Peter Keough

A moody, mannered, and lingering coming-of-age story with a Stephen King-like twist.

As a directorial debut, Losing Ground astonishes with its assurance, subtlety, and style.

The ending is deeply moving.

Everett draws effectively from Wilde’s own writings and witticisms.

A fascination with serendipity, irony, and absurdity like that in Werner Herzog’s documentaries propels “Friends” into unexpected territory.

The performances ratchet up to giddy near-hysteria, as Hilde toys with Solness’s randiness and repressed memory.

Similar to Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The Look of Silence” (2014) in its confrontation with those implicated in past crimes, Wang’s film differs in that many of her subjects are both victims and perpetrators.

David Sedaris contributes a story about talking to a hotel clerk over the phone, which doesn’t add much to the discussion but is very funny.

Dava Whisenant’s documentary, Bathtubs Over Broadway, offers a glimpse into a world few are aware of: industrial musicals — Broadway-style productions similar to Broadway shows except that they promote products like bathtub fixtures, surgical supplies, and John Deere tractors. They were performed exclusively for company members, sometimes recorded or filmed, then forgotten.

Like her subject, Kempner’s film doesn’t try to be flashy or stylish. She adheres to the Ken Burns school of old footage, photos, period ads, newspaper stories and cartoons.

Despite this labyrinthine self-consciousness, the film, like its subject, keeps careful note of dates and places.

It’s the kind of outrageous comedy that you might even take your folks to, though probably not your kids. Say what you will about Harmony Korine and his demented geriatrics, at least they take their trash seriously.

That’s the key to this movie — the way Thérèse looks at things; it’s a rare film that focuses on a woman actually looking and how she responds to what she sees.

Much of Meru is about that second attempt, filmed with such grandeur and intimacy that sometimes attempting to figure out how they made the incredible shots almost spoils them.

At a time when financial regulations have been gutted, stock market indexes reel, and trade wars threaten, Jed Rothstein’s slick and revealing documentary The China Hustle should only add to the anxiety and gloom.

Because it stoops to obvious editorializing (a voice-over of Margaret Thatcher on capitalism?), it never quite rises to the top.

An illuminating celebration of music and the art of teaching, comes at a time when both art and teaching are held in low esteem.

Perhaps Fiennes’s intent is to draw the viewer into the solipsistic intensity of what it is to be Grace Jones. It is a bracing experience, because she is hedonistic, exultant, funny, and fierce.

Reed follows the proceedings as they happen and builds the suspense of a top-notch courtroom drama.

Related with stolid majesty, with long shots of brooding landscapes and close-ups of opaque faces, the film provides poor preparation for the subversion of genre conventions to follow.

Though at times Siddharth can resemble a well-photographed report on India’s social and economic ills, Mehta subtly employs different styles to sustain the poetry, poignancy, and drama.

He (Hui) does not achieve the surreal grandeur of Hayao Miyazaki’s animated films, but he has enough imagination and talent to engage his audience on its own level.

By the end of Tickled the realm of superficial giggles has long been left behind. Though his lighthearted tone has difficulties keeping up with each new sinister discovery, Farrier has exposed in the least likely setting the network of power and money that preys on the weak with impunity.

Frustratingly elusive and seductively louche, Lespert’s “Yves” probes a cryptic myth and a fragile soul, penetrating neither, but conjuring up a taste of Saint Laurent’s suffering, genius and style.

In addition to being very funny, In a World . . . also makes a case for women to be, well, heard. But in terms of cohesion and narrative, it doesn’t quite come together as a movie.

What Stranger by the Lake lacks in suspense and back story it makes up for in atmosphere: It’s a subtle exercise in the pathetic fallacy.

Filmmaker Joe Berlinger isn’t so much inspired as disgusted by the notorious gangster in his newest documentary.

The coming of age is not just that of character but of a whole nation, and despite the mild-seeming moniker, the Jasmine Revolution earned its victories the hard way.