Peyton Robinson

Sugarcane is soul-shaking. It’s profoundly evocative, with spoken memories and moments of inability to muster the words gut-punching with equal measure.

The primary struggle of Chernov’s documentary is that it leans into the impersonal in an attempt at devastation. It can’t rely on the men as the crutch of the film’s emotion.

Blitz Bazawule’s new film combines the best aspects of each disparate form, structuring a stunning hybrid that combines the visceral meditations of the written word with the thunderous energy of musical performance.

Bolstered by expert empathy, understated direction, and evocative performances, Earth Mama highlights resilience while whispers of social misogynoir are incorporated without abandon and confronted head-on by the film’s women.

Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power utilizes impactful interviews and captivating archival footage to demonstrate the county's culture and history as a representation of its importance in the Black Power movement.

The pacing works referentially to its namesake and real-time ambition, but the characters aren’t quite interesting or engaging enough to sustain attention for the whole runtime, and the film’s crawl eventually wears on weary knees.

Stonewalling is a moving slow burn of a character study, as well as an examination of female stagnancy, personally and politically. There is a striking, human sense of suspense to the film as we worry for Lynn, and root for her to find her power.

Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi’s “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk” is not simply a documentary, but a poignant individual’s record. It is a reminder that every number we see on the news is a complex web of individuality. It’s historical sonder on screen.

What begins as a thorny meet-cute turns into the longest unofficial first date ever, unfolding into a survey of the difficulty of moving on and the joy of quick connection. Rye Lane is a playful rom-com for the modern age.

From director Hubert Davis, Black Ice is an icebreaking expose on the influence and oppression of Black athletes in Canada’s most treasured sport, hockey.

Kaphar’s film bloats its runtime, with a handful of conversations going back for seconds on a full stomach, but it still manages to be utterly moving, entrusting its cast completely with carrying its ideas to touching fruition.

A tender romp through time we’ve all seen long departed, and may only relive through children of our own, “Little Amélie and the Character of Rain” begs for the warmth of innocence, even when it pleads too hard.

American Fiction trips over its own feet in its final act, stumbling between daydream sequences and multiple storylines before finding a final, underwhelming resolution. But the attentive lens that the film devotes to its concept and themes is what will be remembered.

The film is true to Gibson’s persona, which is marked by everything you expect from a poet: thoughtfulness, tenderness, and thorough self-awareness.

The Testament of Ann Lee is a large-scale production, mighty in detail, and Fastvold proves herself up to the challenge of her own aspirations, tackling the weighty biography with the same sort of labor-intensive dedication characteristic of its subject.

As Olfa and the sisters give perspective on their shared trauma and heartbreak and discuss the underlying principles of it with each other and the actresses, what ensues is not simply the story of a family but a tour de force examination of women’s place in the world and the costs of how they choose to cope with it.

The film grants hope for the women of Iran through its thick-skinned subject, putting her resume and grit on display. But with sharper editing and a bit more eagerness for the personal, “Cutting Through Rocks” would supersede general hopefulness for a more intricate touch to the heart.

Gasoline Rainbow feels like a living, breathing, laughing organism. It’s not a caricature of Gen-Z nor a wishful document of what we may hope or theorize 2020s youth to be, and the Ross brothers’ largely hands-off technique allows this to thrive.

The Nature of Love is a rom-com for the ages, examining the confoundment we find when trying to understand our deepest human feelings, and doing it with the deserved spectrum of “oohs” “hahas” and “oh gods.”

Copa 71 is stirring, exciting, and lively, a kinetic tale that finally spotlights the revolutionary event that didn’t quite turn the tide but certainly started the wave.

Writer-director Shuchi Talati’s feature debut, “Girls Will Be Girls,” is a profoundly moving document of generational girlhood.

More than anything, “How to Have Sex” is masterful in showcasing the drive and apprehension of sexual coming of age.

There are certainly chuckle-worthy moments in the film, but they’re counted with a single hand.

Stern, herself deaf, crafts an intimate and moving documentary that takes us through the legendary life of Marlee Matlin, uncovering a legacy of advocacy, activism, and perseverance.

The story of “Shayda” is moving, though ordinary. The spectrum of emotion is captured, from tension to joy to despair, but the way the film moves through them is plain at best and bland at worst.

Minhal Baig’s “We Grown Now” is a film masterfully tied to the emotive potential of place.

There are laughs aplenty, even as “Sister Midnight” begins to lose creative steam, with the wheels falling off, and the further it falls into the repetitive macabre. But Apte remains the glue holding it all together as the film imagines its prototype of the monstrous feminine.

Through Dupuis’s eye, this story is empathetic and involved, and this feeling persists despite disorganization’s attempt to shake its structure.