Rachel Saltz

If “Badrinath” ends up being less about female empowerment than about schooling gents on a cardinal rule, its pop comes from Ms. Bhatt.

The twisty story has a kink or two too many, a problem of whodunit plotting rather than of Bollywood excess. And the war comes across here as a kind of heightened backdrop rather than real crisis. But these aren’t fatal deficiencies in a film more attuned to movie-made ideas of history and style than to history itself.

Besharam is frequently crude, but it’s also unusually clean in its plotting. And it has a kind of unblushing vitality that is especially strong in the dance numbers, which feature big crowds, lots of color and an old-fashioned Bollywood desire to please.

Edmon Roch has a great story to tell in Garbo the Spy, and he recounts it with the flair of a Hollywood spy movie: "Garbo" is dramatic, entertaining, even funny in parts.

If the movie gets a bit gooey at times that’s probably an occupational hazard when considering the sublime. And Ms. Honigmann’s restraint — there’s something classical in her style, too — keeps the film from floating away. When it threatens to, something piercing or traumatic brings it back to earth, where any account of art belongs.

Mr. Deshmukh’s setup can be overly fussy — some of the con machinations seem needlessly complicated and hard to follow, or maybe not quite worth following — but his payoff works. And his cast, too, hits the right notes and finds an easy rhythm.

Subtle it ain't and subtle it needn't be. It is, though, mostly involving (if Bollywood long, at 2 hours 45 minutes) and even occasionally stirring.

The interviews are mostly good and instructive, but the well-chosen historical footage is better.

The plot of Aurangzeb is inevitably too complicated, and the themes presented more interestingly than they are wrapped up. But for much of the nearly two-and-a-half-hour running time, it ably weaves Bollywood tropes...with contemporary outrage at the rules of the game.

Mr. Hirani remains an excellent storyteller, weaving his disparate story strands into a convincing, satisfying whole — a rare Bollywood feat.

Mr. Mehta has done something difficult. He has made a film of conviction that’s neither plodding nor preachy.

The action sequences mostly have tension and punch, even if the movie is old-school long — 2 hours 41 minutes — and the plot doesn’t bear too much scrutiny.

Mr. Mortensen keeps you watching, even when the movie’s storytelling underwhelms. But Everybody Has a Plan is less about story than about texture and atmosphere. They stay with you, as does the haunted visage of Agustín, drifting on the delta waters.

The 1980s sequences, with their tears and epiphanies, are less vivid and less convincing. An inviting sense of mystery hangs over the events of 1947, Ms. Kurys’s origin story.

The talented Mr. Ross makes Dre's panic and adrenaline-fueled behavior all too believable. You watch as he sees his horizons dim. What could be sadder?

Short and sweet and limited.

For much of its first half, Bombay Velvet hums with the kind of energy found in movies by the 1970s American directors....Mr. Kashyap is perhaps too faithful to his Bollywood imperatives, though. In the grand tradition, his film is overlong (149 minutes) and overplotted.

Super Deluxe, though, runs three hours, and Kumararaja loses his way in the draggy, overlong second act.

May not be fully satisfying as a documentary. But it has what any good movie needs: a star — the ever-game soprano Natalie Dessay.

More and more, Bollywood movies are urban tales for urban audiences. What feels most backward-glancing about Singham is its uncomplicated, even cartoonish insistence on the benefits of village soil over city dirt for cultivating bedrock Indian values.

Korkoro (the word means freedom in Romani) has an unexpectedly leisurely quality as it shows the texture of Gypsy life - the music-making, the intense bonds with horses and the natural world - and its awkward fit with modernity.

Gunday, directed by Ali Abbas Zafar, may be preposterous, but it’s rarely dull. And when Mr. Khan and Ms. Chopra are on screen it’s something more. It’s downright enjoyable.

At times you wish Mr. Marx had sharper storytelling skills (or a better editor). Some important details seem clear only in retrospect, and some remain murky. Still, Mr. Marx shines a light on a place and a way of life that are rapidly changing.

Has a complicated story to tell, about black surfers and, more broadly, about African-American history and the history of surfing. Great topics all, but that's a lot of ground to cover and, unsurprisingly, the film often feels a bit scattershot.

The film needs an injection of Bollywood’s unembarrassed, anything-goes, bigger-than-life spirit, which embraces willy-nilly — as does Mr. Rushdie’s novel — the vulgar, the fanciful and the frankly unbelievable.

The movie too often fails to reward the close watching it requires. While its stillness powerfully suggests stasis, its fragmentary approach doesn't achieve a cumulative power.

2 States is an effort to go beyond formula while also embracing formulaic elements, including some nice song-and-dance sequences. The mix isn’t right yet. But that ambition provides its own tensions and energies, which help 2 States from feeling becalmed.

Although Brothers is a remake of Gavin O’Connor’s 2011 “Warrior,” its plotting, timeouts for montages and a song or two — Kareena Kapoor appears as a spangly item girl, the sole female in a sea of leering chorus boys — are echt Hindi movie. Even more so is its emotional appeal.