Sheri Linden

The movie has the taut efficiency of a well-constructed crime thriller, while its real-world underpinnings play out with a less convincing sense of urgency.

Letting questions remain unanswered and silences go unfilled, Rohrwacher offers lovingly crafted glimpses of an enterprise we all engage in, regardless of whether we've ever been near a beehive: extracting sweetness from the materials at hand.

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.

Rock ’n’ roll mythologizing is one of the subjects of Squaring the Circle and Have You Got It, but it’s not their method. Rather than reaching for a neat or aggrandizing summing-up, they grapple with the passage of time and the perspective it brings.

Though its dark riches can at moments feel like overload, and its narrative thrust occasionally grows diffuse, the story casts an undeniable spell.

Sympathetic and perceptive.

In this film about war, told by those who survived it, it’s war’s futility that rings loud and clear.

The result is a character-driven mystery of considerable emotional power, often harrowing and always compelling.

Aatsinki is a work of cinéma vérité of the highest order: vivid, immersive and unflinching.

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

Supplementing the interviews with well-chosen archival material, Hanks assembles a capsule history of the music biz and youth culture.

Like his previous feature, "Jealousy," the film is shot in sumptuous black-and-white and revolves around artistic Parisians. But in its elegant almost threadbare simplicity, it's a more effective story, anchored by three persuasive performances and a sly sense of irony.

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 film is an exploration of art as a way through immense and complex emotions. It is unexpectedly a breathtaking reminder of life's joys — in nature, in friendship and, in a particularly buoyant scene, in the bark of a deceased friend's poodle.

At the film's heart is a fitful conversation that unfolds like a string of koans, epigrams, jokes and silences.

Touch the Sound is at least as inspiring and in some ways more rewarding, thought-provoking and subtly visceral.

With artistic flourishes, N.C. Heikin’s documentary portrait fits the exceptional life story into a biographical boilerplate that covers the general trajectory and turning points.

Working in an improvisatory vein, in actual locations rather than constructed sets, writer-director Dominic Savage gives this story of a married woman's despair and awakening a powerful, lived-in immediacy. It's also the story of a man's struggle to understand his wife's pain, and the tortured, tender chemistry between leads Arterton and Dominic Cooper is profoundly affecting, at times shattering.

Immediate Family is an affectionate and insightful group portrait and a sweet jolt of nostalgia for boomers — but more than that, it’s time well spent with delightful subjects who played crucial roles in shaping the popular music of a ground-shifting era.

Much like the father-son bond at its center, the comic drama is warmhearted but never cloying.

A work of powerful humanism.

Posing serious questions about violence and vigilantism while reveling in both, Captain America: Civil War is overlong but surprisingly light on its feet. It builds upon the plotlines of previous Avengers outings, bringing together known marquee quantities and introducing the Black Panther and a new Spidey in winning fashion.

At once a satire of artistic pretensions and a tantalizing character study, Late Fame isn’t focused on big cathartic moments, and its third-act cataclysms are almost anticlimactic. But there’s a satisfying depth to it, and the movie abounds in exquisite grace notes

The rivalrous power dynamic between Jones and frontman Jagger is captured in brilliant subtlety in the glances between them during an impromptu interview. But the deeper throughline of The Stones and Brian Jones involves the primal wound of a prodigal son.

[An] exquisite and gripping documentary.

At the end of Gutiérrez’s fine film, you likely will feel the spell of a remarkable person’s company.

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

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