Glenn Whipp

Dickinson’s first feature is so assured in every other regard that you can give him a pass for these interludes. Urchin establishes him as a filmmaker to watch: a storyteller willing to look at a thorny subject and admit that there are no easy answers.

Bigelow making a movie in which most of the story takes place in rooms full of people talking would seem like a misuse of the talents of one of our great action directors. It’s not. A House of Dynamite is a tightly wound dynamo, elevated by her production team.

The magic trick of If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is that you find yourself caring deeply for Linda, thanks to Byrne’s vivid, impassioned performance. You can’t shake her.

Baker wrote the part for her, and Madison returned the favor with a star-making performance, leaning into Ani’s audacity while revealing the fragile façade, the vulnerabilities and self-deception lurking underneath.

Pugh gives Alma an edgy unpredictability that almost makes you believe some of the implausible things she does. And the expressive Garfield can convey water-eyed empathy so deftly that you know Tobias would be laid low if Almut so much as stubbed her toe on the leg of a coffee table.

While it’s easy to view “Axel F” as a calculated cash grab, it’s clear that Murphy possesses an affection for the title character. From the get-go, Murphy’s portrayal hinged on Axel’s ability to warmly connect with everyone he meets.

You expect that the film will boast exceptional stuntwork — and it does. At its best, though, it’s a romantic comedy that coasts on the charisma of its two appealing leads, Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt.

Rustin is on firmer footing when detailing the creative spit-balling that created the framework that made the March on Washington possible, as well as the competing egos and interests that almost doomed it. You’d need a 10-part limited series to really do all this justice, but the movie puts across the complexities with a nimble shorthand.

The Creator itself eventually tries one’s patience with its incessant demands that you feel for characters and relationships that it hasn’t taken the care to develop.

Marnier could have taken another pass at the film’s secondary characters (the upcoming thriller “Saltburn” has the same problem with its dysfunctional clan), and whatever notions he’s trying to put across about the patriarchy don’t quite land. But he has a star in the sparkling Calamy.

Yes, You Hurt My Feelings explores the incident of its title and the risks and limits of total honesty in a relationship. But it’s also a funny and incisive look at middle-age malaise

Part of the appeal of Ticket to Paradise is seeing Roberts and Clooney together before they — and this type of glossy studio entertainment — become extinct.

Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or-winning social satire, Triangle of Sadness, is many things: a cautionary tale about the perils of slurping shellfish on rough seas, a blunt (as in dull) critique of the one percent, a (wasted) opportunity to hear Woody Harrelson espouse the tenets of Karl Marx and a pessimistic suggestion that people — both the oppressors and the oppressed — share a fundamental willingness to exploit each other given the right circumstances.

It’s easy to give in to despair. What We Feed People makes clear is that you can help with a simple, small act of empathy.

Because Heder — whose previous work includes the Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black” and “Glow” and feature “Tallulah” — is so adept at establishing the emotional bonds between the film’s close-knit family, the presence of all these conventions doesn’t matter.

Kid Candidate isn’t about winning as much as a reinforcement of the notion that apathy is the death of democracy, a lesson best learned, as Pedigo comes to understand, when you’re young.

You may know Thompson as a member of the Roots and as the musical director for “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” If you’ve read his book, “Mo’ Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove,” you’re aware that he’s also inquisitive and a first-rate music geek, making him the perfect person to crate-dig through the musical and cultural history documented in this film. His respect and enthusiasm for the material jumps off the screen.

If you care about Sparks, this movie is heaven, a long-overdue answer to the group’s 1994 song “When Do I Get to Sing ‘My Way.’” (With this doc, Ron and Russell have to feel, at least a little bit, “like Sinatra felt.”) If you don’t know about Sparks, Wright has created an introduction that gleefully demolishes any barrier you might think you have toward their music.

For all the struggle that takes place in this movie, it is its quiet grace that you most remember. Minari shares its secrets with a whisper, and as it unfolds, you find yourself leaning into it, enraptured.

Fatman isn’t a lump of coal. More like a fruitcake your neighbor dropped off in early December that’s left on the counter through the new year, its red and green cherries hardening into buckshot before being hauled out to the curb with the Christmas tree.

Throughout the film, Springsteen lavishes his bandmates with praise (“they can float like a butterfly and sting like a bee”) in voiceover segments that feel a bit more shopworn than when he unleashes them from the stage. But when Zimny lets the images speak for themselves, “Letter to You” achieves a moving power.

American Utopia arrives 36 years after Jonathan Demme’s “Stop Making Sense,” which documented three shows the Talking Heads played at Hollywood’s Pantages Theater in 1983 and just might be the greatest concert movie ever made. Until, that is, American Utopia. Rank them 1A and 1B.

Rachel Mason performs a nice bit of misdirection with the film, starting with humorous juxtapositions of this nice, elderly Jewish couple running a gay porn shop and then moving toward a poignant story of acceptance.

D.W. Young’s lovely film introduces us to several sellers of rare books, New Yorkers, all of them smart and self-aware enough to know how they’re perceived. (There hasn’t been this much tweed in a movie since “Gosford Park.”)

What distinguishes “Tigertail” is the way Yang explores Pin-Jui’s earlier life as a means of showing how duty and obligation brought him to that place. And as Yang takes us on that journey with him, he also offers a low-key lesson for redemption — examine the past to escape regret.

Director Francesco Zippel doesn’t challenge Friedkin, letting him spin his life’s work as he pleases.

The considerable achievement of “Birth of the Cool” comes from the way it understands those words and places them in the context of American history. You’ll want to listen to Miles’ music after watching the film and, when you do, you might feel it a little deeper.

Jawline provides an evenhanded examination of celebrity and loneliness in the digital age.