Michael Rechtshaffen

Scheinfeld (“The U.S. vs. John Lennon”) pieces together an evocative time capsule. Somewhat less convincing is the film’s implication that the contentious tour ultimately led to the group’s demise.

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.

Although Tomlin (for whom Weitz wrote 2015’s Grandma) and Fonda are thoroughly capable of taking their characters in any direction required of them, Moving On ultimately strands the actors — and the audience — at an awkward impasse.

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.

You People busts out of the gate with the lit, razor-sharp zip of a “Dear White People” only to limp across the finish line with all the edge of Up With People.

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 depiction of teenage acute depression settles for shallow character development and self-indulgent tropes that distract from a strong Hugh Jackman performance.

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.

Strip away the IMAX scope, the booming score and the flyboy swagger, however, and all that remains is a hollow shell of bland, beaten-down war movie tropes that leave Jonathan Majors to effectively fend for himself with his deeply-rooted lead portrayal of the first Black aviator in Navy history.

Farrelly’s loftier impulses work against the material. The result is a meandering, disjointed production that struggles throughout to find a satisfying tone.

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.

What starts out as a screwball “Squid Game” ultimately yields a paltry payoff in the case of “Stanleyville,” a self-consciously quirky social satire that is content to coast on its waning surface weirdness.

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.