Nell Minow

We experience the sharp pain of a sad loss, a young father and a beloved neighbor and friend. But the larger story, the one about the failure of the Israeli military to respond quickly, about the normalization of having to have a safe room in every home, about the culture of a country where every citizen serves in the military, and about the return to Murrow’s perceptive warning 70 years ago is what we will carry with us.

A Nice Indian Boy is nowhere near the flamboyance of DDLJ, but it brings that same sense of the joy, the anxiety, and yes, the bigness of love to a wonderfully warm-hearted romance.

There are dozens of carefully observed and touching moments in “Daughters,” which won both the Documentary Audience Award and the Festival Favorite Award at Sundance.

The Librarians is a documentary about the hysterical, unfounded, personal, and sometimes violent attacks on librarians. It is also about their unwavering commitment to making facts, literature, and inspiration available to anyone.

Yes, the script might as well have been written by an algorithm to hit every rom-com beat, from the meet-cute to the magical connection to the setback to the happy ending, but it deserves extra credit for what it avoids. There are no silly misunderstandings, contrived situations, or cartoonishly awful people.

What is most endearing about the film is the palpable message throughout that Sesame Street was brought to us by the letters LOVE.

[Itô] wants us to see her when she is vulnerable and in pain. But the film itself is a testament to her courage.

What makes a space feel safe? The small miracle of the Estonian film “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood” is that it does more than show us a blissfully safe space; it invites us inside.

After Love is not an accurate description. Love does not end in this story any more than the anguish of loss. Instead, it is about characters who find that a broken heart is open to empathy and learn to recognize that what connects us is so much more than what divides us.

Like a less-cluttered Wes Anderson film, Amanda has quirky, precocious young characters who deliver aphoristic pronouncements in monotone, deadpan voices amid beautifully composed settings.

The organization of the film, jumping back and forth in time, is distracting. But the subject is never less than enthralling.

There are so many ways to go wrong with this story, which we are told was inspired by an unidentified real father and son. Writer/director Uberto Pasolini does not let that happen, relying on the most ordinary details to take on greater and greater weight.

The film is deeply sympathetic to the impossibly difficult choices these girls face and respectful of their efforts to do better for their babies than their parents did for them.

The question of how we see our history and who gets to decide is powerfully presented, with respect and insight, in the documentary “Natchez.”

The documentary’s skillful use of archival footage connects us to Tucker’s extraordinary talent as a singer and her vibrance and magnetism as a performer, adding poignant context to the present-day scenes, showing her often faltering, trying to hide her vulnerability.

Conclave is smart, provocative, sometimes funny, and determined to make us rethink our initial impressions. It challenges us to challenge ourselves and is wildly entertaining, one of the year’s standout films.

A sympathetic, lay­­ered portrayal, rich with detail, that earns its more complex and resonant conclusion.

No one mentions it explicitly in the movie, but this film could be in the curriculum of a grad school course on Critical Race Theory, which is not, as some confused people claim, about diversity training in corporate offices or amending history books in grade school.

The screenplay is painfully incompetent, the comedy is puerile, and the direction limps along like a set of disconnected skits, with no sense of pacing or rhythm. It is genuinely painful to see some of the most talented and appealing actors in Hollywood, including Justin Long himself, wasted in a movie that shows such a lack of respect for the audience.

It’s too bad this is not on a big screen, because the settings are filled with enticing details that bolster some of the weakness of the screenplay. Even on the smaller screen, though, the fresh, female-led take on the traditional tale, including a bit of a sisterhood-is-powerful twist near the end, makes it worth a watch.

After the pure joy of the musical numbers, the best thing about this movie is that even with all of its abundance it leaves you wanting more.

Joss Whedon’s take on Shakespeare’s classic tale is swanky, sexy and sophisticated, as bracing as a dry martini poured from a silver shaker on a summer night.

It is really three movies in one, all watchable, but the pieces do not always mesh.

It is utterly predictable, but thanks to the charm of its charismatic stars, some of the world’s most spectacularly beautiful scenery, and that fairy-tale gloss, it is beguilingly watchable.

The show is smoothly staged before an appreciative audience, with well-chosen theatrical touches.

Like its predecessor, this film is perceptive about these impressive young women who display dedication, seriousness of purpose, and genuine public-spiritedness.

The sumptuous settings, elegiac tone, and Krieps' layered performance bring us into the world of this woman caught between the expectations of her culture and her own desires.

A compilation of quick clips at the end is not entirely persuasive about O’Connor’s impact, but her story and her voice are impact enough.