Katie Walsh

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.