Zachary Wigon

Surprisingly -- and pleasantly -- restrained in its delivery, Abel Ferrara's Welcome to New York is the sort of picture that withholds judgment of its protagonist so that viewers have space to make their own.

Thoroughly nonjudgmental in its observations, Pierre Salvadori's In the Courtyard ranks as one of the funnier films about victims of depression and mental illness.

Hartley's humor and intellectual musings are, as always, fully present, but by anchoring them to a genuinely compelling story of familial retribution, he's made his best film in years.

Hoffman, naturally, makes his character interesting in the way that genius actors always do. Yet the film's storytelling struggles to match his level of skill.

A picture that balances heart and mind with nuance.

Ballet 422 is more visually sumptuous than most narratives you're likely to see this year, featuring careful compositions that make watching the film an aesthetic experience as much as an intellectual one.

This is a sure-handed, complex portrait of one woman's attempts to feel alive.

While you may be left craving more emotional fireworks than you get, Fillières's intelligent film is accomplished in its portrayal of a marriage in crisis, the union's last gasps rife with poignant exchanges.

The film is earnest and nobly intentioned, though its execution doesn't measure up.

The narrative ends up working in a smaller scope than one might expect given the premise of a beast plaguing a community, but the journey getting to the finish is exhilarating all the same.

Carefully lit and designed, with a moody and muted color palette, the film effectively conveys the feel of Aila's hardscrabble existence. But the horrific behavior of Popper, who does little other than threaten, beat, and try to rape Indians, becomes problematic.

For a film with shootouts, heists, and high-speed chases, Julian Gilbey's Plastic is a strangely lifeless affair.

The film’s strength derives from how Wasikowska makes Davidson’s seemingly suicidal wanderlust relatable.

While its ending descends into standard horror tropes that fail to completely satisfy its promise, the film nevertheless achieves emotional resonance due to how effectively it joins its source of horror with the stuff of everyday human anxieties.

Breillat's impressive film is a study of bodies and how we carry them, and it explores the manner in which weakness seeks out strength on an almost primal level, bypassing the higher modes of human thought.

The narrative is so formulaic as to feel immediately contrived, with seemingly every plot device taken from another film.

The emotional disconnect between a soldier's perception of reality and reality itself is the subject of this documentary, which finds drama in evenhanded storytelling that is the inverse of its characters' emotional shakiness.

Full of long takes and matter-of-fact performances, melancholy low-contrast cinematography and desolate vistas suffused with acute loneliness, The Empty Hours captures the feeling of idling away the time, waiting for something to arrive.

The endearing nature of the characters, especially Gleeson's Murray, provides some pleasure.

While the film isn't without charming moments -- the Derby sequence is entertaining -- the lack of narrative sophistication grates.

With such a compelling central figure it would be tough for the doc to not stimulate, but stimulation aside, its rather shapeless narrative can feel desultory.

Gaudet and Pullapilly have a background in documentaries, and there's a convincing naturalism to their storytelling.

While certainly a formulaic genre film, it's nevertheless a formula executed with a great sensitivity to visual engagement.

The film isn't without mirth and charm... But as Surnow steers into serious waters, the direction of the storytelling becomes increasingly misguided.

Weaving numerous influences into a rich emotional tapestry, Alain Guiraudie's The King of Escape skillfully absorbs and updates its assertive cinematic forebears.

The film's success rests upon the interest engendered by these characters, but Hank and Asha fail to meaningfully engage us.

Miss Violence honors the thoroughly creepy work of Avranas's countrymen, but in his turn of the screw, Avranas marshals the abstract qualities of art cinema to comment upon concrete horror.

All the performers are supremely entertaining while dealing or defying horrible deaths... but Yen unfortunately lacks the kind of charisma that can elevate a genre film to a higher level of satisfaction.

With striking compositions and cuts that reveal a deep appreciation of cinema's possibilities, Valeria Golino's Honey could be about anything at all and still demand and hold your attention; that the narrative is as moving as the film is aesthetically precise is an added delight.

The frustration here comes from the filmmakers' inability to present characters with dimension, so that we might come to identify with them and their fears.

Refusing to take sides or vilify his characters, Adler finds the humanity in all parties.

The degree to which Highway candies up Veera's slumming toward freedom feels so fundamentally out of touch with the realities of poverty that it skirts into offensiveness.

Not fully understanding its own merits, Easy Money is accidentally fascinating in some moments, but purposefully formulaic in many more.

Using its narrative as a launching pad for abstract visuals, the picture reminds viewers that even the most striking images demand context to create anything like drama.

Sergio Castellitto's Twice Born irresponsibly appropriates the horrific siege of Sarajevo to serve as aesthetic backdrop for a story that exhibits no real interest in the conflict.

Thoroughly transporting, the peacefulness and clarity of Cousin Jules can't help but reveal, by contrast, the restlessness and agitation too common to life today.

Often threatening sentimentality yet never quite sinking into it, Josh Barrett and Marc Menchaca's This Is Where We Live benefits from the good taste of the filmmakers, whose appetite for understatement ensures that the picture maintains dramatic effectiveness and only rarely lurches into histrionics.

Heath never puts together a larger narrative about the decline of Inuit culture and offers little political history of the situation.

The Motel Life too often revisits the same emotions and sentiments, leaving us with a portrait that feels frustratingly simple.

In essence, the film is a lecture, but Zizek's associative thinking and understanding of the applicability of psychoanalysis makes it a lecture like no other.

What we're presented with is a scattering of scenes amid an overpowering backdrop of geopolitical and anthropological explanation, and nothing resembling drama.

While Eberle's execution falls short, the scale of his ambition can't help but stir admiration.

The film's delivery system sets itself up for failure.

Matthew Johnson's The Dirties explores high school violence from a refreshingly original angle.

Unfortunately, Argento never acknowledges he's in on the joke, nor is the film quite ridiculous enough for us to coast enjoyably on derision. When it comes to B-movies, sometimes anything less than way too much isn't nearly enough.

With dexterity and care, Swanberg illuminates our muddled perceptions of our own relationships. He fixates on the minutiae of hanging out, the stuff of little loves and lies, the feints and thrusts we make in sorting matters of head and heart.

The crookedness of the narrative is compounded by the film's failure to display its characters' great pleasures (surfing and drugs) in visually expressive ways.

Treating one's audience like ignorant children in need of lecturing is hardly a way to win fans, or display one's own artistry.

I'm So Excited! is characterized by a distinct brand of unsuccessful yet ambitious storytelling, the kind often found in minor works by major masters.

This picture may not have the structure of a more practiced documentary, but what it lacks in delivery it compensates for with fervency.

The stunning visuals captivate for much of the picture, but as the novelty wears off, and the beauty turns from stunning to repetitive, the non-surfers in the theater may begin to grow restless.

Stories built around a mystery can have a difficult time creating a satisfying answer, and this picture is no exception.

When functioning like a magic trick, this breathlessly entertaining picture delights in its showmanship, but the more entertaining the trickery, the tougher the explanation, and when the truth is revealed the answer can't help but fail to satisfy.

Triumph of the Wall is often painfully boring and rather shapeless, not so much a crafted film as a compendium of one guy's musings. Regardless, in an era when seemingly every documentary is tied to a hot-button issue, making one about a guy building a wall is endearing.

Epic certainly manages to tell a compelling tale. Yet in a post-Up era where animated films can pulse with profound truths, the question remains: Is mere entertainment enough?

Sightseers is a jet-black comedy that understands exactly how absurdist it is, and its murders are always played for laughs.

While she doesn't quite achieve the screwball zaniness she strives for, Chism deserves commendation for crafting a farcical work that feels like it concerns real characters.

Formulaic despite its trespasses, Love Is All You Need leaves the lingering sensation that more fun could have been had if the film cut loose and lived a little.

Dead Man's Burden is a fine example of economical storytelling.

In the House is a mystery, but it investigates a far tougher riddle than what makes Claude tick—it's trying to figure out why, exactly, voyeurism and mystery delight us so. In the process, it delights us.

Herman's House coasts on the strength of its portrait of two systemic outsiders.

Viewers may find the narrative aimlessness here frustrating.

Trance packs many reveals, and the guessing game of who's who and what's what continues throughout. But with its terribly campy setup (hypnotherapy and gangsters? One's inner child and murderous showdowns?), Trance could have gotten some mileage out of comedy

The folks who made Wild Style probably didn’t realize it, but their fiction film was essentially a documentary of history in the early making.