Keith Watson

A surprisingly nuanced, if at times woefully dated, attempt to depict the complexities of what W.E.B. Du Bois famously identified as the problem of the 20th century: the color line.

Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel’s film is one of the supreme cinematic examinations of the body’s magnificent malleability.

Each brief glimpse of the creature’s fleshy, slithering mass imbues the character drama with an aching sexual desire and, as the violent potential of the entity becomes clear, a mounting sense of dread.

Amalia Ulman’s film is a bittersweet comedy of human behavior observed with a relaxed yet intently focused eye.

Radu Jude’s film is a bitterly comic essay on nationalist mythologies and historical amnesia.

A wilder, weirder, funnier, more heartfelt and eye-popping, and, above all, more fully realized representation of director Paul King’s eccentric sensibility.

The film ultimately depicts a world in which people are left with no other option but to devour their own.

As the world continues to suffer ever-increasing mass die-offs of honeybee colonies, Ljubomir Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska’s film reminds us that there’s indeed a better way to interact with our planet—one rooted in patience, tradition, and a true respect for our surroundings.

La Piscine is, more than anything else, a work of vivid sensory delights.

There’s a haunting beauty to Tatiana Huezo’s depiction of the gradual cross-contamination of childhood innocence and criminal aggression.

It combines the brooding intensity of a slow-burn thriller with the high-flown ornamentation of a gothic melodrama.

The film is a penetrating an indictment of the bureaucratic obstacles placed in front of refugees.

Given that big-studio children’s animation so often feels like it was created by algorithm, it’s refreshing to see a kid’s cartoon like <em>The Last Wish</em> that’s filled with too many ideas rather than too few.

Luke Fowler allows us to access some of the intimate details of Bartlett’s life in intriguingly indirect ways.

Daniel Scheinert’s film finds a very human vulnerability lurking beneath the strange and oafish behaviors of its male characters.

The film is a comedy that depicts the difficult period of transition from mourning back into normal life.

The film is packed with mirthful pranksterism, a vigorous anti-authoritarian streak, and literal potty humor.

Director Baltasar Kormákur's film is a simple, acutely observed love story that also happens to be a rousingly stripped-down tale of survival.

Nelson Carlo de Los Santos's first fiction feature is a dazzling collage of styles and approaches in which every scene feels different from the one that came before.

Bas Devos’s film is a street-lit trek through the eerily empty avenues and byways of a city at sleep.

At heart, Victor Kossakovsky's Aquarela is a war film: a cacophonous survey of the global battle between man and water.

Apollo 10½ ultimately suggests that memory distorts and amplifies just as much as it preserves.

The film captures the pictorial beauty of old-fashioned farm life, but director Xavier Beauvois is careful not to romanticize hard labor for its own sake.

A Couple ultimately constitutes not so much a footnote to Frederick Wiseman’s storied career as a beguiling little doodle in its margins.

Lynn Shelton's film firmly resists supplying its main characters with easy, you-can-have-it-all answers.

Throughout, the subtle glimpses of a couple’s lingering affection for one another complicate the bitterness of their separation.

The documentary is uniquely attuned to the fickle whims of history, politics, and biographical circumstance.