Nicolas Rapold

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.

[Broomfield’s] announcer-like voice-over and sometimes dishy interviews might evoke a “Behind the Music” exposé, but he seems most like a fan with a rueful sympathy for his devil of a subject.

Impressively, nearly everything was shot by the documentary’s subjects. Yet although their double duty is an awful fact of life in Ukraine, the film lurches between its varying components and tones.

This two-track meditation wraps ethereal glimpses of age-old Slavic locales around a fairy tale told through hand-drawn illustrations.

There’s a slight wonky interest in seeing the grind of recording sessions and fan service. But the film feels promotional enough that it won’t lean into the potential humor of their situation.

Bahrani’s film (which he narrates) beetles along without fully exploiting Davis’s ample entertainment value, which is counterbalanced by accounts of his dubious actions and sometimes unseemly opinions.

The film falls short of explaining Mr. Ali, who, like many outspoken individuals, can stubbornly repel scrutiny, nor will it pacify the many who opposed his conscientious objections. But it also underlines one enduring quality: namely, that he probably couldn’t care less what people think.

Whatever the facts, Mr. Gracia’s messily structured film works best as a document of fear in today’s Ukraine and as a kind of ghost story about the Soviet Union.

Mr. Nance turns his thought into a performance of vulnerability that’s all too relatable in its indulgences. It has heart without becoming cloying.

Mr. Erlingsson’s upbeat outlook suggests that generations of horses and men have coexisted and will continue to do so for centuries more.

Cutaways to nature’s splendor abound: Mists enfold the mountain; Mr. Casanova mesmerizingly holds one cross-fade from these clouds.

With his feature, Davenport stakes out his own vantage point on the world, one that leaves a viewer wishing to hear his thoughts elaborated even further.

Enervatingly synthetic, The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears slices and dices the images and tropes of Italian giallo-style slasher films into an inert pile of style.

It’s all a reminder of the labor and risks that go into creating and preserving essential imagery of the past, even for the most notorious events in history.

Embracing what's really standard tabloid fodder of the decade with earnest engagement and doled-out suspense, Cropsey is one step from macabre comedy.

Perhaps no one documentary can do justice to Parks. But “Choice of Weapons” ends up streamlining his complexity, and its wind-down looks past his other audiovisual output.

Shola Lynch’s documentary about Angela Davis, the activist and beacon of counterculture radicalism, is a snappily edited, archivally wallpapered recollection of fearless behavior in the face of an antsy establishment. But it’s equally significant as a pointed act of retelling.

Mr. Gomes remains laudably faithful to his character, and Ms. Guedes’s bodily sense of languor gets across more than any crystal-clear dramatic statement would.

Mr. Rush can’t fly far on Mr. Tornatore’s dialogue and workmanlike plotting, and Sylvia Hoeks, as Claire, doesn’t bring a corresponding energy.

The message of manifesting your goals reigns supreme, which is great, but it’s worth mentioning that Watson’s willpower benefits from the privileges of financial security, family support and a curmudgeonly-turned-selfless coach.

Golden Slumbers has a tendency to wallow in its romanticism, not to the point of trivializing its history, but definitely dropping off into somnolence.