David Rooney

The story in itself is first-rate. However, it’s the very measured handling that makes it distinctive.

Dowd's graciousness and enthusiasm, and the enormous respect afforded him by industryites on record here, make this a thorough and satisfying acknowledgement of one man's unique contribution to popular music.

Joyously re-creates the brief but resplendent reign of the legendary freakadelic drag troupe.

For all its wit, its lively talk and deceptive lightness, this is arguably the writer-director’s most affecting work.

Smart, seductive and bristling with sexual tension, Challengers is arguably Luca Guadagnino’s most purely pleasurable film to date; it’s certainly his lightest and most playful.

Kent and editor Simon Njoo show maturity and trust in their material, expertly building tension through the insidious modulation from naturalistic dysfunctional family drama to all-out boogeyman terror.

Led by an almost unrecognizable Simon Baker as a jaded cop, Limbo weaves in themes of racial inequity, broken individuals and fractured families to build quiet potency.

It's short, sweet and effective, tying together the divergent threads of the decades-spanning Small Axe project on a note both poignant and personal.

Essentially a two-hander though enlivened by incisive secondary character turns along the way, it's a drama made with tremendous feeling, an unhurried, contemplative tale peppered with nail-biting set-pieces.

The drama really sparks into high gear once the trial gets under way, a shift signaled by arresting cathedral-like shots of the Old Bailey's Neo-Baroque domed ceiling accompanied by the dissonant strings of Mica Levi's sparingly used score. The transition also gives the excellent principal cast ample opportunities both for impassioned oratory and amusing disruption.

It embraces the strange remoteness of myth and Middle Ages lore on its own terms and creates something quietly dazzling and new.

While Parallel Mothers doesn’t match the intricately interwoven layers of Almodóvar’s top-tier work — All About My Mother, Talk to Her, Pain and Glory — and some of its key plot disclosures can be seen coming, that doesn’t make the melodrama any less gripping or emotionally satisfying.

The threat posed by women who think for themselves to the absolute power of men is a central theme in this starch-free tale of Tudor intrigue, its protofeminist perspective seamlessly woven into the narrative fabric without a hint of the didactic.

The Brutalist is a massive film in every sense, closing with a resonant epilogue that illustrates how art and beauty reach out from the past, transcending space and time to reveal a freedom of thought and identity often denied its makers.

The directors allow ample space for somber reflections without ever detracting from the fact that Tina, fundamentally, is a celebration, a unique survival story.

Chronicling an ignominious chapter in queer history, Great Freedom is also a contemplative psychological study of the effects of incarceration, and beyond that, an unconventional love story, tender but unsentimental.

The visceral fireworks of the characters’ arguments and the disintegration of trust among them are observed with unsettling intimacy in the script and in the emotional honesty of the performances...This is terrific stuff.

Keep On Keepin' On is both tender and joyous, a moving account of the mutual nourishment of artistic mentorship and the rewards of accentuating the positive in whatever life throws at you.

Which Way is the Front Line is more than a chronicle of a life and a brilliant ten-year career cut short at age 40. It’s also a strangely beautiful insight into one man’s distinctive way of looking at and experiencing war.

What makes this candid, unpatronizing movie so engaging is that the sexual conflict is never set up as a deal-breaker, rather as an issue the couple has to work through in their own, mostly roundabout way.

Panahi’s stoical presence at the center of all this is rattled, forcing him to contemplate the repercussions of his work both to himself and to even his most guileless collaborators. The sobering final image resonates with the unspoken cry of an artist exiled in his own homeland, saying, “Enough.”

Amplifying its force with thrilling use of the subject’s music, this is a layered examination of a relationship that might be grossly over-simplified today as that of a closeted gay man and his “beard.” But Cooper and co-screenwriter Josh Singer dig deeper to depict a unique union, fraught with conflicts yet unbreakable — even when it’s broken.

The director is in the role of the flashy, panache-y showman here, and he plays it to perfection, delivering a big, highly polished chunk of movie that’s pure enjoyment.

The film is that rare modern horror movie that doesn’t simply fabricate its scares with the standard bag of postproduction tricks. Instead it builds them via a bracing command of traditional suspense tools... This is polished film craft.

Even for those limited to swimming virtually among parrot fish and sea turtles over vast marine ecosystems of astonishing color and complexity, this superbly crafted documentary is likely to wield an unexpected emotional charge.

[A] smart, tart adaptation of Kevin Wilson's best-selling 2011 debut novel, which thumbs its nose at the clichés of the over-trafficked dysfunctional family genre to dissect the sometimes lifelong quest of children to understand their parents in ways that are funny and bittersweet, poignant and often bracingly dark.

It’s a credit to the filmmakers and to lead actor Ryan Gosling’s thoughtfully internalized performance as Neil Armstrong that this sober, contemplative picture has emotional involvement, visceral tension, and yes, even suspense, in addition to stunning technical craft.

Strikes a delicate balance of comedy and pathos with an uplifting final act that delivers a resoundingly satisfying emotional payoff.

While it's more dramatically diffuse than the reboot and lacks a definitive villain, the new film is shot through with a stirring reverence for the Marvel Comics characters and their universe.

Satter shows unfaltering command of the medium for a first-time film director, notably in her penetrating use of the closeup, which makes the steadily exposed raw nerves of Sydney Sweeney’s remarkable performance in the title role all the more disturbing to witness.

Allen's dialogue is witty, his plotting zings along with forward momentum in all the right places, and his observation of elastic moral principles in flux is both mischievous and unsettling, yielding a tasty final-act Hitchcockian twist.

This is a richly textured genre piece that packs a visceral charge in its restless widescreen visuals and adrenalizing music

It’s the balance of basic psychology with abstract concepts and inspired observational comedy that makes this a uniquely captivating coming-of-age tale.

Whether or not you identify as queer, Welcome to Chechnya will leave you shaken by the evidence of an amoral autocracy taking extreme action under the hypocritical guise of religious purity.

While many wondered about Spielberg’s chutzpah in tackling a movie musical widely regarded as an ageless classic, his richly satisfying remake gives this version a resplendent life of its own.

Modest in scale but rich in sensitivity, this is an unassuming film, made all the more transfixing by its defining delicacy and understatement.

One of the aspects that makes Super/Man so satisfying is that for a biographical film in which tragedy and loss play such a central part, it’s rich in evidence of hope and kindness, gratitude and the resilience of the human spirit.

Endowed with captivating simplicity, gentle humor, rich humanity and infectious generosity of spirit.

It's a powerful and poetic memoir of personal struggle and self-discovery that expands the definition of documentary.

There’s brutality but also an understated hint of poetry in the way Bratton tells his story from deep inside it, making beautiful use of Baltimore experimental pop group Animal Collective’s richly varied electronic score, which often plays in gentle counterpoint to the harshness of what’s unfolding.

Tedeschi’s film is a declaration of love for the Beatles, but what distinguishes it is its curiosity about the America of that time, beyond the bubble of the four Scousers who can hardly believe they’re drinking cocktails in Miami.

Theater veteran Recoing is utterly compelling. Both the script and the resourceful, subtle actor provide enormous insight into the troubled character.

The film could be read many ways, but fundamentally, it plays like a heartfelt depiction of resilience in the face of conflict and grief, a gentle call to find friends and trusted allies, to move forward and bring humanity and understanding to the world.

Sticking close to the enduring classic's template while injecting plenty of freshness to give the follow-up its own distinct repro vitality, this lovingly crafted production delivers both nostalgia and novelty.

It transitions from tender romance into penetrating sorrow before taking on notes of mordant humor and unexpected quasi-thriller elements.

The teen-abortion factor tags Never Rarely Sometimes Always as an issue drama, and in the most unconventional way, it is — raw, haunting and painfully real. But it's perhaps better defined as a moving snapshot of female friendship, solidarity and bravery.

It’s another breathless chamber piece, expertly crafted to pack dread into every nerve-rattling sound.

The story's acceleration from anxiety to panic to hellish chaos is expertly managed, but more impressively, so is the control of internal narrative logic.

Anvari deftly builds and sustains tension throughout, crafting a horror movie that respects genre conventions...while firmly establishing its own distinctive identity.

Rendered deeply moving by the director's peerless capacity to combine humor and compassion with honesty and despair.

While the investigative midsection slumps just a little, El Conde remains a spellbinding and mischievously spry spin on a deadly serious subject from a director who, in his tenth feature, continues to come up with audacious surprises.

A thoughtful, melancholy story of love, loss, pain, betrayal and the lingering after-effects of tragedy, The Door in the Floor is an intelligent, impeccably acted, unsentimental drama.

Funny and frank in its observations, the film is a delightful snapshot of female friendship at that age, from the giddy highs to the melancholy funks, from the sustaining bonds to the jealousies and stinging betrayals.

Anchored by an internalized performance from Amy Adams rich in emotional depth, this is a grownup sci-fi drama that sustains fear and tension while striking affecting chords on love and loss.

Last Night in Soho is an immensely pleasurable film that delights in playing with genre, morphing from time-travel fantasy to dark fairy tale, from mystery to nightmarish horror in a climax that owes as much to ’60s Brit fright fare as to more contemporary mind-benders.

Rohrwacher makes movies you sink into rather than watch dispassionately, taking time to establish the milieu as her characters and stories reveal themselves in layers.

Bursting at the seams with hand-crafted visual delights and eccentric performances from a stacked ensemble entirely attuned to the writer-director’s signature wavelength, this is the film equivalent of a short story collection.

The performances of the two leads are riveting.

Pillion is less about the shock factor of some very graphic gay kink than the nuances of love, desire and mutual needs within a sub/dom relationship.

In his first narrative feature, documentary maker Jeremiah Zagar (In a Dream, Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart) captures the feel of the novel with uncanny precision, notably in the visceral charge and physical heat of tightly wound bodies almost constantly moving in close proximity.

Transfixing in its workplace detail and haunting in its harsh commentary on a solitary existence.

The sense of time passing is hypnotic, and the image of the ghost, wounded and watching, unable to communicate or offer comfort, becomes more eerie and beautiful the longer we observe it.

If you tap into The History of Sound’s soulful undercurrents, the soaring spiritual dimensions of the music — in songs more often about people than Divinity — and the depth of feeling in Mescal and O’Connor’s performances, this is a film of lingering melancholic beauty.

What’s remarkable about The Blue Trail and makes it such a delight is that despite all the oppression in the air, it’s a movie filled with hope and faith in human resilience at any age. The closing image will make your heart soar. And no, it’s not the one you were expecting.

The movie's pounding heart is the remarkable Ejiofor. Imbuing his role with authority, charisma, mighty strength and wrenching human frailty, he's enough to make believers of all of us.

Simultaneously deadpan and dour, somber and surreal, this is a haunting meditation on the manipulation of memory to anesthetize pain, crafted with a meticulous attention to visual and aural composition that makes for arresting viewing.

It’s clearly a labor of love, a unique reflection on an unforgettable summer, inviting us to share in a moment of communal spirit which now seems to belong to another world.

This slow but brilliantly sustained journey into madness is fronted by a remarkable performance from Ralph Fiennes and superb backup from Miranda Richardson in a triple role.

Hereditary takes the core haunting element of a spirit with a malevolent agenda and runs with it in a seemingly endless series of unexpected directions over two breathless hours of escalating terror that never slackens for a minute.

This tightly focused character study is a tiny film, with an emotional effect in inverse proportion to its size.

A highly accomplished, compact feature, which, while it may be light on depth, is rich in humor, rhythm, energy and inventiveness.

With lucidity and deep feeling, Nancy Buirski's documentary maps an ugly trail of injustice and then widens its lens to pay tribute to the women of color whose refusal to be silent helped drive the evolution of the Civil Rights movement.

An acutely observed chamber piece played out by two exceptionally well-cast actors who keep you guessing about the subtle shifts in their characters’ relationship, this is an unflinching account of human lives rendered disposable by greed and corruption.

This is the kind of contemplative cinematheque piece that washes pleasurably over you, inviting the viewer to tune in or out, to free-associate or locate the subtle connections and recurring themes as Cohen trains his restless, inquisitive gaze on faces and features that represent a wide spectrum of life.

What's most singular about the project — beautifully shot in black-and-white 3D, which often gives the images a beguiling disembodied quality — is that in addition to providing access to the creative process and deepening the album experience, it serves as a profoundly affecting reflection on the pain of parents who have lost a child.

Grande and Erivo give Stephen Schwartz’s songs — comedy numbers, introspective ballads, power anthems — effortless spontaneity. They help us buy into the intrinsic musical conceit that these characters are bursting into song to express feelings too large for spoken words, not just mouthing lyrics and trilling melodies that someone spent weeks cleaning up in a studio.

It elegantly upgrades a key player in the Elvis legend from the sidelines, and anyone attuned to Coppola’s distinctive wavelengths will find it a pleasurably emotional experience.

Observed with warmth and sensitivity, this is a rewarding coming-of-age drama that features terrific performances from two young newcomers in the central roles.

Mond's skill at working with actors is equal to his fully developed visual style and assured modulation of atmosphere and tone. This may be a small movie, but it's an impressively rigorous one without an ounce of flab.

Sparkling entertainment, even with the little-person issues.

Turning Red is original, funny and tender, an affectionate reminder that adolescence is a time of life not easily tamed, and sometimes the animal inside us demands release.

An accomplished marriage of elaborate style and content.

Told with captivating simplicity and yet richly cinematic, it combines ethnographic and spiritual elements in a haunting love story with classic undertones, affording a glimpse into a little-known culture.

All of a Sudden is an odd but audacious film in the way it favors the thematic over the dramatic. Those not attuned to Hamaguchi’s wavelength may find it overstretched and desiccated. But if you can get on board with its leisurely pace, there’s transcendant beauty in its view that all lives are of value, no matter how diminished.

Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw (The Last Race) directed, produced and shot this captivating vérité documentary, which finds humor, charm and poignancy in the crusty eccentrics and their adored canine companions who sniff out the aromatic tubers, usually under the secretive cloak of night.

There’s swaggering confidence in the filmmaking to match that of the title character, along with adrenalized visuals, fine-grained production design and scrupulous attention to casting, down to the background players.

The level of socially accepted discrimination exposed here provokes both heartbreak and anger.

A Thanksgiving family reunion comedy that sparkles with acerbic wit, original characters and genuine heart.

A stirring requiem of rage and resistance.

The resulting film feels highly personal, tender yet unsentimental.

The lustrous textures, boldly saturated colors and lush sounds of The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao serve to intensify the intimacy of Karim Ainouz's gorgeous melodrama about women whose independence of mind remains undiminished, even as their dreams are shattered by a stifling patriarchal society.

A sober and yet profoundly stirring contemplation of family, roots, identity and home, which engrosses throughout the course of its two-hour running time.

No less impressive than the narrative mastery here, however, is the technical execution of this bold minimalist experiment.

There's no such thing as a sure bet in career jumps, so the elegant execution, the incisive grasp of character and milieu, and the stealthy but sure arrival of pathos are extremely gratifying.

Blue Moon is a deceptively modest project, but it’s beautifully executed and fascinatingly nuanced despite being quite straightforward in terms of plot.

This is a stirring valentine to a neighborhood and its people that, as the film tells it, stared gentrification in the eye and stood their ground, staying true to their cultural identity.

Alberdi makes her directorial hand virtually invisible, observing her subjects from a discreet distance that allows them to be narrators of their own story while never speaking directly to the camera.

This clear-eyed ethical drama is propelled by a performance of stunning psychological insight and raw feeling from Jasmine Batchelor. But the film is rendered even more affecting by the careful consideration it gives to the impact of her character's fluctuating decision-making, both on the people directly involved and those on the fringes.