Sara Stewart

At 162 minutes, American Honey may test some viewers’ patience, but for this one, it paid off with an unflinching portrait of middle America, a love letter to the open road and a dynamic newcomer in Sasha Lane.

Mines the increasingly fertile territory of aging boomer parents and chafing middle-aged siblings, but at irritatingly high volume, with the cantankerous voices of Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller and Dustin Hoffman nearly constantly talking over one another.

Despite all its problems, The Last Days on Mars serves up a deliciously shivery hypothetical: Wouldn’t we all secretly love it if the Mars rover sent back footage of a “walker” or two?

The scrappy striver narrative may be an overly familiar one at this point, but director Tom Harper (the BBC’s “War & Peace”) gets a terrific performance from Buckley as Rose chases her dreams while living the kind of turbulent life that has always inspired the best of country songs.

Virtually dialogue-free and animated in a cacophony of playful bright colors and ominous industrial landscapes, Boy & the World plays like a dream segueing into a nightmare.

It’s the rare biopic that doesn’t wander into predictability.

This is a compelling and comprehensive guide to one of the most Kafkaesque crime stories in American history.

Like the rest of Dear Mr. Watterson, it’s a good-hearted gesture. But unlike Calvin’s alter ego Spaceman Spiff, this film never manages to achieve liftoff.

Hugh Jackman, as a (fictional) former American jumper named Bronson Peary, enlivens things a little.

Ambitious and messy, Annhilation will likely leave you with more questions than answers. Mine is: “When can I see it again?”

“It’s a little self-congratulatory and light on story,” says one student of another’s film project in Dear White People, which feels like director Justin Simien getting out ahead of inevitable (and accurate) criticism.

My own voice-over would go something like this: “This summer. One woman. Will see this movie. Again.”

Never seen, but often heard bellowing profanities from the other end of Jane’s desktop landline, the boss and his eyebrow-raising closed door meetings dubbed “personals” provide the menacing undertone of this day-in-the-life drama.

Love, Antosha manages to be both a deeply sad farewell and a fascinating introduction.

Sebastián Lelio’s remake of his 2013 Chilean movie “Gloria” is, indeed, a glorious celebration of Julianne Moore at her peak.

Director Trey Edward Shults made his debut last year with the indie drama “Krisha,” and this one’s a very different take on family dynamics — not at all your typical horror film.

Writer/director Andrew Levitas needlessly pads this captivating theme with over-used tropes.

Director Catherine Gund most successfully depicts the visceral impact of Streb’s work with her footage of the 2012 Olympics.

Sparse of dialogue, terrifically ominous and full of low-key, high-quality performances, Blue Ruin is a vigilante tale even haters like me can get behind.

Curran (“The Painted Veil”) never imposes any additional structure on Davidson’s story, which may test the patience of some viewers. But I found the sprawling, wild visuals in Tracks, and the long silences as the sunburned Robyn traverses some of the world’s least hospitable lands, meditative and moving.

It’s a lark, if you can tolerate the hammy redneck accents, and confirms that Soderbergh is as agile as ever at knitting together all the moving parts of a complex heist.

Clemency is remarkable for the understanding it affords to all involved with its wrenching subject matter.

By the last battle, you may find yourself hoping that at least one person escapes without being macheted to death.

In Abuse of Weakness, Breillat, notorious for her sexually explicit films, casts the excellent Isabelle Huppert as her avatar, Maud, to tell the tale.

Scary and sad, Trapped is for anyone who cares about the precarious future of reproductive health for American women.

The long-term effects of bullying are at the heart of The Gift, a dark and ultimately quite nasty psychological thriller from actor/writer/debut director Joel Edgerton, who manages to yank the carpet out from under his audience a couple of times.

This low-budget indie has a unique ambiance and surprising depth, both in the performances of its two leads and the writing/directing team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (“Half Nelson”).

Take note, Lars von Trier: This is how you do a truly funny, subversive movie about a woman’s obsession with the human body and sex.