It's an education suitable for both children ready to see the world's shadows, and for adults who may still not comprehend Southeast Asian history beyond the Vietnam War.

Twenty-four years ago, the original Toy Story broke ground as the first-ever entirely computer animated feature film. What’s more astonishing now is how all those ones and zeroes are harnessed to produce something so utterly lifelike.

This love letter dedicated to opera’s biggest rock star, the larger-than-life Luciano Pavarotti, achieves something most documentaries about the deceased rarely do: It brings a man back to glorious life.

Times sure have changed since the old Shaft made women swoon by simply treating them like sh*t. As for the new Shaft, is he still a bad mutha? Shut your mouth.

One of the most original movies of the year.

The Dead Don’t Die feels like something of a minor comic note in the director’s curriculum vitae, but it’s not without its pleasures. And like Romero’s genre classic, social commentary, satirical and otherwise, abounds.

American Woman lives in the quiet spaces of Deb's life. Always suitably understated, it remembers that loss doesn't always swallow a life, but it always leaves a void.

Few actors are as good at playing confident idiots as Chris Hemsworth. Few actresses are also as good at playing sick-of-your-shit heroines as Tessa Thompson. Thanks to "Thor: Ragnarok," we know these two actors possess delightful onscreen chemistry and can bounce their way through an action scene with the best of them. Shockingly, it takes every bit of this talent and this charisma to keep Men in Black: International from being an outright disaster.

Perhaps the bigger canvas here is a native daughter’s tribute to the resiliency of the people of her homeland. It’s no coincidence that the mascot chicken in this rustic Utopia is named Survive.

Where Rolling Thunder Revue works best is when it's clear in its ambiguity.

When Nothing Stays the Same is best is when it's about what it takes to survive, rather than indulging in handwringing: the flexibility, the raw business savvy melded with artistic vision that makes for great booking, and innovations like early evening residencies.

Thompson and Kaling spark, while still leaving space for the rest of the cast to deliver blissful, blistering one-liners (I, Tonya's Hauser predictably steals the show there as the dopey gag writer Mancuso) and moments of true pathos (most especially from Lithgow as Katherine's ever-supportive husband).

The Tomorrow Man is totally dependent on Lithgow and Danner to imbue the characters with warmth and humanity, and elevate them to figures worthy of our interest. Good supporting work from the other actors also keeps us attuned to the story. But otherwise, The Tomorrow Man gives off a feeling of having seen it all before.

Rather than building to a full, fun film, each subplot seems like the pilot to a spin-off animated TV show. No film has felt so desperate to make the jump to the small screen since the best-forgotten "Barnyard: The Original Party Animals," but then The Secret Life of Pets 2 never disguises what it is.

I just wish Tcheng didn’t feel the need for unnecessary flourishes. There is a wonderful scene of archival footage where Halston takes a single sheet of fabric and uses scissors and one seam, and creates a simple but beautifully elegant dress. The filmmaker should have taken a note from that minimalist and flawless execution of a master designer.

There are flashes of what made the franchise work. Turner, after stumbling through the part in the rocky terrain of X-Men: Apocalypse, finally gets to grapple with the emotional complexities of a woman whose gifts are the most constant curse.

As in the Mercury biopic, an unexpected performance by a relatively untried actor in the central role anchors Rocketman.

That Swinton Byrne's performance is so open, so immediate, so caught up in emotional truths rather than performative beats, makes this one of the year's most unique and memorable roles.

There are times when Spencer’s character feels less subversive and more like a gonzo Annie Wilkes from Misery; it’s clear that the filmmakers understand how to write Sue Ann in opposition to tropes, less clear that they know how to turn that into something meaningful.

Much of the film’s fun is overrun by a combination of overlong exposition, ham-fisted dialogue, and some genuinely confusing editing. You’re never quite sure at any given point where, exactly, the human characters are, what exactly they’re doing, or what the f**k that sudden, off-putting plot twist that just happened means.

Some of the interplay between Branagh and Dench as a refamiliarizing couple is also delightful. However, apart from fleeting pleasures, All Is True is mostly a goodie bag stuffed for Shakespeare completists.

The movie remains patchy as it continues to jump somewhat arbitrarily from day to day without fully realizing its subject matter. The one dependable constant in all of this is Christo himself. Smiling ecstatically one minute, despondently hangdog the next, he exhibits a genius lunacy on par with his life’s work.

It may be an elevator pitch stretched to 90 minutes, and never aspires to more than that, but it's a fine and distinct funhouse ride designed to elicit cackles, then be forgotten about by the next ride.

Modigliani's fly-on-the-wall documentary verges toward the hagiographic, but that's not the most damning criticism, because he makes the case of O'Rourke's quiet charisma.

So yeah, Booksmart is a different kind of teen comedy – clever and buoyant, proudly feminist and wonderfully reassuring that, yeah, the kids are alright.

What holds the film together before that nerve-jangling sequence is Ivenko as the young genius.

Lacking a typically vivid color palette and bright song & dance routines, Photograph is almost the antithesis of a Bollywood epic. In fact, the film’s small, quiet moments are its most alluring feature, although it’s possible the film may ultimately be too quiet for its own good.

While Non-Fiction can be quaint in its examination of art versus commerce, it is never boring.