Peter Debruge

It’s the perfect role for Lynskey, who’s wise enough to underplay her character, which allows audiences to pour their own fears and frustrations into everything Ruth represents. And what emerges is a stalwart actress’s best work yet, delivered by an exciting new director to watch.

While its subject may be religious, The Two Popes doesn’t want to convert the viewer. Rather, as an extraordinary piece of writing — and an even more impressive showcase for its actors — it eloquently communicates the importance of giving people something to believe in.

It proves most daring in the ways the film departs from its more conventionally moralistic source, and especially in Breillat’s refusal to call either party a parasite.

In the past, the director has been accused of making overly contrived dollhouse movies, and while he repeats many of his favorite tricks — toying with aspect ratios, centering characters in symmetric compositions, revealing a large building in intricate cross-section — this time it feels as if there’s a full world teeming beyond the carefully controlled edges of the frame.

With its haters-be-damned approach to all things carnal, Benedetta is intended to arouse, thereby satisfying the most basic definition of pornography, even if Verhoeven (who claims a certain scholarly interest in the subject as well) does surround the titillating bits with illuminating insights into Renaissance religious life.

You can feel the tension as Morris untangles the trail of responsibility, drawing a thin, clear line through a real-world conspiracy that resulted in more than 4,000 kids — some no more than infants — being whisked away to facilities far removed from their parents.

Wright is both a virtuoso filmmaker and a natural showman, interpreting the screenplay as no other director could have possibly imagined it.

The humor is so satisfying in its moment-to-moment pleasures that it's almost unsportsmanlike to criticize the bigger picture.

The atmosphere inside Studio Ghibli may suggest a zen-like idyll, but animation is a painstaking — and sometimes painful — process, and though shaggy and somewhat ordinary in places, Sunada’s tour of the “Kingdom” makes us appreciate the magic all the more.

There’s a quality to the violence here that elevates it above the literal (and reprehensible) nihilism of movies like last year’s “Hardcore Henry,” and instead achieves something more akin to dance.

What’s so much fun about Send Help, beyond its twisted B-movie premise and refreshing disinterest in anything more highfalutin than handing Linda a chance to turn the tables, is how unpredictable it manages to be for most of their time on the island (except for that darn ending).

The affectionate cine-memoir is rendered all the more effective on account of young discovery Jude Hill and its portrayal of a close-knit family (Ciarán Hinds and Judi Dench and stay-put grandparents) crowded under one roof.

A thrilling drama interspersed with amusing comedic elements (rather than the other way around).

A literal shock to the system, Civil War is designed to be divisive.

In a stroke of combined wisdom and humility, rather than pretending to have the answers, Casal and Diggs are content to pose the questions, relying on their considerable wit and comedic charm to present such tricky topics in refreshingly engaging fashion.

A Private War manages to be simultaneously appalled by the humanitarian crises it depicts...and honest about the thrill that visiting such hot spots offered to someone who found it hard to readjust to her life in London between assignments.

Everything about the three principal teens registers as deserving of “human interest” to Rich Hill’s two helmers, whose generous attitude draws us into this deeply empathetic film.

This isn’t an easy role, but Lively aces it.

In the end, it's not the answer to the kitchen mystery that matters but the revelation that there's ultimately no difference between this bachelor scientist and his bachelor subject.

In many respects, Polite Society comes across as a giant pastiche of Manzoor’s favorite movie references, with homage paid to films from all over the globe via individual shots and sound cues throughout. But there’s no denying her creativity or the defiantly original voice she brings to her characters.

Thoroughbreds doesn’t look or sound anything like other teen-centric movies, but this is hardly a surface-only character study.

A lot of the storytelling is clumsy, rushed or inelegant, but the movie’s timely message of unity and trust still resonates because the filmmakers figured out such a satisfying ending — albeit one that ties things up a little too neatly: so much world-building in service of a one-off. Is this overloaded origin story really the last we’ll see of “The Last Dragon”?

A chaotic symphony of nearly two dozen characters, this black-and-white indie confection (garnished with sparing touches of color) mixes biting social critique with stylistic bravura.

Conceived with uncommon sensitivity toward the interior lives of its characters, as well as to the shifting codes of trans representation, “Monica” is a film about making amends.

With Microbe and Gasoline, the French writer-director has wisely restrained his usual flourishes, allowing the two teenage leads in his relatively calm summer-vacation coming-of-age comedy to assume centerstage, imbuing them with creative agency rather than forcing them to compete with the film’s own style.

The film will get people thinking and talking. The way DuVernay directs it, Origin is a swirling tornado of ideas.

Downright charming at times and irrepressibly gonzo at others, Okja hews to an all-too-familiar trajectory.

National Bird should cast an impressive shadow, inspiring some real debate in op-ed and public radio forums.