Coixet’s film begins with the quiet patter of rain on skin and holds that somehow sweetly sorrowful tone throughout.

All three principal actors – Weisz, McAdams, and Nivola – give effectively constrained performances. They work as a team here, consistent with the delicate balance in their characters’ complicated relationships with one another.

Compelling, relentless cinema.

Clerks II will find Kevin Smith's detractors saying that the filmmaker simply regurgitates the past, while his loyal fan base will applaud his return to the tried and true.

However commanding and absorbing Three Billboards may be, the film is diminished by its neatness and unconvincing resolutions to the many dilemmas it puts into play.

A pure cinematic distillation of Maclean's words, it is by turns austere and vibrant, disconsolate and joyful.

Clockwatchers may not be a Grapes of Wrath for the Nineties, but its intelligence, slow-boil outrage over grunt workers' dehumanization, and subtle assertion of their power to resist make it a terrific piece of pro-labor propaganda.

The final destination is a truly touching and very modern story of being an overlooked child, and you'll cross an ocean of wonder and amazement to get there.

Undeniably gripping stuff.

It can be an incredibly entertaining romp through the picket fence yards of an America that only exists in our collective unconscious.

How do you tell the true story of a mythical woman? In epic proportions, of course.

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.

It helps that J.K. Rowling’s third book in the series is full of spooky stuff that translates beautifully to screen.

Aftersun is lyrical without ever being obtuse, and it's a film that flourishes when attention is paid to details.

David Lynch doesn't tell stories as much as he shows hallucinations. Wierd, wild, excessive, obsessive, idiosyncratic visions.

A carefully constructed thriller whose clever dialogue keeps pace with its fascinating lead actress.

Felix and Oscar are now part of the American mythos.

Cunningham adheres to a distinctly romantic approach to the artist: irascible and railing against the hypocrisy of humanity through these wonderful and complicated movements that soar above and beyond.

Brilliant, wacky, and utterly charming fluff, with millions of mad monkey minions to boot.

It perfectly catches that childish point just before adolescence, where young boys are starting to notice girls but still want to find frogs in pools.

The fact that Emily aspires to be an astrobiologist, fascinated by the study of extremophile life forms, is foreshadowing that could seem clumsy in a less crushingly doom-laden and exquisitely eerie story.

Causeway is at its most successful when the film is patient, giving the space to have its characters ruminate over how their past experiences don’t have to define their futures. It’s the kind of film that only succeeds with incredible performances to back it up, and Neugebauer achieves that with Lawrence and Henry guiding her film in such a touching, beautiful way.

It's also a deeply moral antiwar film, if one chooses to view it that way.

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.

Knuckle is the real deal, with the strapping, brutally human Traveller clans butting heads with not only one another but with the very future of their subculture's existence.

Refn’s artful and energetic film never goes further than face value.

The longer you are immersed in this exchange of stories, of hope dying against darkness but proving its value just by its glimmers, the more it enthralls.

One of the most intelligent, engaging, and gut-bustingly funny revelations to come along in a while.