Tomris Laffly

Expect to be moved to tears during this reflective film as clear-eyed as Souza’s photo books, reliving the memories of dignity that once piloted the country and often pondering, “How could we have gone from this to Trump?”

It’s a complex picture that Dweck and Kershaw navigate with respect, curiosity and a sense of awe, managing to excavate the essence of a tight-knit, lovably atypical commune out of it.

Loosely based on the graphic novel Une Nuit de Pleine lune, The Owners doesn’t feel new or groundbreaking by any measure. Still, this increasingly bizarre film is grisly and absurd in all the right, self-aware ways; qualities that the comparable (and far superior) “Don’t Breathe” also possessed as another recent horror film that turned the tables against its lowlife aggressors.

A tedious and only occasionally amusing comedic riff on “The Purge” franchise.

Koontz’s command over the material is so absent that it is at times hard to distinguish his film from a spoofy Western-themed fair where a group of friends play dress-up for amusement.

Someone must have said, “... like 'Ghost,' but you know, for teens!” when pitching Endless, Scott Speer’s shameless and embarrassingly vacant rip-off of Jerry Zucker’s wildly successful, otherworldly 1990 romantic drama. But I bet no one in that room expected the outcome to be quite this irritating.

Abramenko maintains the film’s finite appeal throughout, mostly thanks to a familiar aura and a charismatic lead performance by Oksana Akinshina, a fine surrogate for the tough-as-nails heroine Ellen Ripley.

This recent The Secret Garden both respects and admires children’s imagination as its young characters discover their own way to grapple with loss, isolation, and loneliness.

A cringingly syrupy tale of overdue bonding between an estranged father and his only offspring.

The film feels a bit too experimental at times, suffering from lags in tempo and purpose, but it never succumbs to the ordinary either. There is a rare, unrefined quality to Seimetz’s film — a personal work of art that feels deeply honest throughout.

Suffused with plenty of gross-out, phantasmagoric body horror but short on actual spine-tingling scares, the handsomely-produced Amulet asserts Garai more as a gifted genre stylist than a savvy storyteller.

Documentary filmmakers Cristina Costantini (“Science Fair”) and Kareem Tabsch (“The Last Resort”) celebrate and eulogize the late showman with disarming zest and respect, unpacking how he and his horoscopes became staples of the Latin culture over the years.

Agonizing, blandly shot Desperados, which is among the most abysmal romantic comedies that came out of this century.

A detailed yet paint-by-numbers study of the living legend who believes in the necessity of making good trouble as an instigator of societal change.

Holland’s film manages to get under one’s skin on the whole, remaining a compelling watch throughout in spite of its rambling feel.

There is enough substance here to propel The Short History of the Long Road forward through its minor bends and speed-bumps. Most of all, it is Carpenter’s restrained performance and air of wisdom, permeating the screen with an astutely soulful quality that’s tough to turn away from.

With a cast made up of dancers entirely, the resulting work feels like a bold, deeply personal, and psychological ode to the numerous facades of romantic relationships, both uplifting and gloomy.

Brisk, confident, and atmospheric, Mounia Meddour’s feature debut Papicha promptly brings to mind certain female driven films of the 21st century, centered on young women’s camaraderie, resistance and unique struggles—movies like Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s moody “Mustang,” Margaret Betts’ somber “Novitiate,” Peter Mullan’s devastating “The Magdalene Sisters” and even Talya Lavie’s darkly comedic “Zero Motivation.”

It’s an endless metamorphosis that unfolds like some kind of real-time art installation, and in all honesty, it can be a touch overwhelming to take in at times — which is why the digital release of The Wolf House is a blessing in disguise, as audiences can rewind to fully appreciate this awe-inspiring film’s layers of details.

A grueling coming-of-age thriller on the cliché-heavy side, with little hook to offer other than Wolff’s aching screen presence.

It’s mostly a vanilla documentary with no real destination, but one with plenty of cuteness to go around.

The film offers some simple-minded insights into the myth of the happily-ever-after, and a dash of nonchalant French charisma. But the whole thing is only as original as a dull midlife crisis, retrofitted into a whimsical screwball mold that feels miscalculated.

There is no crying in baseball, but you might just be reduced to a puddle of tears while watching Bolan’s film, which finally brings the duo’s love out of the shadows and gives it a long-overdue chance to shine.

Placing among the upper ranks of films for dog lovers, Stray successfully takes this mission to heart, revealing in the process not only the wholesomeness of humans’ four-legged best friends, but also the soulful voice of an exciting new filmmaker with immense moral queries on her mind.

In segments brutal and unforgiving, Stephens gives the viewer glimpses of the kind of emotional and physical abuse Maggie is subjected to—beaten by her dad, unsupported by her kindly but helpless mother, told by religious figures in the past that her homosexuality can be “fixed.”

And the source of inspiration here is an affable role model, brought to life by “Stranger Things” actor Noah Schnapp with plenty of zest and believable innocence.

You wonder how high “Sea Fever” could have risen, if only Hardiman had truly embraced the bare bones of the genre, indulging in some well-wrought group dynamics and even a pair of sneaky jump-scares to boot.

Rushing through an emotional journey with an uneven pace and clumsy dialogue, The Lost Husband aims for familiar sentiments around loyalty, family and sacrifice, but bypasses sincerity, the most crucial ingredient.

In the days where we’re all cooped up at home, there are certainly worse things you could do than settling in front of this pleasant film and its upbeat musical tracks (original music by Hit Boy) with a positive attitude and a smooth bottle of wine. It will go down easy.

Fanning delivers a performance of such astonishing depth and emotional range that her presence here is both a relief and strangely frustrating, since the film that surrounds the young actor is sadly no match for the qualities she brings to Potter’s profoundly personal narrative.

The understated film builds into a gut punch that’s more painful than anything in the superficial, recent Roger Ailes exposé "Bombshell."

A wooden ensemble, paper-thin frights and dull TV-special looks don’t help matters. ‘This place doesn’t suck,’ someone observes early on. If only.

With The Wild Goose Lake, Yinan signals the makings of a major filmmaker. Perhaps the world he creates is a bit too scattered for its own good, but you will still want to melt inside its stunning, riotous glow.

Ben Affleck steps back in front of the camera in a weighty but weary comeback drama that feels like catharsis.

While listening to the kids, Rainwater makes sure we see the humanity and future potential in each and every one, treating his subjects with the respect they deserve.

Moss continues to deliver what we crave from woman characters: the kind of messy yet sturdy intricacy many of today’s thinly conceived you-go-girl female superheroes continue to lack.

Balloon is decent entertainment to a degree, and that is mostly thanks to its handsome production values.

Despite the heartbreaking notes of its ending, this vibrant film makes you want to believe that things will somehow and magically turn out OK for her, simply because she deserves it.

Unadventurous in its design — Barnett goes for a conventional mélange of clips and talking heads to structure the story — Changing the Game admittedly benefits from a traditional approach that slowly familiarizes the audience both with the subjects and the layers of an ongoing discriminatory debate around fairness.

Come As You Are tells its story through empathy, compassion and what feels like winsome insider-y humor.

Scherfig’s latest effort pursues something naively magical, only to end up with a mélange of miscalculated, cheap sentiments.

The director’s greatest asset here is surely Gelbakhiani.

The human dimension that gives the film brief jolts of energy never takes root. Instead, audiences are left grappling with a stuffy maze, albeit one presented with handsome production values and a filmmaker’s striking visual touch.

If Wes Anderson were to mesh “Bad News Bears” with a live-action “Monsters University,” the result would look and feel something like Troop Zero, a whimsical, if not generic kiddie adventure more suited for young ones than grown-ups.

Three Christs opts in for frustratingly broad characters that feel like half-considered caricatures and Jeff Russo’s sentimental, strings-heavy score that flattens whatever modest edge the movie might have had.

Reid meticulously investigates why Dr. Dagg’s groundbreaking work didn’t quite collect the widespread acclaim that it deserved. Underneath it all lies a heartbreaking tale of a driven woman stifled by institutional misogyny — a fascinating story stunt coordinator-turned-filmmaker Reid patiently approaches from various captivating angles.

Little Women solidifies Gerwig’s one-of-a-kind voice on the page and behind the camera, opening up the classic in a blissful and innovative screen adaptation that feels ageless and vastly of today.

Lush melodramas are a dying breed, especially masterful ones like Karim Aïnouz’s Invisible Life that wear Douglas Sirkian genre conventions on their sleeve proudly and abundantly.

Kovgan’s ode to choreography master Merce Cunningham is sensational in every sense of the word. Renewing one’s appreciation of the many wonders of the human body and the space in which it fills and drifts, Cunningham celebrates all the things our joints and flexed muscles are capable of, as seen through the mind and poetic dances of an iconic creator.

The weapons look fake, the stiff action sequences play like poor re-enactments, and you frequently wonder how anyone managed to keep a straight face while firing off some embarrassingly simple-minded lines of dialogue. Even the bright red, corn-syrupy blood splattered around looks like it’s from a different decade of cinema.

Richard Jewell’s greatest feat is the generous emphasis it places on its Forrest Gumpian do-gooder’s complex sense of humanity; if only there were more of that to spread around to the other characters.

On the whole, his (Griffin) indecisive The Wolf Hour tick-tocks its way to an underwhelming finale. And when it gets there, the most shocking realization you’ll have is how forgettable an affair it all has been.

It’s a delicate drama that flourishes through the liberating power of art, where a hopeful yet consuming love affair sparks between two young women amid patriarchal customs, and stays concealed in their hearts both because of and in spite of it.

Following the ordinary beats of a teen’s everyday life, writer/director Minhal Baig’s gentle and attentive sophomore feature Hala possesses something inherently extraordinary by just being about a young, female Muslim-American.

It doesn’t help that neither Yeoh nor Thompson play a character that remotely resembles real people in a film that only brushes over the anxieties of immigrants in the still-early days of Brexit.

This might not be the optimal film to tribute an American hero who’s long been neglected on our screens, but Erivo’s performance might very well become a definitive one, synonymous with Tubman. And that’s not a bad place to start by any measure.

Their tangible shared pain quickly turns an awkward performativeness into a most genuine therapy session, one that is both disarming and uplifting to observe.

It’s bewitching stuff when it doesn’t feel like a waste of invitations.

With weighty things to say about contemporary and corrupt institutions of power and even dangers of male hegemony, Michôd’s non-preachy The King comes with philosophical heft and visual authority to match.

While it’s based on the bizarre 2007 story of the female astronaut who drove 900 miles in adult diapers to confront an ex-boyfriend, Lucy in the Sky doesn’t include that intimate detail. Then again, the movie shits the bed in so many other ways, it may have been overkill. Director Noah Hawley (TV’s Fargo) omits the headline-making undergarment, instead stocking up on paper-thin observations about workplace misogyny and mental health in a cloying feature debut that begs to be scorned.

The results are mixed cinematically — crisply lensed by Marcel Zyskind, the Florida-set film looks like an average episode of “Veep,” which Morris has directing credits on. And the laughs are pretty sparse, too, despite a non-stop flow of zingers.

Black and Blue feels imbalanced and overlong, favoring fast and repetitive chase scenes over well-calibrated tension.

With a surprising amount of side laughs and an isolated, elaborately decorated chamber in the woods full of opportunities, Villains sets an intriguing stage for a quartet of skilled performers, all clearly enjoying the chance to fly their freak flags to comical effect.

This is both an immensely humanist film, and a tough, heartbreaking watch.

A film that feels like a sumptuous beach read on a lazy sunny afternoon.

The duo [of Redmayne and Jones] hand-in-hand elevates [The Aeronauts] ... from a flimsy action-adventure to something worth watching on the biggest possible screen, even if it operates on a handful of clichés with little character-based substance to speak of.

In the end, What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire? feels less like a complete piece, and more like the start of something searching for its perfect form without an ideal end in sight. Considering the country’s current political landscape, it seems fitting.

Mostly known for his behind-the-camera TV credits on shows like “Modern Family” and “1600 Penn,” Winer doesn’t bring much finesse into the generic visuals of Ode to Joy. In fairness to him, no amount of directorial elegance could have saved the artificial beats of a narrative that fails to create believable sexual tension between its “romantic” leads and amounts only to an utterly shallow showdown between brothers with long-standing scores to settle.

Sama owes much of the authenticity and visual panache of This Is Not Berlin to his cinematographer Alfredo Altamirano. The DP’s nervy, panoramic compositions heighten the precise production design of various multimedia art pieces and an assortment of impeccably choreographed street protests.

Thanks to Øvredal’s visual flair and visceral dedication to the monsters of Guillermo del Toro, clearly a major influence on the “Trollhunter” director’s bittersweet approach to the field, this satisfying though far from innovative dish boasts comforting flavors throughout.

In the end, only a fraction of McLeod’s ambitions sticks a landing. But Astronaut stays afloat with sweetness, thanks to a measured performance from Dreyfuss.

A devastating scrapbook and a confessional journal of sorts. It’s also a personal cinematic endeavor as opposed to a historical crash course in the vein of “Cries From Syria,” another superb documentary on the subject, but one with different ambitions.

While it lacks the emotional intensity of the duo’s Oscar-nominated The Square—a rousing 2013 look at Egypt’s Arab Spring—The Great Hack still feels of a piece, inviting viewers to contemplate the power and irreversibility of their online footprint.

It’s an all too familiar, almost clichéd tale you’ve heard and seen before, complete with a much-yearned freedom journey to nowhere. But Mozaffari gradually makes this particular doomed excursion her own with a distinct style, even though her plotting choices don’t approach a sense of high-stakes urgency.

Crawl has a reptilian bite in its nods to the tradition of underwater monster flicks. It’s certainly not “Jaws” (what is?), or even “The Shallows,” but sloshing around the hazardous deluge of a Southwest Florida town on the brink of devastation by a Category 5 hurricane comes with its own kicks.

A terrifically juicy, apocalyptic cinematic sacrament that dances around a fruitless relationship in dizzying circles. We are not stuffed inside a cavernous house of horrors this time around. But be prepared to feel equally suffocated by a ravenous family (albeit, a chosen, cultish kind) all the same.

If only the half-baked story could also meet our expectations, or at least match the logic of the previous two “Annabelle” films.

Likable yet tonally untidy.

While Stuber’s film acknowledges the soul-sucking nature of these colorless environs — at times, the enormous yet empty aisles resemble a ripe setting of an after-hours zombie apocalypse — the filmmaker loves his characters so much that he can’t help but prioritize their humanity that rises above the surface of it all.

Miller owns the material and single-handedly elevates it to something you can’t look away from, while reminding us the effortless appeal she brought into even her relatively thankless part in “American Sniper.”

Occasionally too busy and loose with its logical rigor, Toy Story 4 doesn’t quite connect all the dots. Still, the film earns a distinct spot in the chain, foregrounding Bob Pauley’s pristinely lit production design, one that showcases a kaleidoscopic carnival and a dusty antique shop swarming with hilariously nightmarish ventriloquist dummies.

The whole affair is vastly entertaining — and far from indecent or intimidating.

It is then unfortunate that this tempting package by Khan, a creative and producing force behind ABC’s “Fresh off the Boat,” is so bland, feeling less like a movie and more like the output of an assembly line.

It’s just a sad, unimaginative affair in which an impressive lineup of talented names goes to waste before our eyes.

Compared to the inherent compactness of “Dior and I” that crystallizes Dior’s collective craft and process under its new creative director Raf Simons, Halston is vast, and therefore, less of a thrill to watch than the real-life “Project Runway” challenge thrown at Simons. But it will be no less breathtaking for fashion enthusiasts, and anyone dwelling in the tricky intersection of art, history and commerce.

As visually uninspired and ideologically conservative as it may be, there seems to be something beguiling about the series that keeps one (including myself, admittedly) on a short leash.

While it’s hardly Hawkins’ error that his documentary feels unfinished — the self-defined activist’s dramatic saga is still unfolding as we speak — you can’t help but feel his unprecedented access to Manning should have emanated a portrait a lot more enlightening.

Not unlike the candidates it portrays, Knock Down The House puts in the necessary work towards a payoff that earns both cheers and tears.

Uneven it may be, Red Joan still emanates a memorable essence, one that’s refreshingly and believably feminine.

Appealing on a scene-by-scene basis but generic like its title — it might as well have been called “About a Girl” as a thematic nod to Chris and Paul Weitz’s superb 2002 film — Steiner’s dull comedy lacks the crucial feelings that could have made the suburban aunt-niece tale at its center more memorable.

Don’t expect to go into writer/director Alex Ross Perry’s sixth feature Her Smell, a suffocating plunge into a female musician’s deteriorating world, and come out with calm instead of chaos.

Little wears the theme of black sisterhood on its sleeve, growing into something winsome by prioritizing contemporary concerns over nostalgia.

This vintage tale of camaraderie flaunts an old-fashioned innocence and some endearing defiance, exemplified by its sweet original song “Do-Dilly-Do (A Friend Like You).”

Quirky to an extreme with not much to say about the millennial resistance to maturity and grown-up responsibilities, Larson’s film feels like a perplexing stylistic disagreement between its creative parts.

I must admit: this skilled, historical action film was one of the toughest, most disquieting sits I can remember in a while — tougher than Paul Greengrass’ “July 22” and on par with the same filmmaker’s masterful “United 93.”

The Mustang becomes an emotional powerhouse in its final act.

In part shocking and gentle while trekking between chaotic and serene extremes, Black Mother is a fresh piece of work in both how it progresses and how it's assembled like a scrapbook of remembrances.

Panahi can’t help but flaunt optimism wherever he sees it — he lets it rise above it all despite the odds.