Sheri Linden

The film's concerns are profoundly therapeutic, but it nimbly avoids every therapy-drama cliché.

Within the story's sometimes too-neat outline, Volpe lets most of her characters breathe.

What director Jamie M. Dagg achieves with his slow burn of a second feature is a total immersion in end-of-the-line atmosphere, with four superb central performances bringing archetypal intrigue to life.

The movie delivers a modicum of magic without getting pious or gushy. It never soars, though, or burns especially bright.

We all like to imagine ourselves as brave resisters. Pomsel's unapologetic account of being "one of the cowards" is a haunting, ever-timely reminder of how easy it can be to cash the paycheck and look the other way.

Wonder is a story of connection, not suffering. Dramatizing one boy's effect on the people around him, it invites the viewer into that fold.

It’s the glimmers of penetrating observation that make the overload of clichés so frustrating in Onah’s first feature, and suggest better things for his second.

Olin could not be more commanding. It's a powerful performance in the service of a movie that's by turns off-putting, bracingly incisive and insufferable.

Within the concise running time, Zea brings a remarkable life and body of work into dynamic focus.

The huge political and social divide is in full evidence, but the strength of the doc is that it shows that those sides aren't as monolithic as the red and blue blocks on electoral maps suggest.

Densely packed with info, incident and philosophy, the film is a guaranteed debate sparker. Its strength lies not just in the filmmaker’s intimate access to his subjects, but in the multiple points of view he engages.

In its fusion of craft and narrative, My Friend Dahmer is exquisite. In its portrayal of Jeff's agonies, it can be excruciating.

Not unlike her gutsy protagonist, Twomey moves through the charged landscape with extraordinary agility. Combining gripping suspense with a quote from the immortal Persian poet Rumi, she creates a stirring final sequence from the rising chords of terror and resilience.

Rather than a plot-driven narrative, it’s a collection of keenly observed scenes, and the lack of hyped-up drama, intrigue or sentimentality is one of the strengths of the low-key but visually expressive movie.

Aida’s Secrets movingly embodies the traumas that, at war’s end and long after, are inseparable from liberation.

Covering an eventful artistic season, Jean-Stéphane Bron’s The Paris Opera is a well-observed vérité portrait of a major cultural institution.

Artful and atmospheric to the max, Never Here is a study in personality disintegration dressed up as a whodunit. The film marks an auspicious debut for writer-director Camille Thoman.

No stranger to found footage, Morgen (“The Kid Stays in the Picture”) has tapped into NatGeo’s treasure trove with a bracing immediacy.

The relatively laidback angle on all the murderous spree-ing gives Chris Hemsworth a chance to find the comic groove beneath the title character's beefcake godliness. He does it expertly, and the self-mocking humor is all the more welcome given Thor's essential blandness.

There’s a thrilling friction between the smoothly assembled pieces of Anthony’s narrative, and often sparks.

Love of God and dog can be powerful things, but in this uncinematic telling, they fail to inspire.

Celebrating a great ranchera interpreter without sugarcoating her, this straightforward film honors her approach.

Beneath its quiet surface, the Austin, Texas-set drama Barracuda thrums with menace and mystery from first moment to last.

Unlike many issue-oriented movies, the artfully crafted film isn’t designed to stir up outrage or sympathy through emotional engagement. At its strongest it’s an unpredictable ride with a winningly sharp absurdist slant; at its weakest, it leans too hard on pointed symbolism.

There's plenty of tawdry glamour, exploitation and grime on offer in this tale of awakening, and through it all, the sisters' bond is its own abracadabra.

Beyond explanation is the art itself. Animating Van Gogh’s bold impasto, already kinetic on the canvas, could have been merely superfluous. As moving pictures, though, the brushstrokes have an unexpected pull in this uneven but deeply felt homage.

An extraordinary vérité portrait of Manila’s Fabella Hospital.

With its gauzily surreal touches, Woodshock reflects the Mulleavys’ romantic flair for texture and embellishment. But as Theresa’s guilt and self-medication mount, along with the film’s profoundly muddled ideas about assisted suicide, the curated trance grows mind-numbing. It’s a death trip with pretty lingerie.

It's the chemistry between Domhnall Gleeson and newcomer Will Tilston, as the awkwardly matched father and son, that makes the movie more than a mélange of inept parenting and Tigger too.

The sad truth is that we’ve heard countless harrowing stories of the Holocaust, and this one, for the most part, isn’t presented in a way that makes it indelible or urgent.

An affectionate and sometimes vibrantly imaginative biographical sketch, Manolo: The Boy Who Made Shoes for Lizards could have used more shoes and fewer people.

Built for action, like its title character, the movie packs a muscular, bloody punch, but mainly it’s a well-oiled diversion.

David Harewood and Edwina Findley, the only trained actors in a compelling cast of non-pros, deliver harrowing performances as a self-styled healer and the desperate mother who seeks his help for her tormented son.

Joan’s story unfolds all too neatly, but in Allen’s spark and grace there’s a real sense of discovery.

The elegiac Spettacolo is in some ways a familiar story, revolving around the universal tug of war between time and tradition.

It arrives not as a lusty tale in full bloom but as a tastefully arranged still life, in search of an animating spark.

Shevtsova, until recently a dancer with the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, doesn’t quite pierce the narrative’s two-dimensionality. Through Preljocaj’s ecstatic choreography, though, she goes deep, and Polina’s story finds its language and its pulse.

Messy and ungovernable at its strongest, Lafosse’s film is a story of heartbreak and real estate and, not least, money, viewed from within the still-smoldering ruins.

As it sheds light on these women’s experiences and the larger issue of homelessness among female vets, the film grows deeply engaging.

Inevitably cursory, it’s nonetheless a fascinating introduction to the ways that core components of Americana wouldn’t be eradicated. Or silenced.

A meandering journey, too tepid to stir up the feelings of yearning and rebellion that it aims to evoke.

The low-budget movie, shot in artful black-and-white by Ante Cheng, pulses with yearning and sorrow and love for its characters. Its brightening touches of underplayed humor strengthen and comment on the main action.

Had the comedy been sharper, this movie-loving movie might have convincingly meshed its Technicolor caricatures and antifascist heroics.

The intriguingly bonkers premise rests somewhat soundly on matters of climate change, overpopulation and genetic engineering, but its most burning question is “Are seven Noomi Rapaces better than one?” To which the answer is a resounding “Sure, why not?”

In unexpected and wonderfully satisfying ways, A Taxi Driver taps into the symbiotic relationship between foreign correspondents and locals, particularly in times of crisis.

Heartfelt, if not entirely satisfying, Walk With Me provides an up-close glimpse of the life of devotion, focusing on the monks and nuns who live at a rural monastery led by Zen Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh.

Filmmakers Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis were among those on the front lines of the protests against police violence and their on-the-ground, from-the-heart documentary Whose Streets? communicates that urgency from the inside out — not as news story or social theory, but as communal experience and awakening.

Even while gesturing toward a redemptive sacred altar, a default mode for parenthood in many mainstream movies, the director lets the messy realities stand. And his fine cast makes them ring true — the selfishness and neglect, the confrontations brutal and tender, the pained silences and, not least, the gusts of pure, jagged joy.

Garcia never gets a grasp on her protagonist’s contradictions, or those of her story — certainly not enough to pull off the movie’s jaw-dropper of a twist. But she conjures a powerful sensuality, and Cotillard burns ferociously bright, even when the center does not hold.

The movie’s shifts in tone and focus can occasionally be distracting, but through it all Jungermann maintains a suitably dark undercurrent with an impressively light touch.

With its chilling evidence of fetus-centric policies in practice, Birthright shows Big Brother in action, and at his most misogynistic.

Despite a few playful flourishes, filmmaker Luc Bondy’s experiment in artifice never takes flight.

Tonal swerves can be a source of useful friction; here they’re simply awkward, and Robespierre’s efforts to meld sentiment and laughs grow increasingly strained.

As clunky as the movie can feel, there’s a winning toughness to its unsentimental view of childhood and its nostalgia for a pre-digital age.

The doc’s personal portraits of the work required to forge an independent life should connect with and inspire parents and educators.

Though handsomely photographed and featuring a compelling cast, the Ireland-set memory piece — adapted by John Banville from his Man Booker Prize-winning novel — will leave audiences wondering how much more satisfying the muted drama might be on the page.

Writer-director Amanda Kernell’s assured first feature has a classic sheen, but with its powerful sense of place and sensitive performances, it’s no fusty museum piece.

The experiences and challenges of the rural poor might make it into the national conversation as an abstraction, but rarely with the specificity of this intimate portrait of a black community.

At its strongest, the movie dissects such pat notions as “closure” and “moving on” with wit and intelligence.

The film captures the intense emotion of the October 2014 performance that capped Whelan’s 30-year career. But more crucial is the way it shows her creating new challenges for herself, turning the terrifying prospect of irrelevance into a shot at reinvention.

There's enough dark sizzle between leads Rachel Weisz and Sam Claflin to keep the audience involved through the underpowered middle stretches before the film regains its footing, delivering a disquieting shiver of a conclusion.

There’s nothing particularly cinematic about the well-crafted film, but it’s a compelling piece of advocacy journalism, one that looks beyond the sloganeering on all sides of the debate.

With his fine cast and his gracefully restrained screenplay, Shults makes horror recognizable.

Bringing their real-life story to the screen, director Gabriela Cowperthwaite has made a movie about soldiers that's not, strictly speaking, a war film. She's made a love story, one that's all the more heartstring-tugging for its cogent restraint.

As with all comics-based extravaganzas, brevity is anathema to the Patty Jenkins-directed Wonder Woman, and it doesn’t quite transcend the traits of franchise product as it checks off the list of action-fantasy requisites.

With its many story strands and flat direction, the movie lacks a pulse, its ambitious hodgepodge of concepts refusing to jell.

Whatever Rosefeldt intended, Manifesto doesn’t quite set forth a manifesto of its own. But it’s a blast of fresh air. And like many of the gauntlet throwers it cites, it risks looking foolish and, in the process, creates something gorgeously defiant.

Thoughtful, deeply affectionate and concerned more with essence than chronology, it recounts the band’s 30 years in a way that should enlighten diehards as well as the uninitiated.

None of it is earth-shattering, but Goodman gives it muscle and makes it work. And with their synapse-firing performances, Banderas and Rhys Meyers keep the viewer at arm’s length and guessing — through, and even past, fade-out.

A work of deep but unsentimental optimism, Wrestling Jerusalem gives us plenty to wrestle with, but presents it at such a relentless clip, in such self-conscious fashion, that it becomes wearying rather than involving.

Jolts of humor and fantasy bring welcome texture to the romance-novel sleekness, as do the leads, who both have an uncommon, idiosyncratic allure.

Katie Says Goodbye is a plaintive story of hard luck and fringe dwellers, one that might have felt clichéd in lesser hands. But first-time filmmaker Wayne Roberts conjures new, resonant chords in his taut, tender drama.

Their personal story is no less fascinating than their experiences working on hundreds of movies, together and separately.

Whether as a constructor of large-scale enchantments or a notorious conceptualist, he emerges in this portrait as sincerely searching.

Despite the wildly uneven plotting, Gordon’s atmospheric direction in coastal New London propels the drama, as does her sensitivity to what remains unspoken between people. That everyone in the film is drastically off-balance may just be the point.

Rather than explore his place in the arts and balance all that adoration with insight, Corsicato opts for hero worship. The result is a visually exciting but emotionally monotonous film.

Combining guardedness and openheartedness in unpredictable ways, Kronerova and Novy deliver exceptional performances, turning the crystal-clear metaphor of ice swimming into a full-blooded emotional experience.

A dynamic glimpse of contemporary Los Angeles funneled into an old-fashioned coming-of-age saga, Lowriders isn’t always persuasive, but it has plenty of heart.

Had Mader focused on fewer plot strands, he might have found a more effective balance. Whatever metaphysical poetry Displacement could have held is lost amid its over-explained and underwhelming search for the “negation point.”

Howell’s inept pileup of would-be signifiers — a misty quarry, a family crypt, a philosophical beekeeper — gives way to frisson-free horror and unconvincing romance.

Though the combination of social critique and unhinged laughs doesn’t always jell, the movie is quite gloriously a thing unto itself, even as it draws upon obvious inspirations.

Schrader’s film gets into the nitty-gritty without losing sight of the alchemy.

The incisive beauty of the documentary, and its power, is that it's not a thesis or an argument but a full-blooded, multifaceted real-life drama.

At the helm for the first-time, and working from screenwriter Christina Hodson’s slick balancing act of aspirational romance and dark psychology, longtime producer Di Novi enlivens the generic mix with a tinge of camp and a sure grasp of mean-girl dynamics.

There may be no fancy filmmaking steps in “Alive and Kicking,” but the jaw-dropping improvisations and physical intimacy of the dancers make it an action film par excellence — joy-fueled and gravity-defying.

Directed by Ido Fluk from a screenplay he wrote with Sharon Mashihi, the film is sensitively observed, its performances convincingly understated. But it rapidly devolves into a standard, and increasingly unfocused, story of materialism and greed.

The real crime in Going in Style is its waste of acting talent.

Circumstances that might have been static in less skilled hands are given tantalizing life by Young, the actors and the deft camerawork of cinematographer Ryan Balas.

Set on a dairy farm in southwestern England, The Levelling is a modestly scaled, superbly crafted drama with a powerful sense of place.

The result is a composite portrait of girlhood, refracted — not especially rich in groundbreaking insight, but often shimmering with feeling.

Where Band Aid excels is in its mix of blisteringly understated comedy with a compassionate view of the ways we can let our lives drift away from us. There’s something bracingly fresh in the way Lister-Jones and Pally combine blind spots and vulnerabilities with a particularly secular-Jewish self-consciousness.

It’s tricky, to put it mildly, to use suicidal impulses as a story engine for a comedy, and director Rob Spera and screenwriter Jared Rappaport don’t quite pull it off as they navigate the middle ground between dark humor and emotional catharsis.

With its assortment of mouthwatering ingredients and dishes, In Search of Israeli Cuisine is an unadulterated foodie delight. But much more than that, Roger Sherman’s documentary offers fascinating insights into a little-understood country, using the culinary prism to illuminate a complex, still-young culture.

The drama’s power may dwindle, yet its end-of-the-world scenario remains oddly recognizable.

I Am Another You offers further evidence of this young director’s investigative energy and eye for cinematic poetry without the slightest preciousness.

Putting the viewer into a men’s circle like no other, The Work is a remarkable piece of reportage.

Working from a snappy but never snarky screenplay by first-timer Shelby Farrell, helmer Freeland (Drunktown’s Finest) maintains a strain-free upbeat energy yet keeps the action rooted in a strong sense of place and class.

John Trengove’s first feature takes real chances, delivering a troubling portrait of the collision between communal and personal identity.