Sheri Linden

Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni, who directed and edited the documentary, with Eyni also serving as cinematographer, have made a film that pulses with so much hopefulness that when Shahverdi’s story takes a shocking turn, it’s a punch to the solar plexus.

With its harrowing restraint, Compliance is potent filmmaking that's not easily forgotten.

Loneliness, alienation, the ache of nostalgia and the everyday absurdity of life infuse every encounter in the unconventional road trip.

[An] exquisite and gripping documentary.

No party-line screed, Gunda is a soul-stirring meditation on some of our most underappreciated fellow earthlings. For many viewers, it could well be life-changing too.

Lakota Nation vs. United States is a visually dynamic documentary, and it’s also one that delves into the power of language and how we use it.

The camerawork and editing are extraordinary in their immediacy and their sensitivity to chaos, exhaustion and resilience — often all at once.

Mainly Park lets her actors interact, their humor deadpan, their pain unfathomable, their hormones surging and their flirtations halting.

Writer-director Michael Almereyda, whose "Hamlet" and "Cymbeline" boldly reimagined Shakespeare, takes a stylized visual approach in Experimenter, with bracing results.

As two long-timers eyeing potential breakthroughs in middle age, Clifton Collins Jr. and Molly Parker deliver beautifully tempered turns, with fine support from Moises Arias in the role of an up-and-comer with a mournful gaze.

An absolute charmer, The Tale of Silyan is an affecting look at the human-avian bond, with all its mysteries, warmth and ungainly practicalities.

Provocative and often fascinating, The Prison in Twelve Landscapes is an unsentimental look at the ways prisons shape life outside their walls, in places as disparate as Appalachia and Midtown Manhattan.

Something more complex and rewarding than surface tension is at play here, and it builds to a conclusion of breathtaking openheartedness. Sometimes a blip on the road is magic in disguise, the root of a dazzling new constellation.

Tülin Özen, in the lead role, delivers a pitch-perfect, tightly contained performance as an astute professional who hasn’t time for own vulnerability.

Bursting with passion, sly humor, satirical swipes and the inescapable heartbeat of insurgency — most of the film was shot in 1968 San Francisco — it’s the life-loving tale of a wise innocent abroad, and the not exactly warm reception he receives

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.

A lyrical work that’s as bright and captivating as it is poignant.

In short, there’s no predetermined narrative at play in this concise and elegantly crafted road trip. The terrain it travels is one of open-ended questions, and the spark it ignites has a contrapuntal power.

A crucial, profound strength of Newtown is its refusal to rush toward “closure” as necessary, or even to suggest that it’s possible. There’s a striking lack of the bromides that usually abound in such contexts.

Uplifting without a drop of sap, the tale of a boy's obsession with a glittering swimming pool and how it changes four lives offers numerous pleasures and one of the most satisfying and resonant conclusions to be seen in recent cinema.

Inviting us to sit a while in this world of tradition, What We Leave Behind offers a vision of a good death as well as one of a good life. The time will go by quickly enough, and they both matter.

As a documentary subject, Hersh is thoroughly engaging — by turns charming, surly and vulnerable. He opens himself to the attention of filmmakers Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus with a sense of purpose, a bit of squirming, and occasional flares of regret.

Desert Road will surely invite repeat viewings to discern its hints and untangle its logic. More than that, within its very specific subgenre, this unlikely intersection of Memento and It’s a Wonderful Life just might prove an enduring classic.

The film’s bracing ground-level truths, by turns hopeful and despairing, challenge Beltway anxieties about the “porousness” of the border and shake up preconceived notions about Americans’ relationships with their southern neighbors.

Each scene, beneath its surface calm, throbs with longing, dislocation and intricately woven layers of time.

Without a drop of self-congratulatory "enlightenment," Land occupies a wild terrain of ineffable tenderness.

Revolving around friendships, the pleasures of summer sport and the nitty-gritty of jobs that seldom take center stage, it's a work of unforced charm, a neorealist marvel.

In its mix of remarkable archival material, the film is both tender and galvanizing, summoning up what New York felt like in 1972 (yes, I would know) and offering a fresh slant on a country’s upheaval and a generation’s countercultural awakening.