Rogowski carries the film, and it is quite the performance — one whose appeal is difficult to work out in your head, which makes it all the better.

The Queen of Versailles is funny, sad, infuriating, instructive. It's the American Dream inflated to ridiculous extremes, until it bursts.

The cinematography is outstanding, revealing the harsh beauty of the land. And the acting...is terrific. The burden rests on Eid’s shoulders, and he more than carries it. He’s a natural, showing us Theeb’s curiosity, loyalty and ingenuity while still retaining the innocence of a boy who has been sheltered from the world outside the desert.

Villeneuve's telling of her story - and of her children's - is painful, searing and something close to brilliant.

It’s good — funny, smart and contemporary. By definition it can’t be as groundbreaking as the first film, but never does it feel like a cash grab.

Civil-rights movements are never really over because they're never really won. She's Beautiful When She's Angry doesn't overtly make that case until its closing minutes, but when it does, it's made all the more powerful by the footage that preceded it.

Gleason is disturbing, brave and compelling, which is exactly what it needs to be.

Ad Astra is one giant leap for telling intimate stories on a grand scale.

A great movie exists in Love & Mercy, side by side with a pretty good one.

American Honey is a remarkable movie, which doesn’t mean it’s perfect — its imperfections, in fact, are what help make it so urgent, so vital, so real.

A gorgeously shot, well-acted Western that resonates more the more you let it settle.

A Hidden Life is less a story than an experience, a spiritual journey made accessible through light and sound. Malick doesn’t transcend cinema. He sanctifies it.

Along the way, Koichi and Ryunosuke grow up a little bit; Kore-eda isn't opposed to letting reality intrude on their lives. It's not sad, but more wistful -- the young actors make it so. They are delightful. So, too, is I Wish.

Maysles gets to the heart of what is important to Apfel: truth, in a world in which it's in increasingly short supply.

What Abrams has done is find and return the ingredient crucial to the original three films in the franchise that was sorely lacking in the second round: fun...There are some laugh-out-loud moments here, but also some touching ones. Happy, sad, exciting, silly — all that is included, along with the original sense of Saturday-morning-serial abandon that made what became known as “A New Hope” so wonderful all those years ago.

At times the film threatens to become relentlessly bleak, but never fully so, thanks in large part to Plummer’s performance. And cinematographer Magnus Nordenhof Jønck finds beauty in the most desolate places; even flashing police lights set against nightfall are inviting.

At the beginning of the film, you want Hong to work through the scenes faster. By the time it’s done, you’ll wish they lasted longer. That’s a kind of magic, too.

Aida's Secrets starts out as a fairly straightforward documentary about reuniting two long-separated brothers, but directors Alon and Shaul Schwarz don't stop there.

It's Gerwig’s movie, Gerwig’s take on childhood and the patriarchy and feminism and love and death — boy, death — all wrapped in a package that continually surprises. So yeah, it’s not what you think it is. It’s better.

Strange Darling is an original, well worth seeing — and then talking about.

What is so impressive is how deeply Abreu makes us feel what Cuca is experiencing.

It is undeniably fun to see such a great movie sliced and diced and put back together in so many ways. Too often when we see a movie we like, we just say it’s good, recommend it to someone and leave it at that.

The Eternal Daughter doesn’t scare you in the traditional sense as much as it moves you, and that’s every bit as powerful an achievement.

One is left wanting to know more about Mr. Rogers, but the film reduces him to little more than a kind of superhero family therapist.

Compartment No. 6 takes people and places you might wish to escape on first blush and makes you glad by the end that you’ve spent time with them.

Lucky is one of Harry Dean Stanton’s last roles, a rare leading performance, and it is a treasure.

The best thing is that Nichol doesn’t adopt a luddite stance. He doesn’t try to impart the evils of technology, at least not much. (Some people in the film lean that way.) He’s more inclined to chronicle the joys of a fading delight, one click-clack at a time.

Demon is a powerful film, one that makes us wonder what greater films Wrona might have made.