Sheri Linden

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.

White's film is a love letter not just to Kelly and the Beatles, but also to postwar working-class Liverpool.

The historical overview they provide is insightful and lucid, yet their polished production intermittently lapses into dry chronology while they bury the lead.

As frank, discerning and eloquent as its subjects, The Woodmans is one of the most affecting art-themed documentaries.

A documentary that doesn't force-feed its message of hope but genuinely earns it.

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

The film's dark beauty and the quiet intensity of the performances have a discomforting pull.

Mohawk director Tracey Deer, who lived through the violent 78-day conflict as a 12-year-old, has made a film that's eye-opening. Beyond her firsthand understanding of indigenous people's struggles, she's keenly attuned to girlhood growing pains — well captured in the expressive and engaging performance by Kiawentiio, leading a strong cast.

Word-of-mouth should make it one of the best-performing nonfiction films of the year.

The lovely, unpredictable comedy Duck Season marks the arrival of a fresh talent in writer-director Fernando Eimbcke. His script is vibrant with unforced humanist observations, the performances are natural and endearing.

An appealingly low-rent, if not earth-shattering, 26th century "Star Wars" with faint glimmers of "Blade Runner," "Buckaroo Banzai" and "The Manchurian Candidate" for good measure.

Puts a human face on the failings of the American judicial system and the growing importance of DNA in legal proceedings.

Neither the screenplay nor the agile direction insists on neat resolutions for any of the characters, and there's a double-edged charge as the foursome make collective and individual progress, slide back and try again: the women recognizing each other in ways they otherwise never would have imagined, the half-sisters slowly becoming friends.

Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal tackle a tricky balancing act in their new feature, celebrating the intoxicating lilt of the bossa nova and also investigating the devastating brutality of state terrorism. It’s a testament to their talent as filmmakers that, for the most part, they manage to pull it off.

Flirting with sitcommy high jinks, Clark instead gives us a bittersweet cocktail of soul-weary defeat and unassuming vigor.

The central trio of actors deliver engaging, pitch-perfect work.

The fine, spirited work of Taraji P. Henson, Spencer and Janelle Monae as irresistible rooting interests, as well as Kevin Costner’s winningly lived-in turn as the head of Langley’s Space Task Group, deepen a film that’s propelled by sitcommy beats and expository dialogue.

The helmers don’t aim to be comprehensive. They achieve something better: a film that’s agile and alive — fitting for a portrait of a man who is driven to make art, however he can.

The place Beecroft stumbled upon is fueled by girl power, and the story she and her collaborators have created is wise and messy, keenly aware of the dark places at the margins as it burns bright with life.

Filmmakers Martha Shane and Lana Wilson, whose profiles in courage are sympathetic but not adulatory, have crafted an absorbing, thoughtful report.

But above all it's a portrait of stunned grief, of the devastation families endure, whether through violence, accidents, illness or incarceration.

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.

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.

Zeroing in on the art of rehearsal, Becoming Traviata is an exquisitely observed look at performance and the creative process.

It’s never dull. Without destroying the sheer poetry of the matchup between the pitcher’s mound and home plate, Hock explains it all, and in the process pays tribute to the extraordinary speed factor of a game that has been damned for its slowness.

Baya Medhaffar inhabits the role of Farah with a blazing exuberance that’s matched by a dynamic sense of place. Director Leyla Bouzid may struggle to shape her narrative in the final reels, but through most of its running time her first feature pulses with in-the-moment vitality.

The Crime Is Mine has a borderline-cartoonish buoyancy. If it’s not as funny as it wants to be, that’s because most of the characters are given a single note to play. But they do it with irresistible gusto.

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.