Their most potent commentary is often their silence, their wordless responses to those questions that are unanswerable. Their restraint and dignity are an emotional sucker punch.

This is a movie that ripples with sublimated fury well before the bloody and shocking long take that ends everything without much of an answer. But it is also a movie that leaves too much unsaid and takes too long to end up nowhere.

Gavagai is a curiosity and nonetheless remarkable in its own way. Slow (very slow) paced, it’s a meditative, haunting and lyrical film that explores the many layers of love and grief.

Part Two, Walk With Me Awhile, is overstated and adds nothing story-wise short a few snippets that could have been incorporated into its predecessor.

Part One, subtitled For the Sake of Gold, is original and intriguing.

Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone and particularly an astonishing Olivia Colman find a perfectly pitched acid tone in harmony with the director's edgy vision.

Ridley Scott's direction seems even better than remembered, starting off languidly and picking up speed as the horrors mount. [2003 re-release]

The whistleblowers of the NYPD 12 definitely deserve a comprehensive chronicle of their struggle for justice, as their struggle affects so many. Crime + Punishment speaks well on their behalf, but not emphatically enough to close the case.

The songs, written by Gaga, Cooper, Lukas Nelson, Jason Aldean and Mark Ronson, are all terrific and will make a helluva soundtrack album, and Lady Gaga’s performances are electrifying. Combine that with the genuine-feeling romance between the co-stars and the heartbreak of its dissolution, and you have one soaring and searing piece of movie entertainment.

In their trailer, the gift of the religious do-gooder who owns the farm, the exigencies of survival subside, and the quiet brilliance of Foster and McKenzie’s performances surface.

It’s a perfect pairing of sensibilities; Jenkins and Baldwin share a nuanced, lyrical style that conveys the beauty and hope in even the most despairing of situations, with a focus on the emotional truths of their characters. Like the novel, the film is a love story, as well as a powerful indictment of systemic racism and the criminal-justice system.

McCarthy has found the right creative partner in Heller, who treads unchartered territory with a character like Israel: unfashionable, unfamiliar and unappealing to most viewers.

Fallout is the boldest of a series that has set a very high (sometimes literally so) standard for breathtaking set-pieces. By my count, the new film has at least seven of them—a generous gift to summer audiences from daredevil star Cruise, writer-director Christopher McQuarrie and stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood.

Ruizpalacios doesn’t waste the movie beating up on Juan’s foolishness. He’s painting a broader picture of ennui, lost suburban souls who seem to want nothing more than to tool around in their car and talk nonsense.

This is an astonishing filmmaking debut from Burnham, a renowned comedian as well as a musician—you might secretly wonder how a young male not only captured the point of view of an eighth-grade girl so exactly, but also expressed it with such emotional precision. Whatever the secret formula to his experiential accuracy and unexpectedly inventive directorial eye is, the outcome is a deeply serious coming-of-age film that is only light and charming on the surface.

Ross’ debut is scattershot, and lacking in the consistent purpose that articulates a filmmaker’s intent.

McQueen, the exhilarating, heartbreaking documentary by Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, presents an almost excruciatingly intimate portrait of this genius.

As it is, it’s a bit of a slog. A well-crafted slog. But a slog nonetheless.

Bombach’s respectful distance from her subject allows the audience to see in a way that one does watching a Robert Bresson film; in the slowly unfolding narrative, stripped of drama but not of emotion, Nadia’s spirit emerges.

A giant leap even for the youngest-ever Best Director victor, Damien Chazelle’s technically astonishing First Man is a poetic non-blockbuster of claustrophobic intimacy.

Custody embodies Legrand’s attention to detail, reverence for gripping storytelling, command of tension and, above all, direction of finely etched performances for characters major and minor. It is simmering entertainment that amounts to required viewing.

The seams definitely show in the film’s effort to contain all the comment, comedy, horror, romance and drama, but Lee handily orchestrates the layout of the period and players.

An awesome and inspiring doc from the team behind Meru.

Araby stays so grounded in acutely observed behavior, while still sufficiently elliptical in its storytelling methods, that it successfully avoids getting up on any particular soapbox.

In the end, the fine acting cannot salvage the uninspired material that fancies itself cutting-edge yet is paradoxically dated. Madeline’s Madeline might have been innovative in the mid-’60s, but its novelty has long expired.

Rather than working so hard to steer viewers’ emotional reactions, Wardle could have trusted in the provocativeness of his material and endeavored to provide broader context for this entrancing tale.

It's the camerawork by director of photography Brett Lowell and cinematographer Corey Rich (along with many other contributors) that impresses the most here. Close-ups show just how precise and physically challenging the climbers' moves are.

On the strength of its authentic storytelling voice and galvanizing lead performance, The Hate U Give delivers a powerful message that all the rallying and rioting and impassioned pleas in the world won’t change anything if they fall upon deaf ears.

Deliberately paced but shot with a quiet magnetism and close-in immediacy,The Citizen benefits in comparison to other immigrant dramas because even though this is a story suffused with empathy, it doesn’t center on either a good deed being done by a white Westerner for a helpless dark-skinned foreigner or that foreigner’s two-dimensional pluck.

Sibling filmmakers Jeff and Michael Zimbalist’s riveting Nossa Chape (Our Team) reveals at first a team and a town that have been utterly destroyed by the unimaginable. Then, with the tension of a well-plotted sports drama, the documentary tracks the team’s rise from the ashes of grief back to something like normal.

If there is any "message" to Monrovia, Indiana, it may be that we all share the same fate.

At any moment, We the Animals might look and sound gorgeous—yet the film unfolds with a naturalistic pace that plods like a too-lazy summer day. This gorgeous view demands ample, ample patience.

Nyoni’s title articulates her uncompromising, feminist stance, and her characterizations of Mr. Banda and the male villagers explain how patriarchy plays out in Zambia, but it is in her sublime direction—lengthy close-ups, clever tableaux and skillful scoring—that the writer-director accomplishes a social critique so cinematic as to defy description.

The Old Man & the Gun is never less than pleasant, and Redford's fans might even find it resonant. Others may think it's cute but underwhelming, sweet-natured but forgettable. There are worse ways to spend your time.

Even middling Welles is better than none, and it's a treat to see his longtime collaborators like Paul Stewart and Mercedes McCambridge performing as brilliantly as ever. John Huston is a special delight.

Wildlife offers a fresh glimpse of lower-class anomie and the rhythms of life in a simpler time and place.

Compositionally often quite gorgeous and filmed largely in luminous, at times otherwordly black-and-white, The Great Buddha is compelling due to its mordant wit, authentically observed performances and distinctive cynical/lyrical outlook.

Not only do the Coens remember and reproduce it well, so does their French cinematographer, Bruno Delbonnel

Perhaps not surprisingly, Selma seems to understand King best when he's behind a podium or at the head of a march. After all, that public Martin Luther King, Jr. is the one engrained in our collective memory, representing the kind of person we all should be so lucky to aspire to be.

Although hardly conceived or executed on the scale of his work, Proust kept popping into my mind as I watched this disarming film, with its meditative accretion of the fascinating little details that comprise a life.

A film of mounting artistic imagination, Sorry to Bother You spirals into a type of mind-bending madness that is both persistently fun and one-of-a-kind.

They'll Love Me When I'm Dead gives a rich, flavorful account of a self-destructive genius on one of his last creative benders.

With heavy-hitters like Melissa Leo and a particularly terrific John Hawkes backing up a magnetic deGuzman, the slight, 80-minute movie makes for strange and surprising entertainment.

The Wife is an astute character study thanks in large part to Jane Anderson’s winning screenplay.

Credit director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire and Cole for an impressive achievement that takes viewers on an intense journey.

Schnabel's film is not so much about the artist as a journey into his inner being, so we experience the world in much the same blissed-out, tormented and chaotic way he himself did.

The Kindergarten Teacher is a flawed movie, but it presents an onscreen character original enough to be worth knowing.

What might be considered devastating or dead funny here will be highly subjective, but none of it captures the wit of producer Eminem’s “Slim Shady,” which rolls under the closing credits.

Languid, associative, at times dragging, at other moments deeply affecting, thanks to a song and a trick of the light, Ethan Hawke’s Blaze is difficult to define.

McCabe stands apart not just for the impressive technical virtuosity of his filmmaking or his unblinking focus on the tragedy of the Congo, but for his refusal to chalk it up to generalized Third World chaos. Things happen for a reason, this devoutly humane but studious documentary argues, and until those reasons are dealt with, they will continue.

Under the Wirecements Colvin’s legacy as it illustrates the value of getting to the truth and making it public. In Martin’s hands, Conroy’s story is no less compelling.

Dyrholm fully immerses herself in the iconic legend that was Nico, at the same time investing her with so much desperately pulsing life—a true artist portraying another—that it uplifts what could have been a very dreary slog of a movie.

Casal and Diggs have both lived these roles for years, so it’s not surprising that they never deliver a false moment.

A Private War certainly gets viewers to care about Colvin. The screenplay, by Arash Amel, drops Marie (and viewers) into several war zones where she reports about various horrors. Heineman wisely does not shy away from showing some of the blood and the carnage, lest anyone forget the very real human stories that Colvin reported.

A Crooked Somebody (the title derives from pastor Sam’s unheeded advice that “it’s better to be an honest nobody…”) is a meticulously balanced blend of character-based drama and genre conventions.

Sharply argued, indignantly one-sided and stylistically monotonous The Bleeding Edge sometimes seems closer to angry PSA than documentary. But that may not be a distinction that matters.

Knightley shines in period films (Anna Karenina, Pride & Prejudice) and here inflects Colette with a boldness and forthrightness that create a bridge between Belle Epoque Paris and today's zeitgeist.

Chu is definitely not an actor’s director, being far more concerned with splashy spectacle than intimate human emotions, and often you can feel scenes go slightly dead, with his performers likely called upon to improv their lines and motivation as best they can.

Older Than Ireland isn't relentlessly upbeat. It's filled with stories of loss, disappointment, tough lessons learned and compromises made, and it's hard not to suspect that the genetic hand you're dealt counts for a lot.

It cannot, unfortunately, boast a taut pace and narrative to match the mood of unease that fills the air like dust in this depressed desert outpost.

Milford Graves: Full Mantis is a wide-ranging look at an intriguing artist, a documentary brimming over with his thoughts about culture as well as his music.

In the end, Skate Kitchen is a frustrating film that’s supposed to elicit a heady sense of freedom, girl power and a rush of sisterhood. It doesn’t. Instead, one is left feeling vaguely hollow.

Amy Scott’s affectionate and smart documentary sheds light on an artist obsessed with addressing the injustice and intolerance in this country, but who himself could be the most problematic of men.

The story of the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which opened the spigots of campaign cash, has been told before. But Reed weaves it into a larger narrative in which it is simply one of the steps in the unraveling of modern campaign-finance laws.

Comprised entirely of the diva’s own words, whether filmed or transcribed from her various writings, letters and reminiscences, the film offers the definitive portrait of a woman who rose from obscurity in her native Queens, NY, born Greek, to become a true citizen of the world and queen of an art form.

Searching is so smart about how we interact with computers that it's surprising how lame it is about moviemaking basics like characters and plot.

The approach, while admittedly daring, leaves the game viewer, although certainly dazzled by much of the footage, rather wanting more than Bartsch verbalizing the arc of her life and ambitions, yes, but in a distorted layered and overlapping soundtrack that, intentionally, is not always decipherable.

The smartest kind of sequel, Ralph Breaks the Internet remembers what you liked about the first film. And then, not only gives you more of the same, but something different.

There’s a “Let it be” sense to McAlpine’s soft exhortations, which struck me as a little ironic, since her Cielo might have garnered more of the appreciation it deserves if she herself had quieted and simply let it, the sky, be, in all the reverent glory she with the silent poetry of her camera was already showing us.

In the end, perhaps, von Trotta’s search for Bergman never quite finds him. But did he ever quite find himself? All he knew was that he was an artist.

Briskly paced, the film makes for a visually exuberant experience as it cuts quickly among photos and video clips of Kusama’s flashy artwork, commentary from critics, gallery owners and fellow artists (delivered both on-camera and as audio over images of Kusama’s work) and footage of the maverick artist herself.

Unfortunately, a solid premise can only carry a film so far, and Goldhaber fails to deliver on Cam’s potential.

Working with Keaton’s own material, Bodganovich is too busy praising the artist to bother saying anything novel about him.

Dramatically constructed and studded with sharp, thoughtful points of view,The Oslo Diaries nevertheless falls down on one point. The movie doesn’t get as much sunlight into the PLO viewpoint on the process, focusing almost exclusively on Israeli domestic politics.

The action scenes are complex masterpieces of speed and stunts that combine physical bits with fresh, exciting 3D effects.

The King tries to reclaim Presley by untangling the myths surrounding him. But with its dubious assertions and utter lack of empathy for its subject and his milieu, all The King ends up doing is further cloud our understanding of the musician.

Matt Tyrnauer’s documentary finally tells its full story, and an enthralling, sometimes absurd, sometimes very sad and at times almost unbelievable story it is.

while All About Nina does not add anything new to this genre, writer-director Eva Vives’ film does benefit from the female perspective. It also showcases a fearless performance from Winstead.

Cocote’s narrative structure exhibits a tidy symmetry, strongly suggesting that what ultimately transpires has a certain inevitability to it, that cycles of retribution and vendetta all too easily devolve into vicious circles.

The unrelenting gloom and oppressive atmosphere verge on the exploitative.

There’s something almost inevitable about these real-life characters getting a feature showcase, so unusual, engaging and inspiring is their journey from antagonism to deep friendship.

Joel Edgerton produced, directed and adapted the film—much too gingerly and gently to have the powerful impact that it should.

As much as you might want to look away from Dark River, you can’t. The direction is assured, inventive, precise. The performances are compelling. And while the writing is often a little too deliberately obscure, once it becomes clear where the story is heading, it moves forward with the force of classic tragedy.

Ostensibly a drama filmed with European realism, What Will People Say has the air and the unsettling effect of a horror film.

The dominant performance throughout remains Forster’s. He’s such a hard-charging engine that he reduces everyone within his earshot to a reactive mode.

Narcissister boldly skirts convention personally and artistically, and so does the film, by assembling a cogent narrative from acutely disparate parts, to explore her mother as the primary relationship of her life and inspiration for her art.

This is a riveting, important story in which the personal can’t help but be political.

Ultimately, Teen Titans Go! To the Movies is fun enough, if unmemorable. If you’re not already invested in the property, you probably won’t find enough in it to make it worth your time.

Even if you disagree with Moore, it’s hard not to admire his bravura filmmaking.

Technically splendid but emotionally distant, The Third Murder will seem more like a detour than a destination for his fans.

Unfortunately, Bryan's case quickly turns into a dense, confusing slog through a bewildering array of newspaper headlines, TV news clips, splashy graphics and talking heads.

The film’s disparate elements add up to less than the sum of its parts, and this would-be fiery take on the failures of the American higher-education system never really ignites.

Never Look Away, a cohesively integrated collage of many genres (history, war, crime, medical drama with romance and spectacle), is also a feast of fine acting and magnificent visuals. But with so much going on, viewers, as if confronting impressionistic paintings or pixel-based photorealistic portraitures, need to step away to get a better picture.

There is magic in this film's ode to growing old and being with the people who knew us young.

Schwentke’s delectable drama is ultimately a keen indictment of the stereotypical German affinity for efficiency and the sense of community born of bonding together in the hurting of others.

No one-dimensional, stone-cold badass here—this version of Laurie Strode is among the most nuanced horror heroines presented onscreen over the last handful of years.

The Little Stranger invites debate and analysis long after viewing. Heady horror films with psychological tics and twists are few and far between, and this is the best one since The Innocents, Jack Clayton’s stylishly sinister 1961 edition of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw.

There is nothing grand about Anchor and Hope. It is only that which is extraordinarily difficult to make: a simply well-executed film.