David D'Arcy

Ines and Emilie have tensions between them which are uncomfortably alive, and Langseth’s script is a gnawing reminder that, even when the date of death is set, family quarrels and resentments can still be corrosive.

Tender without sentimentality, the doc by Ron Mann is as absorbing as it is understated.

If tenderness is deployed to ease Shmuel’s grieving, those are not the scenes which give To Dust its special pungency, or what make you laugh. This film is at its best when it goes for the gut.

Nia DaCosta’s heartland tale, rough around some edges, is a promising feature debut.

It’s raw religion, and it’s a treasure.

For all its empathy, Haroun’s latest can be dramatically stiff. The dialogue of his script often sounds like exegesis, with key events bursting into the story like dramatic illustrations of what seems foreordained. Yet this stolid narrative approach feels appropriate for a film that is as much testimony as it is drama.

Most of those who’ll see The Biggest Little Farm will be drawn by its ardent, gentle idealism, and less by its hard-headed look at the challenges of sustainable farming.

A documentary of stunning beauty and tragic violence.

Spain’s J. A. Bayona is essentially stirring the same Jurassic pot here, with little that’s inspiring from his cast, unless you count the dinosaurs.

If the intimacy of small town existence is cherished here, there’s also an ominous sense of that same life being eroded and undermined.

Both McGregor, close cropped, and Seydoux, in retro bangs, give tender performances, although there’s not much that’s new in the love story once you push the robotics aside. Tech-heads who rush to Zoe may leave the theater feeling under-charged.

There is not enough in the performances or the script to set it apart from the constant flow of indie crime dramas.

The Seagull, Anton Chekhov’s classic play about failed hopes and tangled attractions, is solid and satisfying in Michael Mayer’s intimate retelling for the screen.

The 12-year project – commissioned by the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation – is evidence that Timoner, who made documentaries before, can craft a nuanced dramatic feature.

This culture clash plays more with delightful nuances than with big surprises, but David Zellner brings plenty of American innocence to the role of a fortune-seeker brought to his knees; as they say in Texas, he’s all hat and no cattle.

It’s ambitious, and she hits some of the right notes, but much of it ends up off-key.

Some of the most fun in Uprising comes from its elder statesmen, holdovers from Pacific Rim who play for laughs.

Even with uneasiness dripping from Smith as Adrian, the acting in 1985 is like the script – stiff. 1985 gets the notes right, and its foreboding look takes us back to a dark age. It’s a lesson worth remembering. Yet with all the prejudice and pain, the film still feels a lot like a sermon.

Theron will put to rest any doubts about her feel for comedy; the darker the better.... As Tully, Mackenzie Davis is radiant.

Cerebral and emotional, Tempestad is a road movie fuelled by the memories of unjust punishment. It’s a bumpy but illuminating ride.

It’s a rare inside glimpse of how a cosmic moment is stitched together.

This documentary reminds us that justice can be as elusive in the US suburbs as anywhere else, and that having guns keeps people who are born different from getting too close.

Silver infuses some novelty into his Perils Of Pauline narrative, thanks to an extreme performance by Burdge, who plays the credulous lovesick naif to the hilt.

The debut feature by Janicza Bravo takes on a perennial comic genre yet, like its main character, it’s best described as a work in progress.

Soul on a String is visually stunning.

Brian Shoaf does not break any new ground in Aardvark (besides featuring an actual aardvark in an independent film), yet his pairing of stalwart female characters with troubled men is a welcome twist of gender stereotypes.

The Lovers is shrewd, even if it’s not altogether satisfying.

No one says too much in this film’s underdeveloped dialogue, yet Ryan’s steely demeanor reflects the jumbled toughness and vulnerability of people dependant on land that isn’t giving them much.

We’re lucky that moralists like Ponsoldt and Eggers have a sense of humor.

The spectacle gives you enough action from enough famous names to sustain the momentum of its legacy.

There’s plenty of Lynch-light in dark interiors and empty staircases as Katz’s portrait of hipster La La Land winds through familiar territory. Gemini may not show too much that’s novel about that noir world, but we see new strengths in its lead actress.

Tickling Giants shows how a window of freedom and hope can unleash surges of creativity, like the improbable overnight success of a surgeon satirist.

The message of doom is mitigated by the comraderie of men and women determined to do good, but more so by the wondrous species of coral under threat.

The documentary, as it grieves for those losses, points to divisions in American society that are as glaring as ever.

In a bittersweet film like this, you wouldn’t call that magical, but you could call it real, as if the Dardennes came to Brooklyn, only funnier. That mood succeeds thanks to understated performances by Weinstein’s cast of mostly non-professionals, who seem to be working according to a life-script that they know well.

Kelly’s film is a competent feature debut – elegantly filmed and paced to keep viewers with Franco on an improbable ride. Yet the script views Glatze from a distance, never really entering his head to penetrate beyond the character’s own apologia for a bizarre life change.

City of Ghosts shows us the power of media to bring the grim truth about life under ISIS to the world, even when under a death sentence. In keeping our eyes on Raqqa, it also reminds us of the limits of that power.

Fate is a blunt instrument here. Yet you still wind up asking for more depth from the characters for whom Hittman is asking you to feel something.

If you’re looking for more than laughs, this comedy aspiring to drama takes you only so far.

This film is proof that, with the right protagonist, a documentary seems to tell its own story. Rodchenkov is one of those characters who, as they say, you couldn’t make up.

This well-meaning debut feature about following your dreams just treads water.

A film directed by Katie Holmes (and produced by Tribeca co-founder Jane Rosenthal) is a curiosity, and in this case a competent curiosity - no less competent than most of the independent films out there.

It has plenty of heart and lots of fighting, but could use a little more magic.

Magnus Carlsen, called the Mozart of chess, became world champion in 2013 at the age of 22. Benjamin Ree’s rousing documentary shows us how this taciturn prodigy got there, and how his family keeps him sane.

It’s a radiant debut for young newcomer Joe Alwyn, who plays a Texan war hero uneasy in his own land. It’s a shakier curtain-raising for Lee’s ambitious weaponising of new technologies.

The film’s look is as striking as Fan’s performance.

There’s enough cinema in Among the Believers to set it a step above solid respectable investigation.

Like Cai, the doc is a crowd-pleaser which reveals its complexities in a careful viewing.

Despite the sense of fatalism and some clumsy turns in Zandvliet’s script, Land Of Mine achieves moments of chilling suspense.

Sing is colourful, yet at almost two hours, it is also long. Still, if kids aren’t drawn to one singing animal (or familiar voice), there’s always another around the corner, holding up the tentpole.

A terrifying disaster thriller.

Arab critics may lament that Israelis are telling their stories, but they won’t dispute the gritty reality on the screen.

The closer the documentary gets to individual musicians and their histories, the more engaging it becomes.

Linklater does connect you with the fun that he must have had in those days. If you can take the testosterone, you’ll have a good time.

Even by cult documentary standards, this one finds absurd depths in the peddling of enlightenment.

Newtown, which focuses on the bereaved families, is about coming to terms with loss.

The visual textures of The Lovers and the Despot, edited by Jim Hession — and the Kim audio tapes — make for vibrant cinema.

In a scant 72 minutes and in a few locations, Holmer has found a dignity in her appealing subjects, and a mystery.

Dark Night is a drama of grim inevitability.

Anesthesia comes from the heart, as few films do these days.

It’s a jolting race against time when the wave gathers steam far away, as implacable as the tsunami in Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter, minus the pop metaphysics .

The actor’s comic sad clown performance lifts the film above an ordinary script.

Spender...has made a rare kind of documentary – muscular and refined, and a splendour for the eyes.

Censored Voices is a reminder that glorious myths of wars and the men who fight them wither under scrutiny, in Israel and everywhere else.

A tour de force of drama, composition and colour.

It’s an inspiring story, acted with heart and grit by Paige and Wood, and film directed with adroitness by Rozema in a ruin of a set in the woods.