Rory O'Connor

The meat of Suburbicon is certainly Grade-A, but no expense has been spared on the trimmings either. Even the briefest supporting players are fully formed and often quite memorable.

Downsizing is arguably the most flawed of Payne’s work, but despite its apocalyptic overtones, it’s also his most optimistic. The resulting emotional hit of Paul’s final actions — like that of Miles’, Woody’s, and Schmidt’s — is no less moving, either.

In order to enjoy the myriad pleasures of del Toro’s world — with all its counterpointed humor, quicksilver pacing, endearing humanity, peculiar eroticism, and sudden eruptions of violence — one must simply take the plunge.

It’s amongst the smartest, funniest, and saddest films in the studio’s history.

If Jarecki struggles a little with this alchemy at times it is because Promised Land is essentially three movies in one: a detailed account of the King’s career; a loose account of the last 80 years of American politics; and a musical performance film.

Anytime it feels that Before We Vanish is getting too caught up in its thought process, the director is always ready with a flash of ultra violence, slapstick humor, or a pithy line.

One of the great achievements of A Ciambra is how it maps out the food chain of local authorities (both legal and otherwise).

It’s difficult to know just how serious this is all meant to be. Then again, camp only really works when the level of intention is difficult to decipher.

It’s more Pastiche du Godard than Histoire(s) du Godard in Michel Hazanavicius’ Redoubtable and that’s not a bad thing.

The juxtaposition of supernatural thriller tropes and urgent socio-political issues in Kornél Mundruczó’s latest movie — an original take on the superhero origin story set to the backdrop of the refugee crisis — might prove a delicate one for some viewers to take. Those unperturbed, however, should find much to relish in Jupiter’s Moon.

It’s a solid stab at the socially conscious mainstream flick for Akin, especially after he faltered somewhat with his last political film.

It is a remarkably vivid and fresh piece of filmmaking, one that builds on the directors’ previous outings without being overly familiar.

While The Square is not as slick and streamlined a film as Force Majeure it still hunts for that same meaty psychological game and is never afraid — no matter how close to the bone — to twist that knife.

With its drab interior settings, cinematographer Kim Hyung-koo’s uncharacteristically unforgiving black-and-white photography, brutally honest subject matter, and rare moments of catharsis, it’s not the easiest watch. Of course, it’s this very slog that makes bigger moments all the more powerful.

Baker indulges just a little too much time shooting his young hyperactive actors in off-key locations and perhaps not enough on their character development or narrative arcs.

Coppola and her production team — including The Grandmaster cinematographer Philippe Le Sourd — have created a fully realized world of eroticism, humidity, and Southern Gothic atmosphere. The characters are simply engulfed by it, almost to the point that even the twisted willow trees appear to be reaching out to grab them.

Stiller and Sandler strike a warm and believably awkward brotherly connection, hitting some real on screen highs as they sit around the piano with Marvel singing Sandler’s catchy tunes.

Haynes fails to impart Wonderstruck with the sort of zip that gives young persons’ capers like these the pacing they require.

It might not quite end on a satisfying note, but Have a Nice Day remains an urgent, thoroughly entertaining, and inventive piece of filmmaking.

It’s an interesting and quite tragic saga, as if Linklater were to cut his Before trilogy into a single film.

Riotous, if undeniably stagey.

You get the sense that Moverman may just have bitten off a little more than he can chew.

On the Beach at Night Alone, a bittersweet tone poem from South Korean writer-director Hong Sang-soo, thinks many a thought about the universe and the future, mostly expressed through nature and the characters’ anxieties about growing old.

Hope is as contemporary and vital a film as you’re likely to find in 2017, but it’s also one of the funniest and most classically (not to mention beautifully) cinematic too.

Rush is a joy to watch, no doubt, but the unavoidable sense remains that Tucci is stretching his material a little thin, restricting the narrative to the two-weeks-plus Lord spent in Paris with nothing on either end to really fill us in.

Haigh’s debut really nailed the insecurities of discovering a lover’s idiosyncrasies and flaws, those that grate and those that charm. Paris 05:59 manages to capture that as well, and in doing so creates a sense of ambiguity as to whether any sort of love between the men can last.

While the viewer might appreciate Brizé’s lack of compromise, for such a stoic and rather long period piece, A Woman’s Life offers little else for the audience to cling on to.

A deeply personal piece of work that offers both an introduction (or re-introduction?) to the director’s uncle — a once-burgeoning independent filmmaker who died of AIDS in 1989 at just 31 years of age — and a somber meditation on talent lost.

The Untamed does that very rare thing in cinema in that it blends mystery, horror and pseudo-reality with a kind of dark subconscious arousal.

This is remarkable stuff from a director on the cusp of the mainstream. You sense an American filmmaker might not have managed it.

While often a bit of a slog, the film is not without a sense of humor, and the director still knows how to execute a sharp surrealist flourish from time to time.

This is not exactly landmark stuff. Many viewers may feel they’ve seen familiar things in the work of David Attenborough, or even in films such as Koyaanisqatsi or Samsara. However, Malick might be singular in his earnest search for the sublime.

There is a great deal to savor here and yet it’s hard to shake the sense that The Bad Batch is a film stuck in neutral. We await that kick into a higher gear but it’s just too cool to be bothered.

The most remarkable thing about Dominik’s film is that we are not only humble witnesses to such personal grief, but that we are seeing it actively articulated by such a fascinating mind.

While derivative and endlessly cheesy, it’s a characteristically visceral return for Gibson, and one that confirms that little has changed in the man’s singular artistic psyche.

With everything going on, Nocturnal Animals is the sort of narrative and tonal minefield that a lesser director could easily have gotten lost in. Ford allows us to consider and cherish each unique thread and wonder just how it could all possibly come together.

The Bleeder isn’t attempting to reinvent any wheels, but it is consistently gripping — slick as a skip rope and just one hell of a story.

Denis Villeneuve ponders the ramifications and possibilities of a potential first-contact between human beings and an advanced alien race and comes up with a sporadically incoherent film, but also some interesting ideas.

It’s a twinkling surface examination of how humans try to coordinate their dreams with their reality (a very Hollywood conundrum), but also a celebration of just how wonderful old filmmaking techniques and emotions look and feel on modern L.A. streets.

It is, quite frankly, a bit dull as it plays out in a near constant melodramatic key.

De Palma is a fascinating, revealing, and compelling overview of a remarkably eclectic career, but it’s also a seldom-heard first-hand account of what it’s like to work inside and outside the Hollywood system.

This is Kore-eda at his very best, facing up to the hardest truths with honesty and a nervous laugh — uncomfortable, invigorating, and ultimately cleansing, like the cinema’s equivalent of a cold shower. And I mean that in the best way possible.

Two Lovers and a Bear is at its most vibrant and enjoyable when Nguyen allows the surrealism to flourish. There’s a good film in there somewhere — one with fewer lovers and more bear, perhaps.

Despite there being no dialogue and very few characters, the film consistently celebrates the excitement of exploration and invention while also keeping the audience aware of the man’s growing frustrations.

The nonsense really is rampant throughout, but the writing is on the wall (quite literally) from the opening introductory paragraph.

We’re asked to empathize with Rosa from the get-go despite barely being able to make out whatever anguish she’s been suffering. Mendoza will rectify this late on in an emotionally earth-shattering final sequence, the type that lingers with you like a faint cry for help.

It’s often warm and quite funny, but is, at heart, a damning critique of the Tory government in Britain and their belt-tightening austerity measures, as well as a rallying cry for those who fall through the cracks.

It is a weepy Sunday matinee melodrama of the most run-of-the-mill variety, full of pretty people in pretty clothes feeling Big Emotions.

David McKenzie’s Hell or High Water is a gritty, darkly humorous, and fiendishly violent neo-western.

It’s visually astonishing and often devastating, too. This might be the freshest film about young people in America since Larry Clark’s Kids.

Nichols has crafted a beautifully moving and tasteful document of a quietly groundbreaking event, told from a very human perspective.

Riffing on Spanish telenovelas, Hitchcock, and film noir, Almodóvar and his production team have put together a slight, but undeniably gorgeous bauble with a simple sort of story that nestles in somewhere between the high and lowbrow.

Nobody could fault the detail of the art department’s work here, but there is an odd sluggishness to the imagery, as if the whole film is playing a half-measure behind. This proves troublesome for any of the larger-than-life action sequences, but even more so with the comic timing.

Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures provides a snappy, confidently explicit overview of the photographer’s work and life that chooses not to sugarcoat the man’s ruthless ambition or seemingly exasperating personality.

The great theme of Dickinson’s life, Davies argues, is finding solace — not in religion, but in art, and A Quiet Passion itself can boast such moments of quiet catharsis.

One of the most fascinating things about Infinite Football is that Porumboiu never feels the need to feed his pal any rope in order to get these moments on camera. The two men are close and the director pointedly takes the time to let us in on his friend’s life.

The heist sequence alone is a confident mix of visual inventiveness and nods. What the film does lack, intentionally or not, is a clear moral arrow.

Lean on Pete is certainly not a film without qualities (credit to the supporting cast and Magnus Nordenhof Jønck’s cinematography in particular), but viewers might just feel the gnawing sense of a director losing his grip on the reins.

Côté’s film does work very well for the most part as a somewhat cold, ornamental study of what our epidermal tissue looks like at terminal mass.

Are the grand and absurd moments of our lives perhaps more closely acquainted with one another then we’d like to admit? Grass seems to think so, and it delivers that assumption with a welcome–indeed, almost humane–dose of humor.