Jeannette Catsoulis

Directors Justin Weinstein and Tyler Measom have produced a jaunty, jovial portrait with a surprising sting in its tail.

Stretched to 80 minutes, the story (by the director Leah Meyerhoff) almost breaks; that it holds together without compromising its simplicity or emotional authenticity only proves that, contrary to the maxim, you don’t need a gun if you’ve got the right girl.

Even at its most incomprehensible, the propulsive thriller On the Job is never less than arresting.

Essentially a one-man show, The Guilty necessarily vibrates to the rhythms of its lead.

A sometimes uneasy merger of monster movie and psychological horror — with a dollop of social-media satire — this inventive first feature mines tween confusion (there are nods to both bulimia and menstruation) for grotesque fun.

Song of the Sea moves delicately but purposefully from pain to contentment and from anger to love. On land and underwater, the siblings’ adventures unfold in hand-drawn, painterly frames of misty pastels, sometimes encircled by cobwebby borders that give them the look of pictures in a locket.

The film is a riveting portrait of young men in shock and in mourning as the tragedy stirs feelings that have long lain dormant.

It's brilliantly silly entertainment whose flaws are glaring only in hindsight; in the moment, you'll have much more fun if you stop looking for holes in the script and join Paul in looking for a way out.

While Pin Cushion might prove too distressing for some, it’s still peculiarly, undeniably original.

Blindingly beautiful and meticulously assembled by the award-winning editor Bob Eisenhardt, Meru easily makes you forget that what you are watching is completely bananas.

The filmmakers’ emphasis on drama honors the driven personality of their subject, while tracing a fairly conventional glad-rags-to-riches narrative arc.

Until its surprisingly effective ending, You Go To My Head keeps its drama under the skin. Like an animal in captivity, Bafort, who is also a model, slinks and lounges with long-limbed grace; but it’s Cvetkovic who holds the movie steady, giving Jake a secretive, worn gentleness that’s tinged with tragedy.

Viewed simply as a horror movie, A Horrible Way to Die is diverting; viewed as commentary on our willingness to tune out evil for the sake of emotional connection, it's devastating.

Seoul Searching is rude, funny, silly and poignant. Above all, it’s kind; Mr. Lee understands that belonging is a feeling that many of us may never experience.

Its ideas aren’t new, and at times Ruby and Gensan can feel like recognizable symbols of societal failure. What’s different, though, is the performers’ skill in portraying characters whose extreme mutual dependence is touchingly believable, giving no hint of the damage later revealed.

In service to a gleefully malicious tone, Mark Mylod’s direction is cool, tight and clipped, the actors slotting neatly into characters so unsympathetic we become willing accessories to their suffering.

An unexpectedly gripping thriller that seesaws between comedy and horror, I Care a Lot is cleverly written (by the director, J Blakeson) and wonderfully cast.

Though disappointment and loneliness guide its conversations, the movie isn’t bleak; it’s a touching and tender commentary on the need to be seen and the desire to be heard.

In a movie whose greatest tension comes from wondering whether Chris will violate his parole by drinking a beer, the actors need to be compelling. Easily clearing that bar, Ms. Falco gives Carol a gentle kindness and the emotional intelligence to transform Chris’s ardor into a catalyst.

The director and animator Robert Morgan has crafted a narratively slender, visually sophisticated first feature.

Though raising serious questions about the way history is written, and by whom, The Lost King isn’t a polemic, or even a biopic. It’s a quietly droll detective story, a warm portrait of a woman who lost her health and found her purpose, exhuming her self-respect along with Richard’s bones.

The accumulation of spot-on performances and long-familiar faces, small-town routines and dusty-worn locations, finally coalesces into a picture that’s greater than the sum of its oft-clichéd parts.

Set over eight harrowing months, Pieces of a Woman is a ragged, mesmerizing study of rupture and reconstruction. The ending is ill-judged, but the movie understands that while we love in common, we grieve alone.

The irritations and tedium of high school life are staged with refreshing simplicity, while the performers interact with an age-appropriate naturalness the American teenage movie rarely achieves.

This amiable look at life on the margins gradually accumulates a melancholy that punctures the drollness.

Using real experiences shared by the homeless in story workshops, Omotoso — who was also a creator of the South African television series “A Place Called Home” — directs with empathy and without sentimentality.

Drag Me to Hell has a tonic playfulness that’s unabashedly retro, an indulgent return to Mr. Raimi’s goofy, gooey roots.

Spirited, probing and frequently hilarious, it coasts on the fearless charm of its front man and the eye-opening candor of its interviewees, most of them women.