Kenneth Turan

Landais has made a version of Aspern that is too often uncertain and unconvincing despite the good work of his female stars. And when the actresses leave the screen and the film ventures into ill-advised flashback territory, things get shakier still.

Communion is a heartbreaking example of a classic documentary genre — the immersive, observational film that takes a bold leap and embeds itself with a small group of people.

Destroyer is simultaneously impressive and stand-offish. Persuasively directed by Kusama and convincingly acted by Kidman and expert costars like Toby Kebbell and Sebastian Stan though it is, its determination to live exclusively at the darkest end of the street pays disagreeable dividends.

Brainy, audacious, opinionated and fun, Vice is a tonic for troubled times. As smart as it is partisan, and it is plenty partisan, this savage satire is scared of only one thing, and that is being dull.

Passionate, tempestuous, haunting and assured, this latest from writer-director Pawel Pawlikowski explores, as did his Oscar-winning “Ida,” Poland’s recent past, resulting in a potent emotional story with political overtones that plays impeccably today.

They Shall Not Grow Old is a tribute paid by the present to the past, and what a gorgeous gift it turns out to be.

Mortal Engines is bursting with everything you’d want except compelling emotional intelligence.

Though the feeling sneaks up on you, The Mule has an unexpected emotional kick. That’s because in subject and execution it plays as personal as anything the filmmaker has done.

Starting as a dirge and ending as an ode to joy, Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki provides a privileged glimpse into the creative processes of one of the greatest animators who ever lived.

Notwithstanding the inevitable formulaic dialogue and a superabundance of boilerplate superhero action sequences, Aquaman turns out to be, almost despite itself, an engaging undersea extravaganza.

Bright and charismatic though Mary was, she was, in effect, born under a bad sign, fated, despite all her advantages, not to have anything like the happily ever after that royals have in fairy tales and Disney movies. In a similar way, despite numerous advantages (including splendid cinematography by John Mathieson), the film with her name on it has promise it does not fully deliver on. But when those queens are on the screen, all bets are off.

The result is a compelling but chilling film, one that is inevitably disheartening and disturbing as it details both how Ailes came to understand the nature and power of fear and how he honed his craft until he could sell fear to his fellow citizens like it was going out of style.

Though all these technological trappings are newer than new, the human needs for happiness, applause and emotional connection are classic. The ability of People’s Republic of Desire to show these familiar desires playing out in futuristic surroundings is invariably surprising and never less than compelling.

Master Japanese animator Mamoru Hosoda makes family films, but not in the way you think. It’s not that his films are suitable for all ages, though they mostly are. And it’s not even that the family unit is central to his work, though it is. Rather it’s that Hosoda’s films stretch the boundaries of both style and content within the family film rubric.

This wise and insightful film is delicate, poignant and unexpectedly powerful.

These four, like so many others, opened up to Claude Lanzmann, and the results speak eloquently for themselves.

Though it takes the risk of appearing too quiet too long, Roma and its melding of the personal with a glimpse of a society veering toward collapse is incontestably persuasive, a film whose like we are not likely to see again.

How this all played out in terms of the Austrian election will surprise no one, but seeing how much the situation came to prefigure the contemporary house of mirrors in Europe as well as America still comes as something of a shock.

The Last Race is a high art film about a blue-collar subject, and that unlooked-for ability to see beauty in the everyday is what makes it both a surprise and a success.

Green Book is a savvy and super effective piece of popular entertainment.

Dafoe’s work, the look in his searching, despairing eyes, feels beyond conventional acting, using intuition as well as technique to go deeply into the character, putting us in Van Gogh’s presence.

Inevitably violent (though a disemboweling still seems excessive), as edited by Jake Roberts Outlaw King now moves along at a satisfyingly brisk pace. While we likely have not seen the end of Robert the Bruce on film, this for sure is a worthy addition to the canon.

Using their great ability with comic dialogue (the film won the best screenplay award at Venice), the Coens exaggerate and subvert familiar western tropes to gleeful comic effect.

Despite the potential for rancorous finger-pointing, one of the remarkable things about “The Front Runner” is its determination to be even-handed, to encourage viewers to make up their own minds (at least up to a point) about what happened 30 years ago and what it means for today.

The result is surprisingly companionable and enjoyable, an unhurried look at a location that is in no kind of rush, a place that is concerned most of all with preserving the way it’s always been.

The visual allure of this production is undeniable, but having the nerve to be simple and nice all the way through is, even for Disney, verging on being a lost art.

It’s not just that Pike changed the timbre of her voice, the way she walks and even her posture to accurately reflect Colvin physically (though she has). It’s that this fierce, lived-in performance, complete down to the drawn face and go-for-it personality, is so convincing that people who knew Colvin were shaken at the resemblance.

While Maria By Callas is short on facts and biographical detail, it expertly presents an emotional essence of this performer, leaving you both shaken and stirred by the extent of her gifts and the way they connected to both audiences and her tumultuous life.