Leah Greenblatt

In some ways Beale feels less like a movie than a well-staged, meticulously shot play; a period piece that floats beyond its specific time and place and into the realm of allegory.

Can You Ever Forgive Me?’s premise is so low-key outrageous, it would almost have to be true. And it is: a shaggy, endearingly dour portrait of the kind of true-life eccentric New York hardly seems to make anymore.

In the scheme of Almodóvar’s rich catalogue, Pain is probably too small, too sad, and too obtuse to really recommend as any kind of starting point. For longtime fans, though, it’s a gift; the kind of quiet glory worth waiting a few decades for.

If Davis hadn't already taken home Oscar gold so recently, she'd almost certainly claim another prize here for the raw transformative verve of her performance; it's more than possible she still might. It's Boseman, though, in his final appearance on screen, who makes both the bitter and the sweet of the story sing: a pointed arrow of hurt and hope and untapped fury, heartbreakingly alive in every scene.

It's hard, too, to picture any actress other than McDormand (who also has a producer credit) in the part. She doesn't just become Fern, she creates her: melding Zhao's screenplay to her own fierce character in a way that feels almost uncannily real. Together, they've managed to make that rare thing: a film that feels both necessary and sublime.

As unsettling as Marielle Heller’s feature-film debut can be — there are moments you’ll ache for Minnie and other ones where you’ll want to lock her away — it rings much truer than most coming-of-age stories.

To be corny, which the film is decidedly not, it's about life: the brevity of it, the risks we do or don't take, who in the end we choose to share it with. And for all the pettiness, absurdity, and outright threats of violence, it's pretty feckin' wonderful.

It's shocking, and it should be. But Welcome finds tender, funny moments too — and even, in the end, some kind of hope.

There's a sneaky cumulative power to the filmmaking, though; if Happening often feels like a punch to the solar plexus, that's exactly what it should be.

Strong builds a poignant, methodical portrait of loss.

The movie, which bowed to uniformly rave reviews at Sundance earlier this year, is also — it will probably be noted ad nauseum — the first film collaboration from Barack and Michelle Obama’s new production company Higher Ground. But the heart and soul of American Factory, like all American factories, is never really politics of course; it’s people.

In a way, the movie feels almost like Marvel antimatter, an auteur's willful response to whiz-bang emptiness and Infinity Stones. Knight is ultimately a tale of honor though, and a deeply moral one — inscrutable, but haunting too.

A measured if still-maddening look into the 2016 USA Gymnastics scandal.

It feels like a rare achievement to even attempt to scale the unscalable and still, after more than half a century, be able to make it sing.

To see a black female over 40 holding the center of a story about ordinary, unsung lives makes Support a low-key pleasure; one that transcends its own shaggy narrative.

It feels like an actor's film: a delicate, melancholy study in black and white, nearly every scene filled with careful silences and subtext.

If One Child sometimes seems to raise more questions than it can answer, and more pain than it has room to explore, the movie offers an urgent and affecting reminder of what happens when the rule of law subsumes not just free will but the very act of existing — and the humanity that still, against all odds, endures.

Because it's Spielberg, it's all beautifully, meticulously rendered, and not a little glazed in wistful sentiment: an infinitely tender, sometimes misty ode to the people who raised him and the singular passion for cinema that shaped him.

Black Messiah's center of gravity has to be a Hampton you can't look away from, and Kaluuya — alternately raw, tender, and incendiary — duly electrifies every scene he's in. Righteous as the road may be, his Fred hasn't been flattened to fit the broad Wikipedia-worn contours of a martyr or a hero; he lives and breathes, down to the last indelible frame.

It’s shaggy and self-indulgent and almost scandalously long; and in nearly every moment, pretty glorious. Once also has the good luck of being anchored by what might be two of the last true movie stars: Leonardo DiCaprio as Rick Dalton, a boozy, anxious actor staring down the bell curve of a never-quite-stellar career, and Brad Pitt as Cliff Booth, his taciturn stuntman turned trusty sidekick and consigliere.

If McQueen feels like it’s missing some deeper insights, it may be because its subject kept so much of himself hidden from even the people who loved him most.... What’s left is a fascinating if incomplete portrait of genius interrupted — and a life that should have lasted much longer than it did.

If the storyline doesn’t so much unfold as burst out in glittery puffs — and if music cues seem to make up about 40 percent of the plot—it’s still an endearing kind of chaos.

There’s something uniquely, transcendently beautiful in Campillo’s particular vision and the unhurried way he unfurls it.

If the subject ultimately proves to be more slippery and diffuse than in the duo’s previous films (The Invisible War addressed sexual assault in the military, The Hunting Ground, campus rape), it also never feels like less than required viewing: brutal, heartbreaking, and — with or without Oprah’s co-sign — utterly necessary.

For all its rich tapestry and radiant ingenues, it's that casual centering of so many marginalized voices that makes the movie feel, in its own way, revolutionary: a Technicolor marvel as heady as Old Hollywood, and as modern as this moment.

A visually stunning, richly imagined oasis in a sea of candy-colored safety, and one of the first truly original movies of the year so far.

It’s entertaining enough for popcorn — and gratifying, too, to watch these smart, strong women step into roles they’re so often left to support from the sidelines, while men have all the contraband fun. If only the execution of it didn’t feel like such a crazy-quilt patchwork of other, better films, and so jaggedly stitched together.

Mostly though, State tells a story both heartbreaking and hopeful: part C-Span, part Lord of the Flies, and wholly unforgettable.