Kenneth Turan

Like the remarkable films Eastern European countries turned out regularly during the Soviet era, it marries a character-driven story with social concerns, in this case a deft parable about the kind of corrupt privileged society nominally egalitarian Socialism created.

Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman is an involving film that tells a more complicated story than its unexciting title would indicate.

Acted with gravity, emotion and a sense of the serious issues involved by stars Lakeith Stanfield, Nnamdi Asomugha and Natalie Paul, Crown Heights deals with the intensely human factors tragic events bring into play — perseverance and despair, love and longing.

"Whitney's" story makes for strong and compelling viewing even though it has something of a cobbled together feel to it.

If it verges on being a little too pleased with itself for its own good, that's an acceptable price to pay for something that makes you smile.

Escapes is as unconventional as its subject, demonstrating the charming things that can happen when a life in no way ordinary gets documented by a filmmaker most unusual.

In its visualization of a life that feels exceptional as well as ordinary, In This Corner of the World draws us in with the beauty of its animation and the specificity of its detail.

Though he is on less certain ground during the narrative's moments of warmth than when things are grim, director Cretton manages it all successfully. With Woody Harrelson as its dependable lodestar, "The Glass Castle" never loses its sense of direction or its belief in where it’s going.

This is an unusual venture, both charming and serious, that goes in more directions than anticipated, including more than a touch of magic realism.

The focus here is always on character and storytelling and the acting that brings it all alive. With thrillers this good becoming a lost art, Wind River is definitely one to savor.

Heartening and unashamedly emotional, it's a certified crowd pleaser that doesn't care who knows it.

It focuses on how the best intentions toward humanity are not enough if an ability to actually get along with fellow human beings is not part of the mix.

As a slice of ultra-orthodox life, Menashe offers an unusual — and unusually sympathetic — look inside a world that is often hidden from view.

The film is at its best following the former vice president as he spans the Earth both gathering evidence and promoting his message.

An engaging documentary.

The surpassing accomplishment of Dunkirk is to make us feel an almost literal fusion with its story. It's not so much that we've seen a splendid movie, though we have, but as if we've been taken inside a historic event, become wholly immersed in something real and alive.

City of Ghosts demonstrates, in Hamoud’s phrase, that “the camera is more powerful than a weapon,” but it also shows the horrible price it extracts from those who wield it.

While governments and politicians dither about global warming, the world’s undersea coral is moving toward a devastating death. If you don’t believe that, or don’t think it really matters, Chasing Coral presents the evidence with beauty, intelligence and a surprising amount of emotion.

Exact and exacting, made with formidable skill and unwavering focus, Lady Macbeth is a film that demands to be admired and cares little if you actually like it.

Music documentaries are thick on the land, and political ones are numerous as well, but Mali Blues is different in that it artfully combines hypnotic music with definite societal concerns.

Watching the elephant work the room, so speak, interacting magisterially with all and sundry, is always a treat.

Against considerable odds, Spider-Man: Homecoming finds its pace and rhythm by the end. Not only did figuring out how to become an effective Spider-Man require more of a learning curve than Parker anticipates, figuring out how to make a successful superhero movie mandated one for the filmmakers as well.

An unfortunate melding of style and subject matter, too intent on turning the Little Tramp into an icon to be regarded with stately awe to do justice to the disturbing energy of his life.

A perfectly adequate action thriller that neither disappoints nor exhilarates. If it doesn't exactly crackle with energy, it lets off a good buzz now and again, and, depending on your mood, it may seem churlish to ask for more than that. [5 June 1992, p.F1]

Half visual essay, half verbal investigation, “Silence” is thoughtful and informative as well as contemplative and restorative.

This Oliver Hirschbiegel-directed German drama tells a fascinating but inevitably grim story, both more interesting and more downbeat than one might anticipate.

Persuasive rather than polemical, it's the unusual issue film that deals in counterintuitive reason rather than barely controlled hysteria.

Funny as it is for a great deal of its length, Hot Shots! does, however, have its share of dull spots, and watching it inevitably makes one yearn for the good old days of "Airplane!"