Nicolas Rapold

Mr. Berliner’s film bravely brings us to the edge of language and experience.

Mr. German was just as stubborn in sticking to his personal vision (and revisions) as he was innovative in his storytelling, and he’s left behind a final opus that is hard to shake.

Reed’s initial overeager stylings fall back to reveal a mature reckoning with love, hurt, independence, and hard-won wisdom.

The film’s sometimes brusque transitions and decentered perspectives are just as transgressive as any of the graphic imagery.

Mhlongo (who also appears in Beyoncé’s “Black Is King”) carries the movie on her shoulders with an authoritative presence.

Mr. Takahata’s psychologically acute film, which was based on a manga, seems to grow in impact, too, as the adult Takao comes to a richer understanding of what she wants and how she wants to live.

Exquisitely drawn with both watercolor delicacy and a brisk sense of line, the film finds a peculiarly moving undertow of feeling in a venerable Japanese folk tale.

A credit-sequence television clip of Mr. Warren and the real Ms. Smith with Oprah Winfrey makes the entire movie feel like the strangest book infomercial in memory.

The van’s familiar interior has a way of underlining how many other millions across history have had to escape military aggression. Hamela’s work as driver and documentarian reflects that reality while offering a spirit of resilience.

As flatly directed by Christian Vincent, Haute Cuisine is a reserved, très simple tale that raises the occasional smile and tummy rumble but keeps hiccuping because of the drawn-out parallel story about her subsequent tour of duty.

The film’s state of play is still less exciting than its famous ancestor (Battle of Algiers) and offspring (The French Connection), but the military junta that ensued in Greece gave the film (shot in Algeria) a sense of urgency approved by Cannes and Oscar alike.

Let the Fire Burn relentlessly sustains its tragic momentum.

His film can feel overly cerebral—a bit like being plunged into a seminar—and the text cards do a lot of explanatory heavy lifting. But Cognet’s forensic approach does insist on memorializing these events in an important, physically specific way and, intentionally or not, queasily anticipates a world without any living eyewitnesses to these horrors.

Mordantly comedic, Two Prosecutors is deliberately paced but makes a tightly conceived addition to Loznitsa’s work, which rides deep into the long, dark nights of Russian history with fiction, observational documentary and immersions in the Soviet archives.

Watchers of the Sky is a film that can dash hopes about humanity but also raise them in depicting the stories of these tireless defenders.

76 Days, which gets its title from the Wuhan lockdown imposed from January 23 to April 8, is defined more by the human capacity for resilience and compassion than by a relentless sense of doom (or by a focus on China’s policy decisions).

The film’s four-person shuffle turns into a bit of a hash.

The film’s drama wrestles itself to a standstill (along with leaving some characterization sketchy, like that of a concerned social worker). Yet Leblanc might come closer to the sensation of concealed trauma than movies with more familiar storytelling beats.

Shot in a present-tense vérité style, it stitches together micro-stories into a larger narrative in which negotiation can’t undo exploitation.

Mr. Miyazaki renders Jiro’s life and dreams with lyrical elegance and aching poignancy.

This static documentary portrait relies on the usual panning over photos and tag-team interviews, but the format, like the radio length of a song, doesn’t get in the way of its subject’s heart.

Mr. Chen, who teamed with Mr. Yen for the superior “Bodyguards and Assassins,” scatters references to Hong Kong martial arts classics. But while he has impressive fists of fury in both Mr. Yen and Mr. Wang, Kung Fu Killer lacks the brio and spice of its ancestors.

The ensemble of young actresses is a constantly restless and real presence, the perspective filtered mostly through the cheeky Lale but also through the group as a loving crew.

Lacôte crosses the open-ended energy of griot traditions with the surging tensions of the prison’s close quarters.

Rajamouli shoots the film’s action with hallucinogenic fervor, supercharging scenes with a shimmering brand of extended slow-motion and C.G.I. that feels less “generated” than unleashed.

The filmmakers record the flash of youth’s headlong energies, its bumps and bruises, and its melancholies and brilliant chaos.

Davis, a Canadian documentarian, zeros in on how hockey has been a vital part of his country’s identity, and what it has felt like for Canadian players of color who love the game to be told, from very young ages, that they do not belong.

The moths remain a puzzle of data that awaits analysis. Dutta and Srinivasan’s understated approach shows research and nature in action without pretending to make a forest give up its secrets.

Mr. Ponsoldt ably charts a journey through the high stakes of adolescence, with both Sutter and Mr. Teller showing great promise.

The setup’s clichés grow harder to ignore, despite a welcome mischievous streak and some bucolic imagery.

The most moving entry might be Etimad Washah’s Taxi Wanissa.

When a final shot takes us outdoors to the real world, it’s possible to wonder whether a certain spontaneity, or a different kind of energy, has been missing from Mr. Saura’s immaculately vibrant film.

Ms. Wilder, in her debut feature, riskily opts to leave much of the children’s educational activity fairly vague. Which gives it one more thing in common with school: You need to pay attention.

The indomitable personality and talents of the serial prison escapee Mark DeFriest outshine the weaknesses of this documentary that bears his name.

At its sloppy heart, this is meant to be an affirming movie, but the filmmakers could have taken a cue from one line of dialogue: “Don’t just feel special. Be special.”

The heroic arc is creaky, but despite the chintzy clichés about Godzilla movies, this one keeps bringing blockbuster brio to heel with a sometimes heavy heart.

This is a documentary fascinated with and fearful of cinema’s potency, but it’s also devoted to the idea of open discourse, a stance that underlines the urgency of thinking about film critically.

The pacing and performances are more organic than in most horror.

Unifying this elliptical canvas is the sense of a contemplative search, which can also mean an escape from an altered homeland, perhaps to dull what feels lost.

The conclusion would be chilling if it weren’t so reserved. For Denmark, the film, an Oscar nominee in the foreign-language category, might seem quietly radical, but Mr. Lindholm errs too far on the side of quiet.

The director, Lee Kyu-man, makes the camera hover tensely over scenes, but only a couple of action sequences pack much oomph. There’s more sinister tension in brief scenes with elder statesmen of the criminal world, who are chillingly self-assured.

This is a refreshingly grounded, deceptively plain picture of crime-fighting as a grind of false leads, workplace fatigue and no closure.

The King of Escape is more loosely put together than “Stranger,” and, considering what happens, it’s relatively underplayed.

Landsberry-Baker and Peeler could linger more on details about the people involved instead of the horse-race suspense of vote counts. But who can blame them when freedom is in the balance, and as local media outlets dwindle nationally.

Campanella, who overconfidently takes his time, outfits the film with ludicrous interrogation scenes, a drunken colleague who provides comic relief and redemptive tragedy, and a climactic flood of memories that plays like a trailer.

It’s a job requirement for a show host like Mr. Uygur to project his personality and beliefs; this filmmaker doesn’t muster a healthy skepticism to match.

The energy here feels more like that of a lecture than of a film; it’s an analytical tonic that’s potent to the point of bitter.

Mr. Serra has said his film portrays the eclipse of Enlightenment rationality by the violent forces of Romanticism. It’s a tidy overarching conceit, but the film’s lived-in feel does make for one vivid way of imagining shifts in thought.

It’s both the best children’s animated film this year since “Inside Out” — you might call it “Outside In” — and, unexpectedly, a more stirring depiction of the deadening modern megalopolis than most heal-the-world documentaries.

It’s not unlike many of Mr. Strickland’s beloved Italian films, which could be superb exercises in cinematic style and atmosphere while remaining imperfect.

A master of voice-over and metaphor (the title alone has an amazing payoff), [Mr. Guzmán] sifts through essential truths and draws links between Chile’s past and present inhabitants.

But viewers looking to learn more about Mr. Watterson and his creation than what’s contained in his Wikipedia entry may come away as hopped-up with impatience as Calvin when confronted by parental indifference.

The four stories are almost overwhelming to witness all packed together, but the mission to communicate them to a larger audience is admirable.

Paik is undeniable, creating despite lean times (and slowing after a 1996 stroke).

A House Made of Splinters is made with such aching sensitivity that it’s a marvel a camera was used and not some form of mind-meld.

Not far removed from the director’s interest in trance states, his Nosferatu posits a self-pitying creature exhausted by immortality: Sunken-eyed Kinski inverts his usual frenzy into a fatigue underlining the importance of eternal rest.

All in all, the beloved kingdom of Oz is not well served, though there’s just enough detectable affection to keep it from feeling like a pure cashing-in.

The battle scenes and one-on-one combat roar with energy, blending Rajamouli’s C.G.I. artistry, staging and inventive showmanship. The militarized kingdom of Mahishmati has the grandeur of silent-screen epics, and although romantic sequences with the rebel warrior Avanthika are scaled back, the film’s flying-ship song set piece is a candy-coated delight.

The 20-year-old Hubble Space Telescope--whose repair mission is the subject of this chronicle--turns out to be a bit of a stage hog, and audiences expecting a blissout of swirling galaxies will wonder why so much time is spent on astronauts sweating over screws and bolts.

In following two young women employed as range riders in Idaho, the film presents its own modern-day picture of hard work and camaraderie.

It’s a film of sensations and mystery that feels like it’s wafting toward us from another century, like much of the Quays’ work, channeling uncanny realms of Central European puppetry.

Ms. Lee could have delved more deeply into Ms. Boggs’s thoughts, and slips into glib autopilot by using archival footage with sound effects or repeating ideas of personal transformation. But in sharing her subject’s life achievements, she raises meaningful questions and keeps them profitably open.

The film’s stacked stories naggingly lack a cohesive train of thought beyond the often harmful pervasiveness of pharmaceuticals in American society.

The bravery of Ms. Baumane’s own coping methods (which some may disagree with) brings her tough-minded film to a cleareyed, forward-looking conclusion that doesn’t lose sight of her demons.

Hunting’s documentary catches up with where many people are finding their dreams realized, and understands that sometimes the dream is simply to be yourself.

With their sensitive feature clocking in at an hour, the filmmakers make you wish only that they had developed their material further.

Love poem, restless dream, troubled history, alchemist’s scrapbook — Leos Carax’s It’s Not Me is pure cinema as it dances through its dense 42 minutes.

Kramer quietly but forcefully recognizes that the conflict cannot continue as it has.

Mr. Steiner’s tightly interconnected documentary, with transporting shots, visits people on the margins in the United States.

The film is essentially an evolved hybrid of global environmental documentary and the group-trip experiments of reality television. Its biggest step onto unfamiliar terrain might be its ambivalent ending, conveying uncertainty about what can or should be done next.

Amid the looming threats to a cherished home, Peck’s accomplishment is to let the Reels family own their emotional space.

What little we learn of Pascal, who has worked in Switzerland as a shepherd for more than 30 years, and Carole, who is a former dietitian, fits in a scene or two, but their practical journey yields a certain contemplative equanimity.

The 74-minute film leaps among time frames without much warning. Occasionally, the screen erupts into crackling black-and-white images drawn directly from Bartolí’s work — as if torn from the very pages of his sketchbooks.

Is it all a bit much? Sure, but the self-consciousness is baked in: Rankin names one public gathering place “Disappointment Square.”

A Band Called Death is more concerned with bringing out the personal connections behind their driven music than with insisting upon the group’s distinction in the perennial music history search for oddities and firsts.

As someone who grew up going to some of the theaters Rugoff once ran — which included Cinema I and II and the Beekman, among others — I got the warm-and-fuzzies from seeing the love here for moviegoing and exhibition, which he goosed with gonzo showmanship.

Ali brings a matter-of-fact compassion to the experiences of three different people: Hanif, a Black Muslim man in Newark, and the two boys he is mentoring, Furquan and Naz.

Michael John Warren’s film is a sure-handed blend of making-of explainer, theater-kid scrapbook and jukebox documentary, doling out hits from its theatrical run (through clips) and the reunion.

Mr. Sallitt lays down a customarily restrained mode of acting (the kind that somehow seems less flat and more natural in French cinema), but it’s in the service of a rare lucidity about feeling.

The filmmaker Caroline Strubbe’s affection for her characters is evident, even through the often oblique narrative.

The shrewdly observant film sticks with one Afghan general, Sami Sadat, to tell an emotional story that feels as significant as any analysis of troop numbers.

Documentarian Mark N. Hopkins gives us a mature look at the bracing yet very human personalities attracted to crisis.

Since the filmmaker's main agenda here is to keep things bumping along, the fraught situations are happily played and funk-scored as crowd-pleasing rather than issue-stroking.

It’s a film that maintains that Julie’s story is available only when she’s ready to tell it.

For all its faults, “We Steal Secrets” reminds us that despite the potential of WikiLeaks, its project of truth and consequences remains treacherous and complicated in practice.

In lingering over moody night streets and trembling faces, Ms. Josue has brought this film to the verge of becoming a tear-jerker. But, as epitomized in an extraordinary scene with a conflicted priest, it’s all part of a shared soul-searching that still continues.

The gently efficient story feels like an attempt to illustrate Bhutan’s real-life “Gross National Happiness” initiative.

Directing his first feature after some shorts, John Magary digs into his characters with fresh eyes and a sly sense of adventure.

This is history told through emotions as much as through well-documented events, conveying both the resilience of Sarajevans and the power of pop music (without falling into too much celebrity self-regard).

Ms. Hanna’s creativity and force are catching. But other voices are needed to evaluate her achievements with a fuller sense of cultural context and perspective.

Unlike those in many art-house releases, this wilderness is not an abstract arena for playing out alienation but a living, breathing land with deep, abiding significance for Charlie and his fellow Aborigines cast adrift.

Cousins’s attuned eye and ear keep us interested afresh in the Hitchcock magic.

The past two decades of documentary film have produced many anatomies of history that attempt to summarize several millenniums, but Rosi’s borderless tableaus bring out another kind of truth in faces, places and pure feeling.

The Safdie brothers capture a density of activity as endemic to the city as it is to Harley’s daily hustle. By tapping into her routines, instead of framing her along solely tragic lines, the filmmakers fashion a diary of experience that’s all the more absorbing.

Lllosa’s sensually shot film takes the story of a mother facing strange danger and casts a spell that feels like being dropped into the character’s mind.

It’s fortunate that the cartoons on display are such instantly satisfying works of popular genius, because, despite its subject, “Herblock” shows how even an edifying talking-heads documentary bumps up against the limitations of the format.

The Invisible War, though revelatory, is perhaps the most straightforward film yet from a director who likes to broach the fault lines of sex and society.

Regular hazily scored, gauzy interludes cut into the film’s immediacy and tone. But the filmmakers shade in humble, sympathetic portraits of these children.