John DeFore

If The Black Godfather has a hard time understanding the man himself — who remains guarded even when interviewed alongside his family or his lifelong buddy Quincy Jones — it does show enough of his legacy to suggest its title is no overstatement.

An assured doc debut that knows how to stand out in a crowded field, Craig Atkinson's Do Not Resist avoids the handwringing format of other (very welcome) examinations of 21st-century American policing, offering instead something like a despairing tone poem.

Built around an impressive performance by relative newcomer Elvire Emanuelle, the drama recalls Karyn Kusama's Girlfight, though in that case the parental dynamics ran the opposite direction.

In a brisk hour and a half Vreeland gives a good sense of her impact, while telling stories of so many love affairs and ego clashes Art Addict never feels a bit like a history lesson.

Deeply felt first-love tale offers convincing performances and a fine-tuned storytelling sensibility.

Though it mostly summarizes available arguments instead of uncovering new facts, it's an accessible primer.

The film will appeal to art lovers, but some viewers who can hardly tell their Cezannes from Chagalls will find the story fascinating as well.

Fighting With My Family reminds us several times that the sport is as much about charismatic storytelling as it is about skill. Judged by that standard, the film is far from belt-worthy.

In the last 15 minutes of the film, he burns up some of the credibility he established by not pushing extreme situations too far earlier on.

Despite the assistance reality continues to give it, making an annual rite of government-sanctioned racial violence seem less far-fetched by the day (or by the tweet), Gerard McMurray's The First Purge still fails to establish a persuasive connection to our own moment in time — its occasional winks to current events serving as limp zingers instead of stinging commentary.

The easiest (but incomplete) answer is that the George W. Bush era needed a Borat, and the Trump years make him painfully redundant.

Batmanglij balances emotional tension with practical danger nicely, a must in a story whose activist protagonists can make no distinction between the personal and the political.

In the absence of sympathetic characters, a little humor would have gone a long way here.

A thrill-stuffed sports doc whose daredevil subject will quickly endear himself even to viewers who've never heard his name.

The film will have a hard time attracting attention outside the community of veterans. But that doesn't diminish its ability to put us in the shoes of ordinary men balancing boredom with life-or-death action on a daily basis.

Viewers who'd prefer a bit more psychological probing may be left unsatisfied, but most will appreciate this chance to hang out with the legendary whistle-blower.

This debut doc would have benefited from some statistics to back up its ample expert testimony. Numbers would be useful, for instance, to show how SAT scores fail to correlate with college performance or success later in life. It also would be more rounded if it gave time to the SAT's advocates instead of using footage of old speeches to represent their side.

Though a mixed bag as a piece of storytelling, the film’s greatest value for American viewers in 2022 is the truth it conveys to those hoping to preserve (or, let’s dare to dream, improve) a democracy facing immediate and very grave threats.

As we’re reminded in the background here, the ’60s and ’70s were not exactly glorious years for covert operations by operatives of the U.S. government. This plot, though, was about as morally defensible as they come.

If certain pieces of the last act are less convincing than what precedes it, the themes underlying the illicit emigration resonate with the viewer's knowledge that, in the real world, two of these Cubans actually did escape.

Oyelowo is sure-footed in his feature directing debut, delivering a smart and wholesome picture with about as little sentimentality as such a tale can have.

Warm-hearted and entertaining, if more sad than its quirky premise suggests.

In their wonderful documentary Other Music, Puloma Basu and Rob Hatch-Miller come to both celebrate a place and lament its passing.

The issues it addresses are of massive importance.

The doc is less interested in analyzing Ledger's acting technique than in impressing viewers with his overall creative drive.

A Vigilante offers some grim, imaginary satisfactions in support of real survivors who need whatever help we can give.

A tough sell theatrically despite its merits, the film will rely on Jones' name to reach viewers via home-video outlets.

The movie, in which Shenk and Cohen (makers of the standout eco-doc The Island President) take the reins ably from Davis Guggenheim, hardly can hope to create the sensation of its Oscar-winning predecessor. But it finds plenty to add, both in cementing the urgency of Gore's message and in finding cause for hope.