What Safe does so brilliantly is to plunge us down this frightening rabbit hole with Carol.

Richardson also lends authenticity to her character, a mother adept at playing the victim (even in this situation). There’s a complexity to the family dynamic that couldn’t be more true-to-life.

The cast is uniformly excellent in their roles, and Eyre's persistent use of long, trailing shots reinforces the story's elegiac tone.

Not enough can be said about Willem Dafoe’s amazing performance as van Gogh. It is some of the best work of his career.

Crammed to bursting with the director’s trademark magical realism. Occasionally marred by budgetary constraints, this is nevertheless a welcome return for an artist who truly deserves the sobriquet: El Maestro.

Just because Pavements is a prankish film about a prankish band doesn't make it any less deeply heartfelt. It’s one for the fans – and we are legion.

It’s an indie film about abortion that comes snuggled in the broad strokes of a quirky relationship comedy. A grump might wonder when indie films got so soft, but I’m more intrigued by the inverse: Why aren’t more studio films this clever and winning and conversant in the same language as their audience?

When all is said and done, there ain't no mountain high enough that should keep you from getting to this movie. We've heard it through the grapevine for too long.

Iris is difficult to watch, given that it requires you to witness the transformation of the title character from a literate, vibrant woman to the ghost of her former self.

With its brief running time and revelatory story, this neat, fascinating documentary ought to be required viewing for art history students everywhere.

Director and co-writer Athina Rachel Tsangari wants viewers to fill in the blanks.

This second incarnation of the Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt-produced animation anthology is, if anything, even better than the first.

Most important, there are the photographs themselves – lots of them – which director Freyer freely uses to illustrate Winogrand’s genius in capturing the ambiguous now, urging the viewer to fill in the details of the story glimpsed in the shot.

The only reservation I have in recommending this film is the ultimate question of what value there is in this kind of naked, unmediated portrayal of such wretched situations. What Oldman has done is to open a window onto scenes we know are taking place everywhere, all the time. Why -- and if -- we choose to look is a personal call for every viewer.

The interplay of setback and triumph of the sports film genre, here informed by both racial and socioeconomic concerns, is comfortably familiar, and Green, with writer Zach Baylin, never met a tennis serve/time transition they didn’t run with, but they keep their gaze on Papa Williams and his provocative eccentricities, dutifully lionizing the man as good as any royal biographer.

Shirley is probably too niche to attract the Academy’s interest in Moss – how has she never been nominated? – but it’s a big, messy, masterfully itchy performance and yet another notch in her belt.

It’s an absolutely crazed fever dream of a film, and like a febrile infant it begins with a few odd notes and barely heard, often off-camera sounds, and then proceeds to build those seemingly minor instances of weird until it crescendos into an ear-piercing, panic-inducing visual and aural shriek.

Trees Lounge gives the appearance of being slight, spontaneous, and effortless. It would be easy to write off Buscemi's maiden effort as a serendipitous fluke, but just like that squirrely face of his, you know that surface values are merely the outer layer.

Mostly it will just make you hungry to revisit Ashman’s work. That’s perhaps not the intended result of this fond tribute/merely serviceable survey of a too-short career – but it’s not necessarily a bad one.

A gently parodic tone prevails throughout what is ultimately a pretty sweet take on bloodsuckers, even as Deacon and Nick flap their way through a “bat fight” (exactly what it sounds like) and the vamps face off against a pack of similarly esteem-challenged werewolves led by Conchords manager Rhys Darby.

A movie with style to burn, and, initially, that is this crime drama's most mesmerizing aspect.

10 Cloverfield Lane is a cinematic puzzle box that rewards your patience with three standout performances; a memorable, nerve-jangling score by composer Bear McCreary; and an escalating sense of disorienting confusion.

It's a period piece about the origins of psychoanalysis and the sexual confusions of its progenitors that is eloquent and handsomely made, if never quite revelatory.

Mother finds Brooks in top form as he dons the tri-fold hat of director, star, and writer (with co-writer Monica Johnson). His humor has more of an observational zing than a jokey, one-two patter. Within this structure, Brooks uncovers many of the fidgety truths about the relationships between parents and their grown children. The film comeback of Debbie Reynolds is also a most welcome offshoot of this movie.

Ghost in the Shell is a slick but plodding recycling of tired cyberpunk clichés that adds nothing new to the genre.

Although it is achingly sad, Rabbit Hole is not maudlin or depressing.

It is a story about loyalty, friendship, and honor. In other words, it's less titillating than you might expect.

Enthralling and effortlessly relevant, Birdboy is a searing contemporary fantasy, and often unrelenting in its savage attacks on greed, acquisitiveness, the disposable society, and some not-so-subtle jabs at Spanish Catholicism.

The Last of the Mohicans rarely flinches in depicting the eye-for-an-eye savagery of war. Although not explicit in the way you might expect, it nevertheless requires you to screw your courage to the sticking place. Perhaps that's a tribute to its ability to take you along its journey without much effort – real enough to elicit a visceral reaction, romantic enough to remind you it's only a movie.

Character-driven movies this brutally honest about life below the poverty line are few and far between, but the ensemble cast and Riegel’s skills not only behind the camera but also – judging from her lean and mean script – behind the keyboard help Holler rise above expectations and overcome cliche.

A sublime mixture of dark social realism and magical fantasy – social magical realism, if such a subgenre exists.

Shot in black and white with some quirky wipe transitions thrown in (haven’t seen the classic page-turning wipe in a while), El Planeta orbits around an aesthetic and sensibility rooted in Eighties indie films. But mother and daughter have a comfortable chemistry that surpasses the deadpan material.

Crowe has rarely been better, and the same goes for director Scott, who parallels and then dovetails Lucas and Roberts' stories with sublime, gritty precision, working up to a magnificent "Godfather III"-style crosscutting sequence that electrifies an already explosive tale.

A big generational saga that woos the audience with its humor, spirit, style, and ability. Genius here is an evolutionary thing.

With American independent film teeming with so many shaky-cam snarksters, what an electric riposte to the status quo is Nichols, whose films are classically constructed and deadly serious. In his short but potent career, he’s mastered a wide-vistaed eye for the epic and the elemental.

Releasing Nightcrawler on Halloween may seem counterintuitive, but then again, when better to release a thoroughly gripping portrait of an utterly modern sociopath?

It looks beautiful, the costumes are gorgeous, the fight scenes are terrific, and there is a nice bit of gore. It may be a long haul to the eventual battle but don’t let that dissuade you from signing up.

As in his previous documentaries, Brügger’s actions and tone are shot through with pitch-black gallows humor and dizzying moments of absurdist farce, equal parts Hunter Thompson, Michael Moore, and the great, self-effacing British journalist Jon Ronson.

Tilting surprisingly dark – I suspect the film is at least in part about how we process trauma – but also somewhat impenetrable on first watch, it was another startlement when I realized I was crying. I can’t wait to go back.

Stunning opulence dazzles the eye.

In a less interesting film, this would all be seen through the eyes of freshly radicalized documentarian Shawn (Scribner, black-ish), but Goldhaber amplifies the tension by keeping this an ensemble.

The Hunger Games franchise, both in print and onscreen, has been exceptionally clever about cozying away imaginative space for fans to fill in the blanks and cast themselves in the rich drama. That this latest film leaves us hungering for more only means that it’s working.

Submarine pulls off the difficult trick of being bittersweet without being saccharine and does so with a quietly riotous aplomb.

It’s arguably Linklater’s best use of an ensemble – and that’s saying something. But great as each individual performance is, and broad as Linklater pulls his aspect ratio, Nouvelle Vague is really a close-up on Godard.

Cyclo is a rich, gritty, and ultimately distressing feast for the eyes. It's a dark and dirty dream that stays with you long after you leave the theatre.

Mostly Superbad is as soulful and funky as its soundtrack.

Sophie Scholl plods along inexorably, one step after another, to its grim, sad end. It's almost unbearable.

While the performances are total delights, there remains the nagging feeling that Kore-eda is not working at his peak.

If nothing else, Pearl is a showcase of the powerhouse that is Goth. She deserves all the accolades and then some.

Paris, 13th District never quite provides a good enough reason to smoosh two of Tomine’s stories together.

Just the thing to clear your Capra-glutted holiday movie palate.

We've come to expect each new Demme film to percolate to an urgently musical beat. (The Manchurian Candidate also features a few cameos by musicians as diverse as Robyn Hitchcock and Fab Five Freddy.)

Winger is as good here as she’s ever been, and Letts, an actor whose face you know but whose name you can never quite remember, is terrific, communicating his lust for Lucy with dry aplomb.

As Bauman falls deeper and deeper into the mysteries of Bilberry Inn, McCarthy masterfully reminds us that a ghost can be real and a metaphor, as the scares demand.

Final Account is about today as much as yesterday, and that makes it perhaps the most urgent World War II documentary of them all.

Going dramatic, Stiller commits to the role completely; there's something rather admirable in his refusal to pander or soft-pedal the self-serious, frankly unlikable Greenberg.

This is not your mother's murder mystery, unless your mother's maiden name is de Sade and she has an appallingly bleak vision of modern society that occasionally fixates on the historical misdeeds of the corporate/industrial world and the correction thereof.

There’s an important message in here, especially when it comes to the financial inequality between men and women in sports. But rather than using the 17-year-old Shields’ pugnacious attitude to really explore how she landed body blows on the sexist establishment, The Fire Inside just ends up shadow boxing.

Narnia is nearly saved by those immensely likable and altogether stiff-upper-lippy Pevensie kids.

If The Wild Bunch was Peckinpah's most violent film, surely Straw Dogs has to be his coarsest and most intense. Peace and love? Forget it.

With its bold visual sense and fanciful storyline (credited to six writers, no less), Encanto feels like a companion piece to Coco, but it has nowhere near the same emotional heft as that far superior 2017 Oscar-winner.

You can take Yourself and Yours at face value, and watch it like Min-jung is a pathological liar, or you can watch it trusting her every time she claims she’s not Min-jung, and see it as a metaphor for how men see women. That there are numerous ways to view her and the story makes it one of Hong’s most powerful and engrossing films.

The family’s reunion story is enhanced by showing it from each character’s perspective. Each time, we discover more about each person and come to admire the sensitivity they show toward one another.

The film is a sharp and keenly etched study of a man who would be the sidekick to kings.

While the cabaret performances are the documentary’s draw, the movie comes most alive in the interspersed interviews with servicemen and women willing to speak their minds, whether it’s about institutional racism in the military, the imperialistic siting of bases in Asia, and, of course, the ugliness of the war itself, in all of its manifestations.

Bizarre, even darkly comic at times. But it's also elegant and mannered.

Kempner's documentary is a streamlined, gorgeous piece of work, full of revelations of time, place, and person.

Mamet does a shrewdly skillful job with these Tinseltown terrors.

Backed by a soundtrack of hip-hop and edited to within an inch of its life, Kennedy’s film has sleek gutter charm to spare.

Mistress America is maybe Baumbach’s most probing consideration of the writer’s process and development, a continuing point of interest in his filmography, from "Kicking and Screaming" to "The Squid and the Whale" and "Margot at the Wedding."

Its gentleness and incremental increases in weirdness are a feature, not a bug.

Young@Heart more than subtly suggests that the secret to growing old is to feel young, and – based on what you see in this film – there may be some truth to that platitude.

It is Depp, however, who really nails this thing by simply blending in with all the other voice talent and characters and not reverting to the oversized Captain Jack Sparrow swagger. Rango becomes the hero of his own story, and for this he needs no stinkin' badge.

Mixing fly-on-the-wall observation with behind-the-scenes footage and reenactments, Czubek and Perez remain respectful, and even a little awestruck, while also understanding that Nabwana just wants everyone to have a good time. That's what makes Wakaliwood, as they say, Home of Da Best of Da Best Movies.

Border is a Venn diagram of a film: sometimes darkly comedic, sometimes wild honey sweet, sometimes a stomach-churning crime drama, with aspects of both Scandinavian mythology and contemporary queer cinema.

While turning to a life of crime to get out of debt isn’t the most original concept, Ford’s decision to keep his camera on Emily’s face for most of the film elevates the material, for Plaza’s performance is the draw here. Her Emily is mad as hell and not going to take it anymore, and there’s a steely, unapologetic gaze in those huge brown eyes of hers. Plaza’s trademark twinkle remains, here cast with a crimson hue.

Director Lenny Abrahamson establishes a twee tone early that renders tinny the transition into melancholy, and it’s a shame the film so clings to Jon’s perspective. The takeaway is as flat as Frank’s mask. Bemused smile, followed by deflated feeling.

As a personal, autobiographical tale, Europa Europa is a fascinating narrative. As a historical memoir, its details are compelling.

While The Art of the Steal makes a very convincing – even bone-chilling – argument that the people and foundations that essentially hijacked the Barnes Foundation are primarily concerned with tourist dollars and not the preservation of Barnes' legacy, the film fails to even ponder why easier access to some of the world's greatest art treasures might not be an entirely bad thing.

The combination of high animé style and old-school heart gives the film a broad enough appeal to merit a wide release. Not that it isn't quirky.

This The Naked Gun never tries to lampoon or merely copy the original beloved films. Instead, director Akiva Schaffer and his co-writers, Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, get to the heart of the humor in a non-ironic, non-revisionist fashion.

So yes, Bodied is a comedy of ill manners, fraught as it is with a veritable encyclopedia of contemporaneous qualms confronted and contested with some seriously dope hustle and flow. Tag this one #badassseriousfun.

Sisley is a former stand-up comic, although you'd never guess it here: Finding himself in the eye of a colossal shit storm of his own making, his Vincent is brusque and action oriented, his face, a picture of ulceration in progress.

This astonishing animated feature from first-time Slovenian director Krstić is required viewing for art history majors and anyone else with even a glancing interest in the works of everyone from Warhol to Gauguin, Diego Velázquez to Joan Miró.

Loses something in its transposition to America where the two leads are not nearly as widely known as they are in their home country of France.

Director Pollack and scriptwriter John Milius transform Vardis Fisher's novel Mountain Man into a gritty, cinematic tall tale that resonates across geography, time, and the loneliest regions of the solitary heart.

What separates Blaze from its peers, however, is the obvious affection the filmmakers have for their assortment of damaged characters. In Ben Dickey, Hawke and company have found a remarkable physical and musical double for Foley.

Just as marriage does not banish aloneness, proximity to the characters onscreen doesn't unlock any special connection to them.

The Punk Singer (and the formation of the Julie Ruin) offers a welcome return to, if not the fray, then certainly the front – where, as every rebel girl worth her combat boots knows, girls belong.

Capernaum is as close to unfiltered truth as the screen or the audience can handle. Set in the slums of Beirut, it is an eye-opening insight into life at the frayed fringes of a society that seems seconds from unraveling.

It's a bit surprising that a documentary with such an unwieldy title offers such a streamlined and resonant account of history.

Durkin's film seems to exist in its own fractured dream state. It's hypnotic, narcotic, and trembling on the verge of either dread or redemption or some hazy state of nothingness in between.

True, this pair has more than the usual share of obstacles in their path, and watching them surmount the challenges is inspiring. I’m just not sure that Dina and Scott’s struggles with intimacy should be grist for my perusal.

Although Eska’s story is fairly simple (and created prior to "12 Years a Slave"" and "Django Unchained," which made slavery-era films part of our contemporary dialogue), it’s an emotionally rich tale.

By the end of this affable little film, you’ll likely crave a bowl of fresh-made pasta in seafood sauce, a glass of Frascati, and a room with a view on the Amalfi coast. (Sigh.)

Inspired by writer-director Kyle Hausmann-Stokes’ own experiences in the Army, including combat in Iraq, My Dead Friend Zoe tackles PTSD head-on with humor and empathy.

Though The Flower of My Secret is not as crazed as "Women on the Verge," the movie marks the return of Almodóvar's delicious humor and a departure from the nastier streak that this Spanish director has been on recently.

Sure, it’s not terribly satisfying resolutionwise because you’re still left with as many questions as answers in the end. But that’s the thing about looking back on your life at a relatively late age. So many gaps left unfilled.