Michael O'Sullivan

A quietly brilliant study in cognitive dissonance, The Flat is a documentary look at Holocaust denial, but not the kind you might think.

Antlers obeys the rules of horror — many of which are familiar, even at times cliche — while also bending them. It’s a creature feature at heart, yes, but its footing is grounded in the tragedies we hear about in the news every day.

It Follows sticks to you — yes, even outside of the theater — with a grim unshakability that is at once stylish, smart and deadly serious.

20,000 Days on Earth isn’t so much a portrait of the artist as a middle-aged man, looking back on his life, as it is a meditation on the art of storytelling.

The themes of love, loyalty, ambition, honor and legacy that lend sinew to the story are delivered with such a clean punch that they as feel as fresh as they did in 1976.

All this can make Transit a bit confusing at times, in addition to lending it the patina of metafiction. It’s almost as if the tale is being acted out by people who know they are players in a drama, and not real human beings.

The story is maddeningly oblique and incomplete, despite paying what at times feels like excruciating attention to the minutiae of a dying love affair's final hours.

It's a story of jaw-dropping chutzpah, grim, mostly hindsight-based humor and more stomach-churning drama than you could find in 10 screenplays.

War for the Planet of the Apes may have the body of an action film, but it has the soul of an art-house drama and the brains of a political thriller.

You Won’t Be Alone can be ghoulish at times, but also gorgeous, in the swooning manner of a Terrence Malick film: all grass and leaves and sky and water, captured by tumbling camerawork that evokes the wide-eyed wonder of someone experiencing the world for the first time.

An Oscar nominee for best international feature, Denmark’s harrowing, slow-boil thriller “The Girl With the Needle” has been described by some as a horror film. And from the hallucinatory opening montage of distorted, leering faces, this black-and-white drama promises to be the stuff of nightmares.

Only the third feature from writer and co-director Ilker Catak, who won a student academy award in 2015 for his film school project “Fidelity,” “Teachers’ Lounge” is far more than a conventional whodunit, though it does build a nice head of suspense as it grapples with themes of justice, doubt and bias.

Miyazaki, like an evil sorcerer, has plucked the heart out of Jones's story and left it there to die.

To refuse to call A Hijacking a thriller is not to say it isn’t thrilling, in a dryly cerebral way. Writer-director Tobias Lindholm has a point to make, and he makes it pungently.

An extraordinary film in many ways, the least of which is its unorthodox casting.

Its smallness is its strength — as is its silence. That’s the odd and evocative resonance of Hearts Beat Loud. For a movie that is so rock-and-roll, it turns out to be less about making noise than about listening to the message that can only be heard in the stillness that comes after the song.

In the end, what mars "Timothy Green" most is its middle-of-the-road approach. Its appealingly quirky, fairy-tale-like center is so coated with sugar, it cloys. It's not that "Timothy Green" is odd, but that it isn't odd enough.

Not 10 minutes in, when Clarisse stops at a service station to chat with a friend who asks, “Running away, or what?” there are hints that all is not as it seems. That sense grows more steadily over the course of the strange and compelling film, a study of grief that somehow is at once moving and detached, in the way that people in mourning sometimes engage in denial-like displacement activities: behavior that’s inappropriate to the emotion at hand.

Like the character at the heart of Pig — who is not, as it turns out, a pig at all, even metaphorically — it is smoldering and gentle.

Tells a tale of fortitude that comes not from muscle but from the ineffable, bungee-like sinew that is the human spirit.

It’s a small film made larger by Ahmed’s ability to take something so interior — hearing loss — and make it so visible, so palpable.

Fascinating and transgressive love story.

Under the direction of George Tillman Jr., these two young performers exercise remarkable restraint, never milking the material for unearned tears.

The movie takes place in Iran, yet it’s really situated in the crack of daylight that separates truth from a lie. It’s a tight squeeze, Farhadi seems to say, and one whose pinch this tragedy of the everyday makes us feel, acutely.

Snitch is protein-and-starch filmmaking at its utilitarian -- and belly-filling -- best. Johnson brings the steak; Bernthal the sizzle. The father-son drama is served up as sauce on the side. But as long as the beef isn’t too overcooked, who needs the A1?

The message of “Deaf President Now!” comes across loud and clear: We will be heard.

Blade Runner 2049, the superb new sequel by Denis Villeneuve (“Arrival”), doesn’t just honor that legacy, but, arguably, surpasses it, with a smart, grimly lyrical script (by Fancher and Michael Green of the top-notch “Logan”); bleakly beautiful cinematography (by Roger Deakins); and an even deeper dive into questions of the soul.

Uprising is loud, packed with impressive effects and propulsive — or as propulsive as a car with no brakes going downhill — but it lacks the heart of del Toro’s original.

It’s not the familiarity of this setup that irks, but its silliness.

What this movie could use a little more of is the rigor and self-discipline to pull off all the imagination and originality in a way that does more than leave you gobsmacked.

Truman avoids preachiness as scrupulously as it evades certainty.

Jamal Khashoggi was a complex, even contradictory human being, and his death an affront to freedom and decency. Does the world need two documentaries about him, coming in rapid succession? Maybe not. But you wouldn’t go wrong by watching either one.

With elegant, clockwork construction, Smith has transplanted his novel of greed, betrayal and getting what you deserve to the screen, where it is told by director Sam Raimi with a spareness befitting the whiteness of its snowed-in setting.

Admission is not especially funny. The trailer can’t seem to make up its mind. On the one hand, it looks like a satire of academia. On the other hand, it could be a gentle rom-com. In truth, it’s neither.

The progression of the story is steadily downward, and at times the style flirts with melodrama, the mood with moroseness. But in the film’s third act, masterfully staged by filmmaker Karim Aïnouz (who co-wrote the screen adaptation with Inez Bortagaray and Murilo Hauser), it takes a giant leap, both temporally and emotionally.

A lean and hungry thing. With the sparest of storytelling, the French filmmaker ("35 Shots of Rum") devours her audience, swallowing us up in a yarn that is as enigmatic as it is engrossing.

It's uncompromisingly steamy, in a way that seems designed to make people who are uncomfortable with a physical relationship between two men even more uncomfortable.

Part of this success is due to the exquisitely cast ensemble-composed of actors, not movie stars. To a man, woman and child, the unforced performers are spot-on.

Honest because it gets a paradoxical truth: There's more to life than football, even when there isn't.

There are plenty of left turns (and the occasional dead end) here, but Riders of Justice is no waste of time. The mayhem is mixed with unexpected thoughtfulness.

It’s a haunting story of love between two misfits who shouldn’t be together. In its doomed yet somehow hopeful spirit, it’s closer to the noir sensibility of “Let the Right One In” than the pop-horror of “Twilight.”

In the end, Shadow suffers from a kind of shallow narcissism. Yes, it’s beautiful. Sure, it’s hard to take your eyes off it, with all the slow-motion action, enhanced by an ever-present, photogenic drizzle. But in an ironic departure from the theme of the balance, it too often emphasizes style over substance.

Your Name is still highly watchable, even when this mystical Young Adult love story cloys — or confounds.

The film suggests that it doesn't really matter whether Harris ever gets back in uniform. He's forever carrying around a piece of unexploded ordnance in his head.

Like the infamous “talk” that opens the film — the conversation that many black parents feel forced to have with their children about how to behave when you are stopped by the police — it is a movie that feels both essential and terribly, terribly sad.

A mostly unsentimental little gem.

Charlie St. Cloud, like its star Zac Efron, is a gorgeous, unblemished thing. Both would be much improved with a tiny flaw or two.

It’s a masterful example of genre filmmaking’s ability to transcend its limitations, leaving a viewer not just frightened, but also changed.

That A War both delivers the results one might wish for and denies a sense of closure is not a failing but its chief virtue.

Living mostly avoids sappiness. And it shows an actor at the peak of his powers.

One heck of a tale of deliciously unladylike payback.

Strangely moving film.

The anarchic spirit of the film suggests the screenwriters (brothers Kevin and Dan Hageman, Paul Fisher and Bob Logan) may also have been a little high on bee venom when they wrote this thing.

It’s rare that a documentary has the ability to take the kind of long view of events that establishes context and consequence.

The only artwork by Ai that Klayman's film dwells on at any length -- aside from the iconic "bird's nest" stadium he helped design for the Beijing Olympics, and then denounced as tasteless -- is "Sunflower Seeds." Created for a 2010 exhibition at London's Tate Modern, the installation featured 100 million hand-painted ceramic sunflower seeds spread out on the floor.

Elaine Stritch’s strength, along with the film’s, comes from her honesty. She is herself, even when — maybe especially when — she knows she’s being watched.

Filmmaker Davis Guggenheim's scathing, moving critique of American public education, makes you actually want to do something after you dry your eyes.

Who should have access to an artist’s legacy? That’s only one of many good questions that are raised in this mesmerizing exercise in artistic interrogation.

The disconnect between Barry’s mature and adolescent selves, a running gag, can be amusing. But coming on the heels of the parade of similar content that we’ve been subjected to for the past several years in the world of superhero films and shows, the device cloys.

In ways both large and small, Midway may be the most realistic war movie you’ve ever seen, as those involved in the production of this World War II action film, including Naval historians, have touted it to be. That’s not to say it’s as real as “Saving Private Ryan.”

It has certain je ne sais quoi, if graphic nudity, self-referential humor and serial murder — neck stabbing, eye gouging, alligator munching and shotgun blasting — are your thing.

This sets up a mesmerizing double master class in acting — by Moore, to be sure, but also by Williams.

With its wise understanding of the magnetic pull (and invisible polarities) of family, Junebug is an auspicious debut for Morrison.

Very funny in a way reminiscent of "Babe: Pig in the City."

A touching and unusual road movie-cum-buddy film.

The acting is strong, with Robbie and Ejiofor turning in performances that feel powerfully authentic, even in moments of ethical confusion. Maybe especially in moments of ethical confusion.

It knocks you off your feet and leaves you shaken.

Wickedly clever drama.

It’s been a long time coming for Incredibles 2, but the punchline is worth the setup.

It sounds monotonous, too, but it's not. The succession of passengers he picks up -- a pimply and skittish Kurdish soldier in the Iranian army, a moralistic Afghan seminarian and an elderly Turkish taxidermist -- each react in utterly different and fascinating ways to Badii's unusual request. What it is, though, is a small triumph of filmmaking. Through quiet insinuation, Taste of Cherry evokes sadness without being sentimental, has universal resonance without sacrificing personal immediacy, and generates real drama without resorting to contrivance. [15 May 1998, p.N56]

Arnold also brings to bear a euphoric appreciation for the spirit of freedom and the optimism — if not the innocence — of her subjects, who can seem at once world-weary and hopelessly naive. Call it a form of ecstatic naturalism, one that revels in the ugly paradoxes of life.

By looking closely, clinically and ultimately compassionately at one eccentric practitioner of a dying way of life...Peter and the Farm nevertheless manages to harvest not just understanding of one peculiar, broken little man, but a broader wisdom about the cycle of seasons that we all must endure on this planet.

Structurally, The Meyerowitz Stories is a shapeless and baggy thing.

While Last Men in Aleppo could stand a trim here and there, it mostly uses its length to good and heart-rending effect, delivering a lingering, close-up — and ultimately tragic — look at the misery and joy taking place, side by side, under the eyes of the world.

Could hardly be more suspenseful if it were scripted.

Trinca delivers a marvelously unfussy performance, rendering her complex character gradually, along with the effects of the opposing forces that tear at her.

It's hard not to feel a certain affection for a tale that is so unapologetic about just that: affection.

At the center of this oddly riveting little picaresque is a performance of such quiet power by Plummer — as an antihero both rash and precociously resourceful — that it’s easy to overlook the film’s flaws.

To its great credit, the movie turns left when you expect it to turn right, taking a route that is less well traveled, yet more plausible.

By land or by sea, there aren't many movies that can move you like that.

The make-believe world of Boy and the World is confusing, scary and gorgeous. But then again, so is the real one.

As Finders Keepers gets weirder, it also gets better and deeper. Somehow, Carberry and Tweel have managed to fashion an inspirational tale out of what one local newscaster calls a “freak show.”

The film “The Beast” is a Russian nesting doll of genres: a belle epoque romance set inside a contemporary serial-killer thriller set inside a dystopian sci-fi drama.

As startling as the crisp and, yes, dramatic images may be, a sense of slight monotony sometimes creeps in after so many shots of ice, calving glaciers, heaving waves, sea foam, rain, snow, fog, mist, etc. Despite these occasional moments of tedium, however, the film is at once chilling and likely to make your blood boil.

It is a remarkable, strange and politically potent first film.

The new movie — a sci-fi freakout that, like “Spring,” includes an “it,” but one that’s far less easy to define — is spooky, funny, touching and very, very well made.

It's a gorgeous and, believe it or not, riveting documentary . . . about sheep.

It’s pretty obvious, with the controversy surrounding Trump’s political ascendancy, that there is a built-in market for a film that makes him and his business surrogates out to be both callous bullies and buffoons.

Mulligan’s eccentric energy is her greatest strength, but it makes for a slightly wobbly — if just this side of wonderful — film.

It takes us someplace, yes, but the trip is just this side of transporting.

The Muppets is both a delightful family film about the Muppets and a winking, self-referential satire about how lame the Muppets are.

Winter on Fire has all the immediacy and power of drama. If it lacks the dispassionate context of more balanced journalism, it makes up for it with a complex, contradictory emotional impact that is simultaneously demoralizing and hopeful.

The insecurities that seem to feed Rivers's often angry humor -- and that have left her face looking like a mask frozen in horror -- are left unexamined.

Io Capitano takes a news story that’s mostly about numbers, and puts a human face on it.

Sami Blood is a beautiful, haunting film, anchored by a startlingly accomplished lead performance.

The morale of [Scorsese's] story is ultimately both tough and nuanced.

As a feel-good fact-based fable of financial comeuppance, Dumb Money is funny enough. But as its name suggests, it isn’t especially smart. Unlike its protagonists, it isn’t interested in making a quick buck, just an easy laugh.

Their characters' desire (Scott Thomas and Zylberstein) -- no, need -- to repair their fragile bond feels as achingly real as the mother lode of hidden pain that gets exposed by the work of these two great actresses.