Sheri Linden

The spectacular combination of slapstick, love story and superhero antics doesn't entirely avoid awkwardness, but mostly it defies gravity, like many of the stunts.

In their matter-of-fact toughness and mostly unshakable composure, Knightley and Coon are riveting as their characters navigate boys’ club politics and newsroom dynamics — and Cooper provides a superb foil with his thoroughly lived-in embodiment of a newsman undergoing a reluctant awakening.

With the same clarity and fluency he brought to far sunnier material in “Casting By,” Donahue pinpoints the devastating intersection of personal trauma and institutional neglect in an age of perpetual war.

A vibrant example of hybrid nonfiction filmmaking, using hand-drawn animation, live action, home movies and newsreels in a rich synthesis of personal and historical memory.

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

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.

As repellent as Lucy's story can be, its mystery has a seductive sway, and it does add up to more than the sum of its insistently elliptical parts.

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.

There isn’t a predictable or hackneyed exchange in the drama, which understands not just the immense challenges its characters face but also the throwaway humor that can be essential to a family’s connective tissue.

Fake Case assumes a certain familiarity with Ai and his work — explored more thoroughly in Alison Klayman's "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry." But as a follow-up and a companion piece to that 2012 documentary, Johnsen's new work is remarkably intimate and astute.

It's an adrenaline rush of a film.

Greene is concerned with Western mythology and the interplay of past and present in Bisbee's self-dramatization. His intense focus on individuals can feel limiting in terms of the overall truth-and-reconciliation dynamic, but it also leads to some powerful moments. And the story's contemporary resonance couldn't be clearer.

Attanasio has made a sharp, affecting film that's brimming with darkness and hope, every instant of it vividly alive.

The unhurried film is a beauty. Shooting digitally — a first for Jarmusch and a paradox for a movie that so ardently celebrates the artisanal — cinematographer Yorick Le Saux uses nocturnal lighting to eloquent effect. The titular lovers are beauties too, soulful and captivating. Swinton and Hiddleston make their love story one for the ages.

Notwithstanding the talking-head commentary of friends, colleagues and exes, this is very much a first-person story, taking its narrative cues from Fonda's self-searching 2005 autobiography.

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.

A dazzling introduction, both immersive and sweeping, to one of the planet’s oldest primates (who knew?).

As its title suggests, the movie embraces generic types, but smart writing, unforced direction and a superb cast give the sentimental-but-not-gushy comic drama the messy specifics and narrative friction to lift it well beyond been-there-done-that.

The movie is, by and large, smarter than the gross-out tactics that pass for hilarity in many mainstream adult comedies.

If it struggles to find a rhythm, especially in the early going, there’s no question that it sends you off on a gentle high.

Keener's performance riveting.

At its plainspoken best, the U.S.-and Thailand-shot film is an eye-opening history lesson more than an atmospheric thriller. It's nonetheless chilling as it exposes the machinations between countries with no official relationship.

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.

This movie’s dazzle is all about the chemistry of its powerhouse quartet and the potential for comic sparks, and on that front, the starry huddle of Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno and Sally Field delivers.

A spirited comic drama, toplined by Moore's lovely performance.

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.

The film is faithful to the book's tone of dark ache and much of its detail and for the most part terrifically cast. But Towne can't overcome an essential challenge of the material: Arturo and Camilla are constructs and ciphers as much as they are vivid characters -- difficult roles, to be sure. Neither the screenplay nor the actors manage to get far under their skin.

Marques-Marcet, co-writer Clara Roquet and the actors are alert to something less obvious: the ways that they become self-conscious performers. Even though the characters aren't always likable, their pained awareness is poignant.