Ultimately Hill of Freedom is surprisingly satisfying in its sheer — albeit abjectly disjointed – fish-out-of-water ordinariness.

There's also real breadth in scenes between Burr and Davidson: The older stand-up doesn't give any ground but still tries to give the screwed-up young man something to cling on to in several firehouse scenes.

The Deeper You Dig may be a small production, but everything in it feels aspirational, so much bigger and heartfelt and horrifying than can be expected.

And even if this all seems a little absurd for you, just take a degree of pleasure in seeing neo-Nazis getting brutalized by a teenage girl. That never gets old.

What's makes Tommaso stand out among thinly veiled autobiographical movies is that it’s not, like Tarkovsky’s "Mirror," an attempt to reduce an entire life into two hours; nor, as in "Fanny and Alexander" or "The 400 Blows," a portrait of the artist as a young man. This is Ferrara at this precise moment.

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.

There’s nothing in Fourteen that moviegoers have not seen before, but the empathetic performances by both Medel and Kuhling make this a journey worth taking.

There's no doubt of the ingenuity, imagination, and extraordinary craft on display. Yet, even at a concise 73 minutes, there's a question of, to what end?

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.

Basically a meaner French version of schmaltzy Matthew McConaughey romcom "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" (itself one of the worst adaptations of A Christmas Carol) mixed with a French bedroom farce, On a Magical Night shackles itself, as if with Marley's chains, to a thoroughly unlikable protagonist.

Deliciously dry and wry, Lucky Grandma invokes unlikely chuckles because Chin embraces her surly nature.

I’m coming down harder than I meant to. If you’re a fan of the series – and I am – you’re still going to fan. (There’s no entry point for newcomers; it’s too in medias res.) The scenery is lush. There’s ever the pleasure in Steve and Rob’s company. I just wanted to feel by film’s end like I’d arrived somewhere new. Like the journey had been pulling me somewhere inevitable but still enlightening.

The Painter and the Thief doggedly reminds us that vengeance cannot be the sole redress against a crime.

Not content to explore Kennedy’s work as a historian and cook, Nothing Fancy also explores her efforts as an environmentalist.

Of course, Mackerras' real target is society's hypocrisy when it comes to sex work. Prostitution is something Alice does, not something that should define her forever. Even an overly-optimistic denouement cannot undercut either that message, or the audience's desire for Alice to have a happy ending.

This gloriously messy celebration of New Orleans’ musical legacy is a savory gumbo of uniquely American ingredients – jazz, blues, soul, rock ‘n’ roll, gospel, funk, hip-hop – generously seasoned with love and respect for the largely African-American artists who forged that heritage over the past three centuries.

Unfortunately, the digressions into an unformulaic art heist plot can't cure, and often exacerbate, The Burnt Orange Heresy's habit of dragging interminably whenever it focuses on anything other than James, Berenice, and Jerome.

Blood Quantum operates from a place of tribal identity and that no white audience members will truly be able to understand. In this way, Barnaby’s film rejects the default white gaze of so many horror films, choosing to tell a story through an unapologetically Indigenous lens.

The reality is that most criminal enterprises operate under a shadow of confusion, of disorganization. That's the story of Arkansas, a hard-boiled noir where the end is written in the messy beginning.

Still, it takes a special someone to sell this larger-than-life character onscreen, and to make you forgive how the galloping script glosses over some crucial beats.

There are some frustrating gaps, but only because Wolf has so much to cram in. The second round of biospherians are completely erased, while the sudden appearance of Steve Bannon (yes, that Steve Bannon) poses more questions than it answers. Yet even those dead-ends cannot overcome the fascinating story of compromised idealism and hardheaded optimism that underlies it all.

Mixing Ken Loach-style social realism with Mike Hodge’s grasp of stylish murder, much in the vein of 2012’s equally razor-balanced sniper shocker Tower Block, you’ll be cheering for this good woman when she faces the inevitable showdown.

The Wretched may be guilty of stealing shamelessly from "Rear Window," "Disturbia," and the best summercamp slasher and small-town supernatural chillers, but none of those were exactly raw innovators, either.

A tedious mix of Reno 9-1-1 awkward humor and the queasy provocation in Tim and Eric's Awesome Show, Great Job!, it felt like Dupieux was trying too hard, and Deerskin feels like the injection of the leather obsession just never quite meshes with the rest of the story.

If there's a depressing note to Piketty's circular view of history, it's his belief that egalitarianism often springs from catastrophic disaster ("everyone is equal in death" becomes a refrain), and that it's the slow grind of extreme wealth and extreme poverty that breeds those disasters.

Although the filmmaker’s presence in her own film is never remarked upon, I imagine she felt compelled by a feeling of kinship with the artist; Dyrschka, a first-time feature director, is the first filmmaker to profile af Klint, which is a notable achievement. But I don’t think we’ve had the definitive film portrait yet.

The filmmakers’ decision to stay out of the way and shape the story largely in the editing room bears different returns – a less mediated, more immersive, and ultimately quite moving portrait of hopeful youths headed into a harder adulthood.

What Dennehy grasped was people - what made them tick. His performances were never one-note, but understood that joy, grief, and and oft-ignored emotions like resignation could all be contained with in a character. He was a big man, but he could keep his performances small, and so it's fitting that one of his final performances, Driveways, is so tiny and fragile that you'll feel like it can fit into your hands.