Nikola Grozdanovic

While it makes its point half-way into its running time and you start getting the anxious jitters of a film that overstays its welcome, A Ciambra serves the fundamental cinematic purpose of transporting you to another world.

This outer space oddity is destined for the cult-classic section of some future camp horror and sci-fi B-movie aisle.

It’s all fun and games and one big, great joke as we watch the cantankerous Jean-Luc dismiss his admirers and spit on contemporary cinema, but it’s hard to praise Redoubtable as a great film once its final act comes around

As an austere and darkly comic family drama, and a scathing commentary about the kind of world our children are living in, Happy End is stunning cinema

The cinematic trickery on display – lurid dissolves, off-kilter juxtapositions, and bizarre dance numbers bouncing around Chloe’s brittle mindscape – compensates for the skin-deep thematics, and keep the rhythm of the film popping.

In systematic and cinematically dazzling fashion, Loznitsa’s nihilistic riff will drag you to a circle of hell that makes Dante’s “Inferno” look like a love sonnet, and you’ll walk out of the film feeling woozy, defeated and utterly destroyed, in that order.

The film delves deep into the soul of a fundamentally important cause, with a slice-of-life look at a time in history that feels incredible urgent in today’s torn-up world.

Infidelity has long been one of Hong’s central subjects, but The Day After might just be his greatest film about the ails of mixing business with pleasure.

This is an exquisitely shot suburban tale of trauma, stretching the “show-don’t-tell” golden rule of filmmaking to the furthest reaches.

As aesthetically dazzling as this picture is, with hypnotic compositions carved through meticulous mise-en-scene, there are certain conventional lines which — when crossed — must warrant good reason. In this case, the activity on the screen must be immersive and interesting enough to balance out the physical endurance asked of the viewer by the creator.

Haemoo is a picture worth seeing for its thrills, scrupulous tension-building and mischievous genre twists that will have you gasping one second, and laughing the next.

The film is a bullet train of laughs, gore, frights and folklore, making the two-and-a-half hour runtime feel like a couple of minutes. Blink and you might miss the whole thing.

Once it ends, you may be panting from exhaustion while still appreciating that Endless Poetry is greater than the sum of its parts as it feels naturally necessary and appropriately organic to the series.

From the performances to the repetitive jokes and bizarre actions that have little bearing on anything, Slack Bay exhausts you with its intense spirit.

Laura Poitras has done it again. Much like the celebrated Edward Snowden documentary Citizenfour, “Risk” is instilled with a sense of immediate urgency as an apprehensive cloud hovers over every action, every word, every wayward glance.

Purposefully joyless and bereft of any kind of aesthetic gratification other than the one found in Mendoza’s use of cinema verite and non-sentimental approach, Ma’ Rosa is tough-as-nails, and leaves you with a heaviness and a pulsating sympathy that’s impossible to ignore.

The biggest lesson to take away from I, Daniel Blake is how a movie doesn’t have to be psychologically complex or cinematically dazzling to dig beyond its surface. It’s rudimentary in terms of technique, but how the film generates its power is through the themes of humanity and kindness at its center.

Even if you don’t agree with Jarmusch’s introductory claim that The Stooges are the greatest rock and roll band ever, there’s still a lot of pleasure to be gleaned from Gimme Danger; most of it coming from Iggy’s love of the band, the music, and inability to be anyone but his incomparable and uncompromising self.

Hell or High Water might walk over familiar ground with second-hand boots in terms of character development and structural beats, but it does so with great personality and zero pretension of wanting to be anything more.

The BFG exceeds expectations thanks to Rylance’s performance, and joyously expounds the essence of a cherished children’s tale in all of its imaginative glory.

It’s a profoundly vague piece of filmmaking that hides an undeniable magnetism beneath its bare-boned narrative.

There's a tangible sensitivity to Kate Plays Christine that is constantly present as the project explores two personas and a gamut of topics (gender politics, gun control, and depression among them).

There's vision here, clearly, and through the use of eye-catching frames and a standout score, "The Fits" works like magic as an experimental performance piece. As an engaging work of well-rounded cinema, however, there are more than a few missteps.

Elemental in construct and narrative, the picture breathes through the screen during Theeb's moments of quiet reflection at his surroundings and all the cruelty the vast, all-encompassing desert has to offer.

Steeped in a culture rarely observed on screen, Bustamante's film has the airs of a documentary. Its ensemble cast of local actors have zero trace of affectation in their performances.

Under The Influence is ultimately much more of a listening pleasure than a viewing one. Neville's by-the-book direction makes sure of that. That said, Richards is an undeniably magnetic force of nature that keeps the attention span reined in for the swift 80-minute runtime.

Relentlessly paced, with the volatile ferocity of a rabid pitbull, Schneider vs. Bax is, above all else, pretty damn funny. That's if you're into Alex van Warmerdam's distinctive brand of humor.

With his monumental control of the camera —at times staying with characters during quiet moments of anticipation, at others panning slowly 360 degrees to envelop us in the entirety of the environment— Davies directs the most refined coming-of-age story cinema has seen in recent years.