Peter Rainer

A crowd-pleaser in the best sense, it overflows with empathy for its beleaguered people.

To the Dardennes’ immense credit, their film is not about villains and victims. Neither is the narrative sugarcoated.

“Wake Up” can be appreciated as an excellent example of that venerable murder mystery genre – the “impossible crime” – in which no solution to the murder seems rational. But Johnson also has a bit more on his mind than this. Without being too strenuous about it, the film also probes the nature of religious belief.

The paradox of Train Dreams is that we are looking at a vanishing way of life that, at the same time, has a startling immediacy. That immediacy is more than a matter of careful observation. In its widest sense, the movie is asking what makes life worth living.

I greatly enjoyed Nouvelle Vague, but will anybody besides cinemaniacs and Breathless devotees appreciate it? I think the answer is yes. That’s because it’s not simply a movie about how a landmark maverick movie got made. Its true subject is the exhilaration that comes from being part of an artistic escapade. It’s about how art – the making of it and the appreciation of it – can free you.

To make us begin to understand the anguish on display here, the movie needed more emotional layers and fewer obvious signposts.

Blue Moon may essentially take place inside a single room, but it rarely feels stagy. It captures the connivance and conviviality of theater people – the way they come together, if only for a night, with a spiritedness that is both forced and entirely genuine.

The film’s moral issues don’t come across as tacked on. They arise organically and register as both intensely personal to the filmmaker and much larger in scope. The film even offers up, against all odds – and a truly chilling final moment – a measure of hope.

It would be natural to place this film in the context of America’s ongoing immigration crisis. Certainly it is “topical.” But I think Liu and Majok have transcended its immediate relevance. It’s a human drama, not a sociological artifact. Because of its quality of feeling, and the remarkable performances of its two leads, it will likely outlast its historical moment.

Up until its final scene, I thought A Little Prayer was an entirely decent and poignant piece of work. But its closing scene between Bill and Tammy, those two self-described kindred spirits, moved me more than anything I’ve seen all year. It’s an infinitely touching expression of the love that one human being can have for another.

Modest in scope, it ultimately conveys, at its best, the unifying joy that great music-making can inspire.

The extraordinary tact and compassion with which Victor dramatizes Agnes’s assault and its aftermath allows us to see this story for what it truly is – a diary of personal reclamation.

What finally holds all the hokum together is Pitt. Even though the movie keeps ramming home the idea that Formula One racing is a team sport, Sonny’s outlaw vibe is clearly its focus.

Materialists scores where it counts most. Jane Austen it’s not, but it gets at the consequences of modern romance among the moneyed classes, where self-worth is bound up in one’s market value.

What rescues the movie from being mere flimsy fun is Rutherford’s performance. She gives Agathe’s waywardness a gravity, a hint of darkness.

What we do care about, and what “Final Reckoning” finally delivers on after an overly expository first hour, is watching Tom do stuff. Set pieces involving a sunken submarine and buzzing biplanes amply fulfill the franchise’s main selling point.

Given the pitfalls of gush and treacle in this type of material, The Friend is no small achievement. Is it impertinent to say that Watts has never had a better partner in the movies? The levels of emotion she brings to the role clearly have much to do with her co-star.

The Ballad of Wallis Island is both modest and magical. One of its co-stars, Carey Mulligan, has described its tone as a “gentle euphoria.” That phrase perfectly expresses how this wonderful movie – directed by James Griffiths from a script by Tom Basden and Tim Key – transports us.

I’m Still Here is a movie about remembrance – of a family and a nation. The necessity to acknowledge injustice is its timeless clarion call.

It would be too convenient, I think, to write this movie off as a study of untreated mental illness. The performance of Jean-Baptiste (who was so memorable in Leigh’s “Secrets & Lies”) transcends the clinical. She shows us what lies beneath Pansy’s suffering. This woman who can’t abide other people is terrified of being alone.

What may have begun as a descent into the personal depths of an enigmatic genius ends up as one more cog in the Bob Dylan myth machine.

Moana 2 touts the power of human (and non-human) connection, and the film will certainly connect with its target audience. But it doesn’t trust viewers enough to feel for themselves.

It’s no secret that the best animated movies can enthrall us in ways every bit as immersive as any live-action film. Flow is a triumphant case in point.

High among the film’s many standout virtues is how fully Kapadia has captured the faces of this trio.

It’s a feminist musical crime thriller about a transgender cartel boss. Doubly surprising is that, for all its strangeness – or perhaps because of it – the mashup often works.

A lot of emotional weight is packed into this seriocomic ramble if you know where to look.

On the plus side, we get a front-row seat, often closer than that, to some of the wowiest concerts ever committed to film.

Baker is a humanist – there is nothing exploitative about what he does here. He’s after deeper emotional truths.