Jocelyn Noveck

This hypnotic film experience is a badly needed shot in the arm for all of us — music lovers, theater lovers, dance lovers, culture lovers, life lovers. It’s also one of the best concert films in recent memory.

[Scorsese] has called his work an offering to the Osage, and to other Native peoples. It also feels like an offering to those who love cinema, allowing us to watch a master of the craft continue to force himself, unlikely as it seems, to stretch and learn. May he keep stretching — himself, and us.

It goes without saying that the performance is brilliant, and yes, electric, but it’s also heroic. If there had to be a final role, what a gift that it was this, an exclamation point to a career that seems ever more momentous.

No matter how cursed or unlucky the so-called “Scottish play” is in theater lore, the stars seem to be aligned here.

[A] nerve-busting adrenaline jolt of a movie starring a never-better Timothée Chalamet.

Yes, it’s a dazzling technical feat. One could also consider it a gimmick, or at least a method that threatens to distract the viewer’s attention. But that ignores the fact that this very filmmaking style is also hugely effective at delivering this particular story, in the most visceral way possible.

A film in which everything feels stunningly fresh, raw and new.

How Coogler pulls everything off at once — and makes it cohere, mostly — is a sight to see.

If the format of a lecture is inherently limiting, the directors do a superb job of weaving a compelling visual — and emotional — experience.

Heder, who adapted her screenplay from the 2014 French film La Famille Belier, makes crucially effective decisions throughout, but none more important than the casting, with three extraordinary deaf actors playing the deaf family members.

Perhaps there’s something in this tale of two women — or really, three — that speaks to all who try to pretend that it’s unnatural to sometimes be ambivalent about motherhood. And that motherhood is not, in ways and at times, a struggle for nearly everyone.

Time and again, Song, who both writes and directs here, makes the unflashy, understated choice — and in so doing, darned near breaks our hearts, with a tale that feels universal yet rich in detail, urgent yet unrushed.

Though not for everyone, it’s a film that can justifiably be described as “epic” in ambition and design. And, wouldn’t you know, ambition and design are precisely what the movie’s about.

Gosling’s task here is not merely to give dimension to a mythical American hero. He also has to play a man who famously kept his emotions in check. That may not be an asset for a movie character, but sure was an asset for the first human to set foot on another world.

Absorbing, brash, exhausting, urgent, sometimes brilliant and sometimes unapologetically messy

At the end, one feels gratitude not only for Stigter’s painstaking work, but to author Kurtz and of course his grandfather, just a man with a camera whose fleeting footage is a powerful response to those who intended to eradicate the existence of these people and millions like them.

Some may find the film too loosely plotted, a series of vignettes more than a single, tight narrative. But they only need to sit back, listen to the beautiful score by Alberto Iglesias, and let Almodovar weave it all together _ from the first meditative shot of Banderas to the satisfying surprise of the ending shot _ as only Almodovar can.

Rarely has a movie’s title been so apt as that of Waves, a film that makes you feel like you’ve been knocked flat over by a fierce current — only to be rescued by a gentle, soothing flow of warm surf that arrives in the nick of time.

Zhao, co-writing with O’Farrell, goes straight for the tear ducts, with crucial help from a superb cast led by Buckley — who, like her character, seems to have an extraordinary ability to dispense with artifice and access a wildness simmering beneath the surface.

It should be required viewing for anyone who cares about free speech and democracy.

It’s obvious that Sandler, the actor, is capable of extraordinary range — not in the traditional, Meryl Streep sense, but a range of incredibly good (“Punch-Drunk Love”) to painfully bad (the horrendous “Jack and Jill”) and incredibly good again, as in Uncut Gems, a frenetic, compulsively watchable, exhausting and exhilarating collaboration with Josh and Benny Safdie.

It’s sweet news indeed that Mary Poppins Returns, a sequel 54 years in coming, provides just that spoonful of happiness in the form of Emily Blunt, practically perfect in every way as the heir to Julie Andrews.

Rarely have the hues of black and white, cinematographically speaking, looked so beautifully lush as in Passing, the hugely impressive directorial debut of actor Rebecca Hall.

Çatan and co-writer Johannes Duncker, who in fact attended school together, are making the point that even a middle school is a microcosm of society and all its tensions and ills.

A fascinating and poignant look at the less-examined final years of the man’s life, timed for the 50th anniversary of his death.

The tone shifts radically from one moment to the next, and humor is a regular companion to mayhem, pain, even violence. That brings us to the wild and harrowing ending. It’s an ending that may not be expected — well, it’s definitely not expected — but Fennell has said it was the truest way to end a real story of female revenge, not a comic-book version.

Most crucially, it’s a film so original in approach that one feels only Diop could have made or even conceived of it.

All characters are beautifully cast, but a standout is Hawkins, who has the soulful voice of a young Christopher Jackson (the original Benny, who has a cameo here) and charisma that burns through the screen.

The expressive Garner does a lot with a little. She has no big speeches, no tantrums, no floods of tears. It’s the ultimate unshowy part. If there is a word to describe Jane, it is small. Garner seems to shrink as the day goes on.

The final moments are unexpected, and perhaps frustrating. But the title comes back to you. This film may leave you exhausted but also somewhat dazzled. It’s best not to look away.

I Swear — at a perhaps overlong run time of two hours — is full of warmth and even humor, with Davidson occasionally laughing at himself and inviting us to join in.

A deeply felt film about one teetering marriage, and a work whose power sneaks up on you slowly.

[Ronan] gives one of her finest performances in a two-hour study of addiction that is poignant, sometimes beautiful but always painful to watch — and would likely be too draining if not for the luminous presence at its core.

No matter how you feel about the history here, it’s a visceral performance that simply demands to be seen.

You may know the outlines of the soccer legend’s life, but there’s no way you won’t learn something from Diego Maradona, Asif Kapadia’s absorbing and exhaustive new film.

Concrete Cowboy, an impressive debut by writer-director Ricky Staub that overcomes formulaic dialogue and we-saw-that-coming plot twists with its sheer heart, is based on a novel, Ghetto Cowboy by Gregory Neri.

Because seeing what happened to Furie and his chill stoner frog dude — spoiler alert, he became a hate symbol of the alt right — will likely make your blood run cold. It sure makes for a chillingly effective internet-era cautionary tale.

A Quiet Place may not have the weighty social meaning or piercing comedy of another recent high-profile horror thriller, “Get Out.” But like that movie it is smart, it moves fast, it has a hugely satisfying ending — and it deserves to attract a much broader audience than the usual horror film devotees.

Raiff’s writing and direction keep the action moving crisply, and he knows his world — set not in Dallas but in Livingston, New Jersey — very well.

In the end, we’re left to ponder not only grief but loneliness, and the lengths people will go to fight it. Shakespeare had a line about that, too, referring to “the mystery of your loneliness.” In Sweeney’s disturbing but also oddly satisfying tale, that essential human condition retains its mystery.

Whatever your level of familiarity, Haynes’ doc — the first for this accomplished director — is so stylistically compelling, it doesn’t really matter what you knew coming in.

A film that’s as heart-tugging as it is technically impressive, a work of both emotional resonance and great physical detail using only clay, wire, paper and paint.

To the filmmakers’ credit, they don’t manufacture a motivation where there wasn’t one. There’s no need. The unembellished horror of this real-life tale is way more than enough.

The plot — outlandish and sometimes contrived as it is — offers plenty of room for comic possibility. And more. Screenwriters Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao explore themes of identity, assimilation and anti-Asian racism both overt and casual — and within the Asian community itself.

Were it not for Redford, the film would be — well, why even ask, because Redford is the point. He chose the role, optioned the New Yorker article, chose the director. It’s a perfect role for his swan song. But hey, Mr. Redford? We won’t hold you to that.

In Arnold’s careful, unhurried hands, it is a sobering lesson, though one without a clear agenda. Arnold simply seems interested in telling us Luma’s story. And that is enough.

Much ink has been spent analyzing this enduring phenomenon called Tom Cruise, and what motivates him, onscreen and off. “I just want to entertain people,” he said recently. That’s one mission he can still nail.

Franco has made a briskly entertaining debut feature, a nice way to spend an escapist summer evening. Not from your Airbnb, though.

The emotional payoff takes a while to arrive, but once it does in the last act of this film, you’ll have a hard time forgetting Hopkins’ face.

You may think you know Sterling K. Brown, but trust us, you have never seen this version of Brown — a man utterly dripping with villainy, if villainy were in liquid form, and all the more chilling for the calmness with which he intones the most horrific thoughts.

It’s quite a journey for one film. All credit to Eisenberg, and his superb co-star, for making the road trip so thought-provoking.

Waititi injects enough heart and wit into this enterprise to make a case that artists like him should at least be trying to find creative ways to educate new generations about the horrors of the past.

The celebrated folk singer and activist was singing about civil rights, of course. But what we learn in the thoughtful, thorough and sometimes harrowingly intimate Joan Baez: I Am a Noise is that Baez was also seeking to overcome much on a personal scale: anxiety, depression, loneliness and, late in life, troubling repressed memories about her own father.

One cannot fault Roadrunner for not coming up with clear answers. There rarely are clear answers, anyway, and this film seems to want to be about a life, not a death. A fascinating life, parts of which will forever remain unknown.

Nobody’s perfect, though Bobo may think she is. But in Venter’s performance, Davidtz has found something pretty close: a child actor who can carry an entire film and never seem like she’s acting.

Something about the detail and clarity with which Jane Schoenbrun evokes ’90s suburbia in “I Saw the TV Glow” makes you remember growing up there — even if you didn’t.

The film is a wonderful collaboration between [Byrne] and writer-director Bronstein, who drew inspiration from her own experiences with motherhood. It also has given Byrne, an actor of effortless appeal in lighter films, a chance to display versatility and grit in surely the toughest dramatic role of her career.

Ultimately it all rides on Robbie, who, along with her blond, color-dipped pigtails, brings an appealing blend of looniness and grit to the role, and a hint of something sadder and darker. Still, one gets the sense the filmmakers weren’t quite sure how far to go with the feminism thing. When she says sadly that “a harlequin’s nothing without a master,” you don’t immediately get the sense that this is a post #MeToo Harley Quinn.

Let’s offer up some praise for this sequel-to-a-movie-based-on-a-smartphone-game, for finding a way to actually improve on the 2016 original in a way that’s clever but not snarky, sweet but not syrupy.

The neatest trick is how Barbie, starring a pitch-perfect Margot Robbie — and after a minute you’ll never be able to imagine anyone else doing it — can simultaneously and smoothly both mock and admire its source material. Gerwig deftly threads that needle, even if the film sags in its second half under the weight of its many ideas and some less-than-developed character arcs.

If people breaking into song delights rather than flummoxes you, if elaborate dance numbers in village squares and fantastical nightclubs and emerald-hued cities make perfect sense to you, and especially if you already love “Wicked,” well then, you will likely love this film. If it feels like they made the best “Wicked” movie money could buy — well, it’s because they kinda did.

She Said, a worthy entry to a film genre that includes “Spotlight” and of course “All the President’s Men,” isn’t just about the power of journalism. It’s also about courage, from the women who suffered sexual harassment or assault at Weinstein’s hands and came forward at personal risk — to their careers, reputations or well-being.

Hedges is as excellent as he was in “Manchester By the Sea,” but it’s fair to say the movie belongs to Roberts. It’s a career peak, and a performance that deserves to be seen no matter how crowded your holiday moviegoing schedule.

Greyhound is perhaps not so much a thriller as a very spare, economical drama.

Talk about timing. When he began making Little Fish, an intimate and affecting romance in a sci-fi setting, director Chad Hartigan had no idea the world would be coping with a real pandemic in the real 2021. Watching this fictional society begin to fray in panic feels just a tad too close for comfort.

At one point we get an action-flick style montage, which feels odd, as does the often overly obvious, swelling musical score. It’s hard to go too far wrong, though, with a story as compelling as Tubman’s and an actress as vivid as Erivo.

[An] absorbing new documentary.

The story itself is unremarkable, even thin — there are no surprising twists or turns, no big lessons in the script by Nicolaas Zwart — but the relationship at its core is hugely entertaining to watch.

Somehow, this amusingly chaotic mashup of genres finds a way to strike a final note that’s simple and true.

What “Blonde” IS is ambitious. Far-reaching, at times perhaps too far.

Usually a cinematic heist is spectacular — in its success or its failure. Reichardt has removed all spectacle, telling instead a moody tale of a man who makes a dumb mistake and slowly loses everything, like a tumble down a mountain in slow motion.

Of course, you might ask, at a time of such turbulence in the world, what do 19th century upper-class romantic machinations have to do with, well, anything? To which we say: Whatever! Bring it on. Distract us with your lovely frocks flowing straight from the bosom, your exquisite bonnets with feathers, your real-estate porn in the countryside and your smart dinner-table repartee. We could do a lot worse.

Assuming it’s true, the film is a poignant and moving coda to a career spent chronicling personal indignities amid broader social ills like poverty and unemployment.

A diversion like Save Yourselves! might just save your week.

We walk away from this funny, sad, scary film acutely reminded that if fame has two sides, one of them is pretty darned horrible.

What makes “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy” especially enjoyable, then — and the best since the 2001 original — is not that Bridget finds a way yet again to triumph over doubts and obstacles. It’s that she still makes us care so darned much.

In the Burtonian spirit, let’s just say it took a long time to bake it, yes, but the director has recovered the recipe — at least enough to make us smile, chortle, even guffaw, for 104 minutes. And we can be happy with that.

By the end of this illuminating film, we’re forced to confront something much deeper and more insidious: society’s need to divide humans into a binary system, and the sometimes disastrous results for those born with reproductive or sexual anatomy that isn’t neatly “male” or “female.”

“Let me entertain you,” Williams seems to be screaming through every scene. Mostly, he succeeds.

It’s an absorbing ride, and Schimberg works with confidence and brio.

All these elements, wacky or not, come together in a charming mishmash that adds something ultimately very important to the childbirth comedy genre: the message that childbirth is profound, yes, and full of wonder. But also, like life, it can be funny — and a bit of a mess.

Luckily we get to look long and and hard at this Emily, brought provocatively to life by O’Connor and her star. Strange or not, it’s hard to look away.

What distinguishes this debut feature from Andrew Onwubolu, aka Rapman, is firstly its storytelling structure, making welcome use of the writer-director’s rap talents to serve as a Greek chorus. And secondly its cast, with several vital performances of note, especially from heartbreakingly vulnerable newcomer Stephen Odubola.

With flashy, colorful and user-friendly graphics, the film traces industry consolidation: the few companies who have 70% of the carbonated drinks market, for example, or 80% of the baby food market. Such realities violate the spirit of antitrust legislation, they argue.

Karam is adapting his own Tony-winning work here, a play inspired by the 2007-2008 financial crisis. In doing so he achieves something quite rare: He makes an intimate and devastating family drama even more intimate and devastating.

[Michell] imbues his last film with so much charm, wit and good storytelling that he, too, cannot help but win.

Sincerity is what anchors this film — especially Swinton Byrne’s astonishingly sincere performance.

The destination may be startling but, thanks to a magnetic star turn from Krieps, the voyage is never boring.

The misunderstandings are too numerous to describe. But the proceedings are beautifully paced, and the movie feels light and airy, like a pleasant dream.

By the end of this film — perhaps not Farhadi’s most piercing work but surely a polished, textured, and very engaging effort — you’ll look at the final two faces on the screen as they sit down to talk, and will likely still be asking yourself: Did everybody know?

The story here is simple and heartfelt. It’s a coming-out tale, but with the twist that the person coming out is 32, a decade (or even two) later than in most stories we see.

Disney’s pleasantly entertaining, gorgeously rendered but slightly heavy-handed meditation on climate change and father-son dynamics.

This final movie will give loyal Downton fans what they want: a satisfying bit of closure and the sense that the future, though a bit scary, may look kindly on Downton Abbey as long as Mary is in charge.

The issues it addresses are, to say the least, crucial ones, and even though it trusts its audience to trudge through some dense material, the audience should repay that trust. Here’s hoping it will.

The script could certainly be sharper, the comedy more clever. But for two hours on Netflix, Coopers Chase is rather a comfy place to be, with some moments to cherish.

The first and most important thing to say about “Anemone,” a bleak, somber, absorbing but also sometimes frustratingly opaque collaboration with his director son Ronan, is that it’s brought Day-Lewis back.

Jittery, tense, fast-talking and always on edge, this is a Hamlet, above all, in a rush.

It just doesn’t have the exciting, lightning-in-a-bottle feel that the wonderful original had. Perhaps that was too much to ask.