Sheri Linden

Waiting for August" is an impressive, if muted, debut documentary.

Poehler’s telling is energized by a personal edge, searing and sympathetic, as it traces career struggles, creative breakthroughs and formative sorrows.

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.

With its lyrical sense of place and terrific lead duo of Johnston and Rene Cruz, it's a strong example of low-budget regional filmmaking.

Without becoming a screed for victims' rights, the riveting film shows how in the face of terrible events a grieving parent is galvanized into activism.

The proportions of the narrative strands sometimes feel off, but the movie pulses with the unpredictability of full-blooded characters.

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.

Peck celebrates Abargil as an impassioned and inspiring advocate while making clear the emotional complexities of her single-mindedness.

As “Hitchcock” notes, his movies have been analyzed every which way and back again. Cousins’ fresh approach divides the work into six sections, an elegant capsule melding existential questions with the practical challenges and opportunities of big-screen storytelling.

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.

The result is a riveting portrait, one that doesn't quite dispel what's maddening about Dolezal.

Fireball delivers the cosmic goods.

The excellent film combines a wealth of archival material with the reminiscences of an unforgettable group of octogenarian women who were champion swimmers when Hitler annexed Austria in 1938.

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

In his first narrative feature, documentarian Nitzan Gilady demonstrates an assured grasp of visual storytelling, using a stunningly rugged desert setting that’s as much a character as the film’s perpetually sunny, intellectually challenged 24-year-old and her world-weary mother.

A few bumpy patches notwithstanding, the new feature is an exquisitely designed, emotionally absorbing work of dark enchantment.

A well-made and entertaining descent into a black-comic hell.

With its focus on intimate detail, Off Label is not a conventional "issue film" reaching for conclusions. Palmieri and Mosher have taken on a huge and urgent topic, and their work's impact rests on their refusal to tell viewers how to feel.

A vibrant, affecting piece of filmmaking that’s sure to widen Hesse's following.

The result is a type of cinematic performance art, with all the self-consciousness that suggests — a sibling love story that's no less heartfelt for being in the form of a first-person poem.

Through the Night is both celebration and indictment. A sympathetic depiction of "women's work," in all its unsung dignity, it's also a quietly damning portrait of a merciless economy's effect on working-class mothers — particularly black women and Latinas, who often must work taking care of other people's children in order to feed their own.

Mam's camera work is exquisite in its immediacy and agility. One of the most striking aspects of her film is the intimacy it achieves without feeling intrusive or turning her subjects into fodder for a message.

Beneath the well-worn dysfunctional-family setup are bracing observations of the human coping mechanism. Startling expressions of longing and denial go off like detonations within the quietest of exchanges.

Nimbly avoiding the excesses of melodrama and the recessiveness of mumblecore, Chan and his likably low-key cast navigate hairpin turns from drama to comedy to outright farce with an impressive sense of proportion.

Twilight is a procedural with little procedure and, by design, no satisfying answers. The mood it builds is soul-shaking.

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.

Sympathetic and perceptive.

The directors never lose sight of the struggles and the hard work that go along with his calling.