Robert Abele

Though The Work leaves a lot unanswered about this unusual program (run by the Inside Circle Foundation), and the characters who participate in it, it’s an often tense and exhilarating glimpse into a moment in time that lets men prioritize honesty and tears over superficial displays of strength.

The competition in Step isn’t just to hit a stage and win a talent prize, but to beat the odds in life. Start figuring out now how to clap and dab away tears at the same time; it’s that kind of experience.

What makes Eternals feel special is that, for once, the director genuinely cares as much about the character within that spectacle, as the spectacle itself.

The Death of Dick Long may be a made-up story, but inside this crisis management suspense-comedy is a weirdly down-to-earth humanity about the ripple effects of out-of-nowhere recklessness.

The condensing of consequential shifts in fortune into relateably tense, humanly funny scenes is admirable, and the tech aspects are never too confusing that they pull away from the story’s stakes.

[A] fleet, gripping documentary.

A deadpan crime story with eccentric and fantastical touches, and a healthy sense of the absurd, “Have a Nice Day” makes a bold argument for Chinese animation as a fertile outlet for exploring the country’s more desperate, constricted lives, and the choices these people make.

As information-age documents go, it’s as necessary a glimpse of 21st century heroism and ideology warfare as you’re going to encounter, and a brutally effective argument for compassion toward those forced from their homeland.

It’s all great fun, even if there’s no central performance as riveting as Cho’s in “Searching.” Then again, acting in movies like this is an admittedly uphill battle, one that Reid is better at when not having to rely on the occasionally tinny dialogue. Long, Leung and de Almeida, meanwhile, fill the tapestry of intrigue efficiently and appealingly.

At its best — when the flow of voices, archival clips (co-director Pollard being a master at the textural impact of found footage), and nicely blended-in recreations made to look archival, is thematically strongest — "Citizen Ashe" becomes a documentary about how experience becomes voice becomes action.

With so many documentaries on Bergman already in existence, that von Trotta has made her own uniquely inviting tour of his triumphs, anguishes, and longstanding themes — in essence a roomy portrait of the artist as an engaged, fallible searcher — is its own gift of sorts, from one acolyte of cinema to another.

The result, as directed by the promising Jeremiah Zagar (“We The Animals”), is an agreeable combination drill of humor, hurt, on-court action and redemptive uplift that’s closer to simply being a solidly inspiring sports movie than anything notably representative of the Sandler oeuvre.

Amanda Knox delivers its own justice by covering all the complexities of its ever-fascinating true crime tale.

Miss Stevens bears a maturity and genuineness that thankfully feels miles apart from the inspirational assembly line of Hollywood product.

Activist in tone, and paced like a thriller, Reed’s movie painstakingly details how an election can be brusquely seized and swayed by unseen forces. Candidates need do little but sign on to be successfully co-opted.

When Ask Dr. Ruth is over, you’ll believe a human being can be as special as any computer-generated effect.

Hal entertainingly reminds us, his influence as a righteous, challenging, humanist chronicler of mortal foibles — and as a filmmaker on a quest for a greater understanding of our world — remains a force among today’s more conscientious directors.

Thankfully the creators of this expansive adventure, a crime-solving saga starring a bunny who wants to be a cop, have a bit more in mind than the usual strains of aww-dorable humor and frenetic action.

In a sense, Dos Estaciones creates its own gripping shot-chaser cycle of moods, the accumulative effect of landscape beauty, grim news, observed process (the machinery of making tequila), and abiding solemnity from Sánchez’s commanding turn, giving us plenty to digest when the incident-heavy final stretch occurs.

If, for whatever reason, 63 UP were the last, it would be a perfectly satisfying summing-up of what’s proven to be the surest motive for any of its participants to keep filling us in on their personal lives, issues of class and destiny be damned — they did it because time, love, and just enough fortune allowed it.

This may be the first movie to apply the Chekhov’s gun rule to vultures, a portent sure to satisfy the more horror-minded ticket buyers, not to mention anyone else eager for the kind of back-to-basics survival excitement “Fall” refreshingly serves up in this dreary age of apocalyptic popcorn emptiness.

A briny Northeastern noir powered by women with secrets, Blow the Man Down is a pleasantly spiky slinging of small-town sin that should prove to be eminently companionable viewing for these sequestered, streamable times.

It leaves one with the sense that Khaled wishes to reclaim a headline-tainted religious status from the acts of violent men and bestow that mournful grace to people in an everyday struggle with sensitivity and hopelessness.

At its best, when we can live Dogman through Marcello’s eyes, the movie keeps reminding you of that opening, of people and animals, menace and kindness, and the cages we sometimes don’t realize we’ve made for ourselves.

[A] briskly informative, convincing documentary.

Daum acts as a thoughtful onscreen guide to what the picturesque hillsides and its stone remains represent.

Though Art Bastard is a zesty, engaging documentary about a veteran outsider, when it comes to his complexities, it’s not terribly cohesive.

There may be little that’s psychologically fresh about Plainclothes, but the fact that its low-key, close-framed style suggests a taut, moody gay indie you might have seen in the ’90s works in its favor. It’s also well cast.