Peter Debruge

For large segments of its running time, Good Night Oppy is more than just a documentary; it’s an animated film as well — and a hugely entertaining one at that.

For Guadagnino, it’s not the characters’ fates that matter so much as their dynamics, which Kajganich and the director manipulate with the sort of take-no-prisoners attitude typically reserved for theater, pushing the entire ensemble to their full potential.

While his American competition practices the right to remain silent, McDonagh writes his clever, coal-black heart out, delivering another firecracker script.

What’s refreshing about the debuting director’s approach is that it feels relatively egoless. His style is playful and energetic, often intercutting between multiple threads within a given song or scene, but it doesn’t feel as if Miranda is calling attention to himself so much as trying to open up the show.

American Factory is anything but a dry documentary, and will likely be a prime contender in awards season.

Not all the tricks translate, nor do they need to, since DelGaudio has shrewdly constructed the experience around the theme of identity, revealing deeply personal elements of his own history in such a way as to prime audiences to look inward as well. The result is a kind of epiphany that leaves them with a feeling of discovery rather than deception.

The connection they share isn’t the kind that would pass for conventionally romantic, and yet, theirs is a compelling love story all the same — one the filmmakers follow with open minds, focusing on the lead-up to and days immediately following their wedding.

If there was any doubt as to De Niro’s greatness, it’s laid to rest in these face-to-face confrontations. No star could’ve held his own quite so effectively against De Niro.

Ultimately, An Easy Girl challenges what society thinks of those who leverage their desirability as Sofia does, leaving intriguing questions about one’s values — and value — in her wake.

Contreras’ film uniquely honors the memories and experience embodied in our elders — which it is our responsibility to preserve, and their prerogative to take to their graves, if they so desire.

Despite all that it withholds, The Strange Little Cat ultimately proves a far more revealing form of family portrait.

Even Lazenby detractors can’t help but be charmed by the man himself, who may not have been much of an actor, but turns out to be a bloody good storyteller, and an awfully salty one at that — revealing sexual conquests that would make even Bond blush.

It’s a squirmy, uncomfortable movie no teenager wants to watch with their mom, but maybe everyone should — required viewing for freshman year.

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

The thing about Östlund is that he makes you laugh, but he also makes you think. There’s a meticulous precision to the way he constructs, blocks and executes scenes — a kind of agonizing unease, amplified by awkward silences or an unwelcome fly buzzing between characters struggling to communicate.

Smaller, sweeter and more sensitive than Marcello’s earlier work.

In any case, it works: Coco’s creators clearly had the perfect ending in mind before they’d nailed down all the other details, and though the movie drags in places, and features a few too many childish gags...the story’s sincere emotional resolution earns the sobs it’s sure to inspire.

Often poignant, occasionally pathetic, but never short of entertaining, Raiders! captures the obsessive hold movies have on young people’s imaginations.

A Love Song should resonate with those who seek truth more than incident from their movies.

Using Baltimore’s dirt-bike groups as its entry point, the film offers a remarkable grassroots look at how the system is broken at the inner-city level.

Teller is terrific, which should come as no surprise to “Whiplash” fans, though no less significant, the film represents a significant return for writer-director Ben Younger.

On a technical level, the film is just astonishing, especially as regards the two lead actors’ performances.

A spunky yet surprisingly sad portrait of a sexually liberated man held captive by his past, forever chasing and trying to rewrite his own legend.

Given all the attention on Russia in recent news coverage, Fogel’s Putin-centric approach will likely prove more effective than a deeper investigation into just how widespread such behavior is around the globe. But the greater takeaway is that the game itself is rigged, and the Russians only lost because they got caught.

Regardless of how you feel about the ending (and many will happily embrace the movie’s darkly comic finale), Cregger has achieved something remarkable here, crafting a cruel and twisted bedtime story of the sort the Brothers Grimm might have spun.

Leigh’s films can feel shaggy and unstructured on first viewing, and Hard Truths is no different. But there’s profound poetry in every scene.

Despite his movie-star reputation and looks, Mortensen remains a remarkably humble screen presence, a trait that’s perfect for a part that demands considerable empathy from whoever’s playing it.

Favreau’s most important responsibility in overseeing the remake was simply not to mess it up. Which he doesn’t. Then again, nor does he bring the kind of visionary new take to the material that Julie Taymor added when staging the Broadway musical. That makes Favreau’s “The Lion King” an undeniably impressive, but incredibly safe entry to the catalog — one whose greatest accomplishment may not be technical (which is not to diminish the incredible work required to make talking animals look believable), but in perfecting the performances.