Michael Rechtshaffen

Handling it all with a detached, shrugging sense of doom, Odenkirk proves the right man for the job at hand in both of the film’s two tonally separate halves, and he’s supported by a colorful cast.

The assessment of Candy’s life and legacy provides ample cause for laughter while also provoking plenty of tears.

Vanderbilt’s commanding Nuremberg couldn’t have arrived at a more consequential time.

Thanks to the engaging ensemble and the breezily improvised feel to many of its funnier line readings, Good Fortune coasts along agreeably on all those good intentions.

Worley has adroitly assembled the mega-mash-up into an engaging whole, with the help of an amiable cast and a crack technical team.

Essentially serving as a constant spectator, looking in on both the production and her own tangled life, Seyfriend impressively conveys a myriad of tamped-down, long-repressed emotions with an economy of dialogue at her disposal.

A gleefully discomfiting portrait of male bonding that delivers some of the year’s biggest laughs.

As its restless protagonist navigates the road to ultimate personal victory, director Morrison is right there with her, maintaining a propulsive momentum accentuated by editor Harry Yoon’s rhythmic cuts and composer Tamar-Kali’s elegant, percolating score. And so are we.

There’s an achingly palpable, playful chemistry between Pugh and Garfield that leaps off the screen. But they also refuse to shy away from letting their characters’ less attractive qualities bleed through.

Despite all that loopy energy, Dicks: The Musical still can’t help but remain an inescapably one-note proposition, albeit a subversively melodic one.

Over the span of his 120-plus film career, Nicolas Cage has been a lot of things — but he may have never been as flat-out hilarious as he is in Dream Scenario.

Although Finley, who previously directed the Emmy-winning Hugh Jackman drama “Bad Education,” doesn’t quite manage to sustain the film’s irreverent energy, especially during its more melancholic second half, he handily succeeds in delivering a piece of entertainment that is at once wildly out of this world and all-too-relevantly down to earth.

A constantly surprising, undeniably entertaining portrait that proves anything but monochromatic.

Montréal Girls emerges as a vivid, immersive paean to artistic expression and youth’s unhindered possibilities.

A work of surprising, commanding depth.

Writer-director Jamie Sisley’s autobiographical first feature strikes a genuine, sobering chord.

There’s a prevailing playfulness to many of the sequences which, like that properly placed unrest wheel, ensures a satisfying balance.

Serving as a potent reminder of the stellar athletic ability that, in time, had been overshadowed by his admittedly outsized personality, the affectionate It Ain’t Over offers a winning coda to the career assessment of the late, great Yogi Berra.

The film is at once gently intimate and breathtakingly expansive in scope.

While it doesn’t venture far from its evident stage roots, neither does “What We Do Next,” a sinewy, tautly calibrated morality play, ever stray from the decidedly contemporary issues at its complex core.

There are no false moves in Marder’s truly radiant lead performance.

Despite his perceived failings, Karski and “Remember This” serve as a crucial reminder of society’s duty to bear witness, especially whenever and wherever it would seem impossible to raise one’s voice above the din of indifference.

The inherent backstage machinations and underlying corruption and hypocrisy that go with the church/state backdrop may not be unfamiliar territory, but Saleh, who controversially took on the 2011 Egyptian revolution in his acclaimed 2017 political thriller, “The Nile Hilton Incident,” keeps it all quite compelling.

Although the blandly nondescript title doesn’t exactly suggest the promise of deep intrigue, Philipp Stölzl’s Chess Story masterfully confounds expectations as a tautly calibrated, intricately constructed Chinese puzzle of a period drama set during Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria.

A spirited, revealing documentary.

On its exotic surface, Wildcat might hold all the trappings of a standard wildlife conservation documentary, but lurking beneath the lushly photographed camouflage is a tenderly moving, deeply empathetic human survival story that has as much to do with emotional trauma as it does with the physical.

As crafted by Bahrani, this fascinating portrait of a hero/villain who comes across as both affable and unpleasant, often simultaneously, is a Greek tragedy and a Shakespearean comedy with a touch of “Tiger King” all expertly rolled into one all-too-pertinent cautionary tale.

The intimate and remarkably relatable documentary that is "Bad Axe” takes its name from the rural Michigan town where Siev’s Cambodian refugee father and Mexican American mother raised a family and ran a restaurant; Bad Axe turned out to provide a tellingly relevant backdrop for the film.

What’s Love Got To Do With It? serves as a master class in how to adhere faithfully to the classic romantic-comedy template and yet still emerge with something that delivers delightfully on both sides of the hyphen.

In the case of Yusra and Sara Mardini’s remarkable survival story, their empowering journey ultimately proves more rewarding than the conventional destination.

As tenderly observed as it is laugh-out-loud funny.

For all the clever satirical touches and asides, the gorgeously intricate, wondrous stop-motion landscape is ultimately pure Selick, imbued with a fitting color scheme of swirling, eerily glowing greens and purples choreographed against a mischievous score by Bruno Coulais that effectively sets the mood for the film’s pre-Halloween arrival.

As documentaries go, few arrive with as much ripped-from-the-headlines urgency as The Will to See, an eye-opening return visit to the backdrops of some of the world’s worst atrocities.

As with his 2016 documentary “Tower,” which recounted a 1966 mass shooting in Texas, director Maitland is most concerned with those whose stories get buried beneath the headlines.

Preferring to maintain his focus on the tender relationship between father and son, as well as the gently amusing camaraderie that exists among groups of males in both countries, Koguashvili challenges conventional notions of masculinity to often delightful effect.

It may not be so quixotic as to suggest the Middle East conflict could be resolved over a plate of creamy hummus, but the vibrant culinary documentary Breaking Bread nevertheless makes a mouthwatering case for dinner table diplomacy.

Informed by actual events, the unfailingly fervent Unsilenced overcomes some problematic scripting and evident logistical challenges to emerge as a moving portrait of conscious resistance in the face of political oppression.

Throughout, both the character and the film constantly keep one guessing as to whether Margrete’s driving impulse leans more in the direction of the maternal or the Machiavellian.

Taking a cue from its taciturn protagonist, I Was a Simple Man prefers to let its soulful poetic imagery do the bulk of the talking.

Some 40 years in the making, the remarkable Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time is a gorgeously rendered, unexpectedly moving appraisal of the life and craft of one of the best-loved literary voices of the late 20th century.

A uniquely compelling, exhaustively researched documentary by Israeli filmmaker Maya Sarfaty that never settles for pat answers.

An achingly poignant testament to the unwavering strength of parental and filial bonds.

Through an economy of exposition, Eyimofe, (translated as “This is My Desire”) delivers a timeless, universal portrait of human resilience while establishing Arie and Chuko as a welcome new addition to the filmmaking brood.

Although Salomé’s lower-key approach to the material occasionally creates the sense that moments of ripe comedy have been left untapped, as well as a low-key ending that might have benefited from a final twist, there’s plenty to appreciate.

Although the constant shifts between contemporary Toronto and ‘90s New York can at times cause confusion, the film remains firmly rooted in Williams’ quietly powerful, laser-focused performance.

The upshot, deftly blending over-the-top violence and healing crisis management sessions, ultimately ties all the laugh-out-loud audacity and tender sweetness together with a festive Christmas bow

Inextricably rooted in lead Arndis Hrönn Egilsdöttir’s quietly defiant performance, The County tells an immersive, timeless David vs. Goliath story set against a contemporary backdrop of shifting societal norms.

If every picture tells a story, the body of work displayed in the hauntingly intriguing documentary “Bill Traylor: Chasing Ghosts” speaks volumes on the life and times of the artist in question.

Norbu charts an inspired, fittingly meditative journey to enlightenment.

The delightfully daft, dialogue-driven result makes for a languid farce that mischievously flips a funhouse mirror on jaded audiences to welcome, if fleeting, effect.

The Netherlands must be doing something right, and Blank’s generally breezy film, packed with playful Monty Pythonesque animations by Fiely Matias, effectively sums up the contented mood.

Accentuating the unrepentant Freedman (who has a distinctly monochromatic fashion sense) and her fellow interview subjects with fittingly artistic camera compositions, gallery-ready lighting and a refined strings-forward score, Made You Look makes for an exposé that’s suitable for framing.

Director Miranda de Pencier and writers Graham Yost and Moira Walley-Beckett haven’t dodged hard sociological truths lurking beneath the gentle humor, engaging performances and stirringly photographed tundra, lending The Grizzlies a decisive, transformative edge.

The beautifully rendered result proves to be even more than one had hoped for: a visually dazzling, richly imaginative, emotionally resonant production that taps into contemporary concerns while being true to its distant origins.

Jolie, who also serves as producer along with Brigham Taylor and the late Allison Shearmur, invests her fragile pachyderm with a gentle, world-weary wisdom, while Cranston makes you feel his world crumbling beneath him in a performance that could have easily flirted with cartoon villainy in less accomplished hands.

More aligned to the docudrama stylings of Mike Leigh or Ken Loach than the likes of a “Lean on Me” or “Stand and Deliver,” Harchol’s inspirational film eschews mainstream tropes in favor of a bracingly candid sociological study that has compellingly done its homework.

Writer-director Penny . . . has crafted a thoroughly workable and well-informed vehicle, providing a nurturing atmosphere for the unhurried dramatic developments and uniformly gracious performances.

The light but evocative result proves as inviting as a gentle tropical breeze.

A Kid from Coney Island proves to be as surprising and affecting as the unorthodox career trajectory of its subject, basketball player Stephon Marbury.

Like those cheeky genre-splicing comedies that came before it, the Ahern-Loughman collaboration doesn’t merely goose the boundary between charming and outrageous, it gleefully tramples it into oblivion.

While the template may be familiar, the nicely balanced blend of comedy and pathos still hits the mark.

Those anticipating something more traditionally calibrated will likely be disappointed with the film’s muted thrills and noncommittal denouement, but the elegantly composed film nevertheless makes for a creepy, contemplative entry in the Cristofer canon.

At once frank, tender and unapologetically funny, Come as You Are is a sweet surprise.

Director McMillin effectively interweaves the involving profiles into the lead-up to the big game, as the young players deal with the pressures placed on them by their respective schools and the expectations of family members, some facing the threat of deportation and other realities of living in Trump-era America.

Playfully taunting title aside, Mullinkosson’s film is an affectionate portrait of a fraternal bond that no tribal council could ever tear apart.

A penetrating, mournful portrait of sexual identity in contemporary Guatemala City.

The film effectively illustrates how the words “Most Likely to Succeed,” written under a yearbook photo can serve as both a cheering vote of confidence and an awfully daunting expectation.

Enhanced by playful animations, this nicely composed documentary serves as an engagingly honest profile of a driven man and his prodigious movement.

While the casually demonstrated prep work isn’t for the squeamish, the film’s aptly timed release should ensure viewers never consider their Thanksgiving turkey the same way again.

Although the film dutifully follows a familiar path to the courtroom, along the way, it serves as a solid demonstration of the fissures that can form when the bonds of friendship are tested against those of familial loyalty.

The visually poetic film offers an appraisal of Cash’s life and craft that is both painfully candid and often revelatory.

Despite the inherent familiarity, the quietly observed Low Tide, graced by a mournful, undulating score by composers Brooke Blair and Will Blair, nevertheless packs a genuine depth.

The impact of hearing Danny Glover’s calm voice reading published invitations to lynching parties remains chillingly undiminished.

Esrick’s Cracked Up affectingly peels back the years of protective layers trapping the trauma, revealing a man who has found a semblance of peace after a lifetime of battling demons.

A gorgeous tone poem that both deepens and personalizes the audio recording, creating a satisfying emotional arc that isn’t as apparent in the collection of 13 fully-orchestrated country-tinged songs.

Although, structurally speaking, the production follows a safely familiar path, it doesn’t require a lot of fancy footwork when you’ve got an enthusiastic on-camera fan base including Bruce Springsteen, Scorsese, Eric Clapton, Taj Mahal and Van Morrison, a terrific storytelling arc, a treasure trove of archival footage and, naturally, those iconic songs.

It’s hard to imagine a true-life underdog tale more engaging than Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel, a winning David vs. Goliath baseball documentary that covers all the crowd-pleasing bases.

A solidly assembled documentary portrait.

As Gamal, himself raised in a leper colony, knowingly navigates the uncomfortable glares he encounters along the way, Yomeddine (Arabic for “judgment day”) takes an affecting path toward belonging and acceptance.

As the legal proceedings progress, Carracedo and Bahar wisely keep their probing camera trained on the passionate faces of their subjects, allowing their stirring testimonies to take the spotlight.

Far more than simply “The Longest Yard” with hoops, the remarkable Q Ball serves as a potent illustration of the redemptive powers of team camaraderie.

Carmine Street Guitars is a leisurely Sunday stroll of a documentary.

As informational as it is inspirational, Patrick Creadon’s Hesburgh is a thoroughly engaging documentary chronicle of the life and turbulent times of longtime Notre Dame president Father Theodore M. Hesburgh, whose tenure coincided with a particularly pivotal stretch of American history.

While not exactly uncharted documentary territory, the Iraq conflict is thought-provokingly portrayed in “Mosul,” an up-close-and-personal examination of recent events that puts a human face on a land that remains vulnerable as a result of clashing ideologies.

A moving testament to the boundary-shattering language of music.

While director Penny Lane (not a pseudonym) energetically goes about shattering our preconceived notions at every intriguing turn, the film is at its most potent tracing society’s history of “satanic panic,” from the Salem Witch Trials to the rise of the evangelical lobby on the shoulders of the Red Scare to the 1980s when Dungeons & Dragons was viewed as a demonic gateway game.

Even more than those acclaimed lion, chimp and bear films that have preceded it, Penguins proves especially delightful — a coming-of-age story outfitted with an engaging anthropomorphic overlay that can make you forget you’re watching an intimately filmed documentary instead of an animated adventure.

In Disney’s hands, William eschews freak show theatrics for something much weightier.

Director Seet’s gorgeously filmed production proves to resonate as much today as it did 40-plus years ago.

Inevitably, the oddball Elmore Leonard-meets-the Little Rascals conceit loses some of its wacky effectiveness, but while Corben might not hit this one out of the park, Screwball energetically rounds the bases.

But while both bands would go to court to sever ties with the man they once affectionately referred to as Big Poppa, it’s what happened after they bid “Bye Bye Bye” to Pearlman that makes Aaron Kunkel’s documentary so compelling.

Although the often humorous film may not quite rank among Chen’s best and that CGI-enhanced feline isn’t always convincingly up to scratch, the buoyant yarn nevertheless casts a beguiling spell.

While Stewart didn’t live to see the enactment of a new California law last fall that will see the phasing out of the practice already banned elsewhere in the world, his passionate documentary, boasting stirring underwater photography and an equally poignant Jonathan Goldsmith score, speaks urgently on his behalf.

With its parade of finger-pointing vloggers, picture-posting stalkers and hijab-wearing, smartphone-clutching schoolgirls, Pig (“Khook”) makes it savagely clear Western society hasn’t cornered the market on selfie-centered behavior.

In Genesis 2.0, the prehistoric past and the near future intersect at a most intriguing — and disturbing — juncture.

The film, which debuted last year at Sundance, covers considerable, resonant socio-political ground while being anchored by the compelling performances of its’ leads.

Pulling off a rare three-peat, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is a tender, spirited coming-of-age CG-animated feature that proves every bit as emotionally resonant and artistically rendered as its 2010 and 2014 predecessors, if not even more so.

A disturbing portrait of the substantial emotional and physical price exacted when mental illness hits devastatingly close to home.