Moira Macdonald

Malick, director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki and the cast create a mood that lifts the viewer through the occasional head-scratching moments and into a place of serenity, where answers somehow seem in reach.

Ultimately, The Room Next Door is as much about love as it is about death — not the romantic kind of love, but the sort in which two friends hold each other up (quite literally, as Martha takes Ingrid’s arm during their walks) and give each other what they need, selflessly. Its final, magical moment finds uncanny beauty in sadness.

Hope Gap is a deeply sad film, and maybe not what a lot of us are in the mood for these days, but it’s ultimately uplifting, in its quiet way.

It’s uncannily choreographed, with gestures and movements timed precisely to the soundtrack’s beat.

What shines through is the beauty of Guy Godfree’s cinematography — the light has a lovely, soft stillness to it, like a painting — and a remarkable performance by Hawkins, whose impossibly wide smile seems to bring the sun.

The movie works for the reason that all the best rom-coms do: you fall in love, a little bit, with Kumail and Emily, and want them to stay together. Love, this movie reminds us, is often inconvenient; but it does ultimately conquer all.

A smart, wistful and very funny movie.

This Emily is indeed unworldly, uncomfortable around strangers, struggling to comply with what society expects of her. And yet the artist bubbles up inside her, emerging at moments both inconvenient (there’s a harrowing sequence at a party in which Emily dons a mask and takes on a ghostly persona) and poetic.

What really lingers after The Sheep Detectives is its tone: earnest, uncomplicated sweetness, rooted in the love that we — whether human or sheep — have for those with whom we share our lives, and a gentle acceptance of loss as part of that love.

You watch it rapt, leaning in, wanting to know more; you leave it wondering if that shadow at the window was, maybe, yourself.

It was a pleasure to become happily lost in this unique film’s world of color and line, and to see two filmmakers’ mad dream come true.

There’s a lovely sense, throughout the film, of how real life sometimes interrupts things, the way a child’s prattling disrupts the pretty wedding ceremony, or how even in the midst of grief breakfast must be made.

Sure, much of it follows ground already trodden in the first film, but it finds that same sweet balance of tears and laughter.

Richard Linklater’s Hit Man is one of those movies that just picks you up immediately and sweeps you away; it’s made with an irresistibly breezy confidence.

And the 89-year-old Moreno, creating an effortless bridge between this movie and the previous one, gives us a gift late in the film that had me reduced to tears; it’s a deeply touching choice that I won’t spoil.

Just try to resist the charms of Mira Nair’s Queen of Katwe, a triumph-of-the-human-spirit movie that’s ultimately, well, triumphant.

Cold War seduces its viewer, in its brief running time. You might find, in the quiet of its poignant ending, that it has left its mark on your heart.

It’s a sharp, pointed satire that’s also very funny.

In this bleak West Texas landscape where everyone seems to be struggling, you find yourself rooting, inexplicably, for all of them against a clear villain: the faceless, predatory bank.

Filmed in harsh grays and cruel light, interspersed with warm home movies of the family in a happier time, it’s a terribly sad and often mesmerizing story.

This tale of ambition and its cost — and its collateral damage — is Blanchett’s movie, and she delivers a tour de force in every scene.

There are moments of astonishing lyricism.

While occasionally the film wanders a bit too far into sentimentality (a scene involving a baby feels like it crosses a plausibility line), watching 1917 is an emotional and moving experience. You think of these two young men as one minuscule piece of an enormous tragedy, filled with individual stories.

“Salvatore” is a pleasure for anyone who loves shoes and/or good movies.

It’s a film full of creative swirls.

There’s more going on here than pretty pictures: This fascinating portrait of a lady has ice and steel at its core.

Winner of the best film award at this year’s Seattle International Film Festival, Greg Kwedar’s “Sing Sing” is a gentle reminder of the power of art to transform lives.

You leave The Assistant thinking about why some of us are invisible and some of us don’t notice — and about how evil lives in the places from which we look away.