David Lewis

Human Flow is often like seeing a travelogue of the world, juxtaposed with a desperate sea of humanity in search of a better — and safer — life.

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.

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.

In the end, Chi-Raq is a positive movie that wants to jolt us into doing something about the very real emergency in Chicago. Along the way, the execution of the narrative gets muddled, but there’s no denying that this risk-taking film has a pulse. A strong pulse.

Equally fascinating, sad and scary.

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.

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.

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

The aerial cinematography is breathtaking: We can feel the fragility of the planet, but also its power to heal — if only we give it a chance.

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

It’s impossible to resist a film that has such rich characters, and makes a complicated subject both enlightening and entertaining.

Breezily bounces back and forth from Baja to Los Angeles, and it’s a pleasant diversion, on both sides of the border.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Risk is far from a narrative masterpiece — it hopscotches all over the place, with even Lady Gaga making an appearance — and it peels only a layer or two from a man with many masks.

Jolie has crafted an intimate epic about a tough war subject that probably would have gone unmade without her humanitarian influence and star power. First They Killed My Father is a much more assured film, even if a bogged-down middle section prevents it from greatness.

The final frames, which hark back to an iconic TV show, are audacious, yet like everything else in this movie, they are skillfully unadorned.

Even to those familiar with the bizarre affair, “JT Leroy” offers some new insights, not only because of the presence of Albert and her home movies, but also because of a treasure trove of phone recordings between JT and numerous luminaries.

The highly enjoyable documentary Obit finally gives credit to the storytellers who bring people to life one last time.

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.

It’s a potent and timely slice of Americana.