Katie Walsh

Unrest is a sensitive and arresting rally cry for increased awareness about this disease, and an existential exploration of the meaning of life while battling a crippling chronic illness.

Mascaro’s film is an auspicious, original, and absorbing work that thrills with its look into this little-seen world and the dreamers that inhabit it.

Preparation for the Next Life is a powerful assertion of dreams, humanity and hard work — arguing that every person has a past, a future and a story to tell.

When JR turns his gaze toward a person and pastes their image on a wall, he’s inviting others not just to participate in this project but also to look their way, to pay attention to someone or something by seeing it differently in the world. It takes a village, but all they need is paper and glue.

Galifianakis steals the show as the friendly fussbudget in a performance we've come to expect from him. The enormous potential on screen is tantalizing, which is why the disappointment of failed execution stings.

Within "Housekeeping’s” restless, naturalistic aesthetic, Stolevski crafts complex and poignant images, contrasting the playacting the couple is forced to do with their searing gazes.

Despite all the limitations on her life, Rose-Lynn is one of the most free-spirited creatures to ever be put on film.

The central relationship of “The Valet” is the weakest part of the film, and much of the comedy is a bit tiresome, though a few bits do pop.

The Forty-Year-Old-Version is that rarest of films: funny, wry, incisive, sexy and sincere.

Though the film initially feels like a patriotic tale of a daring mission, this isn't a story of U.S. military triumph, it's one of sorrow.

The camera work is meticulous and exquisite in its expression, creating a sense of tense foreboding throughout, linking characters and images with a creepy omniscience.

Firecrackers isn’t just a confident feature debut from Mozaffari, but a daring one, the kind of fast and furious feminine filmmaking that heralds the arrival of several exciting new talents.

It’s his own words, and confronting them now, having lost many of his friends to spats and fights, brings Crosby to his most vulnerable place.

This wild, vicarious ride through youthful adventure is absolutely worth taking, for your own nostalgia and for the reminder that the kids are indeed alright.

What Arnold manages to make tangibly cinematic in Cow is the soulful spirituality of these animals, their beauty and their emotions. It is as moving as it is devastating, and although this film requires patience and fortitude, it rewards with a singular and perspective-shifting cinematic experience.

There’s an important lesson at the center of Song Sung Blue, about abandoning self-consciousness in a relentless pursuit of a dream. Despite the obstacles, their age, the setbacks, there is a pot of gold, not at the end of the rainbow but within it, in their shared dream.

It’s an impressive feat of unfolding this story, though there are a few moments where it loses the narrative thrust and momentum along the way. Still, it’s a remarkable portrait not only of this particular man, but of a culture in a transitioning moment: adapting to new influences and growing older, but continuing, always, to remember.

It’s clear that the Panther legacy lives on, and Nelson’s film is a necessary primer for understanding the party — in it’s own words.

While the film is hysterical, its real strength lies in the way it is able to deal with an issue like sexism in the industry and work it out in a funny, honest and very real way.

The peek into this world, at this time, feels like a rare treat, an unearthed gem released from a vault.

The richness of the filmmaking, including the powerful acting, obfuscates the fact that the story itself is a pretty thin and silly mystery with twists that cheapen the intellectual quandary at the center of the tale.

While Another Round inspects the varying effects of alcohol on daily life, it’s far from clinical. Waves of ebullience, love, humor and sorrow crash on top of each other, as anyone who’s ever been overserved can attest to. It isn’t prescriptive about drinking, and doesn’t seek to impart any message other than that life is hard, and sometimes dark, and sometimes ecstatically beautiful.

It's a sweetly funny, charming and poignant depiction of this very specific time in life — at once universal and specific — when anything seems possible. And with killer pop tunes to boot.

Sand Dollars has an assured, light touch.

The film maintains a quiet dynamic even throughout the most horrific moments, and while you might expect, or even want, the film to climax more operatically, the understated tone is a radical choice.

It is an almost startlingly intimate film, following this strange relationship between these two, as they go through the challenges of life.

It places a modern lens on complicated questions of art, love and perspective in storytelling, in an entertaining and intelligent thriller of intimate proportions.

In between rehearsals, they discuss their lives, from facing the draft board, to their small hometowns, with a fascinating frankness.

What emerges from the electronic noise and fussy aesthetic of “BlackBerry” is a compelling portrait of a company that flew too close to the sun.

In teasing out the complex relationship between life and death in relationship to birth and “Frankenstein,” Moss presents a provocative existential quandary and reminds us that horror stories have been women’s stories all along.

The combination of compelling subject with an exciting and expert approach to documentary form achieves that transcendence you hope for in this genre: a melding of subject and text that is its own beast but also perfectly reflect each other.

The last third of the film descends straight into a combination of "Dynasty" with shades of cult classic "The Room." It's fantastic because it's complete and utter silly madness. Helicopter crashes! Slaps! Drinks thrown in faces! Fully clothed shower sex! A framed "Chronicles of Riddick" poster! All the makings of an instant cult classic.

Izaac Wang’s performance of this tortured teenage soul — so young, still in braces — is a sensitive expression of the insecurity Chris feels around others and anxiety about how he will be perceived. Wang’s performance is mirrored by Chen as his mother, a housewife with an artist’s heart. She delicately balances steeliness and vulnerability to deliver a heartrending performance.

It almost seems that Moore discovered the film and character and decided she had to play Gloria, the way stage actors take on classic roles. Moore's take brings a new dimension not only to the story but also to her career.

The entire piece is precisely woven together, from script to performance to execution, and the result is a chilling study of emotional annihilation and its aftermath.

It’s crisply shot but suffers from poor, amateurish editing, an overwrought dramatic score and the storytelling fails to compel. The acting, writing and directing of American Violence indicate this flick is strictly a B-movie, but its tone is far too self-serious to have any fun with at all.

If there’s any criticism to be levied, it’s just that we wanted to see more dance, which can’t quite be fully captured on film, only in person. Still, capturing Streb’s artistry, inspiration and thought processes behind her work makes it more than worthwhile.

Hooligan Sparrow is a vital reminder of the importance of artistic and journalistic freedom, and that telling certain stories can be an inherently perilous proposition — especially when those stories reveal something that the government would rather keep under wraps.

Ultimately, all audiences can find something to enjoy in Zootopia, though adults may find more to sink their teeth into, which is always refreshing.

The ending is ambiguous enough to be refreshingly un-clichéd. While “I’m Your Man” is very romantic in its own way, the movie is elevated by pondering not just love but life and our impending relationship to advanced artificial intelligence, a question that is surely already upon us.

The love story that is The Eight Mountains expresses this ineffable relationship between those who know us best and the places in which we find ourselves with a rough-hewed grace and profound knowingness.

Cregger slowly builds bone-chilling and suspenseful sequences up to screechingly operatic moments of face-melting horror, and then swiftly cuts to a different chapter, making a hard left into a completely different mode, taking us all on the roller-coaster ride. His facility with comedy also aids in these jarring tone switches, and Barbarian is as funny as it is terrifying.

If you’re a dog person, it will be impossible to resist the tale of Arthur and his knights of extreme sports.

Fargeat delivers a macabre, funny, tragic, absurd and grotesque Grand Guignol of butts and guts; a bonkers and brutal “beauty horror” that elevates the genre to a hysterically unprecedented heights.

Parmet’s strong script and surety behind the camera navigate the audience through this complicated story of religion and sexuality, patriarchy and power, brought to eerily accurate life by the ensemble of excellent actors.

The film is a feat of maximalist and moody production design and cinematography, but the tedious and overwrought script renders every character two-dimensional, despite the effortful acting, teary pronunciations and emphatically delivered declarations.

Transformer beautifully captures the process of Janae crafting her own sense of femininity, unique to who she was and who she continues to be.

Most importantly, You, Me & Tuscany is sentient. It’s transporting and ridiculous and knows exactly what it is, and therefore, we do too. So go ahead, enjoy a little dolce vita, as a treat.

A Secret Love doesn't dwell much on queer history or activism, as laser-focused as it is on Terry and Pat, and the bond between them. The film beautifully illustrates each of their spirits: the sweet and bubbly Terry, always ready with a signed baseball card, and the stern and protective Pat, who only lets her guard down under duress, but wrote pages of love poems to Terry, and still asks for a morning kiss from her love.

Using a variety of filmmaking techniques, Chukwu asks us to look at Deadwyler’s performance as Mamie in many different ways — to study her grief, her herculean poise, the polarity between her power and vulnerability — and to truly understand and feel the enormity of what she accomplished.

The story isn’t complicated, and it’s one we know well, rendered with spooky, atmospheric aesthetics and intensely gnarly violence that provide cover for the thin premise, nagging plot holes and flimsy characterization in the script, which traffics in poorly explained archetypes. It’s sufficient enough, but the strength of the filmmaking is not in the writing, but in Barker’s command of style, pace and performance.

Pribar’s humane and heartbreaking drama is beautifully photographed and performed; a loving, warm, and even sexy film about death and dying that is teeming with life.

While the situation seems at times dire, Trapped contains a distinct hopeful streak that is at once defiant and singularly human.

Director Natalia Leite brings an emotional intelligence and sensitivity to Bare that raises it above its smutty late-night cable premise of a small-town girl falling into a lesbian affair and exploring the world of stripping.

The tension never lets up throughout Longlegs, though it is peppered with a dry, black humor that somehow just makes everything more disturbing.

The true star of The Gift is Edgerton as director. His deft, controlled maneuvering of plot, character, style, and tone is damn near perfect for his feature debut — even if it is in service of a very standard genre piece.

The intersex movement is about living fully without fear, shame or trauma, to live life on one’s own terms, and the brightness and vigor that Cohen applies to the tone follows the energy of the activists themselves.

Reynolds and Mendelsohn could not be more different actors, but in this pairing they are perfect.

It’s the best film he’s made in years.

The film strongly asserts Ronstadt’s rock ’n’ roll bona fides as a trailblazing and wildly successful solo female artist in the man’s world of late ’60s and early ’70s country rock.

The focus of The Aftermath is in all the wrong places, spending time with characters in which we are unable to gain an emotional foothold. This misplaced attention makes for an erotic drama that feels cold, and a political thriller that feels empty.

Murphy isn't afraid to play with color and light and text and music, or to let her characters dance like no one is watching, and often. That energy, embodied in the filmmaking and in the performances, is what puts this coming-of-age film into a class all its own.

Favier carefully dissects the complex power dynamics at play, as well as the emotional devastation that results from the abuse. It’s an honest, and surprisingly, even hopeful portrait.

The film wants to speak to some kind of old school, lone-ranger American hero type (as portrayed by a man from Northern Ireland), but it’s too vague, shying away from any controversy, to say much at all.

Dickinson, who became a heartthrob in movies like “Beach Rats,” “Triangle of Sadness” and “Babygirl,” announces that he’s much more than a pretty face, he’s got something to say, and the message of humanist compassion he delivers in “Urchin” is incredibly powerful.

There’s no denying Jones’ magnetism, her amazing spirit and her otherworldly talent, and “Miss Sharon Jones!” is a fine tribute to her as an individual. But it leaves you wanting more — more from her history and rich backstory. It’s clear the whole story hasn’t been told — yet.

Dead Lover, in all its stinky, sexy, queer and grotesque glory, is one of the grossest and loveliest films about love I’ve ever seen. This one’s for the horny, hopeless goth inside all of us.

Unfortunately, the cast and a few sweet tunes by Armstrong are the only things going for this delayed coming-of-age dramedy.

This is the finest work of Arcel’s collaboration with longtime cinematographer Rasmus Videbæk. They craft this Nordic western epic with an eerie beauty and an eye toward the kind of startling violence that can erupt unexpectedly in lawless frontiers.

Like many music documentaries, this film suffers from the tendency to reiterate its point too often.

On the surface, Grandma is a simple story, but the script imbues it with deep reserves of emotional depth and meaning that are slowly, organically revealed over the course of the plot.

Koepp is one of the most successful screenwriters of all time, and Presence feels like one of the screenplays from his discard pile that Soderbergh scooped up for a quickie experiment. The experiment was indeed successful, but the story itself isn’t.

Executed with incredible craft and style and a whole lot of heart, Project Hail Mary verges on the edge of being too saccharinely sweet. But sci-fi can serve many different purposes for audiences, and maybe that sweetness, combined with a story of cooperation and collaboration for self-preservation, is just the kind of balm we need to take the edge off right now.

This rock doc rewrites punk history while telling an emotional story about an artist’s spirit and his faithful family.

While the setting may be humble, Margolin captures the unlikely beauty of the Valley, and injects thrilling suspense into this yarn, one that transforms quotidian dramas — like making an unprotected left turn, or closing pop-up ads on a webpage — into nail-biting action sequences.

While Grappe ultimately finds an ending that’s a bit pat, the power of the Ukrainian spirit comes through beautifully, underscoring the stakes of what is, and always will be, at hand for the country, now more than ever: identity, safety, and freedom.

Memory has a decent director in Campbell (“Casino Royale,” “Vertical Limit”) and a great cast (yes, that’s Ray Stevenson as a corrupt cop), but a crippling case of a bad script that can’t manage to make us care about any of these characters.

Deakins’ work is beautiful, Colman is incredible, and the role of Stephen proves to be a breakout for Ward. But the story is too scattershot and contrived for an audience to be swept away and moved in the same way that Colman finds herself swept away by the experience of the Peter Sellers classic “Being There.”

Techie buzzwords like “hacking” and “bitcoins” fly, but it’s all just for show. It’s not about the tech, despite a convoluted subplot with an FBI agent in pursuit. The real story is of Sam and Josie, but uneasy romance is misguided to be sure.

Not that it was ever in question, but 28 Years Later is an invigorating reminder that Boyle, as a technician of dizzying, daring cinematic style, has never lost his fastball, and he employs it to great effect emphasizing Spike’s visceral emotional experience.

Code Black manages to encapsulate so much of what is wrong with our health care system, but also to point out what’s right, and to posit an attitude shift not just about health care but about how we as a society treat those around us who are in pain or suffering. A heartbreaking but hopeful message within this important film.

The writing crackles, and Miller doesn’t waste time getting right at the meat of the story.

What starts as a biography turns into a detective thriller as Green crisscrosses the globe, searching for clues as to why Guy-Blaché has been forgotten.

It’s the faces that stand out in Retrograde, a stylistic and thematic motif that offers an empathetic power to the film as well as an aching poignancy.

It Felt Like Love, marks the arrival of a new crop of talent to watch, behind the camera and in front.

In Zappa, this legendary artist’s uncompromising nature is bracing, bold and utterly refreshing.

It’s almost unbelievable that Carney pulls off films like this, which could easily tip over into maudlin. Instead, the winning Flora and Son is an utterly irresistible emotional ear-worm.

With careful craftsmanship, Half the Picture is an important piece of testimony in the fight for the civil rights of female directors in Hollywood.

Hanging over the narrative is a sense of futility, that this can and will happen again and again. Another lawsuit, another life lost, another workaround. But for a moment, one man on a bike with a few expertly wielded weapons can wreak holy havoc on corrupt cops, and damn does it feel good to watch.

Heineman, in placing himself in such danger, has managed to create a remarkable and distinctive film that takes on a difficult issue that cannot be so conveniently remedied or ignored.

Zola’s authorship and Bravo’s respect for her storytelling make Zola a wholly original experience. It’s a brutally honest account of sex work, often dangerous and infrequently sexy, punctuated with Zola’s one-liners, observations and recounting of laugh-out-loud moments.

Talk To Me isn’t just a splashy debut for the Philippou brothers, who prove their filmmaking chops in making the leap from the small screen to the big. It’s also an incredible introduction to a remarkable actress in a role that will undoubtedly prove to be an instant classic horror movie heroine.

It’s a fascinating look not only at this particular character and his wide reach, but at the evolution of the Internet, its utopian possibilities for connection, and the dark side of its power to expose and harm individuals within the system.

Cassandro’s maximalist image invites a big, outlandish treatment, but Williams keeps the tone quiet and grounded, centering García Bernal’s moving performance and keeping the focus on Saúl, the real person behind the celebrity.

Bleeding Steel is a cartoonishly crazy, completely nonsensical cyberpunk action flick that is torturous to behold, and well below Chan’s caliber.

[Barden] becomes the vessel to express Riegel’s quiet cri de coeur, which is not just yearning to escape one’s own circumstances but the absolute necessity of it.

At the center, the true general, Prince-Bythewood, marshals every aspect of The Woman King in concert, conducting action, thrills and emotion beautifully. It is a remarkable, powerful film, and not to be missed.

Anderson hasn’t just delivered his best film in years — he’s also managed to capture the zeitgeist in his own unique way.