John DeFore

Following up on his lauded debut, Welcome to Pine Hill, Miller again blends fiction and reality to fine effect.

A pure-bliss celebration of Paul Simon's landmark album Graceland coupled with an interesting if not unbiased look at the controversy surrounding its release.

Following Matt through a public transition and capturing its unique set of complications, Del Monte offers a warm portrait of a thoroughly winning subject.

The often-very-funny picture entertains while affording its characters their share of no-laughing-matter concerns.

Intriguing characters and elements of crime fiction prevent the film from being a dour slog, but there’s not much hope to be found here, especially for victims who, due to payoffs and court-ordered silence, can never share their trauma with an outraged public.

A comedy in both the current and the original senses of the word, Little Hours earns its laughs before ensuring a happy end.

Whatever its impetus, the film is a warm bath of sensations that suffers little for any thematic haziness.

A deeply satisfying pop biopic whose subject's bifurcated creative life lends itself to an unconventional structure.

Maclean's screenplay is unshowy but keen.

The ironies of gentrification will be a chief attraction for this lovely new 4K restoration of the 16mm original. But that theme is just a bonus in a picture whose in-the-trenches look at poverty is humane and, sadly, perpetually timely.

A mournful testament to a vibrant piece of global film history almost entirely wiped out of existence.

An excellent blend of musical behind-the-scenes, open-hearted interviews, and performance.

Gook rises above message-movie mediocrity, enjoying its characters too much to use them as political mouthpieces.

Pure joy for Beatles fans and, one guesses, charming enough to seduce some viewers who wouldn't mind never hearing "She Loves You" ever again.

A love story whose resolution remains tough to predict, Outside In respects all its characters by not pretending their choices are easily made.

The story’s final third works even better than the buildup would suggest, shrugging off some of the atmospherics and, with a clever nod to a classic in the serial-killer genre, focusing all the movie’s energies on a sequence that delivers

Exciting and enlightening, the still-timely film ranks with docs like The Weather Underground in its evocation of a more politically engaged era.

Stars Christopher Abbott and Mia Wasikowska go a long way toward keeping this tricky pic balanced, though Pesce's knowing use of sleazy-Seventies vibe (following the distinctive b&w spareness of The Eyes of My Mother, his only previous feature) creates the perfect world for them to do it in.

Steph Green's first feature has more going for it than a solid dramatic turn by Will Forte.

Sanchez delivers a couple of very effective twists that change the nature of his tale.

Sharp dramatization and direct performances suffice to put the story's themes across more urgently than expected.

Choosing it for his debut as director, Bateman demonstrates the same knack for timing and fine shadings of attitude as he does onscreen.

The picture has a good shock or two up its sleeve before getting to Laurie's armored, booby-trapped home, and once it's there, it surprises us again.

Funny, dark, and riding a very fine line in its depiction of mental illness, it may be the best thing we could hope would emerge from the side of Wiig that gave us Gilly.

A disability-centric documentary that moves viewers without resorting to trite devices, Seung-Jun Yi's Planet of Snail takes a condition most of us would find unbearable and demystifies it while finding room for poetry.

Less a portrait of accidental activist Nadia Murad than a sensitive witnessing of the way she has endured life in the public eye, Alexandria Bombach's On Her Shoulders is passionately attentive to the plight of the Yazidis while making broader observations about the call to public service.

A vital, gripping film.