Kenneth Turan

What makes Non-Fiction stand out is the adroit way it keeps everything in balance. The writing and the acting, the questions about contemporary society as well as personal relationships, they all exist in enviable harmony to create an incisive snapshot of the present moment.

An intimate, intensely dramatic film that holds us in its grip like a page-turning novel. Except it’s all true.

Fortunately, both the film’s gorgeous look and its meticulously choreographed action sequences keep us more than occupied until the plot pieces fall into place.

One of the most dramatic and emotional of sports stories gets the expert film it deserves in The Russian Five, a documentary that is moving in ways you won’t see coming.

It all comes together on election night, as Lears shadows Ocasio-Cortez and captures her disbelief as she nears her post-election party and suddenly realizes she has in fact won. It’s precisely the kind of you-are-there moment, one of many, that makes Knock Down the House so satisfying.

Subject and style could not be more different than in The White Crow, but that fusion of opposites has resulted in an involving biographical drama that rarely puts a foot wrong.

Fast Color is a nifty little film, a smart, adventurous and surprising production made with visible care and considerable love.

All in all, the characters in Lost & Found are no smarter or luckier than they need to be, and their travails and coincidences manage to be just comic and human enough to make us happy for the time we spend together.

Master Z: Ip Man Legacy, like any old-school popular entertainment, contains sentimental moments and broad comedy as well as all that action. If you don’t already have the Ip Man habit, it’s a fine place to start.

Working Woman is more than a feature that makes compelling drama out of workplace sexual harassment; it’s an excellent work by any standard, a subtle and insightful character-driven drama that will compel anyone who cares about the interplay of personalities on-screen.

Difficult to experience though its finale may be, Peterloo very much gives off the sense that watching is essential. This fight for democracy is our story too, and the end has yet to be written.

Well-behaved and genteel from the get-go, it has its pleasures, but being wild and crazy is not one of them.

When you add in the tip-top tension created by the legendary break itself, not to mention the verisimilitude of shooting in a recently decommissioned prison, you end up with a small film with an impressive impact. Those who take a chance on Maze will not be disappointed.

Cinéma vérité all the way, a classic fly-on-the-wall documentary that follows Bannon for about a year as he flies hither and yon on private jets, taking meetings, bolstering supporters and attempting to turn his brand of fervent nationalism into a global movement.

Whether this iteration of Dumbo is a good experience for you will depend on your tolerance for the familiar and the sentimental, and the joy you take in what is visually striking and beautiful.

A short-film director making his feature debut, Maras has settled on a strategy that combines harrowing re-creations with largely conventional character development to good effect.

Fascinating and frequently compelling, The Mustang is a hybrid, the unlikely combination of genres you wouldn’t think go together but are able to coexist thanks to an exceptional leading performance.

Triple Frontier is a solid, engrossing genre item with designs on being something more. It doesn’t quite get there but it does well enough along the way to make the journey worth taking.

Watching Danvers’ story play out, complete with boggling plot twists and a scene-stealing friendly feline, is hugely entertaining, and it can’t be over-emphasized how central Larson, about to become the most recognized woman on the planet, is to the enterprise.

One of the unexpected but welcome things Apollo 11 accomplishes is restoring a sense of how insanely complex the lunar mission was, and how audacious.

Just as sports mirror society, so do the best sports films not only take us inside games and those who play them but also provide insight into our world and how it works. “Wrestle,” a superb sports documentary, does exactly that.

Self-aware, funny and articulate, blessed with a first-class temperament, Ferencz is front and center telling his own tale, which includes being the key player in what’s been called the biggest murder trial in history.

With a masterful melding of the serious, the comic, the ridiculous and the musical, Woman at War is joyful to experience though difficult to sum up.

Birds of Passage tells a story of a traditional culture fighting for its life against incursions from the outside world, of how insidiously clan ways and spiritual values can be compromised, and it certainly has familiar elements. But the electric filmmaking, sense of tragedy and cultural specificity are far from usual.

If you’re in the mood for a movie like “Alita,” “Alita” is the movie you’re in the mood for.

The body count goes up, but our interest level doesn’t rise with it.

What makes High Flying Bird so welcome and unexpected is its combination of immediacy and drama, its provocative creation of here and now energy and smart dialogue around the unlikely subject of professional sports in general and pro basketball in particular.

Tito and the Birds is a small marvel. Only 73 minutes long, it marries an adventurous visual imagination with a darkly provocative political parable. Its heroes may be children, but its themes are definitely adult.