Lovia Gyarkye

For most audiences, Air will be worth seeing just for the starry cast — particularly the reunion between Damon and Affleck. Their scenes possess a kinetic and intimate dynamism that the rest of the film approaches but doesn’t always match.

Free Chol Soo Lee vibrates with this broader understanding of incarceration.

Emergency mostly stays close to the surface of the issues it presents, which results in a darkly funny but frustrating viewing experience.

The film is preoccupied — obsessed, really — with the process of growing into oneself, which is different from just getting older. Anaïs’ journey contains moments of exhilarating momentum and then, just as quickly, depressing inertia. The film, at times, feels crazed and slightly random — just like our protagonist.

Silence is Atef’s strength. The director impressively uses quiet moments to great effect.

Something You Said Last Night testifies to its director’s dexterity with constructing subtly meaningful moments, but without more insight into its protagonist, the film can feel unintentionally impenetrable at times.

Throughout, Hayakawa maintains a steady control of this delicate story. There are moments toward the end when Renoir takes sentimental turns that feel a touch too obvious for its subtle framing.

One of Them Days, produced by Issa Rae, is the kind of big-laughs, mid-budget theatrical comedy that used to be more common; it’s a shame TriStar scheduled a January release, because the film had the potential to be a summer hit. Its two charismatic leads alone make it worth seeing in a theater, surrounded by a crowd primed for a good time.

The film confidently highlights the delicate relationship between people and their spaces, while also acknowledging the understated harshness of a job that requires you to assess, with a certain degree of remove, one of the more intimate elements of another person’s life.

This premise — of two people with divergent personalities potentially falling in love — is not new, but 7 Days satisfyingly freshens up a stale formula, thanks in large part to the lead performances.

Although Babes nails its comedic swings, the film strains to build the narrative tension and stakes needed to land its more serious moments.

The Encampments is not just critical in capturing the real-time makings of a movement, but in laying bare the consequences of this response.

A sense of play pulses through the film, which, with its bracing special effects, detailed production design and propulsive music, seems determined to activate viewer imaginations.

The film aims to inspire action and stave off despair with a reminder that the most powerful tool younger generations can wield is their imagination.

Léonor Serraille’s film Mother and Son contains moving strokes, but struggles to make a lasting emotional dent.

Sometimes I Think About Dying, then, is a graceful treatise on how challenging — but liberating — it can be to make connections.

This is a vengeful dark comedy that probes percolating class anxieties (a popular theme in cinema lately). It indulges in opportunities to strip the emperor of his clothes, and while that doesn’t necessarily translate to the most revelatory social commentary, it does make for an amusing ride.

Where there should be intimacy, we get distance. Where one might expect steady meditation, the narrative jitters impulsively.

The relationship between Paxton, Barnes and Mr. Reed remains the most absorbing thread throughout Heretic. Even when the screenplay heads into deflating territory — trading potential acerbity for more neutral conclusions — their cat-and-mouse game keeps us curious and faithful.

The film deduces that these women need meaningful support, but doesn’t fully explore what that might look like — whether it would come in the form of campaign teams, money, endorsements or all of the above.

Torres has created a weird and special little film, one that reflects his particular tastes and curiosities.

With Banel & Adama, Ramata-Toulaye Sy has conjured a stunning world in need of a sharper story.

With Monkey Man, Patel offers an allegorical story that combines the technical and heroic sensibilities of his favorite action figures (Bruce Lee, John Wick) with the mythologies rooted in his ethnic identity.

Reginald Hudlin’s documentary about Sidney Poitier should be considered the beginning, not the end, of appraising the prolific actor’s career.

When the performers are on stage, Swan Song becomes electric.

Blichfedlt’s aesthetic ambition — hyper-pop prevails here — and a committed performance from Les Myren as the titular stepsister help enliven a film that, at times, is weighed down by its more farcical antics.

It’s a slow-burning film, one that pulls you in with its steady observations of the minor triumphs and major pitfalls [of its two protagonists].

No Sleep Till does a particularly fine job of portraying an eerie kind of climate adaptation, one in which people acquiesce to their fate in the face of the elements. That’s especially true of the families for whom the idea of evacuating doesn’t seem to cross their mind.