Montana Story is a personal film, a small story told under the Big Sky. Those skies can make any story feel epic in scope — they frame tales as mythology in a way. But in Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s film (they wrote and direct), those same skies are so grand and far-reaching they can make you lose your perspective.

The cast is top-notch, the story is satisfyingly dark, the performances are fun and, of course, the songs are terrific.

Inherent Vice is an aggressively weird movie, which you should take not as a warning but as a compliment and an invitation to see it, to let its stoner vibes wash all over you.

A celebration of sci-fi flicks, fanboys and good, old-fashioned bromance, Paul is a thoroughly enjoyable road trip.

A dark comedy thriller that could be a “Black Mirror” episode and leaves you with the same existential turmoil as Bo Burham’s “Inside.”

If you stick with it, Evil Does Not Exist offers rich rewards, as well as lessons, no matter how inscrutable at times.

Lucky Them isn't a great film, all told, but thanks to the good-natured performances and the general vibe, it's an immensely enjoyable one.

It may be slow by Hollywood standards, but it's accessible at every moment, and we come away feeling that human character is more complex, and perhaps darker, than any studio is willing to test an audience with.

Sweet, gentle and defiantly retro (the 2-D hand-drawn animation is superb), the movie is irresistibly charming.

A heartfelt, moving and bracingly honest document of a famous man as he fades away.

It’s a throwback in some ways, offering the same feeling you might get from ’90s and early 2000s films like “Garden State,” “Walking and Talking” and “Flirting with Disaster,” not in content, but in mood and atmosphere — an indie vibe that permeates everything, in a pleasant way.

This is a difficult film, one that asks questions that can’t really be answered. There are a couple of surprises along the way, but more than anything Koreeda is getting at what really makes a family a family.

Freeland does a fine job, waiting for her characters to converge in a way that doesn't feel overly forced, though there is a bit of that "Crash" tidiness in how things fall together. Still, the film is moving and human.

In Bloom, whose title proves more and more ironic as the film goes on, is a fascinating snapshot of a country at war with itself (literally, eventually) as seen through the eyes of two teenage girls, whose lives are complicated enough as it is.

There's a glut of action-adventure-explosions to choose from, so it's refreshing to see a beautiful, character-driven story that feels small, but oh-so relatable.

Gondry’s illustrations are as fascinating as the chats. Sometimes they look like markers on a napkin. Other times they are reminiscent of something made on the old Lite-Brite toy. They’re always delightful.

Dumb Money isn’t a documentary, and it’s not a go-to guide for beginning investors. It’s not trying to be. It’s trying to be something a little less weighty and a lot more fun than that, and it succeeds.

The Father has occasional splashes of humor, but, by design, it’s tough to watch at times. Hopkins’ performance makes it impossible not to.

As creepy as it is fun, and it's plenty of both, ParaNorman will delight fans of old-time horror movies.

A mix of comedy, science fiction, nostalgia, adolescent wish-fulfillment and beer, beer, beer, its parts shouldn’t fit together as neatly as they do. But somehow Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg have again managed to make a movie that is knowing, touching and hilarious.

The Testament of Ann Lee is a biographical film about a real person, though one about whom a great number of details aren’t known. It runs up against some rough patches during the telling of the story, but overall it is immensely enjoyable, an unflinching (and nonjudgmental) look at faith, no matter how bizarrely we may think it’s practiced.

It is just a tremendous amount of fun.

When you can sell a movie in which you spend a large chunk of time talking to a rock and still manage to be magnetic, you're doing something right. And in "Project Hail Mary," Gosling definitely is.

Highlighted by great voice acting, especially from the four actors playing the main teenagers who are relatively unknown actors — and by Ayo Edebiri, who is taking over the summer with her starring role in "The Bear" — the movie will catapult the ninja turtle lore into yet another generation. Cowabunga!

Lawrence delivers a performance that’s long overdue. She finally gets an opportunity to show off her comedic chops and her biting humor and executes it with years of dramatic acting in her bag. She is brash yet warm, making this character extremely believable.

Taken strictly as a piece of filmmaking, Aranofsky's Noah is ambitious. And as theology, well, it may not hew exactly to the letter of the law, but the spirit survives intact.

What makes Joy Ride stand out among other R-rated comedies is its heart, smart writing and attention to detail in each of the characters that comes from the unique perspective of an Asian director and cast tapping into shared experiences, stereotypes and cultural particularities. I haven’t laughed this hard in a movie theater in a very long time.

What seems primed to play out like a by-the-numbers social message movie with a classic redemption arc becomes something much more sophisticated, and much more challenging for the viewer. Schoenaerts' performance deserves much of the praise.