Elizabeth Weitzman

Because the movie’s on-the-fly style is as scruffy as its protagonists, it’s easy to underestimate the intelligence and artistry it takes to make something so silly.

It seems impossible for anyone to remain unmoved by Harper’s thoughtfully-constructed history.

This is as essential a historical document as you could ever hope to find. It should be considered required viewing for every American who has the slightest interest in our nation’s history, politics, or culture. And, come to think of it, also for those who don’t.

Sedgwick and Bacon are visibly delighted to be together, and we buy Cynthia and Stan’s connection even when it feels underwritten.

Few films have been more unsparingly intimate.

Braverman’s approach, in which he mostly relies on Kaufman to tell his own story through extensive and deftly edited vintage footage, is the right one.

You’ll get several movies for the price of a single ticket in Ryan Coogler’s (Creed) period drama-thriller-romance-musical Sinners. And while some of these disparate elements are more successful than others, the combination is audacious enough to leave you simultaneously awed and overwhelmed by his outsized ambitions.

The kids will love it. And actually, you might, too.

If the end result is less a comprehensive biography than a long overdue and entirely deserved tribute, it is, nevertheless, truly terrific.

A gorgeous meditation on girlhood

Delpy’s balancing act is an admirable and often effective one.

It’s a testament to both Matlin and the movie that we leave already anticipating the chapters still to come.

Even as Lau's intentions are to nudge us back into real life, the images flickering on screen continue to hold us rapt.

Brooklyn has never looked lovelier than in Holder's soulful debut.

Although this single-minded existence will fascinate and inspire devotees, anyone new to the details of her life is likely to be left wanting more. Even so, all will be moved by the honest approach Dion and Taylor take towards her illness.

Both Kai and Lasker-Wallfisch’s daughter, Maya, encourage the reluctant Hans Jürgen, now a frail 87-year-old man, to confront his family’s complicity. As they push and he resists, the process is unsettling and unsatisfying for everyone. But somehow it unfolds that Anita, an extraordinary character and the film’s true heart, sees Hans Jürgen most clearly.

Lovell’s intimate connection to the subject forms the basis of the film’s power, which rests on a palpable pride in sisterhood.

Kolirin has a sense for the bleakly surreal, and an ability to balance even the darkest experiences with empathetic shades of gray. Everyone here is bound by bars of some sort, and everyone has the freedom to make certain choices within them.

The issue, we come to realize, isn’t that Hite disappeared — it’s that she was erased.

The performances are impeccable, and the film’s structural elements are deftly handled across the board.

In Gertten’s hands, Nelly & Nadine isn’t just a war movie but also a touching family history, an unforgettable romance and, above all, a magnificent tribute to the power of persistence in art, life and love.

One of the subjects of To the End notes that she wants to “speak things into existence.” It’s a painfully poignant wish, representative of the blend of optimism, desperation, and determination that powers the entire film.

If you’ve ever watched a classic movie and wondered why no one else seems uncomfortable with its portrayal of female characters, you’ll want to see “Brainwashed” as soon as possible. And if you haven’t — well, that may be all the more reason to seek it out.

Battleground does serve as an excellent primer on the political and practical positions of both sides. But the biggest takeaway of this disconcerting documentary may come from pro-choice activist Sam Blakely, who insists that “we have to stop playing defense, and start playing offense.” Hope, it turns out, is no kind of strategy at all.

Timoner uses a stripped-down, totally straightforward method. She sets up a camera in her parent’s living room, where her father is resting in a hospital bed and her mother is silently worrying on the couch. And then she begins counting down the days.

Connolly has turned Tim Winton’s 1997 novella into his own environmental cri de coeur . . . and while the specifics can get a bit clunky, his passion drives our interest all the way to the end.

Given that Kalderon juggles as many tones as Erez has moods, it’s tough to imagine how he could possibly wrap them all up. And yet he brings his hero, and all of us now cheering him on from the stands, to the perfect conclusion. Unveiling one of the best finales of the year, he turns his ambivalent swimmer into a superstar.

It is rare to find a film that reflects its subject so insightfully, in both an artistic and thematic sense.

Ultimately, though, it all comes down to Duhamel. For a brief, heady moment, the real Galvan had all of Canada intrigued by his exploits. But the greatest coup of all is that his legacy will now forever be defined by Bandit.

The scale in which Fukada works — as both writer and director — is so deliberately intimate that immense experiences feel microcosmic, while tiny moments make a huge impact.

We learn in the documentary Loving Highsmith that the author herself knew plenty about the duality that defined so many of her characters.

The truth is that even at 71 minutes much of this film feels padded, as though Stigter couldn’t let go of the subject but also wasn’t sure how to expand it further. Because Kurtz’s concept is so moving, however, the film retains much of the power he brought to his book.

Through copious clips of studio work and bittersweet interviews with Vinton, his former colleagues, and his family members, we get a sense of both his strengths and weaknesses.

The film’s best scenes are, in a way, the flip side to its weaker ones: the closeness between Castro and her subjects lessens their objectivity but strengthens their intimacy.

Though the religious component is written broadly, the impact is hardly more surreal than many elements of 21st-century reality.

We can, thanks to movies like this one, continue to bear witness. But we will never truly know the reality he tries so hard to unearth, and that remains our burden to hold.

A slow burn that never quite bursts into flame, Both Sides of the Blade is likely to appeal most to those who are already fans of director Claire Denis. That said, would anyone turn down the opportunity to spend a couple of hours with her luminous leading lady, Juliette Binoche?

If the children feel like symbols — sweet and touching, but not quite real — the adults provide a profusion of reality.

To call it a difficult watch would be an understatement; it often feels, in its stark honesty, like a horror film.

Zax’s gentle, fly-on-the-wall perspective keeps us primarily in the present, reminding us that all we need is right there inside the shop.

Too many heartwarming comedies, especially those with mature leads, eventually expose themselves as cynical contrivances. The same could be said for some of the based-in-truth dramas that have started to feel inexorably churned out. In its affable sincerity, The Duke is both their opposite and their antidote, a feel-good entertainment for feel-bad times.

The story is based on real events, which should make it even more gripping, but Abu-Assad and cinematographers Ehab Assal and Peter Flinckenberg draw the rope so tightly around the leads that the suffocating atmosphere reads almost like a filmed play. Fortunately, Abu-Assad does have two excellent collaborators in Awad and Elhadi.

I’ll Find You is an ideal diversion for those who like their cinematic escapism with heavy doses of music and love.

A risky experiment with a striking payoff, Ted K is an impressionistic attempt to personalize the most unrelatable experience imaginable: life as a killer.

It’s a shame that Lessin and Pildes don’t tell us what these amazing women went on to do after the Collective ended. But they all remain, half a century later, passionate and eloquent and thoughtful and fierce.

A work of impressive investigative cinema. ... Their choice to focus so tightly on a micro-scenario here does strand us, occasionally, in the weeds of detail. But it’s tough to watch such a flatly incriminatory report without taking a macro view of society’s villains and heroes.

What makes "Lucy and Desi" so compelling is that we can feel, all the way through, that Poehler enjoys telling their story just as much as we enjoy watching it.

The press notes for Stop-Zemlia call Kateryna Gornostai’s coming-of-age story “radical, authentic, and sensitive.” The latter two descriptors are accurate. The movie’s power, however, comes not from any radicalism but from how authentically ordinary it feels.

Shot in anamorphic, with long, silent scenes backed only by Amin Bouhafa’s haunting score, there is not a spare word or wasted image in the 92-minute running time. It should be said that this is not an easy watch, by any means. But it would be fair to call it a revelatory one.

A tightly-drawn Bullock is fully in tune with Ruth’s pain, making her extreme introversion an evident side effect of trauma rather than personality. Because Ruth keeps so much inside, Fingscheidt uses every element to create a sensory connection between this difficult character and the audience.

These are two middle-aged guys having a good time, by looking forward and backward and, most of all, just by being in the moment. It’s a pleasure to ride along.

Because Munn wisely underplays, she’s able to creep across the high-wire Bateman has stretched out, in which Violet perpetually balances deadpan external calm with overwhelming internal detonation.

DaCosta uses a range of thoughtfully considered media to shape their already-sharp script; the film’s violence is equally startling whether it’s depicted graphically and up-close, or through old-fashioned shadow puppets and oral traditions.

Even when the movie stumbles, Hudson’s bravura performance — and those extraordinary songs — steady its soul.

A fascinating deconstruction of history, culture, and identity, No Ordinary Man raises so many crucial questions — and answers them so thoughtfully — that it moves beyond entertainment into the realm of essential text. It belongs, equally, in theaters, streaming queues, and classrooms.

The impact of the last-act reveal also speaks to the considerable strength of the filmmakers, including not just Lucks but his gifted co-writer Natalie Medlock. Because although the movie concerns itself with love and sexuality, its true subjects are vulnerability, trust and self-knowledge.

It would be nice to see Wright work from a stronger script next time, but she rises above the limitations admirably.

Ascher leaves us pondering the costs of dissociation, but also its seductive appeal. Is it really that outlandish to look around occasionally, and wonder at the surreality of it all?

Jeffrey McHale’s feature debut, the Showgirls appreciation documentary “You Don’t Nomi,” works awfully hard to justify both its subject and its mission. But if you instantly appreciated the cleverness of its title, you’ll enjoy commiserating with fellow travelers.

The film is structured so we come away with two competing, and yet complementary, impressions. First, that our political system has become infected with a rampant and deadly corruption that has spread out of control. And second, that there is a communal cure.

Marks and Liberato are a delight, equally appealing on their own and total #FriendshipGoals together. The two are close in real life and the strength of their chemistry is, ultimately, what makes the movie so special.

Indeed, this year’s Antiquarian Book Fair is celebrating its 60th anniversary at the Armory right now. And after seeing “The Booksellers,” you’ll be a lot more likely to think about how to get there, and maybe a little less inclined to place that next easy order on Amazon.

Reichardt and her outstanding team ensure that we are fully invested in her striving heroes, and equally anxious for their promising young country, as well.

The movie’s most notable asset is the way it resists sketching any of its main characters with a single, easy-to-grasp definition.

Despite some grim ecological statistics and a conservationist message, the movie is so inspirational it feels like the sort of old-fashioned family film that can now be excavated on Disney+.

Bombshell is overpacked and unwieldy and often disconnected. There’s so much going on that no character gets the time she deserves.

The way in which tradition and progress convenes amid such challenging circumstances becomes Meirelles’ tribute to his subjects. The fact that we fully believe in this apparent impossibility feels like his gift to us.

Stokes recorded every story she possibly could, from 1977 to 2012. By then, it had become a lot easier to chronicle both the minutiae and the magnitude of life in the 21st century. But has that been an improvement? Wolf leaves it to his audience to decide, after gently pushing us past any instinctual answers.

These women wear what they want, love who they want, find fulfillment in their power, and support each other unconditionally. They’re not undermined by a script that highlights their flaws or insecurities, or a camera that reflexively leers at them. They get to just be, with all the freedoms and potential of any other fictional heroes.

Terruso has put most of her focus into the script and central performances, relying on minimalist production design and an indie rock and hip-hop soundtrack (Kil the Giant, Flipbois) that blend in rather than stand out.

Though Greenfield is too skilled to overplay her intentions, the picture that emerges gains additional power from its clarifying distance. The Kingmaker is required viewing for anyone concerned about the direction of their own democracy.

The result is artistically uneven in structure but emotionally powerful throughout.

Once Alverson has ensured that his subtext has been absorbed, he seems uncertain about where to go next.

Out-pranking the prankster, [Berman] turns a documentary about an unpredictable subject into a meditation on what it means to make a documentary about an unpredictable subject.

As with all of Shelton’s improv-inspired movies, the plot offers plenty of interest but the personalities provide the purpose.

Ultimately, the filmmakers’ intention isn’t to throw us off but to invite us in, to encourage us to wonder: Is it really so strange for one woman to have two reactions to life?

Every moment indicates deep compassion for Orna, and anyone else who might be driven to see a multi-layered message movie for the #MeToo era.

Exhibiting a dexterity that suggests far more extensive directorial experience, Ejiofor proves himself a master of impact. His visual approach is expansive and evocative, thanks also to the fine work of cinematographer Dick Pope.

It is a gem likely to stay with anyone smart enough to seek it out.

The Invisibles is a powerful testament to the remarkable courage of those forced into heroism, and to the exceptional strength of those who chose it freely.

This was, undeniably, a risky proposition; no one wants to airbrush history. But by thoughtfully employing cutting-edge technology, Jackson has instead created an essential portal connecting audiences of the present to his subjects in the past.

Hill’s made an unabashed love letter to a particular decade, sure, but also to a specific moment in everyone’s life. And while he undercuts his own movie by romanticizing even the most extreme experiences of lost innocence, the purity of Stevie’s longing makes the movie’s wistful fantasy understandable.

As both writer and director, Jenkins pushes us to rise above judgment by steadfastly refusing to indulge in it herself. Deep empathy suffuses the screen, enveloping every one of the characters.

Her update on “Ice Storm”-style suburban ennui feels particularly potent right now, in its vision of a rotting establishment. But in the end, Anders’ deeply-rooted entitlement proves regrettably unassailable.

It’s no easy task to find a fresh way to approach a familiar face, but D’Apolito does a wonderful job ushering us through the highs and lows of Gilda Radner’s life.

That we watch the ticking moments of Where Is Kyra? with so much concern is a testament to the filmmakers and cast determined to elevate her unnoticed life.

Hamoud so deftly mixes both the intimate and the enormous throughout, endowing vibrantly-shot, slice-of-life storytelling with an often wrenching depth.

Samuel Maoz’s Israeli drama Foxtrot is willfully confusing, emotionally chaotic, and occasionally anarchic. It makes complete sense from one angle, but no sense at all from another. In other words, it reflects its subject perfectly.

Barker’s fly-on-the-wall approach eschews showy grandstanding and divisive biases. So there’s a better-than-usual chance that viewers on both sides of the aisle will find themselves moved.

The beauty of Ai’s epic imagery feels like a perpetual challenge: Are you looking? Are you listening? Are you responding?

Yes, My Little Pony: The Movie, like its television predecessor, is all dressed up in bubbles and cupcakes and rainbows. But it’s so jam-packed with rousing girl power, it passes the Bechdel Test with (literally) flying colors.

It’s Prince, though, who lifts the movie into another realm. It’s no exaggeration to say that hers is one of the most noteworthy child performances in recent — or, for that matter, distant — memory. She is so charismatic, and so unfailingly natural, that every one of her scenes feels organic.

It’s impossible to remain unmoved by the many contrasts Abbasi carefully arranges.

What sets it apart from other overpraised festival indies is its tremendously gifted lead.

Plaza deftly keeps us off balance throughout, daring us to relate to Ingrid even as we’re repelled by her.

There is no doubt that Gore has a life-altering passion; he just doesn’t possess the personality required to express it cinematically.

There are few surprises here.... But that’s okay, because we’re in it for the ride, the company, and the pure pleasure of watching these women, and the actresses playing them, embrace an independence Hollywood doles out too grudgingly.

Brian Knappenberger’s urgent new documentary Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press is the sort of movie that impacts your viewpoint long after it ends.