Teo Bugbee

The activists of this film, including al-Kateab herself, don’t speak in the language of philosophers or politicians. Their quotidian aspirations — to build a garden, to send their children safely to school — demonstrate the brutality of the government’s response, but they also invite viewers to picture themselves in the shoes of these modest political dissidents.

Mr. King and his excellent team of actors and animators spin good writing and seamless digital effects into Rococo children’s entertainment. The gags don’t accumulate; they tessellate.

Warner’s story is inspirational but intricate, and this wan film struggles to balance simple storytelling with the complexities of the sport.

The film’s most impressive quality is its nuanced understanding of how political circumstances create different spheres of life.

Milla is a major achievement, a film that is at once as delicate as it is strong, a fitting testament to motherhood, to survival.

The film succeeds in presenting an on-the-ground view of what it felt like to be inside a hospital in the spring of 2020. It was harrowing, death was everywhere and there was no end in sight.

Fuhrman’s performance matches the filmmaking for its intensity. The movie achieves a surreal allure — at times, it’s hard to pay attention to the dialogue because the images and the sound design are already communicating so much.

It’s a confident debut feature, and a sophisticated acknowledgment of the powerlessness that migrants face.

Every moment is as cringe-worthy and creative as Eugene’s floating toupee. Movies about the millennial moment are multitudinous, but Wobble Palace is special: a sendup of broke-artist types that shimmers with abashed affection.

By seesawing between bland normalcy and hellishness, Lobo denies his audience the immersive horror that his film’s best images promise.

At first, Rosie’s simplicity is jarring. But as the character learns more about her personal and poetic origins, her minimalist frame absorbs the weight of a rich, complex history. That transformation is the great pleasure of watching this small film.

It’s a style so minimalist, it approaches maximalism — and this combination of pulp and precision creates an arresting and unique work of film noir.

In mirroring the gaze of his professorial subjects, Brown rewards audiences with a film that happily weds the scientific and the cinematic.

The actress Jordana Spiro directed Night Comes On and wrote the script with Angelica Nwandu, a spoken-word poet and creator of the incisive gossip website The Shade Room. Ms. Nwandu is also a former client of the foster care system. The result of their partnership is a film that balances penetrating clarity with compassion.

It’s an intriguing interpretation of adolescent discovery, one that uses horror to suggest the dread that comes with finding a sense of self.

The movie lacks the gut punch of live theater, the thrill or discomfort of watching people show their feelings in real time. But as cinema, it demonstrates the effectiveness of simplicity. A well-written script and an exemplary cast can still produce a movie worth watching.

This is a passion project in the best sense of the word, a movie in which the ingenuity and dedication of the filmmakers illuminate the same qualities in their subjects.

The movie abounds with imagination, but is unfortunately too unnerving — even nauseating — to enjoy.

It falls on the performances to add subtle touches to the narrative’s broad strokes. George is admirably warm as the earthbound Hazel, and Dorff suggests the selfishness of his character’s selfless desperation.

The greatest asset of the film is its ability to simulate the intimacy of disclosure, and Blair’s comfort with the camera — her actress-y will to entertain — makes her a uniquely endearing subject.

The film’s coherence is a reflection of both the skill of the filmmaker, and the heroic efforts of Aurora herself to ensure that her view of history would not be forgotten.

Thanks to its lovable subjects, Science Fair nails the presentation, but its research is only surface deep.

What begins as a movie with two protagonists almost imperceptibly evolves into a movie with just one — a touching demonstration of how narratives that seem inevitably intertwined can unravel.

With each successive trip to the grim vaults, the hard-won dignity of the film’s transgender speakers is brought into sharper and sharper relief.

Most important, Daniella, Koko, Liyah and Dominique provide a record of their own extraordinary lives, one that resonates with clarity and compassion.

The movie plays like a well-crafted game, one with stable rules and safeties, perfectly enjoyable but limited. The director and the performers circle ideas about how intimacy can be manipulated to satisfy artistic ambitions, but the experiment feels easy to leave behind.

Chile ’76 is a sly genre exercise, an example of how political repression can squeeze a domestic melodrama until it takes the shape of a spy thriller.

The light provides wordless, and conveniently apolitical, explanation for why a person might endure nearly three decades (or in cinematic terms, nearly three hours) without action.

The cinematography is often grainy, and occasionally Banua-Simon’s choice of interview subjects feels unfocused or repetitive. But there is tremendous educational and moral value in his overview of the history of Kauai.

Without tactical, philosophical or emotional grounding, the battle scenes don’t land with any cinematic force.

The film benefits from its choice of subjects, as Wall, Gallo and Weigel are all endearing and deeply informed.

The writer and director, Charlène Favier, had previous experience as a competitive skier, and she is attentive to the textures of mountainside sports and how abuse plays out in this setting.

Marona has three real homes in her life, and past abandonments have taught her that heartbreak waits in every happiness. But fortunately, the film stays buoyant through its unique, boisterous animation.

As a resource for those looking to understand the process of recovery, it’s hard to imagine a more comprehensive or sympathetic look at the challenge of surviving.

The stories that Ms. Adrion elicits may be infuriatingly recognizable to women who work in many fields. But if there is a missing element in her analysis, it is the effect that sexism has on these women’s artistry, not only their livelihoods.

The movie is generous about allowing Mercado to present his view of the world in his own words, but it’s a shame not to be able to see the world through his eyes.

Martone’s depiction of crime is at once expressive and economic, a world of danger boiled down to pregnant pauses and minute gestures.

This is a dry comedy that elicits amused recognition rather than belly laughs, and Ulman, as a first-time feature director, makes canny decisions to set a wry tone.

The narrative drifts, but the alienation communicated by the movie’s images feels purposeful and striking.

The performances from the film’s young cast members are uniformly excellent, including Owen Campbell as Zach and Charlie Tahan as Josh. But the direction from Mr. Phillips is what makes Super Dark Times unusual.

Both Lysette and Clarkson are naturally magnetic actors, and they don’t waste the attention they’re given on excess sentimentality.

In satisfying fashion, Slut in a Good Way recognizes the potential for cruelty that exists as teenagers experiment and learn through sex, but its portrait of adolescence never feels less than loving.

This is the first fictional film directed by the documentarian Tracey Deer, and she brings a good eye for which characters might make a compelling story.

The movie doesn’t make a joke of Sunny and Lupe’s concerns about pregnancy, dating and parental expectations, and in turn, it’s a delight to laugh through their goofier exploits.

Jumping between wildly dissimilar styles makes for an occasionally jarring film. Yet despite this awkwardness, the movie works.

At times, all of the secrecy and legal caution can make it hard to understand the complex logistics of getting a legal abortion in the United States. But the risks involved are bracingly apparent, and the documentary benefits from its attempts to capture Plan C’s high-stakes operation in progress.

If the team was derided by their prejudiced (and defeated) foes in the moment of their success, this documentary elegantly restores the glow of legend, saving the champions the trouble of having to explain their heroism in words.

The remembrances are the movie’s heart — not a family secret, but a community’s pride.

This is an irreverent film, but its lightness is meaningful. With each silly flourish, Olnek offers joy and companionship to a figure whose history was more conveniently presented to generations of readers as solitary.

It is a warm and generous portrait, but the film lacks its central organizer’s propulsive shrewdness.

In stylish and entertaining fashion, Five Fingers for Marseilles looks over the South African countryside and finds fresh vistas for the western genre.

The film’s deaf subjects feel creatively and philosophically shortchanged.

The reward for waiting for the fog to lift is a movie that presents a unique take on science fiction, one that looks for the ghosts that linger on in a world that has been shaped by technology.

As our window into a world lost to violence, Suzu gives us the chance to see rabbits in rivers, though her rosy view obscures history’s shadows with a preponderance of golden light.

Miron avoids easy conclusions about what drives Kathy, and he stays with her long enough for her story to surprise. The reward of his patience is a psychological portrait that develops mystery the more it reveals.

Bell imbues Brittany with humanity and wit, but all too frequently she is working within the framework of a story that seems hellbent on robbing her character of joy.

An unconventional labor story, the movie doesn’t bask in the triumph of rebellion; instead, it’s an introspective portrait of men for whom working is a replacement for living.

Both films are conventional in cinematic style, and they constitute the kind of feel-good entertainment that is easy to recommend. But what is timely and interesting — even thorny — about these films is their focus on the economic opportunities generated by athletic achievement

This is a respectful tribute that is a shade too morally and cinematically safe in its execution.

Never short on visual or emotional wonder, Big Fish & Begonia contemplates mortality with the imagination of an old soul who has been given new eyes.

At times, the film is hampered by the sheer amount of information there is to condense from across a 50-year career, but Hardison is never less than a fascinating subject — an artist whose medium is industrial disruption.

What the movie showcases best from its subjects, then, is the humor and ease of women who have survived a lifetime of setbacks and strife. Fanny has already proven itself — what’s left is for us to enjoy its growing catalog.

Rockwell intentionally reminds his audience of the rich history of American independent cinema, where filmmakers across decades have built dreamscapes out of the textures of everyday interactions.

The film is moving for the intimacy it depicts, an archive as unlikely as the love story itself.

Thematically shallow but stylistically rich, Thirst Street is best enjoyed with a hint of its heroine’s willfully superficial vision.

The film is invested in accurately depicting the details of its character’s lives, but its collection of studied impressions doesn’t coalesce into a coherent final portrait.

The young cast proves deft with the film’s clever script, by Alison Peck (based on the 2005 novel by Fiona Rosenbloom), and the director Sammi Cohen indulges the virgin-mojito passions of preteens while avoiding nostalgia, thankfully.

Sonia is a powerful subject, but Big Sonia brings little perspective to her story.

This is canny, passionate filmmaking, a reminder of the power of two-dimensional animation. First, it humanizes, then it astounds.

For the most part, LaBruce tries to maintain fidelity to the idea that camp is best performed straight. If keeping up the pretense of unwinking entertainment causes the pace to drag at times, at least this movie never fails to follow through on its scandalous promise.

The reward of Mr. Zwart’s attention to the unique details of this historical account is that Jan’s path to safety frequently shocks, offering scenes of defiance that are unfamiliar or unexpected. In a familiar genre, The 12th Man preserves the element of surprise by understanding its terrain.

The most successful sequences are the ones that find new ways of illustrating the meaning of a poem besides lingering on the face of the performer uttering purposefully syncopated and painstakingly intonated lines.

Every frame is flush with warm, saturated color, and the vibrant quality of the images conveys joyous generosity. The most poignant appeal of this movie is the feeling it creates of being welcomed into a family that radiates all things bright and good.

The film, which was written and directed by Casimir Nozkowski, sets an easy pace to match Charles’s mild ennui. The only problem is that the movie doesn’t supplement its lack of stakes with style or substance.

Fiennes brings the fire, yet the air around him remains unmoved, even by his embers.

[A] beautiful but frustratingly shallow Disneynature documentary.

In a resolute acknowledgment of the oppression that too many young women face at home, the film portrays the family structure as the enforcing unit of feminine docility. Here, love is another form of bondage.

Selah and the Spades shimmers with youthful promise, both in front of the camera and behind it.

The movie practically vibrates with its own meta tension.

The documentary reminds its audience that it’s impossible to truly know people based on their responses to medical interviews. But this approach unfortunately prevents the film from achieving either catharsis or understanding.

Here is a movie that presents an intelligent vision of nature. What’s pleasing to the eye is pleasing to the earth — a sentiment the film rigorously supports with science.

The repetition of the visions and the film’s deliberate pace gives the audience too much time to guess which betrayals haunt Babak and Neda, and this lack of emotional suspense hampers the horror.

These features of city life feed a sense of realism, as does the film’s warmly-lit and intimately framed cinematography. But that realism here is exhausting, even if it is well-intentioned — by the film’s end, even Feña seems ready to escape from the trial of his packed plotlines.

In absence of a bold visual style, the performers are tasked with providing the movie with its energy.

The contrast between Caleb and Estha remains the movie’s greatest asset. Their relationship grants room for the audience to witness and appreciate their differences, not just culturally, but as fully drawn individuals.

The film allows its societies to speak through gestures, whether it is the passing of personal possessions after a death or the brush of bodies behind a bar, and its portrait of both Jewishness and queerness is richer for it.

Like a diploma, it’s easy to imagine how the rewards of this carefully observed documentary could accrue with a little time.

The repetition of verbal and visual storytelling points to the limited scope of this film. A Cops and Robbers Story explores Pegues’s split loyalties, but the talking head interviews tend to isolate characters whose very intimacy is the subject of the film.

White and Monroe demonstrate natural chemistry, and they discretely suggest the private experiences of their characters, the youthful doubts that can’t be extinguished by passion. In unpretentious fashion, After Everything portrays the bittersweetness of a first love that blooms in crisis.

It’s a zippy, entertaining approach that offers a surprising degree of insight into the psychology that produced the GameStop phenomenon. Investors played with serious money, but their mind-set was a farcical dive into hyperspace — a week of gambling in a cyber-Vegas that, for some, was worth the hangover.

Storm Boy tries to present itself as a modern fable, where the lessons learned relate directly to present-day concerns over the environment, industrialization and the marginalization of indigenous cultures. But these themes come across as didactic rather than moving.

To the film’s credit, the central relationship remains realistically drawn — a teenage courtship that’s marked by misunderstandings and mood swings. The characters aren’t always sweet, but they never feel phony.

Where many coming-of-age films build their stories around the discovery of a fixed selfhood, “Giant Little Ones” succeeds when it chooses to treat youthful identity as open to shift with accumulated experience.

As is perhaps appropriate, given the comic occupations of the Reynolds (and the Elliott) family, this unusual, unsettling and terrific little film presents itself not as a domestic opera, but as a family comedy.

What’s fascinating is Arquette’s vulnerability, both emotionally and physically.

The observant nature of this character drama offers Zahn in particular the opportunity to expand into new territory. He hasn’t lost the spaciness that once made him a lovable comedic sidekick, but here fatherhood endows that same charm with pathos, even tragedy.

For audiences who don’t mind being jealous of sick dogs, The Dog Doc is a thought-provoking look at what is missing from modern medicine — for animals and for people.

The camera offers no protection; it only provides a witness. Fortunately for audiences, it’s more pleasurable to witness anarchy than it is to experience it.