Tirdad Derakhshani

A startling, powerful biopic.

In Order of Disappearance has an utterly unique feel, a certain Scandinavian crispness that's impossible to duplicate.

Set against the backdrop of Montana's stunning wilderness, Certain Women portrays women at work and women in desire with the quiet confidence, simplicity, and directness of a true artist.

While it hits some of the usual sci-fi tropes, Creative Control's center of gravity isn't tech itself, but the relationships of those who use it.

The Confirmation is a powerful directorial debut from 59-year-old writer Bob Nelson, who received an Oscar nomination for his first screenplay, Nebraska.

Hong, who makes his feature debut here, has a masterful command of rhythm, beautifully weaving each strand of the narrative around that momentous opening scene.

Exceptionally graceful and accomplished, Ozon's film challenges our received notions of normalcy, intimacy, and love.

Giannoli's riotously funny and heartbreaking film follows Marguerite's attempt to stage a solo recital in a grand theater in Paris.

Swinton is delightful in a twisted turn as Wilford's enforcer, a Margaret Thatcherian dragon lady who adores watching her men torture miscreants who have defied the train's No. 1 rule: Know your place.

A richly observed coming-of-age drama about two teenage boys who are drawn to each other with a complicated mix of attraction, repulsion, tenderness, and aggression.

Their film would be even more compelling if it followed up with further reports, perhaps a few years apart, charting the three boys' fates.

Always, murmuring just beneath the surface, there's a political undercurrent to Farhadi's films, a gentle whisper of a critique aimed at the weight of Iran's combined cultural and political intransigence.

Wetlands is one of the most daring, visually arresting, innovative, and imaginative examples of filmmaking to come out of Europe in recent memory.

A breathtaking, disturbing look at urban angst and the emptiness of youth culture.

A dazzling documentary.

Drug War is a deeply intelligent, exhilarating and eminently satisfying adult crime story, one of the best thrillers you're likely to see this year.

"You have to be like a poet," Jodorowsky says at one point. "Your movie must be just as you think of it. . . . The movie has to be just like I dream it." What an extraordinary dream it could have been.

At its satirical best, Things to Come takes aim at some of the sacred cows of French academia, showing how the posturing of today’s radical kids seems to repeat the attitudes their parents had in the '60s.

Rebecca Hall is wondrous as Christine, delivering a sly performance that brings out her character's extraordinary intelligence. Her Christine has a peculiar brand of dry, subversive humor that takes aim at various absurdities of modern life and mass media.

One of this year's true surprises, the superior animated sequel not only is infused with the same independent spirit and off-kilter aesthetic that enriched the original, it also deepens the first film's major themes.

You'll need a strong stomach for some of the scenes in A Girl Like Her, one of the most moving and intelligent of the recent glut of films and TV specials about teenage bullying.

A remarkable, thoroughly disturbing creepshow that burrows deep under your skin and refuses to let go.

Funny, wry, tragic, and deeply moving.

Paddington is perfect for today's audiences, so long overfed on comic-book fodder. The bear's impeccable manners, perfect diction, and earnestness make him the ultimate anti-Bart Simpson.

We can't but enjoy the movie and its oddball characters - which makes us somehow complicit in their crimes.

Wake in Fright is essential viewing for anyone interested in the roots of male violence.

Fences is also very much an actors' movie, with breathtaking performances from Washington and his costars, including Davis, Stephen Henderson, Jovan Adepo, Russell Hornsby, and Mykelti Williamson.

Dense, richly textured, and emotionally fraught - uplifting and devastating in equal parts - Shane Carruth's masterful sophomore effort is an abstract, elusive, but emotionally engaging love story that's more tone poem than drama.