Katie Walsh

Writer-director Bertrand Mandico’s The Wild Boys is a heady, sexually charged take on “Lord of the Flies” — an exciting sail on the waters of gender fluidity that energetically skewers any notion of the binary.

In her film debut, [Pankiw] delivers a full and fulfilling narrative arc that is anchored by a surprisingly complex performance from Sennott. Rooted in a specific sense of place, character and emotional truth. The movie is a rare indie gem worth discovering.

It’s a film that calls into question our own biases and accepted notions and encourages one to get out there and find the truth — it could be an adventure after all.

It is a beautiful blend of unforgettable physical performance and visual lyricism brought to bear on the tragic life story of the Gibbons twins, their wildly imaginative writing woven throughout like a sparkling thread, offering a brief glimpse into their realm of existence and imagination.

Stupnitsky and Eisenberg have deftly mined this space for laughs, and the seasoned comedy vets (“The Office,” “Year One,” “Bad Teacher”) deliver a joke-dense and highly original coming-of-age tale that’s sweet and sour in all the best ways.

With real soul and gravitas, Marks and Power craft romantic drama that demonstrates that life’s hardest challenges can come at any age.

Escalante draws remarkable performances out of his cast of mostly newcomers in this film about the consequences of pleasure and the many meanings of flesh; where animal intelligence fills the void left by emotional disconnect.

Taylor plays Dawn’s slide into this mental health crisis beautifully, and with conviction, and Owen is stunning as the high-achieving, yet fragile Melanie, who seeks oblivion and solace in a risky boyfriend (Ian Nelson).

Polak’s film is an unflinching exploration of beauty, identity, sex and self in the wake of a life-changing event.

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

LaBeouf brings the soul to The Peanut Butter Falcon, while Gottsagen brings the spirit.

Piece by Piece is ultimately a surprisingly moving biography, and a resonant reminder of Williams’ outsize cultural footprint. The Lego format doesn’t cheapen the power of Neville’s message, but rather reflects the quirky, outside-the-box thinking of the artist himself, who has always marched to the beat of his own drum, steering the cultural ship according to his unique point of view.

No Man of God is impeccably and carefully directed by Sealey, and the craft on display is remarkable.

Kusama reveals and conceals the geography of the house, parceling out just enough information to understand its logic, while leaving certain dim recesses mysterious.

For an adoptee, the notion of “family” is so much more complicated and layered than it might be for someone else, but what Found powerfully argues is that within these many layers, there is an abundance of a unique kind of love, and understanding, to be found. You just have to look for it.

In Vengeance, Novak sets his sights on lampooning the big-city media types who go chasing stories in middle America and return with observations from the “flyover states” that are usually condescending, preachy, or inauthentic, and in doing so, he finds the humor, and something honest too.

Like any good sunset, the beauty to be found in “Cusp” is in between the darkness and the light, in the almost imperceptible shades of gray. Most important, it’s found in the bonds the girls have with each other.

One may not entirely understand exactly what is going on in “Cuckoo,” but there’s no denying how it makes you feel: rattled, unsettled, psychically imprinted with unforgettable images and sensations, which is how every good piece of horror should leave its audience.

Calamy delivers a beautifully open performance at the center of an utterly winning comedy about the most important journey a person can take: toward finding themselves.

The refreshing element is that the story resists normative fantasies of sex or romance — in Paris Can Wait, Coppola focuses on the relationship to the self.

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.

Like a weaver on a loom, Hansen-Løve loops these moments together, threading small moments of thought-provoking social commentary throughout, revealing the larger picture only once the process is done, offering a snapshot of a moment in time, a profound and captivating portrait of love, lost, found, and ever-remaining.

Katsoupis poses these probing and provocative questions about humanity but doesn’t offer any clear answers or messages. Rather, he lets his muse, Dafoe, simply inhabit this harrowing journey with his strange magnetism and sense of timelessness, in a performance that is simultaneously primitive and transcendent.

Shawkat's writerly voice in Duck Butter is deeply personal and probing. The film is funny and honest and Arteta, working with cinematographer Hillary Spera, balances the intimate material with a light, airy sensuality. Shawkat and Costa each give intensely powerful performances, and together they are magnetic.

This visceral and anxiety-laden vision ends on an uneasy, though hopeful, note.

In Lemon, Bravo and Gelman find a transcendent absurdity in the mundane that’s awkwardly enchanting. It’s more tart than sweet, but deliciously weird nonetheless.

The film is an evocation of character, place and time, the tempo alternating between moody and lively, like our central odd couple, laconic Benny and chatterbox Kathy.

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

The film articulates a concept of universal humanity. No matter the religion or circumstances, we all have the same desires for peace and connection throughout life.

Carpignano once again uses a tight, intimate character focus to take a wider look at larger political and cultural issues in this region. In the poetically, humanistically crafted A Chiara, he also manages to flip the Mafia movie on its head, and in doing so, challenges the mythology that keeps these shadowy systems in power.

This lyrical and ethereal film mixes the stark style of a crime story into a love story, capturing the highs, lows and the deepest, darkest recesses of grungy, stoned teenage life; a life always yearning for more.

Walter brings a sense of the epic to Kelly's uniquely sensitive story that bravely faces down the good and the evil that exists within us all.

Lovesong is a character study of this relationship, casually yet carefully sketched out by Kim in subtle but meaningful gestures and glances. Much is communicated through the eyes, searching for answers in the void of what’s not said, but felt.

The film is a true dramedy that wrestles with the darker, sadder elements of life in a frank, funny and deeply relatable way.

The young actress Haas is riveting in a performance far beyond her years. Princess takes its time, but patience pays off in this sensitive slow burn of a story.

For all its bloody and violent genre trappings, Pilgrimage — directed by Brendan Muldowney and written by Jamie Hannigan — is a gorgeously shot film that carefully renders the details of this fascinating historical period.

It’s fascinating to observe how the feminine perspectives of XX create four powerfully compelling and original horror tales that operate within the genre while testing the boundaries of traditional storytelling and style.

The film is so much more than just an exploration of this anomalous oddball story and character who managed to outsmart the media. The focus on the control-room panic illustrates how these corporate narratives shape the myth of the American Dream, effectively deconstructing the fantasy that any of this was ever about luck at all.

Rozema has a careful but unflinching eye when it comes to presenting the physical and emotional traumas the sisters experience. Even when some of the events escalate to operatic, nearly mystical levels, the direction feels assured and solidly rooted.

The story of Captain Underpants is funny, fresh and frantic, playing with format and genre, adding meta, self-reflective winks. The film is propelled by its hyperactive energy and quirky style...and the combustible chemistry between the two leads.

Writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick keep the blade sharp, while directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett bring a brawny, bruising and bloody style to this “requel sequel.”

With simple storytelling, the film allows its star, Velasquez, to shine, and with her endless reserves of positive energy, eloquent speaking and willingness to be vulnerable, it's no wonder millions of people have already found her inspirational.

It's illuminating to see Huppert and Depardieu in a different mode, and Huppert brings a delicate physical and emotional fragility to her role. These two are fantastic, and they're fantastic together.

The antics are wacky, the jokes are dense, and “The Bob’s Burgers Movie” is both nail-bitingly tense and genuinely moving. It’s a story that demonstrates the powerful force of family unity, and that small businesses are tantamount to preserving the fabric of a community. But most importantly, it’s hilarious, and it’s likely to make you crave a burger too.

It's a rare delight to spend so much time with the inimitable André. This revealing documentary shows the playful, loving and vulnerable side to this towering figure of taste.

It’s a thoughtful and complex film that unfolds under repeat viewings and signals the arrival of an exciting new filmmaker.

It is messy and it doesn’t totally cohere (just how those Beat forefathers liked it), but it does stick to a guiding principle of yearning, expressed in achingly poignant, unforgettable moments of sound and image.

This beautifully crafted jewel of a throwback thriller signifies Okuno as a talent to watch, but furthermore, it pushes the viewer to question what, and who, we choose to believe and why.

While the film seeks to put Antonio’s name on the same level as the boldfaced names he rubbed elbows with, it is a stark, sorrowful reminder of the many artistic geniuses cut down in their prime by AIDS.

This is a penetrating biopic, and while it may take a familiar shape, the pioneering woman at the center was anything but traditional.

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.

Filmmaking duo Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau have crafted a film that articulates the ability for sex to produce just a little bit more love in the world, for a moment or an eternity.

The darkest moments are depicted in rapid-fire montage, and as audience members, we never get a sense of the characters’ true anguish and pain. But this family drug drama isn’t typical, instead crafting an experience that is hushed, poetic and intimate.

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.

Make no doubt about it, Uncle Drew is a very silly film, old-age makeup and all. But it's got humor, heart and a killer soul soundtrack. You'd be soulless to not find some joy in this movie that's pure summer fun.

Like many great monster movies, Hatching uses its creature as a metaphor for repressed emotion, and the one at the center of this film is one of the most uniquely grotesque creations seen on screen in a long time.

This film quickly reveals itself to be a beautifully heartfelt and poetic tribute to the filmmaker’s mother.

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

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.

Ultimately, "Bloodlight and Bami" is a rich, delicate tapestry of a life, where each thread is lovingly woven together to create a full picture.

It’s a maddening but ultimately uplifting tale about a fearless woman who fought tirelessly for her people.

The Menu is a tightly wound, sharply rendered skewering of the dichotomy between the takers and the givers, or in this case, the eaters and the cooks.

If it’s imperfect, or certain narrative turns are rocky, you forgive it because Bottoms is just so audacious, and most important, the jokes are nonstop. Perfectionism is a trap, anyway.

Equal Means Equal is a lot to process, but offers an unflinching look at the fight for equal civil rights for all.

Co-writer and director Maxime Giroux's Felix and Meira is an unusual love story that, though shrouded in chill and shadow, has moments of true loveliness.

The House on Coco Road is a remarkable document of how social forces affected the lives of Baker and his ancestors. It might lack the scope to encompass all of the story it wants to tell, but it’s a compelling conversation starter.

This dire and dreamy road movie is impressive work from director and co-writer Winkler (he co-wrote with Theodore Bressman and David Branson Smith).

Condon is utterly captivating as a brutal villain, and no one plays a valiantly chagrined hero like Neeson, sorrowful and suffering. In the “Neeson skills” canon, In the Land of Saints and Sinners proves to be a gem, the performances elevating a enjoyably pulpy thriller.

There is beauty among the terror and an element of anxious unpredictability thrashing our characters like the waves that crash against the cliffs. But the deft spectacle would be nothing without the characters and performances.

Under the Wire brings a vivid immediacy to this tragic event. Conroy speaks candidly to the responsibility that he feels to survive and to tell the stories of the others, a task that he will carry with him for the rest of his life.

Fort Tilden is cringe-worthy but true. Maybe that's why it's so uncomfortable to watch.

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.

Writer-director-editor Danny Sangra takes on the complicated relationship between art and commerce in the sharp, surprising Goldbricks in Bloom.

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.

Husson’s film details the consequences of such free love, but it celebrates sex too — the kind based on intimacy and love. Teens and sex: it’s a tale as old as time but this take is surprising, invigorating and sharply frank.

It’s a different register for Rapace, who remains controlled, with a few explosions of emotion. But she is present and instinctual, imbuing Maria with a steely but soft power: decisive, persuasive and feminine.

Jackass Forever transcends the body horror to achieve a kind of nirvana: The crew invite themselves to laugh so they don’t cry, and ask the audience to do the same. It’s a reminder that pain is temporary but friendship is forever.

It’s a profound love letter from daughter to mother, an expression of a desire to remain close to her, and in fact, a love letter to all mother-daughter relationships that persist in spite of and because of all the flaws, foibles, and fallibility that comes with being human.

With a confident eye and economy of storytelling, DaCosta crafts a fiercely feminist and sensitive family portrait that fearlessly takes on the capitalist rot at the core of the American healthcare system.

In Wilkes’ heartfelt thank you note of a film, time, art and space collide, though in the end, all things must pass.

Leena Yadav’s Parched is a bright jewel of a film, surprisingly funny, fresh and upbeat in the way it takes on the complicated and often dark topic of sexual politics in rural India. T

This film — which follows the process as a litter of puppies make their way through training to become guide dogs for the blind — shows us the best in humanity, as well as the best in dogs.

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’s goopy, gross fun, if not entirely terrifying, and if there’s a weak link, it’s the screenplay, which toys with deeper social and sexual themes but skims along the surface and leaves loose ends untied.

Owen Kline’s darkly hilarious directorial debut Funny Pages is a coming-of-age tale that finds the sublime in the grotesque, and the profound in an absurd search for meaning in the basement apartments and comic book shops of Trenton, New Jersey.

Wright's film is a beautiful and deeply empathetic depiction of this community, a portrait of Vanier and his philosophy of compassion as the source of true human connection, found and forged with those who have otherwise been cast out by society.

Hilariously daring, deeply moving and stereotype-busting in equal measure, Joy Ride is also the raunchiest movie to make you shed a tear.

There simply aren’t enough female dirtbags in cinema, so Lawrence’s Maddie Barker — Uber driver, surly bartender and pissed-off Montauk townie — is a refreshing character.

As Sam, Deutch is supported by the likes of Halston Sage as uber mean girl Lindsay, using her armor as a weapon, Logan Miller as longtime pal Kent, and Medalion Rahimi and Cynthy Wu as the rest of her clique. But this is Deutch's film.

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.

Hart and Horowitz's script connects the dots on the meaning and messages of the film, which is thrilling in its radicalism. But the execution is heavy-handed, sapping the joy of discovery from the film packed with so much originality, brilliance and beauty to be discovered.

With a mix of old characters and new, worldly upheaval and small-town dramas, Fellowes illustrates what "Downton" has always done best, which is a social examination of how much things have changed and how they haven’t changed at all.

Anniversary is a deeply nihilistic film that can’t be described as a cautionary tale — that horse has left the barn. Rather, it’s a hypothetical question as character study, an examination of how this happens, and an assertion that a system like this shows no mercy, not even to its most loyal subjects, despite what we want to believe.

With a ruthlessly pared-down approach and compelling performer in Dynevor, who carries the film effortlessly, “Inheritance” is a throwback thriller that hearkens to the retro days of the Y2K era. And while its style eclipses its substance, it’s the style that makes this cinematic curio worth watching.

This touching and somewhat grotesque story is the perfect gateway for younger kids to dabble in more spooky, gothic content, as well as to take in the true lessons of Shelley’s original monster tale.

All too often, the human aspect gets lost in the spectacle of an action movie. But Rucka and Prince-Bythewood foreground that element of the story to create something with stakes, intrigue and philosophical weight. They make sure this cool concept and cast are given their due, and set up a sequel too. With any luck, we'll see this world again.

Sollima’s style is cool and observational. There also are several stunts combined with camera movements that are genuinely jaw-dropping.

In remaining present, with the past and future swirling feverishly, the film is a deeply poignant and moving love letter to those that remain, who “rage, rage, against the dying of the light,” as Dylan Thomas once wrote. Someone’s got to make a stand for the last vestiges of the soul of New York City, and “Dreaming Walls” beautifully captures their fight and their dreams.