Lovia Gyarkye

One of the most absorbing parts of Alice, Darling is watching Alice, Sophie and Tess interact with each other throughout the weekend — to witness the frustrating moments of misunderstanding and the triumphant ones of clarity. Kendrick, Mosaku and Horn sustain a natural rapport, which makes investing in their friendship easy.

With her angular face and penetrating gaze, Mackey commands the screen, confidently shepherding us through Emily’s mercurial moods. Her eyes — darting nervously at one moment, squinting suspiciously at another — tells us what dialogue can’t.

A Jazzman’s Blues is overindulgent, a narrative feast of twists and turns. The formidable work of the cast paces us, helping viewers digest the plot and saving Perry’s screenplay from the collateral damage of its broad scope.

Saint Omer might be fiction, but Diop does not stray too far from her documentary roots. The film maintains a sense of naturalism even during its most tense moments. Diop’s directing style leans observational, as if she is watching and recording her screenplay’s effect on her performers.

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.

Energetic performances and technical precision come together to glorious effect in Prince-Bythewood’s rousing action film. It’s a lush, prime piece of entertainment in many respects.

Isolation, emotional distance and (mis)communication are all on display in Love Life, though these subjects are approached with a disorienting but welcome lightness, underlining the absurdity of family life.

All elements of this arresting documentary work together to push an urgent thesis: What we are attuned to hearing, to seeing and to thinking about the U.S. and what the country can and cannot afford to do is by design. It’s better to realize that now before it’s too late.

Katrina Babies is an assertion of presence, a proclamation that the devastating hurricane is not simply a past story, but a present one too.

If we take a step back, we can see the faint outlines of another, more urgent, narrative thread in Kaepernick & America — one that encourages an all too rare kind of integrity and commitment to creating a more just world.

A rambunctious, strange and occasionally humorous action-thriller-comedy.

Luck’s sweetness comes from the details of Sam’s story and subsequent adventure.

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

It’s a restrained rendering of the events, a drama that plays, at times, like a documentary. But if Howard’s decision to spotlight the Thai characters in this harrowing narrative is a sound one, there’s an unfamiliar stiffness and self-consciousness in the director’s approach — an inability to marry the fast-paced, no-nonsense heroics that are his strong suit with more emotionally textured storytelling. The resulting awkwardness prevents the movie, for all the surreal tension and bravery it depicts, from feeling urgent or surprising.

It won’t be to everyone’s taste, but Nope offers up a glutton’s feast for Peele disciples and fans of brainy sci-fi thrillers, ushering the director into an intriguing new phase of cinema that’s as rhapsodic as it is demanding.

It’s a clear-eyed, but by no means exhaustive, documentary that investigates this underreported crisis without losing sight of the people processing the depths of their loss.

The film, like the novel it’s based on, skirts the issues — of race, gender and class — that would texture its narrative and strengthen its broad thesis, resulting in a story that says more about how whiteness operates in a society allergic to interdependence than it does about how communities fail young people.

Throwing a woman in front of the camera and a few feminist quips into the script does not make these films any less conventional, or necessarily any more empowering.

In lieu of a throughline, Beauty offers beautiful, indulgent vignettes — aesthetically pleasing and immersive episodes lacking in ideas but full of vibes.

By focusing on the students’ stories, honoring their choices and leaving considerable room for their ambivalence, regret and uncertainty, the doc provides a sobering and emotional look at what, if any, options exist for those who aren’t white or wealthy in an unequal system.

Civil often feels more like an infomercial than a documentary.

Predictable but sweet.

It’s a concert film wrapped in biography and an appreciation for a sacred and beguiling genre. The power of gospel music comes alive here, and the doc’s subjects, the practitioners of this fervent form, keep it engaging.

With its stellar performances, dramatic orchestral score and rich costume and set design, Illusions Perdues is a worthwhile, sweeping narrative of love, lust and literary ambition.

Halftime includes moments of disarming sincerity, when it seems like the doc and its subject, despite their cautiousness, are genuinely reaching for the truth.

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].

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

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