Jordan Mintzer

This is a Valeska Grisebach movie, so even if the stakes initially seem high, the director does everything she can not to deliver a predictable action-packed suspenser, but rather an intermittently fascinating and frustrating portrait of a place that’s been left to the dogs.

Featuring an impressive cast of unknowns and a fluid style that captures them with both lyricism and verisimilitude, this deserved winner of the Cannes Critics’ Week Grand Prize announces the arrival of a formidable new talent.

So subtle that it’s hard, at times, to discern much of a plot, this delicately made tale of grieving and recovery doesn’t resonate until it ultimately does so in a big way. But when that happens, it can feel like too much, too late.

Everything is connected in a movie that never ditches its razor-sharp view of class exploitation.

The film feels fresh and off-the-cuff, as if someone traveled back to 1940 with an iPhone and hit record, chronicling the dark years of far-right obedience and moral decadence.

More chronicle than drama, it sticks faithfully by the side of its lovable mess of a heroine, whom Exarchopoulos plays with her usual no-bullshit funkiness, this time with too many glasses of wine down the hatch. She brings a dose of humor and a few grace notes to a movie in search of a tighter story, even if it deserves credit for its honesty.

Even if its elements don’t always gel, The Beloved offers another prime showcase for Sorogoyen’s art of unease, as well as for Bardem’s talent for playing men who can fly off the handle at any moment.

Decidedly dark, though not necessarily bleak, Bertelli’s hybrid docu-fiction is an unflinching look at the trials and travails of contemporary sports. It’s also a visually seductive meditation on the many ways in which science — whether biological or technological — now plays a pivotal role in any serious athletic endeavor.

The film playfully critiques certain Muslim customs, but never in a demeaning way, while providing a heartwarming coming-of-age narrative that’s a tad predictable.

By its very existence — and in what it reveals about the IDF’s killing, maiming and wounding of Palestinian civilians over the past few years — the film is a condemnation both of Netanyahu’s far-right war machine and the U.S. government’s steadfast support of it.

By remaining purposely vague, whether about locations or the real-world stakes at hand, this modern-day political parable doesn’t hit you in the gut the way it’s meant to.

Flamingo goes overboard on the surrealism at times, but by ultimately focusing on how Lidia comes to terms with the reality of the AIDS epidemic, it delivers a solid emotional blow by the end.

Cheese and kitsch, with smatterings of blood and decapitated heads, are all on the menu in Dracula, which is a watchable if totally ludicrous version of the Stoker story. At best, the movie is another showcase for the always-interesting-to-watch Caleb Landry Jones.

The Friend’s House Is Here chooses to emphasize love, courage, community. It zeroes in on the sacrifices its characters make for each other, the community that builds around them, the resilience that keeps them going in the face of fear and oppression.

Filipiñana could have benefited from a little more story and a little less contemplation. But some of its images remain embedded in the memory.

Understanding the life and work of Luis Valdez is a way to broaden one’s understanding of what it means to be American, perhaps now more than ever. Watching this enlightening and entertaining documentary is a good way to start.

Directed by first-timer Ben Jacobson, who also plays one of the leads, the film offers up nothing all that new under the sun, with a caper plot that’s too off-the-wall to be convincing. And yet Bunny successfully channels a downtown vibe that seems to be on the verge of extinction.

Sleekly if routinely made, this classic whodunit is ultimately more interesting for what it reveals about the filmmaker’s homeland than for the mystery it unfolds.

The director never sugarcoats life in the Big Apple for Lu, his family, nor for the rest of the striving migrant underclass. There are no moments of triumph or dreams coming true, no holding hands and cheering together at a Yankees game.

At a time when people feel obliged to choose which side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict they stand on, Holding Liat takes a thoughtful middle ground that exposes the situation without exploiting it.

It’s definitely an over-the-top finale, and not everything ultimately seems real in King Ivory. But what makes Swab’s latest rise above your average drug thriller is how he tries to make each moment feel like it’s been drawn from a certain reality.

The problem in this beautifully shot but rather murky affair, which attempts to combine recent history, ethnic struggles and magical realism into one troubled family story, is that we never quite grasp all the stakes at hand, nor do we know what to actually believe.

What’s most striking about Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, whose title is how Hassona describes venturing outdoors when she can be killed at any moment, is the way it forces the viewer to experience the blunt repetition of death and devastation faced by its central figure.

Not everything on screen ultimately works here, with certain characters and situations more credible than others. But the director manages to spin a clever modern-day morality tale mixing art, social class and big bucks.

The film feels at times like Terrence Malick meets Hayao Miyazaki for tykes, combining playful subjectivity with surreal flights of fancy. But it also maintains a narrative throughline that’s simple enough for any kid to follow, showing how its titular heroine literally emerges from her bubble to discover the pleasures and dangers of real life.

At times the movie feels so raw and unedited, it’s as if Loktev dumped all her footage onto the table without shaping it into a definitive cut. Perhaps a leaner two-hour version would have yielded something more dynamic, though the point of My Undesirable Friends isn’t to entertain us, but to capture every detail of a democratic movement that was doomed to fail.

A searing and detailed chronicle of murder, bigotry and robbery on a massive scale that also marks the director’s first feature-length documentary.

The Ice Tower doesn’t grip you as much as it asks you to gaze at its hazy, nightmarish imagery, and either fall under its sway — or not.