Miriam Bale

Best Kept Secret is an exemplary documentary: It spotlights an important issue yet never seeks to squeeze the truth into an easily digestible narrative frame. Instead it expands its storytelling to the boundaries of messy, joyful and painful reality.

The film’s strange mixture of primitive and poetic images becomes etched into memory. Weaving observation and a shared dream state, this is an intuitive and intricate exploration into the feeling of sound.

Anita is an important historical document about an event that prompted a larger cultural conversation about sexual harassment. But, perhaps more important, it conveys Ms. Hill’s journey from an accuser alone to an activist who shares with, and listens to, others.

The sibling directors Lisa and Rob Fruchtman have made a nuanced and deftly edited film about a complex issue.

Ms. Jaye uses sound, composition and careful patience to create a contemplative mood of memory, loss and magic. With limited resources and the power of storytelling, she has created a small film that feels mainstream and epic.

Most disturbing and fascinating is the mixture of Izumi’s liberation with her degradation in this film, which plays like a more horrific version of David Lynch’s “Mullholland Drive.”

Mr. Sono uses sound, a low, grumbling noise like an earthquake, to convey this chaos. He also gives the film a harrowing cacophony and a sense of trauma with sound effects, including subtle echoes.

A wondrous and slightly deranged story about oddballs embracing their differences.

The film is ridiculous and laugh-out-loud funny, though it’s sometimes hard to tell if this is intentional or not. Either way, it remains riveting because of its effective tropes.

Though the film is occasionally frustrating and confusing, the modern life it is commenting on is certainly that, too.

It’s amusing, and a refreshing change from the usual C.G.I.-heavy blockbusters.

The information-rich film is enlivened by the charm of the intelligent, eccentric couple at its heart.

This virtuous stance is not unusual for issue-based documentaries, but a film with such illuminating content deserves a more artful vehicle for its moving message.

Because of the rote and typical way of organizing a dance movie around a contest, the pace and interest lag even though the images and characters are fascinating. Yet the film is worth watching because of the strong cinematography and the glimpses of strange beauty in the dance moves.

[Mr. Mettler’s] images of galaxies, mandalas, particle accelerators and glowing red lava become his real subjects. He uses music and sound to control the pace, to slow time, as if cinema were a form of enforced meditation.

Watching it feels like packing a semester-long history course with a very cool, left-leaning teacher into less than 90 minutes. The aim is wide-reaching and abstract, yet cohesive and invigorating.

To borrow from a term for the gritty, working-class British dramas that this film also nods to, it’s a kitchen-sink caper.

This movie has the humor and insouciant pileup of bizarre and disgustingly beautiful images of a cult classic on late-night cable.

At times it felt as if this film might challenge Pixar’s decade-long reign, but that promise wanes. Instead, the movie is sometimes so strange, colorful and wildly cute that it may end up becoming a “Yellow Submarine” for a new generation.

Mr. Anderson displays his mastery as a director in the sword-fighting scenes... But the glares and eye rolls that bookend these scenes are what make this film both GIF-ready and campy fun.

The movie is a watchable collection of images that never quite come together.

Mr. Ramses’s admirable eagerness to tell a good tale seems to have favored excitement over facts.

The film is a thorough piece of reporting on the issues, characters and deeper cultural ramifications. But rather than present this impressive investigation as an objective reporter, Mr. Pamphilon makes the film, perhaps unnecessarily, a personal story.

It’s like a cheap, dry cake covered with a thick layer of frosting. But even bad cake can be enjoyable, especially if celebrating something as worthwhile as these elders, their long lives and their continued gutsiness so late in the game.

A jarring realism comes both from Mr. Oliver’s script and the performances by an ensemble of brilliant character actors.

Mr. Gooding’s performance and his complex charisma are fascinating to watch throughout.

Instead of one satisfyingly complex film, it’s two or three films in one, a turducken of comedies.

The filmmaking has some of the wit and irreverence of its subject, but goes on meandering tangents rather than having a cohesive vision or tone.