Gleeson is triumphant in this portrait of a complex man who is concurrently sensitive, boorish, brilliant, singular, and unforgettable.

Under the gentle hand of Griffiths, The Ballad of Wallis Island is both hilarious and delicate, never even making the buffoonish Charles simply a figure of mockery.

Appearing in almost every frame of Blue Ruin, Blair – who previously starred in "The Man From Orlando" and writer/director Jeremy Saulnier’s first feature, "Murder Party" – owns this film.

Instead of aiming for biographical overview, this film strives to capture a sense of what makes Sakamoto’s music tick. (Hint: It’s not a metronome, but rather, the sounds of nature.)

The People’s Joker feels like it would work better as a one-woman show, a monologue that seems weighed down by the burden of its own metaphor.

Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie may not win over many or even any new fans, but devotees of the TV show, and even diehards from the single-n Nirvana web days will relish having their favorite gentle idiots back and hearing the same joke on a bigger stage.

A rattling and ruminative piece of speculative fiction, Ex Machina is good enough to wish it were even better.

While the climax is admittedly something of a letdown after all the build-up, it's a hopelessly, helplessly original film, all guts, no glory.

Uncompromising and supremely controlled, it is a demanding film that will leave you shaken and shattered. How’s that for hyperbolic?

Ramsay is experimental, unconventional, and forever reaching at the gorgeousness in grief and despair. Her film moves slow as molasses, slow as paint drying -– and all the better to see the colors and the complexities.

Reilly, Phoenix, Gyllenhaal, and Ahmed – a murderers’ row of outstanding character actors who all moonlight as leading men – take the script’s raw materials (daddy issues, the trauma of being bullied, the civilizing effect of a toothbrush) and forge new bonds with a few words, a light look. The film treats their growing intimacy, in all its permutations, like an objet d’art, to be turned over and examined, delicately, from every angle. When they’re together, the film is electric.

Doesn't necessarily make for a crowdpleasing experience, though it is a provocative and uncomfortably authentic one.

There are two powerful movies here, unfortunately, they don't coexist easily. Lee has to fight his way out and he opts for narrative stopping violence when perhaps he should have continued the dialogue. He's a man on a tightrope and it's hard not to watch him without worrying about him.

Much as Blue Moon is a eulogy for the death of a creative life, it’s also a testament to Linklater’s continued vitality as a filmmaker.

It’s always a pleasure to be in the company of Potter, and when looking back at the just-competent first outings – well, baby, you’ve come a long way – but still: Where’s the magic, huh?

Easily one of Disney’s more imaginative and detail-oriented CGI offerings in a while, Zootopia uses the classic tropes of anthropomorphized animals and comic references to pop-culture touchstones to slyly puzzle out what it means to be “civilized.”

Hall, one of our least appreciated great actors, is mesmerizing as Sydney.

Sublimely ridiculous film.

If the youthful scenes seem a little mannered (in presentation if not performance), it's in these sequences of reconstruction, of quiet communication between Pietro and Bruno, of a depiction of adult male friendship, that The Eight Mountains is at its most endearing.

It is beautiful, quiet, tender, and borne aloft by that rejection of the idea of hopelessness. You don't have to believe in one particular romance, it whispers, to still believe in romance.

In a film like this, timing is everything, and everyone from the stunt coordinators to the crew-at-large seems to have gotten it right the first time.

Masie Crow's Sundance-selected documentary thrives on providing such depth and nuance to very real students with very real experiences.

While Non-Fiction can be quaint in its examination of art versus commerce, it is never boring.

After a decade of false starts, the first New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival opened in 1970, and in 2019 celebrated its 50th anniversary. That occasion is the subject of Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story, a vivid documentary that earns its subtitle as a story of its host city.

With her audience's full attention assured, first-time director Kasi Lemmons then proceeds to unravel a spellbinding, powerfully seductive tale that blends Southern Gothic magical realism and disturbing family drama with the flair of a born storytelling genius.

One of the strangest riffs on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ever. Stanwyck is hot!

It takes love to bring all these elements together into harmony, and Nair makes it look easy even when it's most difficult for her characters.

Fillion’s performance as the constable Dogberry in this section is the film’s comic highlight. Wounded by an insult, his ass-backward indignation achieves a droll momentum that will have you chuckling. All’s well that ends well, indeed.

While it is more of a kids’ story, Anita Doron’s screenplay contains layers and subtleties that adults are sure to appreciate.

Has the look and feel of Euro-Altman (vastly superior to Euro-Disney, mind you).

Endless Poetry is an oblique road map as much as it is a guiding aphorism. It is also a pretty decent summary of what this film has to offer.

Sometimes the screen goes completely black as the film focuses solely on the audio component (Wilkerson’s voice). It has the sense of a confession, and made me wonder if this project is somehow an act of penance.

The details of characters’ internal thought processes are left to our imagination. Still, this movie hits the senses like fresh impact of saltwater air.

The movie's main weakness is the premise that sun, flowers, Mediterranean air and, certainly, castle living, are magical restoratives strong enough to salve all social ills. But these actresses and their mates are all pleasurable to watch as they go through their paces and interact.

It wouldn't feel out of place on a double bill with "Dangerous Liaisons," given Breillat's unrepentantly nihilistic attitude toward the battle of the sexes in which all are pawns, every knight is errant, and the only queen is Queen Bitch.

The movie occasionally continues on too long with certain scenes and may strain the sensibilities of anybody not caught up in its delirious visuals and melodrama, but The Saddest Music in the World nevertheless beckons with a seductive and unforgettable melody.

Certainly one of the very best films in each of Donen and Hepburn's careers, this devastatingly lovely remnant of Hollywood's anything-goes Sixties (with a script by Frederic Raphael) tells the story of a marriage by showing a couple over the course of successive trips to the south of France.

Scary, funny, brutal, smart, and perverse – this is the stuff that future classic horror midnighters are made of.

To my mind, movies about watching nomads walk rank alongside movies about writers writing: The action is dull and endlessly repetitive, and most of the interesting stuff occurs in the mind’s interior.

Provides that rarest of documentary accomplishments: a glimpse into the artists' sunny, dark hearts.

A standard setup for a horror film, but filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun (who, among other projects, was ringleader/executive producer for the equally slippery SXSW 2016 feature collective:unconscious) has not made a horror film, but a fractured portrait of teenage malaise, of deceptions (both of self and others), and of the awkward probing of a cocoon’s inner shell.

Unlike any other film released this past year, be it from the aspect of its storylines, of which there are many, or its emotional clarity, which is, quite frankly, brutal.

The script, and Byrne’s suitably breathless, solipsistic reading of it, give the audience every reason to not simply dislike Linda but despise her.

Riley’s film is a welcome hand grenade of subversive power that often reminded me of another incendiary film, Terry Gilliam’s classic "Brazil."

The film’s approach suits an audience broader than the usual documentary crowd, though it’s worth mentioning that those pictures can really stay with you.

For experts in the field, who this is most undoubtedly aimed at, this is a rare and incisive look at one party's stance on one of the most important diplomatic initiatives of our time.

Ageism, sexism, classism, and unabashed snobbery rear their ugly heads in a provocatively told story by probably the greatest film melodrama stylist who ever lived.

Basing the story on family history, Mendes’ terrifying view of war is poetic and tragic, dreamlike without the forced stoner surrealism that too often afflicts war dramas. It is instead impressionistic, most especially in its highly structured cinematography.

Director Ceyda Torun was born in Istanbul and lived there as a young girl, leaving the city with her family at age 11 to live in Jordan and later New York City, but it’s abundantly clear her heart has never left her birthplace. Kedi is a valentine to her childhood home.

Revenge proved that Fargeat can combine astonishing, lurid, hyperpsychosexualized visuals with incisive social commentary. Yet there’s a vibrant audaciousness to The Substance that’s matched and complemented by her cool examination of the cost of youth and beauty. She can swing between cerebral drama and body horror, but this is definitely not a Cronenberg knockoff.

Never inspires more than an interested detachment.

Seems more like a subtle, elegiac tone poem than an indictment of human banality and the evil that men do.

The temporal jumps between the present and varying points in the past deprive the film of a sense of completeness; the transitions from scene to scene are largely disorienting, leaving you struggling to find your bearings.

One of the more surreal docs to come down the pike in some time.

The film is a sure winner for arthouse audiences enamored of the new Argentine cinema, but it has crossover appeal for venturesome viewers in search of a good mystery, as well.

Heartfelt felicitations to Soderbergh on his rebirth of the cool.

I hope we don't have to wait another quarter-century for the next great Dahl adaptation, but for a film as good as this one, I'll wait.

Parmet’s ability to repackage a story that oftentimes can feel exploitative and gritty through a more mature and compassionate lens is quite sincere – a challenging film that’s worth the effort.

High Life is a meandering mess of symbolism, half-thoughts, ponderous exchanges, and emotional dead ends, one that confuses ambiguity for an unengaging air of vagueness.

There’s nothing erotic about this wheezing, rotting, carnivorous corpse, and Eggers rebuts the “sexy vampire” nonsense by depicting a supernatural abusive relationship. If you think that there’s anything sexy about how he rips the throats from babes, that’s on you.

A riot of sight and sound that, however baffling, has an irresistible, elemental pull.

A Quiet Passion’s manneredness overwhelmed me at times, but it is very effective – chilling, even – in its charting of one woman’s disappointed journey to the rhetorical coda of her own life: “Why has the world become so ugly?”

Riddlehoover's greatest insight is in letting the daughters tell the story.

It's a short, sharp, shock to the cinematic system that's virtually impossible to dislike, and if you don't leave the theatre grinning your face off, then buddy, movies just aren't for you.

It's a riveting, nail-biting, two-buckets-of-popcorn return to form for Howard.

Julien Temple gave Shane MacGowan exactly the documentary he deserves – unruly and full of heart.

A remarkable documentary in its own right.

The entire cast gleefully digs into their parts with a relish not seen in an ensemble in quite some time. Even my screening partner, who has a notorious aversion to British period pieces, was helplessly beguiled by The Personal History of David Copperfield.

The film, anchored by interviews with Moreno and her co-stars and contemporaries, positions Moreno as a trailblazer, a barrier-breaker, and a role model, but more interestingly, it ultimately tracks a journey of self discovery.

This is Woodard’s show, and her Bernadine is mesmerizing as she navigates her life of meting out justice while grappling with the price of it.

Hopefully find the audience it deserves.

It's a daredevil's ride that keeps you glued with fascination.

It’s bravura, classic Hollywood filmmaking, and you like to think that Hughes himself would have viewed it, if not appreciatively, then at least with a sense of kinship.

While it can get rightfully goose-bumpy at times, what distinguishes Till from most other well-intentioned films telling similarly themed stories set during this tumultuous era of American history is the absence of white saviors. It’s about time.

An inner-city tragedy that plays its story simply, sorrowfully, and beautifully.

It wants so hard to be "Pulp Fiction," but it ends up "8 Heads in a Duffel Bag."

Anything but dull, Gibney’s clarion call whipsaws along like a combo Jason Bourne/007 thriller minus all that running. Unnerving and likely to give viewers some bitter food for thought, Zero Days is Gibney’s most important work yet.

Nope is spectacular and intriguing, but also frustratingly incomplete.

Where "Finding Nemo" capitalized on the awesome splendor and danger of the ocean, this follow-up shifts much of its action to an aquatic park and becomes broader and sillier, or at least reality-busting, for it.

Herzog outdoes himself with Rescue Dawn, making his most popularly accessible film yet and proving at the same time that he is among the most daring of all filmmakers and capable -- like his characters -- of almost anything.

A chilling classic, the movie is a scabrous satire about human deviance, brutality, and social conditioning that has remained a visible part of the ongoing public debate about violence and the movies.

A great piece of advocacy: an elegant movie about one of the world’s most urgent problems, made by an esteemed social critic and cultural figure. Yet, Ai’s film, despite its staggering numbers, seems short on insight and personal consequence.

The constant singing and dancing throughout is charmingly presented, and the CGI recreations of Antarctica are stunning.

Proves to be a wonderful reality check.

This artful documentary about renowned Tokyo sushi master Jiro Ono is not going to help save Charlie the Tuna one iota.

Perkins’ greatest and most stomach-churning achievement is in a slow shift of perspective, leading the audience from the bleak and eerie serial killer thriller of Harker’s world to the fiendish reality of Longlegs, and an enigmatic denouement that will be puzzled over and studied. Hell truly awaits.

The Gift, a psychological roller coaster on a doomed track, is one of the best directorial debuts in ages, hands down.

As an introductory lesson to what it means to be intersex, Every Body serves its purpose well enough, but there’s no bite to the storytelling, no immediate call to action.

It’s [Depp's] first genuine “adult” role (not counting the tedious Nick of Time), and it allows him the freedom and emotional range to move, speak, and deal with issues more as an actor and less as a brat-packer.

It is nothing less than a tapestry detailing the human desire for, yes, money, but more importantly, for connection.

The German film Victoria gives off a lustrous intensity. Filmed all in one take in pre-dawn Berlin, the film is a technical marvel inset with small jewels.

While the account of Walden's heroics doesn't necessarily move from legend to fact, it does push the bounds of truth and raise interesting questions about the function of truth for the survivors of war.

Kore-eda’s nonjudgmental approach to all his films is what makes him such an enticing auteur, and with Broker he brings what he excels at to a new destination with an all-star South Korean cast that really understands his material and delicate subtleties.

This is a lovingly rendered, feel-bad chamber piece chock-full of elliptical psychodrama.

There are so many terrific things going on in the film – rapid-fire wordplay, split-second visual gags, and some veddy, veddy British punning – that, frankly, Paddington deserves more than one viewing. Huzzah Paddington, and marmalade forever!

For a while, each of their characters seems trapped in a loop from which she can’t break free, unlike the beatific Mara. But the group’s seasoned elders, played by Ivey and McCarthy, are the characters that stay with you. The two veteran players’ understated performances beautifully ground the film with positive wisdom. Lots of words are said in Women Talking, but when these two speak, you perk up and listen.

Filmmakers Boden and Fleck don’t appear interested in eliciting your full-out sympathy for these low-rollers, though the happyish ending seems somewhat a sellout (albeit a satisfactory one). Who’s to blame them? After all, everybody loves a winner.

Anyone who wants to better understand the cultural conditions leading up to the civil rights movement would do well to check out The League. But for those baseball fans who are used to charting the history of America alongside iconic moments in sports history, this one is a real treat.