Sheri Linden

The documentary Stolen Seas is not just a high-energy chronicle of a ship's hijacking; Thymaya Payne's bold debut feature steps back for a view of Somali piracy that's both broader and more incisive than most mainstream news coverage.

Soechtig puts mainstream clout to work to deliver a hard-hitting message. Her mix of archival material, punchy graphics and concise talking-head commentary traces a troubling modern history.

A compellingly unconventional, elliptical sports documentary that explores the mysterious realm of might-have-been.

The film is an impressive and affecting entry in the growing body of work addressing the effects of keeping wild animals in captivity.

In its hard-hitting depiction of a legacy of unspeakable brutality, this film shows that the ghosts of Leopold are alive and well.

A handsome and achingly sad period piece, a finely observed portrait of cast-aside dreams. The drama is quieter and more chaste than the similarly themed "Camille Claudel," but no less haunting.

There isn’t a false note in any of the film’s performances, and within its brief running time, writer-directors Mario Furloni and Kate McLean infuse this story of the changing culture and economics of pot production with an anguished depiction of generational displacement.

It’s the journo’s open gaze and natural inquisitiveness, his refusal to merely demonize his abusers, that give the film its discomforting power.

The drama's moments of cinematic power more than compensate for the slow-moving stretches that don't connect, and its characters will stay with viewers long after the lights go up.

The familiar suburban terrain is enriched by Holofcener's knack for turning offhand moments into piercing ones and, especially, by a magnificently off-center Ben Mendelsohn.

What unfolds is a match of artistic intellects, thrilling to behold not just for its dynamic array of topics — religion, the Oedipal complex, revolution and, above all, what it means to be a filmmaker — but also for its public unveiling after half a century gathering cobwebs in Welles' celluloid archives.

Though it’s strictly for the faithful, the tween-friendly mix of cute and earnest has a forthright sharpness and is never cloying.

Directors Menachem Daum and Oren Rudavsky may not solve Israeli-Palestinian animosities, but they find illuminating angles of exploration for one of the world’s most intractable conflicts.

Though it's not entirely satisfying, the loose-limbed feature exerts a genial pull in its offhand exuberance.

The carefully laid foundation of suspense and dread, with its symmetries and crisp dialogue, is squandered in a clumsy pileup of credulity-stretching cataclysmic events.

A choppily told tribute to the Apollo astronauts that makes striking use of never-before-seen archival images.

With its grasp of suspense and character, it hits the mark as a portrait of openhearted determination that's devoid of desperation.

Sokurov's open-ended Eurocentric meditation is, above all, a stunning visual achievement. The fluency with which he combines the pixels, ghosts and artifacts is extraordinary, and his deft use of drone footage is a lesson to many gadget-happy filmmakers.

In Chadwick Boseman, it has a galvanic core, a performance that transcends impersonation and reverberates long after the screen goes dark.

Key to the strength of Big Sonia is its refusal to give in to easy bromides. Its use of animation to illustrate Sonia’s memories spins off her own artful drawings in a way that amps the sense of unspeakable horror rather than sugarcoating it.

Despite confusing information about the role of diet and lifestyle, The Widowmaker is a lucid and important work of advocacy journalism. It illuminates yet another way that mainstream medicine thrives on crisis rather than health.

In the charming comedy-parable Ushpizin, religious orthodoxy inspires not unbending dogma but humble, sometimes baffled spiritual striving by its embraceable, flawed characters.

You don’t have to be an animation buff to appreciate the chances this stirring saga takes.

Jillian Schlesinger’s first feature, made in collaboration with Dekker and composed largely of footage that the hardy adventurer shot herself, is both low-key and lyrical as it focuses on the mundane and the magnificent.

What resonates beyond the brawls and blood is a profound affection for the people onscreen — those grace notes provided by a fine cast, with Jodie Comer and Tom Hardy stirring undercurrents that are particularly affecting precisely because they’re never explicitly examined or explained.

Amid the verisimilitude of location shooting and a cast of mostly nonprofessionals playing fictionalized versions of themselves, Carpignano inserts poetic touches.

Rodeo is a combustible fusion of crime story, character study and existential mystery, a tale of celebration and lament, and it announces the arrival of a gifted and adventurous filmmaker.

Blank City may not be groundbreaking, but it's vibrant and well researched.