Simon Abrams

Nothing can give shape or closure to Cave—and that's OK. Watching him continue his ongoing search for existential answers is comfort enough.

To enjoy Days, you have commit to its earthy dream logic. It is an extraordinary movie; it is not an easy sit.

It's an unsettling, and sometimes high-concept doodle, but it's awfully hard to resist a film that marries Atomic Age paranoia and optimism with Kurosawa's signature post-modern, atmosphere-intensive style.

Yang's anti-nostalgic slice of 1960s Taipei life suggests a Tolstoy-size expansion of the ballads from Bruce Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town.

Ronit's remarkable sensitivity makes Gett a tough but essential melodrama.

The grisly post-torture-porn horror flick Incident in a Ghostland serves as an effectively punishing critique of the relentless misogyny that has become a staple of every stupid Texas Chain Saw Massacre knockoff that pits sexually active women against emotionally disturbed serial killers.

Warped keyhole-size images stack atop one another in a Frankenstein-ian collage that evokes the films of Terrence Malick, David Lynch, Stan Brakhage, and Bruce Conner. Seeing "the years [slip] out of [Bill's] head" in this 71-minute compendium is nothing short of revelatory.

A massive, imposing work of non-fiction filmmaking that demands attention despite also being the sort of artwork that doesn't really need any of our attention to be great. Like a monolith, this thing just is. It also just happens to be great, sometimes despite and sometimes because of its mega-sized breadth and scope.

Long Day's Journey Into Night forces viewers to be simultaneously hyper-aware and un-self-conscious about the fact that they are watching a movie that, in several scenes, is presented in real time.

While Thrash resembles a general-audience survival horror drama, its forgettable protagonists also frequently stop to reassure viewers—mostly through profanity-laced dialogue and occasional bursts of gore—that it’s okay to scoff at whatever they’re looking at.

At heart, Caught By the Tides is an experimental romantic drama, though that makes it sound unapproachable and a little gimmicky. It’s neither, thankfully, and that’s largely thanks to Jia’s typical focus on the material signs of time’s relentless passage.

There may be nothing new about America Underdog, but it’s still good enough, as far as non-perishable comfort food goes.

My Golden Days exists simultaneously within and outside of its characters' headspace, a testament to Deplechin's powers of imaginative sensitivity.

This movie's makers haven't met a formula cliché that they don't like.

One of those rare animated movies that transports you to a different setting without demanding that you focus on narrative or character development.

For me, One Cut of the Dead is good enough. It sometimes surprised me while I waited for a payoff that Ueda basically delivered, even if he and his collaborators never made me involuntarily leave my seat.

The film's flintiness and initially subdued nastiness set it apart from most other action films about the thin line separating cops from crooks.

This 43-year-old filmmaker is a major talent. Though he may not be the second coming of Fellini, his films all have a funny, refreshingly complex perspective, and his latest work is a perfect example of why he is the next big Italian thing.

Sun Choke is, after all, a melodrama, so you have to believe in Hagan's character. All of the impressionistic cinematography and special effects in the world couldn't save the film if you didn't care enough about Hagan's performance.

Visually splendid, but generically flat-footed, Song of the Sea is an animated fantasy that comes close to greatness, but is rarely as clever as it is comforting.

Trying to explain how this movie works as well as it does, without using excessive jargon or some kind of audiovisual aide, is tricky since “To the Ends of the Earth” isn’t about anything less than its heroine’s uncertain relationship with her foreign environment, and what she chooses to communicate simply by being seen and heard. Which is often thrilling to behold, but not so much to explain.

More often than not, Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins is a dire checklist of clichés that were already gathering moss back in the 1980s, when G.I. Joe was a popular children’s cartoon.

The Beasts may not be realistic, but it is genuinely eerie.

Viewers must ultimately draw their own conclusions about Chan's identity, making Chan Is Missing a classic, albeit unsolvable, brainteaser.

You never have to wonder or try to understand what the characters are feeling because they never stop telling you how to feel. The answer, invariably, is sad and fearful, but From Black is neither, really.

Watching The Lure is a bit like having manic depression—the thrilling high points are just as relentless as the crushing low-tide ebbs.

Higuchi and Anno not only deliver the genre movie goods but also deftly preserve their title character’s sugary purity. Rather than gigantify what was always juvenile material, Shin Ultraman allows the iconic character to retain his original shape and proportions. You and your dad are gonna love the new Ultraman movie.

Thankfully, despite its creators’ general fussiness, The Truffle Hunters is good enough, if only because guys like Carlo and Angelo are more charming than they are eccentric.

Harmonium is consistently about mood more than anything else. You sink into the film at first. Then, with each new leisurely introduced plot point, you struggle to regain your sense of calm since, after a while, the film's protagonists are doing the exact same thing.

Others may find In My Room to be a small gem thanks to Köhler’s eye for small details. He’s a keen image-maker; Armin’s story also resonates thanks to Köhler’s ear for naturalistic dialogue and novelistic detail, both of which serve the movie’s episodic narrative.

The Witch, a feminist narrative that focuses on an American colonial family as they undergo what seems to be an otherworldly curse, is more like a sermon.

This one stands out not only because it’s the fittingly agonizing climax to Wang’s trilogy but also for its sheer wealth of heartbreaking and totally convincing details.

An emotionally generous and expansively detailed romantic fantasy.

As we tag along with Haroun’s characters, we learn to appreciate their story as a small, but vivid study of lives that are so much more than their progressive developments.

Several of To's recent films concern economic upheaval and its effect on personal relationships, but Office is one of his recent best because it makes something as dire as a financial crisis seem like a natural subject for a modern musical.

The dual nature of “Babi Yar. Context” as both an essay movie and a cut-up historic document might create an uneasy tension with viewers who would like to know more about whatever they’re looking at. If nothing else, Loznitsa succeeds at being upsetting.

Việt and Nam only initially looks like something that you might expect to find on John Waters’ Best of the Year list. Soon enough the movie becomes a gentle romance about loving the dead.

Love remains distinct, given its unsparing view of people as flawed and not very sure of themselves.

The movie version of The Reason I Jump does not, in other words, successfully illustrate what its title promises, but rather generalizes about a sensitive topic to the point of inadvertently making it seem more unapproachable.

It’s not a hard movie to follow or fall for, as fans of Guiraudie’s earlier movies already know. He commands our attention even when his characters are either too ridiculous or too petty to be taken seriously.

No, what's most disquieting about It Follows is the way it presents sex as neither abnormal, nor beneficial.

Cave's soulful performance, shot in real-time and in extreme close-up, is that much more impressive once you realize he's playing a song for Forsyth and Pollard before he's performed it in front of a live audience.

RRR feels simultaneously personal and gargantuan in scope.

Is it good? Uh, well, kind of. Does it make sense? Hmm, er, ask me another. Is it worth seeing? Oh, absolutely.

Relaxer is a light, but moody comedy about an irredeemable loser who is too unwell to save himself. Imagine a deceptively optimistic comedy concerning a neurotic fish who's slowly circling his unwashed, slow-draining aquarium.

Labyrinth of Cinema is tremendously affecting, frequently beguiling, usually exhausting, and on, and on, and on.

Informative but tedious talking-head doc Our Man in Tehran is for anyone who watched Argo and then wished to hear a ditzy, history-obsessed uncle ramble about the real-life political stakes of the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis.

There’s more atmosphere than plot in the Romanian drama Intregalde, a moody parable that sometimes feels like the Eastern European arthouse response to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Infini doesn't go anywhere that superior science fiction films haven't already, but for a while, it's exciting enough to feel brand-new.

The unexpectedly impressive nature documentary Pandas is so visually dynamic that even the most pedantic (think Neil deGrasse Tyson level) skeptics will probably not mind listening to narrator Kristen Bell — speaking for writer–co-director Drew Fellman — rattle off 43 minutes’ worth of cutesy panda trivia.

The characters in this film are defined by motives that are small enough to be relatable, and actions that are big enough to be inspiring.

Yamazaki’s style, like his movie’s politics, only looks conservative when compared to his predecessors. He made a good Godzilla movie, if not a great one.

The climax of Godland feels conclusive in ways that the rest of Pálmason’s mystery play does not, making one wish that there was an extra hour or two between its beginning and the very end.

There's so much detail and such a clear sense of dramatic proportion that it almost doesn't matter that the movie doesn't resolve itself traditionally or with a full stop. You can still get a clear sense of how time moves for the workers in Zhili in "Youth (Homecoming)" without necessarily knowing what comes next.

Like a great amusement park ride, Shaun the Sheep Movie is consistently enjoyable.

It’s a series of comedic sketches about people who are too self-involved to empathize with each other. It’s also a plaintively blunt wake-up call, and an effective demand for viewers' vigilant sensitivity.

Strickland frequently tests viewers’ patience, but his off-putting sensibility is powerful enough to make In Fabric as mesmerizing as its subject: salesmanship as a sinister, inescapable form of hypnosis.

South Korean horror-mystery hybrid The Wailing crosses that line several times, but somehow remains effectively atmospheric.

It’s a character-driven drama populated by sketchy characters who are mostly compelling thanks to the movie’s strong ensemble cast and Haugerud’s typically sensitive direction. So unfortunately, the suggestive power of Johanne’s journey fades as the movie slowly heads to its inconclusive finale.

Unassumingly powerful details make The Guardians one of the year’s most affecting love stories.

I dislike much of Mirai because most of the film's Kun-centric scenes (which take up 90% of the movie) are split between the character's un-imaginative daydreams and his full-blast fits.

Schwarz piles on more than enough damning interview footage to support his and Katz’s case, making Tantura a better-than-average work of docu-agitprop.

Viewers are not privileged with a more thoughtful, specific view of the institutionalized problems that Sudanese natives face because Sauper's not interested in making that kind of film.

A typical Hong character performs the same actions over and over again, with minor, but noticeably different results.

Claire's Camera is, like many of Hong's best comedies before it, amusing without necessarily being laugh-out-loud funny.

In his impressive debut feature, writer/director Jason Yu strikes a fine balance between character-driven and high-concept horror.

Imagine, if you will, a dystopian nightmare set in a post-industrialized world that’s forever teetering on its last legs, but never quite falls over. This description does not, admittedly, tell you much, but the movie’s less of a narrative-driven parable than a dazzling and corrosively cynical vision of a hyper-compartmentalized society that’s struggling to both die and reset.

Zlotowski’s stylized depiction of Rachel’s life is overly fastidious. Many creative decisions, from the score to the camera blocking, took me out of the movie. Instead of a complex character processing involved, compound emotions, I saw a talented filmmaker lightly touch upon a range of emotions while also studiously avoiding dramatic clichés and stereotypes.

The horrors of Demon are disturbing because you can see how ordinary they might seem to anyone who isn't paying enough attention.

The film’s fast-slow-fast pacing not only gives psychological weight to Benson’s unabashedly pulpy scenario but also constantly keeps viewers on their toes.

The Great Buddha+ is one of those movies that's much more rewarding to think about than it is to watch.

There’s a great—or maybe just better—drama somewhere in the pre-WWII Japanese period drama Wife of a Spy, a low-simmering psychological thriller about Satoko Fukahara (Yu Aoi) and her mysterious husband Yusaku (Issey Takahashi).

More detailed critical or historical context might have enhanced director Amanda Kim’s already informative and loving portrait of Korean video artist Nam June Paik. But there’s so much in Kim’s movie—especially in actor Steven Yeun’s voiceover narration and talking head interviews with Paik’s colleagues and contemporaries—that this account of Paik’s working life still resonates.

While zombie drama Maggie seems intended as a showcase for Arnold Schwarzenegger's acting range, the star's performance is smothered by the film's deeply affected style.

Art College 1994 is unassumingly sweet because it’s about young people and their eternal quest for freedom and self-expression, mostly inside their own navels.

Thankfully, while “Monster” depends on dramatic irony and revelatory twists, it’s also a showcase for director Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose knack for collaboration brings out the best in his actors, especially his younger cast members.

You have to take the bad with the good here: Green Room may be too schematic to fully capture the essence of its characters' groddy milieu, but it's also economically paced, and gorgeous.

Baahubali: The Epic may not deliver a better edit or experience, but it does highlight what was already great, especially once it settles into a groove following a ten-minute intermission break. By that point, most of the cuts have already been made, leaving the leisurely pageantry of Rajamouli’s regal milestone to speak for itself and at its own preferred volume, too.

In theory, that sort of self-victimization could be funny; in this reality, not so much.

If you are willing to suspend your disbelief for 132 minutes, you may find yourself head-over-heels for this film's brand of gross, thoughtful pulp fiction.

"Bird on a Wire" is a time capsule of a specific period in Cohen's career. But it also neatly illustrates the singer's personality in an accessible and compelling way. It's that rare concert doc that isn't for established fans only.

The maddeningly unfocused Israeli documentary West of the Jordan River doesn’t reveal anything insightful about Gaza settlers’ reasons for either supporting or rejecting a two-state solution.

You may have seen parts of The Age of Shadows before, but they're rarely this well assembled.

A cynical, and consistently unpleasant film with creators who try very, very hard to push as many of your buttons as they can.

Chan seems to do everything he can think of to ingratiate himself with viewers.

The East is essentially divided into two halves, and neither is more illuminating than the other.

Pathological behavior seems to be the main subject of the bitter Ukrainian satire Donbass, an unpleasant, but as-advertised slice of life drama set in the title region, an embattled territory in Eastern Ukraine.

Endless Poetry is as galvanizing as a lightning rod because it's equally accepting, and intolerant, a pro-individualist work about celebrating and cultivating yourself.

The most impressive thing about “Barbarian” is that Cregger keeps developing his twisty plot well after he sets everything up. Messing with viewers seems to be his guiding dramatic principal, from playful camerawork to unpredictable plot twists. Bless ‘im.

Fistful of Vengeance is a movie in duration only; it’s pretty slapdash in terms of its execution, even during its glossy-looking action set pieces.

Too bad that Ardor's arrhythmic editing and glacial pacing make it impossible to get lost in its jungles — or to invest in its pseudo-mystical ambiance.

Writer/director Liu Jian has taken familiar stylistic elements, and made them feel fresh, and exciting. Have a Nice Day may be Jian's second feature after "Piercing I," but it feels like a major breakthrough.

Bitterly funny gambling comedy Mississippi Grind transcends its generic lovable-losers-on-a-bender plot by foregrounding exceptionally well-developed skid-row protagonists and weirdly charming dive-bar ambiance.

Yuasa's adaptation of Furukawa’s book is half-thrilling and half-underwhelming.

The makers of Evolution may dazzle viewers with an intoxicating visual style, but they never lose sight of Nicolas' humanity. Do not miss this film.

Watching Douglas behave like a narcissistic scumbag is an absolute pleasure, one in which viewers of action-adventure Beyond the Reach can happily indulge.

The makers of Black Souls, a superior Italian gangster movie, deserve praise for executing with atypical sensitivity a generic times-are-changing/nostalgia-for-an-imaginary-chivalrous-yesteryear scenario.