David Lewis

It’s a potent and timely slice of Americana.

Cassandro takes place in an inherently goofy arena — this is over-the-top, stagey fighting, after all — but the filmmakers avoided the temptations of cheap laughs and produced a satisfying dramatic story that will appeal to both fans and non-fans of this outlandish wrestling genre. That’s a rope move worth cheering for.

This is one of those sneakily good movies where at first nothing much seems to be going on, before the parts start adding up to a satisfying whole. Mutt turns out to be a well-crafted character study of not only a trans man, but also of the most important people in his orbit.

It’s not easy to make an amusing, accessible diversion that mixes LGBTQ positivity and national politics, but “Red, White & Blue” passes the test with flying colors.

Raw, provocative, sometimes humorous and always humane, Kokomo City is an engrossing documentary about four Black trans sex workers who constantly disarm with their outrageous anecdotes and their palpable fears of living in a world that’s often hostile to them.

Theater Camp, a mockumentary about a summer workshop for thespian adolescents, offers plenty of theater and plenty of camp, to the point that it often plays like one, big inside joke. But the film offsets its drama class insularity with a rousing message that the stage will always be a magical place for children to dream — and to discover themselves.

With a zippy soundtrack and breezy editing style, Every Body comes off as an up-to-date declaration that being intersex is something to be celebrated. In the end, we can’t help but share in the enthusiasm.

The engaging HBO documentary Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed, both a guilty pleasure and meaningful slice of queer history, delivers a loving yet irony-laced tribute to a closeted movie icon whose tragic death from AIDS changed the course of the epidemic and cemented his place in LGBTQ lore.

Nothing about Of an Age seems forced. The film delicately embraces grand sentiments without ever being sentimental. And throughout the journey, we can’t help but be enthralled.

It’s hard to deny that Shyamalan remains one of our most prolific, longstanding filmmakers, and that his work continues to make an impression on our culture. His tense, never dull “Knock at the Cabin” makes us uncomfortable at times, and few punches are pulled. Perhaps he’s found a formula that will take him to new, interesting places.

Both Parsons and Aldridge surrender to the material, and we are moved as Kit and Michael come to a deeper understanding and appreciation of their love for each other.

Disenchanted, a delightful follow-up to the beloved fairy tale Enchanted, delivers everything you could ask for in a sequel. It not only continues the original film’s magical mix of music, animation, live action and humor, but also takes the story in a new and interesting direction.

Halloween Ends is far from a great finale, but it’s a decent showcase for Jamie Lee Curtis, whose place in film history has long been assured because of this role. Will this be the last we see of Laurie Strode, or the “Halloween” storyline? It’s best to wait for the box-office reports. After all, franchises never die — they just change shape.

The movie’s midsection, by far its most effective part, offers its share of heart-pounding moments.

It’s the rare film that can match the vapidity and venom of "Bodies Bodies Bodies," a combination that’s both toxic and entertaining. There are many influences — “Mean Girls,” “Gossip Girl,” “Scream,” to name a few — but "Bodies Bodies Bodies" takes all of these influences and creates an original spin for the social media age.

In 90 brisk minutes, we get a three-dimensional portrait of a private, gender-nonconforming trailblazer who not only paved the way for Black Americans, but also for women and LGBTQ people.

We’re supposed to be taking a fun thrill ride here, with a little existentialism to boot, but Copshop can’t escape its arrested development.

Both McAvoy and Horgan handle the rapid-fire dialogue with gusto, and for a while, their devastating banter is amusing. But eventually the effect begins to wear thin: These vocal diatribes need a more developed story to hang on.

To be sure, Big Pharma execs make for natural movie villains these days, but this story could have used a tad more subtlety, something that was in short supply here.

We don’t always get a full picture of Barbara Lee, however, there’s no doubt for a single frame that this consummate politician — a pragmatic firebrand — is long overdue for recognition beyond the Bay Area.

Without an ounce of the polemic, [Ewing] offers a vivid perspective of the United States’ immigration issues through a romantic lens. It’s not a new perspective, by any means, but the way she brings it has a poignant beauty all its own.

The by-the-numbers film is not hard to sit through and won’t offend anybody, but its lofty, worthwhile message doesn’t feel earned.

The Virtuoso covers well-worn territory — the assassin story is almost a genre unto itself — and director Nick Stagliano, hampered by a predictable script, can’t bring much new to the game.

Beckwith, though, rallies with some memorable moments in the third trimester and nails the climactic scene with gut-wrenching efficiency. Her movie stays afloat because of Harrison (watch out for her in the future) and Helms, who both deliver a fitting finale that’s revelatory and emotionally satisfying.

The technically elegant Voyagers, about a space colonization trip run amok, is easy enough to sit through, but it’s a story in need of more rocket fuel. There isn’t a bad scene in the movie, yet there isn’t a really good scene, either. It’s a quiet psychological thriller, even when it’s trying to stir mayhem.

Beyond the superb acting, Concrete Cowboy gets a lot of mileage from its visually arresting riding scenes and its spot-on score, which is both haunting and inspirational.

My Salinger Year, which is basically The Devil Wears Prada set in the literary world, is a film that feels like it’s ready to take off at any moment, but stalls every time it tries to do anything.

Still, Silk Road remains watchable because both Robinson and Clarke are interesting screen presences. And there’s some humor, which consistently lands better than the thrills.

Writer-director Harry Macqueen puts the fate of his film on the shoulders of his two leads — Colin Firth as Sam, Stanley Tucci as Tusker — and both actors deliver some of the best work of their careers.

San Francisco was the first major U.S. city to forbid the police and other agencies from using facial recognition technology — and the persuasive documentary Coded Bias makes it easy to understand why.

Monsoon, an offbeat story about a man’s cultural dislocation in Vietnam, is more of a slow drip than a torrential downpour. It’s a lovely film that suddenly and magically can wash over you, then lose you in its opacities.

Robin’s Wish, of course, can’t lessen the tragedy of Williams’ death, but it helps us better reconcile the suicide of such a joyous, irrepressible soul.

Shepard always keeps things on track, and his well-paced, beautifully scored film makes us see San Francisco in an atypical light as welcoming and beautiful, yes, but also bewildering, lonely and intimidating. Indeed, though all the refugees make varying degrees of progress, we can’t help but feel that a rocky road still lies ahead for them.

On the surface, Sweeney’s film is a playful examination of sexual fluidity, but underneath the gags, it’s really a universal, sweet movie about the modern complexities of finding a soulmate. It’s also a nice example of how independent films can breathe fresh air into genres like the romantic comedy.

Ting’s conceptually solid film is briskly paced, and its heart is in the right place. With a more fine-tuned screenplay, it could have been better than a serviceable movie.

It all gets a little unwieldy at times, but Shooting the Mafia is far from boring. We can’t take our eyes off it, just like a photo that’s out of focus, yet somehow remains arresting.

What makes the film emotionally satisfying, beyond the stirring music, is that we witness the healing and enlightenment of chorus members, some of them bearing scars from their oppressive red-state upbringings.

The Ground Beneath My Feet consistently serves as a powerful showcase for the talented Pachner, who manages a performance that is both distant and achingly vulnerable.

It’s a lovely film that’s poetic, erotic and bittersweet.

The most refreshing thing about the movie is having a more mature woman at the center of the action, and August knows not to overreach here. She is dryly funny, but also subtly affecting, and it’s a pleasure to watch her heart and mind slowly but surely open up to life’s possibilities.

For a film about an unexpected reunion between two daughters and their long-lost mother, there is shockingly little talk about family. We have no idea what these women see in each other, let alone want from each other. This strips the film of the emotional authenticity that it ultimately craves.

This project is in many ways a nod to the films of the French New Wave, and even if the surprisingly unsexy A Faithful Man doesn’t quite measure up, it’s never boring and keeps moving at a brisk pace.

There’s nothing particularly innovative about the filmmaking, but Becoming Nobody does its job: helping spread Ram Dass’ message in a polarized world in which we tend to emphasize our differences, not our similarities.

It’s a moving meditation about our unwavering need for creativity, and finding ways to express it.

Director Sameh Zoabi relies on the old adage that we have more in common than not, but it’s a lesson that bears repeating — particularly when laughs come with it.

By the time the credits roll, we don’t achieve a much deeper sense of who John DeLorean really was — only a better understanding of why this complicated figure continues to befuddle screenwriters. DeLorean probably would have preferred it that way.

A B-movie with a few thrills and plenty of inane dialogue.

By the end, we’ve experienced one of the best films about street hustling ever made.

JT Leroy is on safer ground when Albert and Knoop are matching wits, mainly because it’s a pleasure to watch the perfectly cast Dern and Stewart on the screen. It’s easy to understand what attracted these fine actors to these roles, but the script allows them to only scratch the surface of this maze-of-mirrors story, where the truth remains deliciously elusive.

An exquisite tale about coming of age and coming to terms.

A movie that moves slower than it should and that keeps us detached for long periods of time. Most of the problems can be traced to the script, which does a poor job of establishing the characters and giving us a sense of how they relate to each other.

Obviously a passion project, but Ejiofor keeps his film grounded in reality and avoids histrionics. And even though the plot is predictable from the get-go, the cast in uniformly good, and it’s hard not to be moved when William’s water-pumping invention carries the day. His story is one that’s worth telling.

The movie is made even worse with embarrassing flashbacks, painful voiceover, and inane dream sequences. It’s like a Merchant-Ivory film – on Quaaludes.

The script stays on safe, formulaic ground, but it’s effective — and somehow breathes new life into a franchise that had become a junk heap.

The film is a reasonably entertaining trifle, though it’s overstuffed with battle sequences and peripheral characters that often consume the main story line.

Equally fascinating, sad and scary.

Apocalypse also doesn’t excel in the teen angst department, because the characters are not fleshed out enough. The love triangle is not convincing, and except for Anna and her father, we don’t care a whole lot about what happens to the characters, perhaps because we didn’t get enough time to know them in the beginning.

Master director Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose work won the Palm d’Or at Cannes this year, doesn’t pour on the emotion. He doesn’t need to – his film, even as it enchants, is quietly devastating.

Ross doesn’t gloss over the challenges facing the rural black county, but he finds a strong spirit there, even as the storm clouds hover.

Unmistakable political overtones populate the documentary Monrovia, Indiana, an examination of day-to-day life in a small, red-state town.

Though the ambitious Outlaw King doesn’t always fire on all cylinders, moviegoers deserve this chance to see it on the big screen, before it starts showing on a laptop near you.

In a film that should be dripping with drama, there is surprisingly little tension.

This is a film that wears its anti-tech bent like an old James Bond wristwatch.

This is one of those rare films nowadays that might have been helped with a few extra minutes. Yet at the same time, that’s a clear sign that Hill has created a world and a set of characters that have kept us engaged throughout.

A character study hiding in cowboys’ clothing — and even if its pacing could use a little more giddy-up, it delivers an inspired ending that makes the brothers’ longish journey worthwhile.

Assassination Nation won’t get any points for narrative cohesion or character development, but it’s a timely, visually arresting statement about how pandemonium in this country threatens to become the new norm.

The rambling Life Itself is a multigenerational drama about the messiness of life, but the emotional impact of the movie gets lost in the messiness of its screenplay. And though there is not one subpar acting performance, the film itself comes off as an exercise in self-consciousness.

Throughout the film, we always feel ahead — way ahead — of the narrator, even if the movie does contain a certain sense of dread for Trump detractors, as the inevitability of the election draws closer.

A bit icky yet full of charm, the engaging documentary Rodents of Unusual Size introduces us to the nutria, a furry antihero that’s a cross between a huge rat and a beaver — and that has been damaging Louisiana’s delicate wetlands for decades. The film serves as both an environmental cautionary tale for other states (including California) and an interesting slice of Cajun life.

The Nun is certainly not a terrible horror movie – the production values are stellar, and there is a decent backstory about the abbey. But the film won’t be remembered as one of the top entries in the expanding canon of the Conjuring Universe.

Even if the proceedings sometime feel like a travelogue, the reconstructions of Gabriel’s last days alive, down to the exact locations and personal interactions, leave a strong impression.

Kin is not a snoozer, at least, and the Baker brothers are certainly not untalented, but their genre-mashing experiment doesn’t work on any emotional level.

Even if it’s a film that will challenge any viewer, it benefits from a strong premise, a story line that more or less holds up, and three knockout performances. Rarely has the acting process been explored in such a cinematically provocative way.

This is a clever comedy about working-class women, and a sly, entertaining commentary on the insidious effects of gender inequality.

From time to time, there are the requisite cutesy boy-and-his-wolf moments, but for the most part, the film is harrowing, suspenseful and gritty — and a perfect vehicle for impressive 3-D effects that bring to life an exquisitely beautiful but unforgiving land.

Clearly, this is not a film for everyone, but even though the routine gets highly repetitious, some of the heavy metal numbers are stirring.

Fortunately, some of the people around Cameron turn out to be more interesting. The best in show is John Gallagher Jr., who brings out both the creepy and comforting sides of “ex-gay” instructor Rick — a seemingly nice guy who’s oblivious to the harm that he’s inflicting on his charges.

Dogs are notorious scene-stealers in the movies, but in the sappy yet mildly entertaining Dog Days, the humans mug just as shamelessly as their impossibly cute canine counterparts.

This is a fascinating portrait of an artist.

It’s never easy to translate visually the inner turmoil of a struggling artist, and “Gauguin” is a prime example of that.

At the end of the day, it's all just a nihilistic trifle, yet before the final sign-off, we can't help but think twice about what else is lurking on the internet.

A thinking person’s action movie - as long as you don’t think too much. Even if it has its share of preposterous moments, it crackles with nonstop tension, combat scenes and double-crosses.

Director Ben Lewin has crafted a biopic spy thriller, kind of, but the script has neither the character shadings to be a biopic nor the pacing and twist and turns to be a spy thriller.

This is a film that would never work without brilliant casting of the child actors, and it’s a marvel to watch the interplay between the young girls, who don’t deliver a false note.

Hypnotic and intense throughout, the brilliantly executed Hereditary taps into the ghosts within all of us — the insidious roots of family dysfunction — and turn them upside down and all around. It’s an audacious supernatural thriller where the psychological fallout is just as disturbing as the apparitions that come chillingly to life.

Turns it into a 90-minute infomercial, with nary a revelation in sight.

Regardless of how one might feel about its inherently icky subject matter, Dark Crimes needs more narrative momentum. The cast is game, the production design is impressive and a few surprises await — but even as things heat up, the film somehow remains cold.

Even if it has B-movie trappings and the tension wanes in the second half, it’s a stylish psychodrama.

A formidable exercise in storytelling. Even at the end, when the inevitable goodbye toast occurs, there is a twist awaiting us.

A highly effective, psychological horror thriller.

Torok juggles plenty of characters and themes — guilt, greed, Russian meddling, the Holocaust, justice — but he always remains firmly in control of his story. Every frame is meticulously crafted.

Doesn’t have a dull frame in it, thanks mainly to the star-making performance of Zoey Deutch, who dazzles the screen as Erica with her mix of humor, sensuality, volatility and vulnerability.

Submission is not a bad film — it just feels like an early draft.

The unconventional Joseph Beuys, one of the pillars of the modern art movement, gets an unconventional tribute in Beuys, a zigzagging documentary that is both illuminating and opaque.

An engaging, revelatory slice of life.

Savagely lyrical, Vazante offers a harsh, impressionistic take on slavery in 19th century Brazil. And though the storytelling leans toward the opaque, the film has a sense of authenticity and power that keep it interesting.

In the end, it’s left to Shaye to carry the film, and she does so with aplomb. The “Insidious” franchise may be running out of places to go, but Shaye appears to be just getting started.

This is a movie that has lots of magic, in more ways than one.