Justin Lowe

The women of Motherland emerge as an entirely different class of heroines, demonstrating Diaz’s insight and compassion in documenting their experiences without judgment or condescension and allowing them to convey their own individual perspectives.

A taut, efficient and ultimately evocative small-scale Western that benefits from tight scripting and proficient performances.

Deliberately skirting the Halloween horror corridor, Brian Bertino’s tautly composed monster movie serves as a brutally effective metaphor for the turmoil of adolescence, with all of its rebelliousness and confusion.

DeMonaco has further upped his game with the third installment by working closely with franchise cinematographer Jacques Jouffret to design rewardingly more complex action sequences and well-focused set pieces that are both efficiently executed and visually engaging.

Likely to spur discussions about workplace safety, employee rights and broader awareness of sexual predation, Compliance is also a suspenseful psychological drama for viewers prepared to tolerate its extremes.

Closer in tone and old-school psychological fright tactics to the original film than either The Conjuring 2 or Annabelle, David F. Sandberg’s incisive approach capably resets the franchise.

The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants easily delivers another rib-tickling, delightfully frantic fourth installment of the series.

The film’s bucolic mood is constantly threatened by the prevailing reality of violence and injustice in the region, a creeping tension that Syeed carefully calibrates to emphasize the tenuousness of his characters’ relationships.

Addressing the heartrending issue of children living with HIV and AIDS is enormously complex, but Blood Brother accomplishes the challenge with sufficient grace and empathy to give hope to anyone concerned with this global affliction.

Director Yonebayashi Hiromasa (When Marnie Was There) returns with a more lighthearted anime feature in Mary and the Witch’s Flower, a stirring adventure most suitable for tweens and teens.

Commercials director and artist Dan Covert’s absorbing documentary Geoff McFetridge: Drawing a Life is the first feature-length film to reveal this introspective, consistently innovative creator who’s developed a career on his own terms while remaining engaged with a wide variety of audiences.

Distilling a couple of decades of stunt work and second-unit directing experience into 96 minutes of runtime, Stahelski and Leitch expertly deliver one action highlight after another in a near-nonstop thrill ride.

First-time long-form directors Costantini and Foster, working from a script co-written with Jeffrey Plunkett, demonstrate admirable resourcefulness and empathy approaching their diverse teen subjects.

This historical account offers an engrossing and accessible celebration of the game’s modern origins, enhanced by striking locations and a standout cast, led by Scottish actors Peter Mullan and Jack Lowden.

Even more inappropriate physical gags, foul-mouthed dialogue and outrageous situations all contribute to raising the stakes, as Waters pushes the cast to amiably outdo the original.

Draper constructs a concisely assembled editorial package that covers the essential historical backstory of the 1936 Games while building drama during the competition and establishing a consistently affecting emotional arc throughout.

Genre comparisons aside, the expert timing and clever setups that were exhilaratingly employed in You’re Next are mostly absent here... Fortunately Barrett and Wingard haven’t lost their ironically humorous touch, as most of the film’s uneasy laughs revolve around upending typical thriller expectations.

A lethal little ensemble feature that packs quite a few thrills into a compact format.

There’s much that international audiences will find relatable and enjoyable in the film, which is graced with a particular empathy for human foibles and appreciation for the specific humor to be found in everyday family life.

Although live-streaming entertainment may convey the impression of a rather creatively and intellectually impoverished subculture, it’s one that provides comfort and camaraderie for millions who already feel ignored and isolated by China’s rapidly evolving standards of status and wealth.

Polsky crafts an engaging, in-depth examination of the intersection of politics and hockey as Russia struggles to gain its balance following the demise of the Soviet Union.

Nowlin’s performance...is a marvel of inner turmoil and physical exertion.

Masciale and screenwriter Luke Barnett, both Funny or Die regulars, have crafted a playfully humorous sendup that’s more about poking fun at their characters than tearing down faith-based filmmaking.

The Front Room perhaps leans more toward the repulsive than the highbrow, potentially carving out its own distinct genre niche.

The filmmakers’ enthusiasm for their characters and the vanished period setting is palpable, asserting a certain fatalistic charm of its own.

Ashley Benson gives a striking performance as the target of an anonymous hacker in Branden Kramer’s ingenious debut feature.

Linsanity reaffirms that the best sports stories originate with dimensional, relatable subjects who earn respect and admiration through their personal struggles and triumphs.

A degree of tolerance for these frequent outbursts of unrestrained, puerile humor eventually reveals a tender portrait of a neglected woman seeking solace in her vivid, perhaps deranged, imagination