Nick Schager

Israel's fractured psyche is plumbed via narrative splintering in Policeman, Nadav Lapid's compelling drama about his homeland's burgeoning social unrest.

Lino Brocka's portrait of familial treachery and societal abandonment channels its melodrama through the filter of neorealism.

The titular “stuff” is shown to be a combination of courage, determination, and recklessness, but, as Kaufman’s stirring epic reminds us, an equally important motivation for greatness is the fear of being merely second best.

It’s a feature debut that portends big things for the up-and-coming filmmaker.

Barriers both transparent and persistently present encase the characters of A Separation, constricting them in ways social, cultural, religious, familial, and emotional.

Humor and sorrow are equally immediate emotions throughout, whether in the writer-director's traditionally structured setup-punchline scenes or his strange non sequiturs

With his maiden cinematic venture, Wilson doesn’t break new ground so much as continue his idiosyncratic artistry on a larger scale.

It's a thriller, a heist caper, and a surprisingly moving romance all in one, and it seems destined to be one of the breakout hits of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

At first glance, Tuesday, After Christmas seems, in both form and content, only a modestly ambitious endeavor. Yet the singular attention with which it carries out its aims-and the rigorous success it ultimately attains-is nonetheless unsparing, and bracing.

A caustic portrait of the rat race as legitimately killer, and another feather in the cap of one of world cinema’s true maestros.

Even at its stagiest, it’s a film that, courtesy of both its director and star, burns with unbridled passions.

[Gudegast] infuses his inspired-by-real-events tale with the muscularity of its metal-titan namesake, all while pivoting everything around the grungy, rugged charisma of his star.

Habitually shooting her characters through narrow doorways and windows, the better to convey their isolation as well as their squeezed-by-circumstance states, the director fashions a sinister atmosphere, aided by intermittent pregnancy and corpse imagery.

A joyous return to form for the Evil Dead auteur, whose no-holds-barred verve is equaled by that of Rachel McAdams.

With an unhinged Sally Hawkins spearheading its mayhem, this sinister saga firmly establishes the filmmakers’ place near the head of the contemporary horror class.

Ultimately, the truths of Hard Truths are as simple and poignant as they are difficult to initially discern. An unmistakable certainty, though, is that this reunion of Leigh and Jean-Baptiste was too long in the making—and should be repeated once again post haste.

A gripping, unnerving, and altogether thrilling saga that both continues its predecessors’ illustrious legacy and initiates what’s shaping up to be a promising new horror trilogy.

True cinema is John Lithgow terrorizing Geoffrey Rush in a nursing home with his creepy hand puppet.

A stirring celebration of bravery, camaraderie, and human ingenuity that goes big in every respect, not least of which by recognizing and foregrounding the majesty of larger-than-life movie stardom.

Mordantly, head-spinningly convoluted, it’s a unique take on the director’s favorite themes, laced with bleak wit and encased in an icy chill that’s fitting for a tale fixated on the grave.

With Ian McKellen in superbly crotchety form and Michaela Coel exuding chilly cunning, it’s further proof that Soderbergh remains one of American cinema’s most inimitable, and adventurous, auteurs.

The director’s latest is a distinctly cool, dynamic Soderbergian riff on Michael Powell’s "Peeping Tom" via "The Haunting," with a dash of "Paranormal Activity" sprinkled around its edges.

Rock ‘n’ roll portraits this vibrant, introspective, and nimble don’t come around very often.

Its poignancy and humor is amplified by its canny decision to let Fox tell his own tale.

Provides a remarkable snapshot of the war crimes that—as the daily news reminds us—are still being perpetrated today

A delightfully zonked marital satire that lurches in various demented directions.

An electric thriller with blood on its hands, flesh in its mouth, and deviance on its mind.

Together, [Culkin and Eisenberg] make for a winning pair, balancing each other in a variety of ways that speak to the material’s larger concerns about loss, grief, remembrance and regret.