Kenneth Turan

Citizen K uses Khodorkovsky’s story as a way to guide us through the thickets of modern Russian history, a tangled, through-the-looking-glass world that the film surveys from the days of Boris Yeltsin in 1991 to today’s increasingly autocratic reign of Vladimir Putin

You might say this magical, intoxicating piece of work does not have an ordinary bone in its body, and what a delight that turns out to be.

A barnburner of a motion picture that mainlines heart-in-mouth excitement and tug-at-the-heart emotion, Ford v Ferrari is made the way Hollywood used to make them, a glorious throwback that combines a smart modern sensibility with the best of traditional storytelling.

Perhaps the biggest bit of fakery involved is that for all its twistiness, The Good Liar’s plot, which can be more than a little frustrating, is as much of a liability as a benefit in a production where the characters turn out to be more involving than their story.

Instead of engaging what we get is a plodding, unfocused effort with few genuine thrills to speak of, the kind of movie that would play best on an airplane when you are eager to kill time.

Midway is so square, so old-school and old-fashioned, it almost feels avant-garde. Ambiguity is not its goal, nor is nihilism its motivating philosophy. It aims to celebrate heroism, sacrifice, determination and grit, and if you don’t like that it really does not care.

Though this film analysis has its interest, the most involving parts of “American Dharma” are not Bannon expounding on his political philosophy but his postmortem on the nuts and bolts of the successful campaign he helped run against Hillary Clinton.

In work that emphasizes the unstoppable power of a persuasive performance, Erivo not only convincingly conveys the strength of the celebrated abolitionist’s fierce personality, she creates her as a realistic, multi-sided character, a complex woman of formidable self-belief and not any kind of plaster saint.

Astonishingly, instead of business as usual, The Irishman is a revelation, as intoxicating a film as the year has seen, allowing Scorsese to use his expected mastery of all elements of filmmaking to ends we did not see coming.

Though she’s a first-time director, Costin has put together a film that’s a savvy cinematic education as well as pure fun. If you care about the movies, don’t even think of staying away.

The Cave reminds us of the horrors of a situation we have perhaps become numb to and shows us the unforgettable people who don’t have that luxury.

Erratic but engaging, going in and out of daring, the film’s mixture of black humor and unashamed sentimentality is not always as good as its best parts.

Though it is a tale of real-life 15th-century rulers and lords, The King uses superior filmmaking and fully involving storytelling to make it seem very much a modern situation — in which wholly human individuals deal with up-to-date themes including power and its corruptions and the nature of friendship.

Fiendishly researched and smartly constructed, A German Youth is a formidable piece of documentary detective work focusing on a small but significant historical moment that continues to matter.

It is the gift of Midnight Traveler to allow us to feel this family’s fate in the pit of our stomachs. If the plight of refugees has ever seemed abstract, this film makes sure you know how real it is.

A surprise in all ways except its surpassing quality, Pain and Glory reveals master Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar forging dazzling new paths while being completely himself.

Murphy is back, and both his old gifts and some new ones are on engaging display in the rowdy, raunchy, inescapably funny Dolemite Is My Name, a gleefully profane biopic and a passion project the star has been nurturing for years.

The triumph of this performance is that Zellweger is not so much presenting a Garland we’ve never known as portraying the one we’ve read about with the kind of nuance and depth that insures hearts go out to her, as they always have.

A small gem of focused filmmaking, Ága tells a minimal story so beautifully it holds us completely.

While part of the film offers the expected, unsparingly violent action tropes typical of the series, there’s another aspect to the story, a surprisingly brooding examination of a warrior in winter, a dark story of a berserker who can’t let go, that’s in its own way bleaker and more despairing than we may be expecting.

Though Fellowes and director Michael Engler have taken pains to make the plot engaging for newcomers, this is a film, as was the case with the Harry Potter series and the Avengers saga, where the emotional connection will be strongest for those who’ve been there from the start.

“Raise Hell” does more than allow us to bask in Ivins’ trademark attitude and humor; it shows us how she got that way and explores the toll that being the public Molly Ivins took on her personal life.

While the result is not flawless, this is a polished, impressive attempt that pays off in the end. It may take awhile to get there, but its themes of loss, longing, heartache and betrayal, not to mention the nature and value of beautiful objects, do ultimately move us.

Memories in popular music are notoriously short, and if you’ve forgotten how extraordinary a singer Linda Ronstadt is, how wide a range of material she’s explored and how deep her commitment to the art and craft of music is, Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice is a potent, mind-expanding reminder.

A model of professionalism and energy, Official Secrets moves along at a brisk clip. It’s paced like a police procedural, but it focuses not on an investigator but rather a moral exemplar who takes a principled stand in defiance of the price that has to be paid.

This engaging and enlightening documentary is stuffed with anecdotes, history and information. It makes excellent use of both new interviews and carefully selected archival footage to reveal the building blocks of all this accomplishment.

A singular amalgam of humor, heartache and self-help that won the U.S. dramatic audience award at Sundance, “Brittany” resolutely goes its own way, entertaining us as richly as anything that’s come out in awhile.

The real world is not a just or simple place, this thorough, compelling documentary points out, no matter how deeply we may wish it were.