Peter Debruge

Herzog himself is one of the great lunatic directors of our century, a mad genius who repeatedly attempts to challenge nature and the gods in his own films.

How many horror movies can claim to hijack your subconscious? With Longlegs, writer-director Osgood Perkins (“The Blackcoat’s Daughter”) delivers the kind of payoff we sought out as kids, daring ourselves to watch films about boogeymen that made us want to sleep with the lights on.

The Dark Horse is as good a title as any for a film that takes an overplayed genre — the inspirational mentor story — and still manages to surprise, sneaking up to deliver a powerful emotional experience within a formula we all know by heart

Cohen fosters an environment where the trio can share and compare their experiences, addressing topics rarely spoken of in public.

Kore-eda is surprisingly generous toward his characters, nearly all of whom are breaking the law, but whose fundamental decency is brought out when dealing with others in need.

The whole scenario is designed to get your blood boiling, while the resulting conversation can’t help but instill hope, as Polley gives these women a rare opportunity to reinvent their world.

Levinson gives his stars roughly equal time, carefully modulating the sense of balance throughout. His direction seldom seems showy, and yet, we sense the intention behind each cut as power and control shifts throughout the movie.

With The History of Concrete, John Wilson takes the least interesting subject imaginable — the dull gray composite used for sidewalks, overpasses and that great big church in “The Brutalist” — and crafts what’s likely to be the most entertaining documentary of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

All of this makes for compelling dramatic conflict, and it’s satisfying to watch an impostor shake up the status quo. But there’s also a soap opera-like dimension to Corpus Christi that threatens the more thoughtful aspects of the script.

There’s room for infinite points of view behind the camera, as well as among those who do the watching. Offering the tools for unpacking potentially challenging movies, Cousins teaches people how to be better spectators — not by telling them the right way to watch, but by encouraging them to engage more deeply with what they see.

This reunion between Kristen Stewart and the director who gave her one of her best-ever roles in 2014’s “Clouds of Sils Maria” is a broken, but never boring mix of spine-tingling horror story, dreary workplace drama and elliptical identity search, likely to go down as one of the most divisive films of Stewart’s career.

The real achievement of Human Nature is that it takes a complex subject and distills it into such an engaging 95-minute package. That’s the successful experiment underlying this particular project, in which viewers happen to serve as the guinea pigs in how such technical information can be presented in a more effective way.

Though While We’re Young is primarily a comedy — and a very funny one at that, managing to be both blisteringly of-the-moment and classically zany in the same breath — Baumbach has bitten off several serious topics, for which laughter serves as the most agreeable way to engage.

Basically, Inu-oh is to Noh as spray-painted graffiti is to traditional Japanese calligraphy.

While many of their feelings are universally relatable, it can be hard work trying to follow what these two characters are thinking at any given moment, in part because of Carpignano’s grainy, handheld style.

One can’t help but feel inspired by both Jones’ sparkplug attitude and the gentle way those around her respond to her needs.

Jockey could be seen as a fairly conventional estranged-family drama. As sports movies go, it’s far more radical, showing relatively little interest in the outcome of any particular race. But in either genre, the movie stands apart from — and above — its peers. That’s a testament not only to the performances but also to Bentley’s approach, which begs to be seen on the big screen.

The film manages to educate without ever feeling didactic, and to entertain in the face of what would, to any other character, seem like a grim life sentence.

[Gracey's] angle is frustratingly familiar, though the execution is downright astonishing — we’re talking Wachowski-level ingenuity as Gracey fashions sophisticated montages where you can’t even spot the cuts.

The personalities here feel genuine, as if a group of friends had banded together to make a movie just a few degrees removed from their real lives — a la “Clerks” or “Swingers,” though not nearly as conceptual, plot-wise.

Provides pleasures for all ages, but especially for dog lovers.

With its linear narrative and clear sense of a protagonist, Evolution is both more beautiful (thanks to gorgeous widescreen cinematography, including stunning underwater and nighttime footage, from “The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears” d.p. Manu Dacosse) and accessible than “Innocence,” though the two films clearly function best as the twisted diptych that they are.

The Wave sticks mostly to the big-studio formula (albeit on a much smaller budget), introducing a handful of bland soon-to-be-victims before bombarding them with spectacular digital effects.

Thelma may bill itself as an unconventional action movie, but it’s more of a sitcom, really.

Even before Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion, Olga was an incredibly strong film, but now, the Kino Lorber release should be considered essential viewing for art-house audiences.

Come for Shinkai’s skies, stay for the feels.

The movie feels a little too sparse and literal in places.