Kate Erbland

Cynical, sad, increasingly fucked up, and often gloriously mean, Song has turned the genre inside out to show us how shallow these stories can be.

Despite the apparent care and respect that went into Keough and Gammell’s film, “War Pony” also makes clear how very far there is still left to go when telling “authentic” stories.

You’ll have to wait a while before Tigerland introduces its eponymous stars, but like many elements of Ross Kauffman’s emotional, often harrowing new documentary, the eventual reveal will be worth it.

Swanberg’s most mature and satisfying film yet.

This is Aileen’s story and when “God’s Creatures” makes the odd choice to turn away from her just as things are reaching a fever pitch, it dilutes the power of both her performance and the film itself. She’s gone mad, but God’s Creatures isn’t willing to follow her there, perhaps the craziest choice of all.

No one needs a live-action remake, but ones this faithful and sweet are not the problem.

It’s charming enough, although flashes of flinty humor hint at something edgier underneath. Henry, capable of bringing deep emotion to even small parts (“If Beale Street Could Talk”), often finds unexpected grace notes.

A smart twist on the coming-of-age comedy.

I Am Greta is not always as disarmingly open as its star, however, and keeping its focus so narrowly on the past two years robs it of some nuance.

With Penguins, frequent Disneynature filmmaker Alastair Fothergill and franchise newbie Jeff Wilson are working in a more minor key than such essential entries as Chimpanzee and African Cats, but the artistry and relative magic of the series is still on full display.

At just 95 minutes, Cohen and West hit the bullet points of Child’s life, much of it told through her own archival interviews and personal letters and diary entries, but bigger questions linger. It’s a delicious meal, but it often feels a touch undercooked.

Anderson does add some style to the film, doing wonders with an indie-sized budget for a film that requires a specific period setting.

The film really hits hard when it leans more into the emotion of it all.

Without the influx of talking heads and other bits of opinion and information, the audience is forced to confront their own judgements. ... The effect is ingenious and chilling.

Trumbo works well enough as a general survey of Trumbo's life and career, a primer on a complicated man who endured a terrible injustice, but it fails to really engage with the material, to dig deep for significant themes and salient meanings

“Huda’s Salon” doesn’t waste a second in its crackling first 10 minutes ... but that rat-a-tat-tat opening eventually gives way to a drama that’s uneasy both due to its subject matter and its weak hold on it.

The film has enough charm and humor to keep it appealing to a wide audience, and dumbing things down doesn’t feel particularly smart or canny, and proves to be a minor distraction to an otherwise majorly entertaining feature.

DeBoer and Luebbe have further expanded their nutty vision of suburban ennui and the painful consequences of keeping up with the status quo into an unsettling and amusing send-up of human behavior.

Poe has built a rich world that’s equal parts “Rushmore,” “Heathers,” and “The Godfather,” with all the unpredictability that teenage behavior can possibly engender.

That Tortorici pulls this twist off is both perverse and pleasurable, and that he keeps it all feeling funny is even better.

The honesty with which Bamford approaches all of this (and, yes, surely you must be sick of reading the word “honesty,” but there is simply no better term for who Bamford is and how she lives) is, as her fellow comedians have told us, real and refreshing and actually unique.

While Gregg offers a cheeky sense of what it really means to gaslight someone, no one will feel as injured by the film’s final-act choices than its audience.

If nothing else, audience members will walk away from Martha with a far greater understanding of Stewart — of all the “good things,” in her parlance, and plenty of the bad — and equal admiration and unease of what that all adds up to.

In a documentary landscape rife with both star-fronted documentaries and other hagiographic entries, Howard leans into honesty. The film is so much better for it, even as it can’t quite capture the full magic and scope of Henson’s life and work. What could?

Though Gerbase has conceived of a fascinating, timely inciting incident for her film, much of “The Pink Cloud” eventually melts into all the beats of a standard relationship drama. (And, yes, we mean all the beats.)

Armed with her funniest material to date and a winning performance from Gillian Jacobs, the filmmaker finds new dimensions for both her work and the millennial ennui that has always inspired it.

The beats of Fighting With My Family are comfortingly familiar, and the soap opera pomp of the wrestling world is eye-popping to both fans and neophytes alike, but it’s Pugh that is always fresh, surprising, and wily. The film might not hit hard, but Pugh never stops doing just that.

There need to be more films like this, if only so the LGBTQ kids seeking them out will realize how normal their own experiences are.