Geoff Berkshire

The hypnotically paced drama carried by the serendipitous odd-couple pairing of John Cho and Haley Lu Richardson is lovely and tender, marking Kogonada as an auteur to watch.

Although Captive largely succeeds as a two-hander, it stumbles in the minimal attempts to broaden the scope beyond Smith and Nichols’ time together.

Comedian and actor Kumail Nanjiani and writer Emily V. Gordon mine their personal history for laughs, heartache, and hard-earned insight in The Big Sick, a film that’s by turns romantic, rueful, and hilarious.

Although limited in scope, the feature documentary debut of TV news veteran Cary Bell benefits greatly from the infectious personality of its subject, Abigail Evans.

Even if every word of Coogler’s account of the last day in Grant’s life held up under close scrutiny, the film would still ring false in its relentlessly positive portrayal of its subject.

Filmmakers Josh Kriegman (a former Weiner aide) and Elyse Steinberg utilize their seemingly unfettered access to deliver a rollicking and never-dull insider’s view of a political campaign in crisis mode, but the most fascinating questions surrounding Weiner’s epic fall remain unanswered.

The script is executed with enough naturalism to ward off complaints of contrivance — all the way up to a tidy, but quite satisfying, denouement.

Without any fuss, Lipitz has made a film deeply rooted in intergenerational relationships between women.

This character-driven picture takes its time marinating in quiet conversations and Austin atmosphere, making the sudden jolts of violence all the more shocking when they land.

Tweel masterfully assembles roughly four years of footage, much of it shot by Gleason himself, and the result is painfully raw at times but undeniably rewarding.

With the gripping appeal of a great epic novel, Kief Davidson and Pedro Kos’ documentary spans three decades of diligent work on the frontlines of global health crises to prove, in moving detail, the difference dedicated professionals can make in seemingly hopeless situations.

There’s more than a whiff of both Michael Haneke and Ruben Östlund to the proceedings, except the characters never emerge as fully as they do in the best of those filmmakers’ works.

Headland demonstrated little interest in playing it safe with her previous film... But here she reins in that impulse almost too much, and Sleeping With Other People winds up both looking (with its adequate but unremarkable tech package) and often feeling like a run-of-the-mill studio comedy.

For most of its running time, Relic feels more like a chamber piece than a full-fledged horror outing, but a nail-biting third act ups the ante.

[A] fascinating but only intermittently insightful film.

Narco Cultura is as overwhelming as it is absorbing.

The film’s strongest assets are undoubtedly its actors.

Beyond the Lights is a strange beast, a music-industry romance that alternates freely between wisdom and mawkishness, caustic entertainment-biz critique and naive wish fulfillment, heartfelt flourishes and soap-opera shenanigans.

An exercise in hero worship that doesn’t shy away from its subject’s least admirable traits, “Being Evel” attempts to deliver a complex portrait of a man who preferred to be seen as a self-styled myth

The Internet’s Own Boy is a beautifully crafted film that opens a window on a world not everyone has entered yet, and exposes ways in which both the legal system and the U.S. government is lagging hopelessly behind technology.

Exceedingly stylish and ultimately quite silly, The Signal is a sci-fi head trip better appreciated for the journey than the destination.

It’s not necessarily artful, but it’s also never less than compelling. If anything, Soechtig has only refined her skills at packaging a slick, audience-friendly documentary with a subject that feels even more urgent.

Writer-director Jim Strouse (“Grace Is Gone,” “The Winning Season”) places Williams at the center of a thoroughly conventional indie narrative — trusting his star’s sensibility to freshen up otherwise stale scenarios. Fortunately, Williams delivers on every count.

A formulaic and functional documentary that nevertheless proves effective at getting the message out about America’s addiction to unhealthy food.

Earth to Echo reaches for the stars with its gentle sci-fi shenanigans, but the rote result remains decidedly earthbound.

Results are simple-minded at best, contemptible at worst; most audiences would rather watch anything else.

The breezily likable pic benefits from an underexposed topic and solid execution.

Greener Grass is a movie that’s not only immediately destined for cult status — it’s the rare movie that truly earns it.

Silver offers up a generally assured and compelling film here.

Slack narrative and abysmal dialogue render the vague generational satire meaningless to anyone unfamiliar with Tolstoy’s work (and depressing to those in the know).

American Promise succeeds in touching on a wealth of subjects without overreaching.

Siegel’s likable perf keeps the audience on her side and highlights Maddie’s knack for thinking on her feet. Gallagher is even better as the mysteriously motivated antagonist.

Rather than milking the outre premise for broad comedy, everyone involved strives to keep the characters and situations grounded and warm.

A promising and impressively self-assured debut for 23-year-old filmmaker Miles Joris-Peyrafitte, As You Are is crafted with the confidence and skill of a veteran, but also the youthful eye of someone not far removed from his protagonists.

Even in moments that don’t ring entirely true, Boyega’s grounded performance keeps the film headed in the right direction.

Unacceptable Levels marries folksy astonishment and alarmist speculation in a documentary far too easy to dismiss.

The Book of Life is undoubtedly stuffed with more business than its fleet, kid-friendly running time can properly handle. Yet Gutierrez’s confident delivery of the material remains so buoyant and passionately felt throughout that he almost gets away with it.

What emerges is a nuanced, if somewhat undernourished, portrait of the poorest inhabitants of the richest country in the world.

Take Me to the River compensates for a lack of originality and depth with no shortage of joyful celebration.

Boasting spectacular performances from Duplass and Elisabeth Moss as a husband and wife on the brink of separation, this incredibly assured directorial debut of Charlie McDowell essentially turns the idea of a two-hander upside down and inside out.

Blending smart fantasy elements, broad comedy, tender romance and an atypically slow-burning apocalypse, the directorial debut of “I Heart Huckabees” co-writer Jeff Baena is charming, thoughtful and laugh-out-loud funny.

After an hour or so spent establishing characters worth caring about, the narrative starts to devolve, and the more the film circles back to the mythology of “Ouija,” the sillier it gets. Much like the characters at its center, this prequel can’t outrun the ghosts of its past.

Swanberg and co-writer Megan Mercier have crafted an incredibly generous film that wears its heart on its sleeve but never feels sappy or even sentimental.

The intense focus on the two lead characters emerges as both a strength and a weakness. There’s a lot of walking and talking, and what begins as rather charming ultimately turns tedious, even with a fleet 80-minute running time before closing credits factor in.

The directorial debut of visual artist Corin Hardy is never less than arresting to the eye, but thin characters and a familiar story hold this Irish chiller back from entering the top tier of recent horror entries.

The Overnight invites the audience to keep guessing exactly who is seducing whom, and exactly where the temptations will lead, right up to its final few beats. Barely hitting 70 minutes before the credit crawl, this comedy successfully achieves a climax of its own that is equal parts exciting and frustrating.

Eerie and haunting without ever being outright scary, Don't Leave Home is different enough from current trends in horror to be of at least some interest to hardcore genre buffs.

Hamm’s performance here as freelance journalist and investigative whiz Irwin “Fletch” Fletcher is a master class in effortless charm, a comedic turn that never sacrifices the character’s intelligence for a punchline yet steers clear of the smugness and smarminess so prevalent in contemporary comedy.

This is neither an indictment nor an endorsement but simply a refreshing departure from the combative tone of contemporary politics and political coverage.

This disarming pic navigates tricky emotional territory to emerge as an impressive feature debut for helmer Jen McGowan and scribe Amy Lowe Starbin.

While the filmed stage performances are among the pic’s most galvanizing sequences, their inclusion underscores how flat Gibney’s combination of archival footage and talking-head interviews otherwise plays.

An unusual movie like Buster’s Mal Heart demands an unusual star, and Rami Malek proves an ideal fit for Sarah Adina Smith’s sophomore feature.

Page is simply superb in a complex role that perfectly plays to her gift for balancing deadpan comedy with surprisingly deep emotional reserves.

Part teen romance, part awkward love triangle, part generational-clash portrait, and almost all powered by nostalgia, this warmly conceived dramedy will likely resonate strongest with audiences who have a direct connection to the story’s place and time.

Joshy offers a strange mix of elements that never quite add up.

Overlong film quickly becomes tedious whenever the camera strays from the lions, who don’t have much personality but prove more compelling than the humans.

In supporting roles of varying importance, Masterson, Sasha Lane and Hannah Marks do enough to suggest the film would have been better off giving them more. But Daniel Isn’t Real remains a two-man show, and Robbins and Schwarzenegger are an odd couple worth believing in.

A trek across the Himalayas to raise climate-change awareness is respectfully packaged as inspirational comfort food in Pad Yatra: A Green Odyssey.

What the Pierce brothers lack in flavorful storytelling or compelling characters, they almost entirely make up for in good old-fashioned atmosphere and suspense. The Wretched rarely surprises, but it’s well-crafted enough to get under your skin anyway, with an able assist from the creepy camerawork of cinematographer Conor Murphy and unsettling score by Devin Burrows.

Carefully repeated imagery, in-camera tricks and well-executed fx combine to create a tantalizing visual puzzle that demands full attention, even as the flavorless characters and largely so-so performances risk audience indifference.

Grim, gritty and ultra-violent, Dredd reinstates the somber brutality missing from the U.K. comicbook icon's previous screen outing.

The ADD overload combined with an understandably kid-friendly approach to horror (no one’s ever in real danger, and the monsters are never too scary) results in a disposable product intended to appeal to everyone but likely to resonate with no one.

A bittersweet ending offers both victory and defeat, but closes on a note of hard-won optimism.

Blissfully swimming against the hyperactive kidpic tide, Dolphin Tale 2 gently peddles inspirational life lessons while respecting both its characters and its audience.

First-time writer-director (and also star) Michelle Morgan brings just enough specificity, and a surprisingly sharp eye, to make the film an interesting calling card for future work.

A thoughtful, detailed chronicle of the Fed’s origins, responsibilities and shifting monetary policies.

"Spark” remains a lovingly made and shot tease, designed to ensure that what really happens at Burning Man stays at Burning Man.

Unfortunately, Drunktown’s Finest too often suffers from stilted performances and scripting.

Shyamalan has long been criticized for serving up borderline (or downright) silly premises with a straight face and overtly pretentious atmosphere, but he basically abandons that approach here in favor of a looser, more playful dynamic between his fresh-faced leads.

Solid performances and some genuinely sharp humor elevate writer-director Rob Burnett’s second feature.

For much of the running time, The Midnight Swim is effectively ambiguous, but Smith’s decision to play coy with the sisters’ backstories eventually frustrates.

Even if the low-budget execution is uneven at times, there’s enough snap to the filmmaking, and enough raw power in the premise, to make for solid B-movie excitement.

The ensuing abundant gore is simultaneously gleeful and nonsensical as the filmmakers rope in so many monsters — from seductive vampires to routine zombies to killer clowns — the entire movie becomes literal overkill.

The graceful camerawork, precise editing and high-quality animation still can’t disguise the lack of imagination that went into the overall conception and the repetitive sameness that creeps into every bind the penguins find themselves in.

Even if first-time writer-director Wayne Roberts is sympathetic to the plight he’s chosen for the protagonist, his film never burrows deep enough under her skin to make the string of miserable scenarios connect in a meaningful way.

Lapses in the screenplay are mitigated only slightly by the natural chemistry between Long and Rossum.

Even as some of the supporting players and subplots veer toward caricature, the family dynamics at the film’s center remain entirely relatable.

The film’s haphazard focus muddies the waters without doing anything to clarify the overall stakes. Fortunately, the continual visual splendors make a rather striking argument of their own.

Although the X-Men ensembles are usually large, there are simply too many characters for the action-heavy “Apocalypse” to properly juggle.

While there are a few good jokes and sight gags along the way, the main impression left by She's All That is how numbingly consistent its lack of originality is.

The ensemble’s crack comic timing can only go so far to compensate for uneven scripting.

The Land feels a few drafts away from succeeding on its own terms. Still, there’s enough on screen, beyond Lendeborg’s confident star turn, to label Caple as a filmmaker to watch.

Paquin, in one of her strongest performances since The Piano, and especially Grainger (best known for a substantial résumé of British television) shoulder the film’s dramatic burdens with grace and ease. They’re a pleasure to watch. But the unassumingly square and overly familiar film simply isn’t the buzzworthy vehicle their work deserves.

It's all very strange and more than a bit silly, but somehow — even as characters travel halfway around the world — the plot never journeys anywhere that surprising.

Loitering With Intent is essentially a 75-minute hangout movie, which would work better if the characters were worth hanging out with.

The sophomore effort from Jake Paltrow (“The Good Night”) gets so bogged down in its primal tale of murder and revenge that the most intriguing elements become little more than futuristic window dressing.

It’s too bad the film doesn’t provide a better sense of what makes the Belgian Malinois so uniquely suited to the battlefield, or find a way to pay more than lip service to the deep bonds developed between military men and animals.

A ho-hum exorcism chiller that tries to spice up a formulaic screenplay by converting a predominantly Catholic-fixated horror subgenre to Judaism.

In a welcome gender reversal from the father-son dynamic of “Heaven Is for Real,” Garner and Rogers deliver fully committed performances that credibly convey the physical and mental anguish endured by sick children and their caregivers.

This is the kind of movie where a major development in a character’s personal life instantly telegraphs his ultimate fate in the trenches.

Watching an estimable quintet of character actors do their thing is the chief pleasure of Cut Bank.

A terminally quirky indie dramedy, Bottled Up risks trivializing prescription drug abuse in service of a trite middle-age romance.

Daddy’s Home isn’t so much a lump of coal as an empty box.

Against all odds, “Nashville” series regular Peeples keeps the film watchable, delivering a capable star turn with enough flashes of soul to belie the script’s artifice and credible pop vocals to boot.

The performers are mostly out to sea without a paddle trying to make sense of hateful characters, but Trimbur at least shows some comic spark and strikes a few sympathetic notes.

The type of sporadically silly and patently predictable horror pic that would look like filler on Syfy’s weekend lineup, The Other Side of the Door brings virtually nothing new to the supernatural genre.

As violent as its predecessor yet noticeably duller and less outrageous, Machete Kills is dragged to the finish line entirely by its director’s madcap energy and an absurd cast of major stars in strange cameos.

There isn’t a pharmaceutical cocktail powerful enough to improve the dreadful comedy of Better Living Through Chemistry.