worse by massive storms.

Watching the animated memoir Approved for Adoption can stir a serenity like skipping stones on water for a delightfully long time.