At heart, The Souvenir Part II is a film about filmmaking as art, industry, and identity.

Director Alan Parker milks naturalistic performances out of his small cast and creates a brutal intensity rarely matched in cinema today. Michael Serensin's cinematography is oddly sedating yet intense, giving the prison and the whole country of Turkey a frightful, alien sort of feel.

Onscreen, Lighton explores the imbalance between the two and gently leads the audience with sympathy and empathy to a perfect resolution that asks both to face their own dysfunction.

Music has rarely appeared more essential to the human drama.

I could say Bottoms shines because it nods to nostalgia but feels totally of our time, or expertly inhabits the buddy comedy genre formula while providing its own absurdist twist – but most importantly, it is simply, joyfully, ridonkulous.

Funny, tragic, moving scenes unfold in Andersson’s meticulously crafted frames. In cafes, bedrooms, offices, street corners suffused in muted off-whites and grays, with characters (mostly nonprofessionals) participating in a sublime ballet of choreographed insecurity, doubt, and frustration, but also of tender and fragile grace.

The film sucks you in with its exquisite cinematography (shot in lush black-and-white, with a handful of carefully curated moments in color), and a heavy influence of Thirties and Forties Classic Hollywood filming techniques.

The characters’ painful inability to connect only endears them to us, and somehow the film seems, like any human object of our affection might, more vivid and more knowable in its absence.

So many strands, and when the full tapestry is unfurled, its captivating, beautiful, thrilling, and entrancing patterns are revealed. Wolfwalkers stands proud as a new classic.

There's so much information and so many finely honed arguments in this ultimately joyous film that it's liable to send audiences scurrying home to their computers to download the bands they've just heard.

Grant punctuates almost every piece of Hock’s dialogue with an absurd gesture or facial expression – the theatricality of his portrayal of this not-so-street-smart bullshit artist is fascinating.

Even if Birds of Prey doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it sure as hells gets it spinning. Those who wish their superhero movies had a little bit more Lisa Frank and a whole bunch more female gaze may find themselves falling in love with Harley Quinn all over again.

Part "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," part "American Graffiti," and wholly its own stunning self, The Vast of Night is a debut of captivating weight and ingenuity.

Grief doesn't exactly sound like a promising starting point for a love story, but, really, what a bounty Mills presents to us of beauty and buoyancy and possibility.

In her first solo writing and directing effort, the hard-working indie film actress Greta Gerwig proves that she is her own muse. She takes the well-worn coming-of-age-dramedy format and fashions something fresh, funny, and artful from its familiar tropes. Also delivering the goods is a knockout cast of accomplished veterans and relative newcomers.

Anchored at the center is such a warm, tenderhearted personality and worldview that sends you out of the other side with a rejuvenated and healed spirit.

Following James, I couldn’t help but think that Mackenzie and Collier had found a real-life David Brent (I know, they’re probably everywhere). The sheer force of his belief in his own skills (clothes designing, particularly) and the unflappability he exhibits is constantly stupefying.

At its core, this movie is a piece of unflinching activism that forces you to look at something uncomfortable, something those of us in the cocoon would probably rather not see. But see it, you should. See it, you must.

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

In a year when the coy social mores of upstairs and downstairs have been filtered once again through the aristocratic monocle of "Downton Abbey," it's a relief that there's a film this year that tackles the servant/master relationship with the straight-for-the-jugular malice of Parasite.

Secretary is a testament to the importance of tonality in telling a story.

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

An antidote to holiday cheer like no other, this French tale of psychological horror is as harsh as they come -– it’s like finding a severed finger in your stocking and then finding it’s even better with hollandaise.

Owen’s story is unique, and deserving of singling out.

So upbeat it might as well arrive on a sunbeam.

Jennifer Jason Leigh's performance is so incredible that witnessing it is reason enough to take a look at this movie.

There is a whole lot to be said for fun -- especially fun that can be shared by all -- and in this regard Spy Kids saves the day.

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.