What a weird, winning little movie is Robot & Frank, which explores what happens to the essential self as the memory goes. Oh, and it's a heist picture. With robot butlers. I'm not sure I've ever seen anything quite like it.

Despite this film's narrative lapses, Malick has a unique way of distilling the poetry from the commonplace -- and for that precious gift we should say amen.

As much a portrait of a community as of its brilliant, de facto mayor, Harmontown is a stirring tribute to the restorative power of finding your people.

An early contender for one of 2021’s best horror films.

After the inexplicable roars of applause for the ham-fisted Promising Young Woman, seeing first-time feature director Molly Manning Walker treat similar issues with so much more empathy and nuance makes How to Have Sex a disturbing if welcome addition to the conversation.

It's rebellious within an era of restraint, bathing Tesla in glowing pastel shades in a time of mahogany, leather, and steam.

Of course, Slither isn't for everyone, but if you've a yen for gallons of grue and a smart, sassy story to boot, you couldn't do better than Gunn's hellishly fun horror show.

Cronenberg’s nonlinear narrative is trying at times – it keeps you nearly as off-kilter as the characters, and surely that’s intentional – but as a character piece about madness and stymied dreams, it’s remarkably realistic.

The debut feature by writer/director Cory Finley began as a script for stage, not screen, and that shines through in the intricate dance of dialogue. There's a hint of David Mamet in his use of strictly defined silences, and flat statements as heavy implications.

Summer Wars is a magnificently manufactured piece of film entertainment that goes beyond the obvious and manages to comment, often obliquely, on everything from Facebook to virtual war and/or terrorism without ever seeming heavy-handed or strident.

The jokes fly in the college intramural football comedy Balls Out like a fourth-down Hail Mary thrown deep toward the end zone: unpredictable, risky, and just a little desperate. But when they hit their marks – and make no mistake, the number of completed passes here is high – they score big laughs in the most unconventionally funny, weirdly absurd movie of the year.

The key to a great literary adaptation is not to slavishly replicate but to find a way to change everything for the new medium except the heart. The Wild Robot, the 49th animated feature from DreamWorks Animation, doesn’t just put a digital coating on that heart, but celebrates every vibrant beat.

An unsettling feeling hums through the film, and remains well after. Less of a jolt, then; call it a sustained current.

You need only see Get Low for absolute proof that, while Hollywood may be in decline even as bad actors' salaries climb ever higher, there remain at least three very exemplary reasons – Duvall, Spacek, and Murray – to switch off your home theatre and get out into a real one.

It’s the commonality of Lucio’s story and case that makes Van Tassel’s documentary more impactful.

A devastating and weighty picture.

She Is Conann is a politically charged, blood-, sex-, and tears-soaked sword, carving through the helpless arteries to the heart of cinematic mediocrity, and it is Mandico’s strongest vision yet.

The heart of the film, however, is the character played by Bene Coopersmith, a real-life record store owner in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Anderson still directs with purpose, and while One Battle After Another is never as coherent as it is exciting, it avoids the tag of being “lesser Anderson.”

That Peace Officer cannot provide a complete picture of the myriad of problems that come with the increased militarization of police isn’t an indictment of the film. This trouble is too big for one film to contain.

Weaving, who excels at this kind of character-driven action-horror, plays perfectly with our empathy, wordlessly guiding us through this damned land.

Five years after Ang Lee attempted a stylistically and narratively daring reimagining of what a comic-book movie could be (an example that tanked disastrously at the box office), the big green gamma-guy returns to the screen in a purer, more unadulterated, vastly more entertaining form.

Admirable efforts aside, I Carry You With Me is still an enchanting mix of drama and romance, but also a timely, poetic love letter to Iván’s home country, Mexico.

What The Newton Boys lacks in dramatic definition, it more than compensates for with its underlying intelligence and visual luster.

By the time this harmless but possibly harmed pack of pups is seen approaching the Atlantic Ocean at Coney Island for the very first time – “Look at that, there’s people all over the beach,” one brother nervously mutters – it’s clear that there are second acts, and more, in American lives, even ones so borderline freakish as the ones presented here.

Thoughtful and achingly empathetic – there is so much grace in these performances – We Grown Now occasionally tilts a touch too capital-A Arthouse Film.

A relentlessly good-humored, life-affirming film.

Sisters has a patchily funny first act but unleashes pure comedic chaos once the party gets started.

Post-JCVD, we'll never again be able to think of Van Damme as just another kickboxer turned actor. Van Damme is an actor, pure and simple, and proves that he is just as deft and accomplished as the movies in which he appears.

What sets apart this eighth outing is its giggling bouts of male henpecking, all puffed feathers and nyah-nyah taunts.

This is one fish tale that’s well nigh guaranteed to linger in the viewers’ midnight memories long after its cinematic nocturnal emissions have unspooled.

Screenwriter Bruce Wagner (who's been skillfully dissecting Hollywood misfits high and low since his 1991 novel, "Force Majeure") has crafted a darkly humorous moral fable that Cronenberg embraces with unabashed glee.

There's no denying it's a tragic film from start to finish, but equally undeniable is the endless stoicism displayed by the women, and Panahi's crisp, meandering direction.

Much has been made of the fact that Swanberg has cast for the first time bona fide movie stars and not just his mumblecore pals: In fact, it's the making of the movie. If you're going to build an entire film on microexpressions, then a certain innate magnetism is required. Swanberg gets it in spades from his top-shelf cast.

No doubt about it: Bad Santa is blasphemous. But, to borrow a phrase from another famous hedonist, Homer Simpson, it’s also sacrilicious.

The first in a series of popular Django movies helped define the Italian tradition of spaghetti Westerns with a tormented antihero, extreme, sadistic levels of violence, and loud, heroic music.

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.

The filmmakers wisely stay in the background and allow the people of Whitwell to tell their own story, although this simple, honest little film is occasionally marred by an emotionally manipulative music score straight out of Heartstring Tuggers 101.

It’s tradition versus modernity, it’s defiance in the face of oppression, but more importantly, the film speaks to how Fiddler on the Roof resonates time and time again, across generations, to the human condition.

One of the most eloquent tales in ages of dysfunctional love – between a man and his ideals, between a country and its government, and, in the end, between Evey and V.

It's not perfect -- thank Satan! -- but Hellboy II: The Golden Army is by far the most splendidly imaginative and creatively uncorked piece of fantastic cinema since the director's "Pan's Labyrinth" netted an Oscar trifecta in 2007.

Their Finest may ultimately be the best words to describe the amalgamated work of all participants in this film.

Watery-eyed and drowning in contrition, Junejo finds a touching, tragic inner life to Haider's passivity: But in Urdu and Punjabi observational tragedy Joyland first-time director Saim Sadiq isn't interested in simply telling a story of sexual and social liberation.

Sorrentino’s film tackles the most important of all life’s questions with wit, wisdom, and no small amount of often-surreal humor.

By turns wry, quirky, joyful, and above all human, this easygoing but never less than fascinating documentary focuses on the surprisingly tolerant township of Eureka, Ark.

The film feels like the spirit of a zine come alive – with a few over-the-top, Muppet-esque explosions.

Love & Air Sex, with its text-message conversations and Facebook connections, is as of-the-moment as air sex.

So much of the credit must be laid at the feet of Ian McKellen, whose portrait of Whale is a study in acting excellence.

Alice Braga owns this film.

Spark, however, is the best of the lot when it comes to attempting to grok the burn and the burners.

Too much is tossed into the ring and the last hour becomes a frantic swell of emotions and ideas, not all of which are exactly on point.

There’s more narrative happenstance loaded into the script of Blue Car than its running time should effectively allow, but the real keeper moments in Moncrieff’s movie are the small, quiet ones in which a simple glance speaks volumes.

True, few of the cutup crew ever had the depth of knowledge or stylistic panache that Godard – one of the last remaining masters of the 20th century's most vibrant art forms – brings to the screen. But then, is The Image Book really a film? Godard himself has re-engineered it as an art installation, to be shown on a TV with speakers surrounding it, and that would probably be a better home.

Berger’s low-key, likable ensemble film flares with brilliance in its framing concept.

Boys on the Side is surprisingly effective, although its narrative often advances awkwardly.

If you’re a movie geek and Hitchcock freak (guilty!) who can never get enough of this kind of stuff, 78/52 will rock your world.

It may all be a flashback, but Black Widow is truly a bridge with a true direction as the MCU moves into its post-Avengers era.

The plot isn’t sturdy enough to fill two hours. An honorable mention, but no best in show.

There's a genuine, sparky chemistry between the three (and later, a fourth), and Robertson, particularly, is luminous in her role.

Sembène achieves this balance of tone with a mix of absurd and biting dialogue and a modest mise en scène.

The details are intriguing, but ultimately we learn little more about what's in their heads.

Capturing the nuances of quotidian life may not be everyone's cup of tea.

Laika's stop-motion animation is every bit as inspired here as it was in their rightfully lauded "Coraline," and the storyline never wavers from its boneyard-deep message: Being different from others is a good – nay, great – thing, no matter how many villagers (or zombies) are after you.

Downstream to Kinshasa is a simple narrative, with a group of resilient survivors getting from point A to B, but its simplicity is impactful. It is clear and concise about its purpose, and by the end his subjects’ desires are explicit.

Babylon's cultural specificity is what gives it power, putting it as much in a tradition of British alienated youth movies like Brighton Rock and Quadrophenia (not coincidentally written by Babylon scriptwriter Martin Stellman).

Kudos to the suits for backing a horror film this provocative and spine-chilling.

One glance at the cast should be enough of a recommendation for any film lover -- it's Winger's first time on the screen in seven years, and Howard deserves a nod or two if only for getting his wife back in front of the camera where she so clearly belongs.

The battles between the imperious Hepburn and the presumed-mad Taylor are pure theatricality, while sensitive shrink Clift observes it all and emotes.

O’Sullivan’s script is also a remarkable document of community theatre: again, often a place for cheap laughs about hams and backstage romances, but it’s never played for comedy at the character’s expense.

The crime is beyond bizarre, and the film is relentlessly suspenseful, but perhaps the most disturbing question of all is this: Whatever happened to Nicholas Barclay? To that, there remains no satisfactory answer.

A very nasty piece of work, indeed.

More factual rigor wouldn't hurt, but directors Quinn and Walker delve instead into the lives of their subjects with a fly-on-the-wall candor, revealing as much about American life as they do of African life.

Mamet does a shrewdly skillful job with these Tinseltown terrors.

Even if you're familiar with the details of the game, Rafferty's suspenseful editing draws you to the edge of your seat and beyond, back into 1968 itself.

Presumably the first ever feature film adapted from a Twitter thread, Zola makes use of the graphics and sound effects of the internet, as has been common in film for the past several years. But there’s more depth to it here given the context.

What Reggio’s ultimate point or conclusion might be is, as ever, left up to the viewer for interpretation. And while this is patently not a film that big-box cineplexers are going to rush to in droves, Visitors remains a wondrous work of artistic achievement.

The information it presents is eye-opening for medical consumers and health professionals of any stripe. And the film incidentally makes a great case for health care reform.

Johnson may need reminding that atheists aren’t just here to provide comfort to believers. That misstep aside, Wake Up Dead Man is a cunning and entertaining mystery, a return to form for the franchise.

This documentary does boast some bowl-you-over reveals best experienced blind.

Along the way, you’ll wonder if you’re watching a classic tragedy or a comedy.

A touching (and at times horrific) -- albeit overlong -- Christ allegory, that scores not so much on the strength of its convictions as it does on the truly remarkable performances it elicits from the cast.

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.

The Desolation of Smaug is, on the whole, a vast improvement over The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. It’s a popcorn movie (in the best sense) disguised as deep-core nerdism.

Ultimately, Frost/Nixon may be stuck in time – but, oh, what a time it was.

It’s the funniest, friskiest date movie in a good long while.

The best surprise is Yuan, the daughter of Hong Kong actress Cheng Pei-Pei. She has great screen presence and invests Lichi with a mix of kitty-cat cuteness and hellcat ferocity.

As much romantic fantasy as it is social satire, but more to the point -- it is gloriously and tear-wellingly funny.

This weighty French/Polish production is chock-full of moral dilemmas borne from its unthinkable scenario. At times, it’s not an easy experience.

It’s an erotic thriller set-up matched with the sort of morally dubious character that would have De Palma’s ears perked, but it plays like more of a farce in practice.

The first film was both a fun and furry buddy cop romp and a gentle metaphor for acceptance and cohabitation. Zootopia 2 goes further down that path in a fashion that is unabashedly moralizing when it comes to how some groups are excised and othered in a community, and how gentrification can be a tool of oppression.

Nearly every shot of the film, which Wells (a UT grad) also wrote and directed, holds a heavy dose of local scenery.

Greengrass and co. may have made one of the best action movies in recent memory.

Watching Matt and Anna discover the parameters of their friendship, and the impact they have on each other’s lives, is quite rewarding. Both Helms and Harrison nail the fluid nature of the tonal shifts as their bond tightens, loosens, and tightens once more.

A stroll with these characters is a refreshing break from from the usual film exercises.

This revisionist Western – intellectually, aesthetically, and narratively absorbing – rattles to the bone, but never quite rends the heart.

Horror movies tend to be pretty quick affairs, clocking in at 90 minutes or less, but The Wailing runs over two-and-a-half hours. That's because Na's recipe absolutely requires simmering before it rips your guts out (and everyone else's).

One wishes perhaps for a more thumping conclusion, but what we have instead is something perfectly in the spirit of the piece, reaffirming that life, big and little, happens in 10 minutes chunks.