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.

A sensitive drama that marks a notably personal feature debut.

This is as essential a historical document as you could ever hope to find.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.

Bamford seems remarkably at home in her unsettled state, to such a degree that her self-awareness feels downright aspirational.

The filmmakers’ connection to the material is always palpable and undeniably affecting.

There’s something oddly appealing about the fact that Rebecca Zlotowski’s understated thriller, A Private Life, stubbornly refuses easy definition – other than as a modest romp that allows Jodie Foster to perform in another language. And if you’ll watch Foster acting in anything, you’re gonna love watching her do it in French.

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

There is so much talent behind and within Nia DaCosta’s provocative adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler that it’s easy to embrace as an inventive artistic experiment.

It doesn’t all work: the religious iconography is too obvious, and the more lurid horror elements – like the obsessive fans who literally haunt Cam during his training – can be so heavy-handed they’re more silly than scary. What never falters, though, is Tipping’s avid commitment to his concept.

A gently appealing and sincere romance.

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.

Fans, of course, will fiercely argue that Buckley has so much more to offer. And in the strongest compliment to Berg’s affectionate portrait, she makes a similarly convincing case, with ample and tender grace.

Song has, undeniably, done a beautiful job composing this visually absorbing film.

Yes, Friendship does feel in many ways like an expanded I Think You Should Leave sketch built on bizarro absurdism and a waterfall of exacerbating circumstances. To his credit, though, DeYoung – a TV director making his feature debut – does take advantage of the opportunity in some satisfying ways.

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.

If you take The Alto Knights on its own terms – as an eccentric but engaging curio – there’s still plenty of fun to be had.

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a movie that feels as though it was made by someone who just discovered the collected works of Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie.

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

Mostly admirable for its ambition, which often feels nearly endless – as, alas, does the film itself.

Some B-movies, of course, are highly entertaining. This one, though, seems like it was as much of a slog to make as it is to watch.

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

The actors are so committed, and the script so heartfelt, you’d have to be a villain to resist this group’s superpowered sincerity.

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

There’s no rule that every criminal has to be charismatic, or all their heists have to be heart-pounding. They just can’t commit the one sin that’s truly unforgivable: leaving us bored.

A sex comedy lacking in sex, silliness or subversion, when just one would do.

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.

Does great justice to an extraordinary astronaut and reluctant icon, but also repeats the error made so often by media of Ride's era, in centering other people’s perspectives over her own.

While Stoller’s script does boast a few solid laughs, everyone involved deserves and can do better.

Interestingly, it’s Cena — and co-lead Awkwafina — who give the two-dimensional structure some three-dimensional heft. But they have to work pretty hard to bust out of its repetitive cycle of low-stakes comic violence.

Since Håfström and his crew stick their landing, those who particularly enjoy second-hand claustrophobia may find it worth the long journey. Everyone else, however, will be better served by more engaging enterprises here on Earth.

Ultimately, Daniels has made a touching and forceful film about three generations attempting to overcome familial and societal trauma. It’s only the Devil who underdelivers.

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.

Though his slim script (co-written with Chris Smith) holds few surprises, Angarano’s direction is consistently confident. He paces this minor tale wisely, getting in and out of the characters’ small stories in a perfectly-timed 84 minutes.

It’s a lightly-indulgent passion project that leaves us wanting so much more.

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.

Unfortunately, though, the leads — both of whom radiate individual charisma — are entirely lacking in chemistry. And it’s not just them. There is little connection between anyone, or even any event, in a project that takes all its assets for granted.

Colman does her absolute best to counter a scenario that manages to be both strangely off-putting and patly predictable, by shaping up a tartly unsentimental turn.

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.

Even Downs, so appealing on Nickelodeon’s “Henry Danger,” can’t fight the forces of this soulless script (which was based on a potentially promising story idea by Wenonah Wilms).

Too much of Dear Zoe, though, feels factory-designed to engineer emotion rather than aiming to earn it organically.

Bajestani is believably repellent as someone whose split lives as an obsessive loner and respected family man are disturbingly concordant. And Nadim Carlsen’s gritty camerawork pushes the film’s sense of grim social realism further still, providing a viscerally authentic horror. Abbasi doesn’t seem to realize, though, that he’s creating much of that horror himself.

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.

Unlike its levitating heroine, it never really gets off the ground.

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.

If you set out to combine the worst parts of Hallmark holiday movies with the worst parts of frenetic ‘90s rom-coms, you’d probably wind up with something a lot like About Fate. The women are nuts, the men are clueless and the production is so cheap you could pass the time spotting every mistake no one bothered to fix.

Zemeckis and co-writer Chris Weitz do make some attempt to dust off the concept, but the modernized moments further undermine their efforts. When they add empathy, the story loses its soul. And when they jam in easy updates, it just highlights how out of touch the rest of the script feels.

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.

For all its telling — and showing — of sex, Bloom Up never really gets going until its final few minutes. And that late-stage twist occurs during the rare scene in which everyone is fully clothed.

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?

A listless thriller that can’t find its footing, Abandoned does occasionally rouse itself enough to suggest a better movie that never comes to pass.

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

The Phantom of the Open tries so hard to be a winking commentary on British heartwarmers about lovable outsiders. And its efforts are, as often as not, entertaining. But after a while, it becomes clear that what it wants more than anything is to be embraced as a crowd-pleasing comedy itself.

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.

Ultimately the movie asks a lot of us, while simultaneously withholding too much. The concept remains compelling, but the execution both figuratively and literally falls flat.

Why, given all its potential, wasn’t the bar set higher? That, alas, remains the most noteworthy mystery of all.

A joyless exercise in IP mining, Cheaper by the Dozen is all the more depressing for its glimpses of unfulfilled potential.

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.

Writer/director/producer Beth Elise Hawk has approached her first documentary as an unabashed passion project. Her enthusiasm, and general sense of joy, shine through clearly from start to finish. Though she doesn’t dig deep enough to get us much past the elevator pitch, that pitch is pretty appealing.

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.

The movie is composed of three disparate shorts meant to explore a range of connections. Instead, all three feel as if they were designed inside an echo chamber thematically, and none displays a desire to push the envelope creatively.

The movie is at its best when the filmmakers focus their ire on Hollywood itself — the hypocrisies, the empty promises, the rejections and belittlements that are built right into the system.

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.

It’s an enjoyable ride with intermittently compelling moments, particularly when Buttigieg struggles to find the balance between innate personality, intellectual morality, and professional practicality. But the film simply doesn’t dig deep enough.

Presumably, Sudeikis took this job to prove his dramatic skills, and he does deserve credit for achieving that goal. What he’s never able to generate, though, is a compelling case for the movie itself.

“Becoming Cousteau” could have used a little more focus on his earthly experiences.

The smooth professionalism of so many outstanding participants can’t help but elevate a very ordinary film a little bit higher. Despite the best efforts of both McCarthy and O’Dowd, though, there’s never a moment where it truly takes flight.

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.