Steve Pond

Fahrenheit 11/9 grows slowly from an exhausting movie that is all over the map to a rousing one that makes a call to arms in troubled times.

Henson and Howard are a fine match, and the sort of film you’d expect Ron Howard to make – straightforward, skillful, honest and sympathetic – is pretty much the kind of movie you’d want about Jim Henson.

As befits its subjects, Marianne & Leonard is as much poetry as documentary — it’s a gentle, rhapsodic film, an emotional change of pace for its director and a moving portrait of a love that still resonates.

A curious little meditation on the extent to which humans will go to make connections, and on the commodification of everything up to and including love, it is a fascinating film that will never be confused with one of Herzog’s major works. But it nonetheless has moments of subtle and quintessentially Herzogian rhapsody.

At times, Mr. Jones has the gravity and grace to remind us of what an accomplished chronicler of 20th-century horror Agnieszka Holland can be. And at times, it goes off track in ways that sadly undercut both the gravity and the grace.

The film is a dark slice of neorealism with a palpable sense of claustrophobia that Ada feels in her life and in her family. But her relationship to what is essentially imprisonment is odd and complex; she seems desperate to get out and exercise some control of her life, but there are strange cracks in that desperation, signs that she’s terrified of what even a modicum of freedom and control might bring.

This is not Farhadi doing a genre exercise; as is most of his work, Everybody Knows is a quietly gripping examination of societal divisions, of class, of secrets that bind us together and pull us apart.

Cretton has made and will make subtler movies, but probably none that will prompt as many mid-screening rounds of applause.

In the end, Donnersmarck has it both ways: He’s sentimental and he’s provocative, a craftsman who has something to say and it going to take his time saying it.

Concrete Cowboy is an urban drama, but it’s also a glimpse of a world most of us never knew, and a richly evocative introduction to a strange new world that has been right under our noses all along.

Director Jono McLeod’s filmmaking itself is inventive and odd, and that’s almost enough – emphasis on the word almost – to make up for the fact that the story itself is something of a letdown.

It effectively makes the case for the startling musical genius of Brian Wilson, using celebrity testimony and musical examples to paint a clear portrait of the troubled songwriter, producer and singer as a protean pop creator. And the frustrating thing about “Long Promised Road” is that it makes that case and then keeps making it for an hour and a half.

For better and for worse, Carax never goes for half measures and Annette never stops being bold and weird.

The King of Staten Island can test the patience of all but fervid Davidson devotees, but it also manages to be an affecting comedy that moves softly through some dangerous territory.

The Way I See It is a marvelous portrait of Souza and of two administrations that not coincidentally also works as a scathing rebuke of Donald Trump. It is decidedly not a film for Trump fans, but others may well find themselves moved and saddened by the contrasts between then and now.

The Contestant wants you to be entertained and it wants you to feel bad about being entertained. It pretty much succeeds on both counts.

The heart of the film is in the connection between a 12-year-old boy and an 86-year-old woman, and Loren and Gueye make that relationship rich and touching enough to give life to the movie that surrounds it.

In this time for movies about teens in trouble, it’s the mom in this one who packs the biggest punch.

If you strip away the things that make this such an unusual release in such an unusual year, you’ll find a pretty good movie and one that approaches this story with heart and with fresh eyes.

A documentary that sends up more red flags than a MAGA rally, You Cannot Kill David Arquette is nonetheless a robust (albeit bloody) piece of entertainment. And it’s also a character study of a guy who’s revealing himself to us regardless of whether what we’re seeing is reality or construction.

Neugebauer, Lawrence and Henry deliver an unhurried gem that might feel slight but always feels right.

Pieces of a Woman is grounded and intensely personal. Much of that is due to the towering and heartbreaking performance by Kirby.

The tonal juggling act isn’t always seamless, but in a way, the contradictions are what give Roofman its life. It’s a sad movie, really, but it’s also a lot of fun. And if that doesn’t make sense, maybe it’s the whole point.

It’s unexpectedly touching and even lovely, a grandly sad benediction to people who don’t need no stinkin’ test to tell them who their soulmate is.

The pacing is far from what you’d expect in a Hollywood movie with this much action, which can make the film feel longer than its 116 minutes. But that rich languor and love of words is earned, and do you really want to tell Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche to hurry up? No. You. Do. Not.

It’s tricky to tell a feel-good story in a time in which many people are feeling anything but good, but “Becoming” film insists on doing just that.

The gender-driven power struggles in Widow Clicquot are in some ways the most conventional part of the film, which can soar in one moment and feel routine in the next.

The beats are too predictable — and even though the film tells a story we may not have known until now, the storytelling is too familiar.