Moira Macdonald

As with “Rivers and Tides,” Leaning into the Wind is a work of art in itself; beautifully and meditatively shot (by Riedelsheimer), accompanied by a faintly mysterious score that seems to be telling us secrets.

Inside Out movingly but casually plays with our emotions, like a baby walking her fingers across a parent’s face; it leaves you changed, entertained, nostalgic, dazzled.

Director Jon M. Chu (“Crazy Rich Asians”) lets us feel the hot, heavy air of a Washington Heights summer, and dazzles us with movement.

"The Farewell" is so unexpectedly and deliciously funny that watching it feels like a tonic — an immersion in love and art.

It’s a remarkable personal-is-political drama, set in barely postcolonial Senegal and France.

The last moments of Hamnet are transcendent, and perhaps the most moving thing I’ve seen on screen this year.

Painstakingly reassembled by producer Alan Elliott (Pollack, who never gave up hope on the project, died in 2008), Amazing Grace shows us an artist at the peak of her powers.

Widows is smart, soulful and surprising in every frame, weaving statements on race, gender, crime and grief into a tick-tock (and tip-top) heist plot.

It’s a film — and a city — to get lost in, and it’ll haunt you afterward, like a face you thought you recognized under a streetlamp, before it disappeared.

Whether the new scenes make "Apocalypse" a better movie is debatable; for me, they were fascinating but not essential.

It’s also a celebration of language — Wilson’s glorious storytelling is given its due by this masterful ensemble cast, who weave colorful tapestries with his words — and of music’s transformative power.

In other hands, this story could have been lurid and silly. Here, told through Hawkins’ ever-dancing eyes, it’s poetry; some performances don’t need words.

It’s most evocative as a memorable portrait of a woman, both in youth and late life, who always knew what she wanted — and who, in doing so, helped make the world a better place.

It’s a unique ride of a movie, beautiful and disturbing and haunting — in other words, it’s a Jane Campion film.

The film is both a gripping and timely celebration of the free press, and, in the remarkable hands of Streep, an exploration of what it meant then (and, perhaps, now) to be a woman thrust into power in an all-male world.

We’re reminded, in this warmhearted film’s moving final act, that food can bring not only joy but, in the darkest of days, hope.

Every Manchester scene gives you a sense of the kind of place where everyone knows everyone, where it’s bitter cold but nobody makes too much of it, where the past stays with you whether you want it to or not. This is a movie that pays careful attention to details.

Dunkirk succeeds spectacularly both emotionally and visually.

You’ll watch knowing you’re in the hands of a master filmmaker; only wondering when it’s over how certain effects were achieved.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret is both lovingly faithful to its source, and very much its own creation; how lucky we are to have both book and movie, preserved for girls past, present and future.

This Little Women purist was moved to tears by this movie, and didn’t want it to end. Beautifully intimate, gentle and wise, it made me — and all of us — part of the March family. And what better Christmas gift could we wish for than that?

Whether you care about motorsports or not, Ford v Ferrari is a kick: both a rollicking true story well told, and a moving depiction of male friendship.

Moore lets us see, through her quietly shining performance, that Gloria believes in love, in the way an old song can make you feel a little younger, and in the power of dressing up and hitting a dance floor by yourself, moving as if in a trance, letting the music take you to a better place.

In this season of Big, Serious Movies, what a treat to find this wonderfully silly, perfectly paced hall of mirrors hanging out at the multiplexes. It’s as if Agatha Christie came back for a visit, after getting caught up on pop culture in the beyond.

The Red Turtle doesn’t answer the questions it raises, but it doesn’t need to; it’s about moonlight on the water, a hand held out to another, and the way a wave, rippling onto a shore, leaves no trace of its brief life.

The plot doesn’t matter in the slightest; young and old fans of the first movie will be lining up for the wit, for the inventiveness of the characters, for the breathtaking visuals — and just the sheer fun of it all.

Louis-Dreyfus, making Beth neurotic and loving and devastated and furious all at once, is a joy to watch.

McDormand, carrying the movie on blue-denimed shoulders, is a wonder. Every now and then, she lets us see the tiniest crack in Mildred’s anger, through which something flickering shines through.