Jeannette Catsoulis

This nostalgic nod to the Chinese magic-and-martial arts genre known as wuxia mixes love story and clan war with equal amounts of silliness and heart.

Poised unwaveringly between gentle comedy and delicate drama, Maya Kenig's Off White Lies keeps a lot to itself. But this narrative withholding, while infuriating at times, presents no real barrier to our engagement with the film's unconventional look at the growing connection between a shy teenage girl and her shiftless father.

Its sociopolitical concerns — primarily around indigenous land rights — are muted and muddled by a script that favors manly grunting and moody looks over clarifying dialogue. Riven with racism and sharp bursts of violence, Goldstone nevertheless has a rough, desolate beauty.

A novel teenage comedy with an astute understanding of adolescent sexual confusion and the nebulous nature of desire, Zerophilia suggests an elastic view of gender that's alternately gleeful and terrifying.

Stingy with details and dialogue, but more than generous with atmosphere, this seductively photographed thriller (written and directed by Jeremy Saulnier, who also wielded the camera) sells its empty calories with great skill.

Though cinematographer Flavio Labiano turns the city into an alien maze of steel and glass, his chilling work is undercut by a script with more logical craters than Martin's.

One of those rare ensemble dramas whose actors work toward common goals rather than individual awards, the movie resolves its creeping escalation of poor judgment and reprehensible behavior with surprising emotional force.

Leavening the rather grim atmosphere with luminous earth tones (photographed by Suzie Lavelle) and a smidgen of wry humor, this low-budget beauty draws you in.

Suffused with sorcery and silvery light, November, written and directed by Rainer Sarnet, is a bizarre Estonian love story — a mishmash of folklore, farm animals and scabrous fun — in which beauty and ugliness fight to the death.

As chilling and stylish as it is, Longlegs is a frustrating pleasure.

Subtly rebellious and defiantly optimistic, “Speed Sisters” masks the sound of gunshots with the roar of revving engines. For these women, driving symbolizes a freedom they can otherwise only imagine.

A jubilant documentary about a place where power chords and empowerment go hand in hand.

The film, fluidly shot by James Adolphus, remains deeply sensitive to the complexities of a culture whose attachment to monarchy contravenes its best interests. This dilemma is gradually becoming clear to Princess Sikhanyiso, the oldest of the king's 22 children and a student in California. Intelligent, articulate, caring and strong-willed, she could be her country's best hope.

More an infomercial than a movie, Rollin Binzer’s awed documentary is, at best, a well-earned tribute to one man’s unwavering vision and unrelenting hard work.

Mr. Russell is far from the only reason to see this unexpected low-budget treat, a witty fusion of western, horror and comedy that gallops to its own beat. That rhythm is dictated entirely by the writer and director, S. Craig Zahler, a novelist and musician who flips genre conventions upside-down and cares more about character than body count.

Despite a script (by Chaganty and Sev Ohanian) that sees no need to flavor its tension with flashbacks or character-fleshing, Run has fun with its ludicrous plot.

Mr. Nooshin stirs a mystery that’s light on special effects and bravely uncomplicated. He may not have much money, but his feel for age and class dynamics is sure, and his actors respond.

Blessed with natural performances and brisk pacing, this unusual little movie would like us to know just one thing: Passion is fine, but a pal is priceless.

As subtle as its title, Cockneys vs. Zombies is mildly funny and easily likable.

A lean, low-budget debut that taps into newlywed anxiety with subtle wit and no small amount of style.

Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akin isn't exactly known for slapstick, so Soul Kitchen has the feel of a palate cleanser. After the hard-edged drama of "Head-On" and "The Edge of Heaven," this boisterous comedy milling with scruffy misfits goes down more easily than an oyster on the half shell.

Mr. Porterfield might sometimes be too subtle for his own good, but by taking us on a low-key ramble through the ever-shifting feelings of a fractured family, he has woven a dreamy, detached chronicle of dissolution and renewal.

Marrying fact and fiction, Jane Goldman’s seamy screenplay is wildly overstuffed; but the director, Juan Carlos Medina, gives the music hall scenes a rowdy authenticity.

Harnessing a range of appropriately spooky-oddball narrators and striking visual styles — including graphic novels, early photography and Expressionist painting — the Spanish director and animator Raul Garcia simultaneously honors and reimagines.

Though playing at times like an extended sitcom, Ira & Abby radiates a breathless charm, due in no small part to Ms. Westfeldt’s sharp dialogue and engagingly unmannered performance.

Jamie Foxx might have top billing, but right there beside him are the professional contortionists whose eye-popping moves are more commonly seen in Las Vegas showrooms than on movie screens.

Like Alverson’s 2015 character study, “Entertainment,” The Mountain sets forth a profoundly anhedonic vision of America — and humanity — that’s simultaneously upsetting and mesmerizing.

Manipulative to the max (one upsetting murder is almost pornographically protracted), Kill is dizzyingly impressive and punishingly vicious.

Dependably genuine, and suffused with Mr. Jaglom’s increasingly mellow intelligence, this lighthearted backstage drama will feel to his fans like a gathering of familiars.

New World is both less bloody and more thoughtful than most of its genre, the shifting-alliances plot becoming more engrossing as it progresses.

Stripped down and edited for disequilibrium rather than clarity, “Play” is less interested in pandering to gorehounds than in highlighting our reluctance to view children as anything other than innocent.

Packs more sadness than the familiar fairy tale but offers its own fantastical delights. Ye Xian's party dress, made of teardrops, suits her -- and her story -- perfectly.

Shaping personal and geographical history into sun-drenched dollops, the director Heinz Brinkmann fashions a charmingly quirky guide to his island home.

Amid a cacophony of accusations and justifications, it’s the children’s broken limbs, ladderlike scars and disfigured, emaciated bodies that paradoxically hold the film together.

The conclusion is rushed and poorly staged, yet the damp caul of loneliness that envelops the film’s early scenes feels moving and true.

The film’s questionable continuity, bargain-basement effects and overload of gay clichés may not be to everyone’s taste, but its queer-eye-for-the-undead-guy exuberance and warmth of spirit are irresistible.

A charming blend of science and conjecture, Fantastic Fungi wants to free your mind.

Starter for Ten offsets its rite-of-passage clichés with relaxed performances and an extremely likable lead.

A lively romp through terrain less traveled than you might think.

Though at times tasteless and barely coherent, the story is oddly affecting, the very strangeness of Nyholm’s folkloric vision and its unnerving execution pulling you in.

Mr. Buschel, armed with an ear for diverting dialogue and actors who know how to sell it, somehow makes it all work.

Thanks to fine performances and a narrative that doesn’t hang about to admire itself, the movie goes down as easily as a love potion at a coven.

Despite a somewhat soft middle section, Free Solo is an engaging study of a perfect match between passion and personality.

Drifting and sweet, 7 Chinese Brothers (like Mr. Byington’s gentle 2009 love story, “Harmony and Me”) leaves a melancholy but hopeful aftertaste.

Though occasionally inflammatory -- one interviewee talks about being "slingshotted into slavery" -- American Blackout isn’t a conspiracy rant. It's a methodical compilation of questions and irregularities that deserves a wider audience.

Charmingly slight and casually confessional.

If we must talk trash, Mr. Irons - assisted by a scientist or two and Vangelis's doomy score - is an inspired choice of guide. Soothing and sensitive, his liquid gaze alighting on oozing landfills and belching incinerators, he moves through the film with a tragic dignity that belies his whimsical neckwear and jaunty hats.

Candid and empathetic, the movie’s segments can feel rushed and unfocused; yet they have a ragged intimacy that argues implicitly for an individual’s right to choose, without interference or condemnation.

Memories of Tomorrow finally understands that the real victim of this terrible affliction is the partner left behind.

Never forgetting the rush of the game, the directors regularly serve up fleet footage of the team’s highs and lows, allowing the rhythms of the field to set the film’s volatile beat.

This is Ms. Cattrall's movie all the way. Photographed more cruelly than a tabloid victim, she gives Monica a grubby dignity that her "Sex and the City" alter ego, Samantha Jones, would wholeheartedly applaud.

Border Post is notable for representing all of Yugoslavia's former member republics among its producers and for a tone that juggles humor and harshness without sacrificing either.

More grounded in simple observation than in fanciful theories, this effortlessly engaging story of sudden tragedy and halting recovery wisely focuses on the facts and leaves the wonder to the audience.

Turning black-white conflict into a laudably complex wash of gray, Mr. Green (inspired in part by a conversation he had with a police officer about the 2014 death of Eric Garner) favors reason over outrage. The political heat rises but the movie stays cool, its smooth, smart climax in keeping with its levelheaded tone.

Thought-provoking rather than deeply philosophical, Ever Since the World Ended features many engaging performances and several outstanding ones.

The escalating hysteria and grisly set pieces of Bug may strain credulity, but Ms. Judd has never been more believable as a woman condemned to attract the wrong kind of man.

The light is menacing, the mood watchful and the action scenes have a crude, desperate energy that gets the job done. Here, violence is neither weightless nor glorified, but just another obstacle on the way to a better future.

A middling zombie movie elevated by clever writing and gooeylicious special effects, Kerry Prior's Revenant toys with big themes but settles for uneasy laughs.

Barbaric, elegant, primitive, erotic, revolting, thrilling: the movie, like bullfighting itself, is all of these.

Paying to see Countdown to Zero is like tipping a fortuneteller to predict the manner of your death.

Somewhere Between presents an effortlessly moving but superficial profile of four bright Chinese girls and their adoptive American families.