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.

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.

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.

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

Endearing and funny but with a melancholy edge, Juliet, Naked is more than just a rom-com—it’s a movie for and about adults, in all their messy complexity.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

The Bookshop is an exquisitely understated tragicomedy.

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.

Overlord, produced and presumably overseen by J.J. Abrams, is good, bloody fun, with all the polish and production value that come with not being a low-budget exploitation movie.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Above all, this is Sarandon’s picture and maybe her best film work in many years.

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.

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.

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.

Daughters of the Sexual Revolution: The Untold Story of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders is a truly engrossing film, one that balances the big picture and the small one.

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.

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.

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.