Sing Street is a winsomely entertaining musical tribute to how passion can pave the way towards a better life.

Letting the movie do the talking often works best.

Although The Witness functions just fine as a true crime documentary in the vein of such en vogue offerings as “Serial” and “Making a Murderer,” the film makes its mark when it leans in on the deeply personal connection between its subject and its storyteller.

Without hesitation, she talks about her own shortcomings too. She does so with an assured hand, an open heart, and a heady way of seeing the world. But other parts of her are obscured, and those questions might leave one wanting.

An exhilarating postmodern comedy about people fighting for every moment of screen time they’re able to wrest from this stupid world before they have to leave it, Red Post on Escher Street is the best argument for Sono’s vital body of work since 2015’s “The Whispering Star,” and a perfect opportunity for newcomers to get their toes wet.

While the broad strokes of Riegel’s story might sound familiar, Holler finds its power in the particularities, especially Barden’s unfussy and wholly believable performance.

It’s a pinhole portrait of life on Earth; a non-judgmental story about trying to reconcile meaning with meaningless before the well runs dry and it rains again.

Blisteringly cool one moment and ridiculously silly the next (much like its high school heroine), this punchy and propulsive late summer surprise is able to capture the way we live now because it displays such a vivid understanding of the reasons why we live that way.

Catechism sometimes feels intentionally obscure, much like Rohal's last movie. It's essentially a hilariously brazen lark, which is reason enough to embrace it.

The film serves as a tribute to a certain brand of journalism that can only be achieved by venturing out into the great unknown and putting one’s self in harm’s way. But more than anything, it tells a human story about someone who understood herself well enough to live the exact life she wanted while accepting every consequence that came with it.

By the end of this adaptation, we get the full picture of this romance and the two people involved.

While not the director's canniest piece of filmmaking, it's unquestionably his angriest, politically motivated achievement. Every missive hits its target hard with a comedy-horror combo aimed squarely at the kind of commercial stupidity that Cronenberg has avoided throughout his 45-year career.

Prometheus is an unquestionable good time, one of the best big-screen science fiction accomplishments since 'Avatar.'

Slickly made if not particularly stylish, the movie maintains its entertainment value for picking ideal models of American excess.

Being perpetually online sucks, but movies about it don’t have to, as Not Okay shows time and again.

If “Synonyms” was a howl, Ahed’s Knee is the spittle that was still left in Lapid’s mouth when it was over. It’s a smaller and less electrifying film — as contained and implosive as its title’s reference to Éric Rohmer would suggest — but also one that cuts to the heart of Lapid’s visceral genius and cauterizes the open wound at the center of his body of work.

It's a true winner and a genuine crowdpleaser, a human story told well through one incredible animal.

Considering that it’s a second sequel in a less-than-revered franchise, it’s a minor miracle that Cars 3 hits the finish line with a fresh sense of purpose.

Shot primarily at her eye level, Little Girl takes you straight to the heart of the trans child’s experience, seeing through her eyes the dogged support of her indefatigable mother and loving family.

A Photographic Memory is guided by a probing specificity, and the deeper it pushes into the weeds of Sheila’s past — and the harder it listens for how they might reverberate through Rachel’s present — the easier it gets for viewers to hear echoes from their own lives in the stuff of the filmmaker’s search.

Gavras never forces the material into allegorical turf; it's a relatively straightforward look at the ramifications of getting blinded by dollar signs, with perhaps one of the most clearly defined visions of economic depravity since "Wall Street."

Douglas Miller's Dinosaur 13 is both awe-inspiring and tragic. Conventionally made but featuring an undeniably compelling story at its core, Miller’s debut benefits greatly from the combination of passion and sadness embedded in its subjects’ tale.

In some ways, it’s the softest and most subtle of her six features. In others, it’s the most violent and stubborn of the lot, stunted in many of the same places where her previous stuff flowed like river water. But if Maya isn’t the best of Mia Hansen-Løve’s films, there’s a wayward urgency to the whole thing that makes it feel like it might have been a necessary one for her to make.

Herzog shoots first, and asks how the footage might be pertinent to his project later; Into the Inferno often feels scattered and listless as a result, but this tactic is also responsible for so many of the movie’s most perfect moments.

Pulling harder and harder at the tension between complex socioeconomic forces and the simple human emotions they inspire, R.M.N. masterfully spins an all too familiar migration narrative into an atavistic passion play about the antagonistic effects of globalization on the European Union.

But when evaluated as a work of pure craftsmanship, Flight Risk is some of the finest stupidity Hollywood has gifted us in a long time.

Ethan Hawke is theatrical in the best way possible, commanding the screen with his every gesture and utterance without overplaying any of them.

Utilizing the pure physicality of a cast you can count on one hand, the movie maintains a minimalist dread throughout, with every footstep or sudden move carrying the potential for instant death.

To talk about Toy Story 4 is to talk about Forky. This is a movie that doesn’t initially appear to have any compelling reason to exist — the forced but satisfying third installment of Pixar’s signature franchise seemed to wrap things up when it came out almost a full decade ago — and yet Forky alone is enough to elevate this potential cash-grab into the beautiful and hilarious coda that its long-running series needed to be truly complete. Forky is the hero we need in 2019.

Don’t be fooled by the airiness of its wine-drunk aesthetic or the languor of its pacing: Last Summer is every inch a Catherine Breillat movie, and its effervescent sheen is nothing but a natural distraction from the uncertain gloom that comes with the fall.

Raiff scales up the disarming earnestness of his debut without losing any of its DIY intimacy.

“Street Gang” may lightly gloss over some of the tougher elements of its genesis and legacy, but the staggering amount of material on offer makes the case that a good heart was always meant to be the best part of the show.

Appropriate Behavior isn’t a narrative about ethnicity or even LGBT struggles in the traditional sense, but rather a means of exploring the problems that result from reinforcing those very barriers. In the process, it introduces a thoroughly modern voice.

With her first fiction feature, Diop lets real material speak with an ancient sadness, with hope offered in the form of Rama who keeps moving, carrying a burden of knowledge into the birth of a brave new life.

It should come as little surprise that the best-selling author gets (even to this day!) tons of fan mail, but that Blume delights in saving much of it, often responding to it, and truly cherishing it is just one of the delights to be found in the doc.

Black Panther is different. It’s the first one of these films that flows with a genuine sense of culture and identity, memory and musicality. It’s the first one of these films that doesn’t merely reckon with power and subjugation in the abstract, but also gives those ideas actual weight by grafting them onto specific bodies and confronting the historical ways in which they’ve shaped our universe.

Twinless mines a steady drumbeat of solid laughs from the mismatched energy of its co-leads, and the Pinter-like precision of Sweeney’s dialogue is especially well-suited to the scenes where Dennis and Roman are talking at each other on completely different wavelengths.

While the entirety of Frantz holds less appeal than its gorgeous ingredients, it’s impossible to deny the sheer narrative sophistication that makes this gentle story much more than your average retread.

Robin Hood isn’t a history lesson, it’s a jaunty, beautifully animated series of very funny set pieces that remain effective, perhaps more so to younger audiences unfamiliar with the strong personalities doing the voices.

It’s Alive presents a dialectic of horror in which monstrous excess is first repudiated and rejected, then returns in the form of self-loathing and social stigmatization, and is finally painfully accepted as an essential part of ourselves.

Földes’ movie succeeds as both a tribute to a living legend and a reminder that nothing is ever quite as unfilmable as it seems. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is far from the definitive Murakami movie. But for now, it’s one of the best ones we’ve got.

July’s style is at once cerebral and irreverent, but “Kajillionaire” doesn’t always find the most satisfying way to juggle those dueling tones. However, its spell lingers as July’s biggest concepts take root, and the movie turns from tragic to hopeful at an unlikely moment in tune with the artist’s previous works.

Light and inoffensive, it trades the intellectual rigor of Godard’s work for fluffy sentiments, but never gets crass. Above all else, it succeeds at transforming cinephile trivia into a genuine crowdpleaser.

Ahmed exudes a never-before-seen vulnerability, both physically and emotionally.

Kill Me Please is as much a teen movie as it is a horror movie, vacillating between the genres in such a way that you’re reminded from one scene to another how similar the two really are.

Simply put, Buddy is everything you could want from a midnight movie. It gets harder and harder to find something that feels fresh enough to be truly shocking and executed competently enough to transcend its gimmicks, and we should all celebrate when we find one.

While the storytelling grows frustratingly elliptical, Lelio so desperate to constrain the drama that he resorts to removing helpful pieces of it, the scenes that remain are succinct and evocative.

A remarkably effective and absorbing picture (if a little too long), with another sterling performance from Mitchum.

As with all of Alverson’s movies, the hypnotic storytelling takes time to settle in and encourages viewers to ponder its enigmatic pathways, not all of which lead to satisfying places. Nevertheless, this somber and lyrical achievement is the warmest and most inviting work from a director who traffics in an acquired taste.

The movie doesn't offer much in the way of substantial character development, but that's not a deterrent when the fun twists keep coming.

The scenes pile up with frenetic intensity; as with Soderbergh's other recent exercises in the suspense genre, no single cutaway goes wasted.

Even as it delivers an emotional wallop, not every moment of "Calvary" goes down smoothly, as comedic scenes transition somewhat abruptly to tragic moments and the final reveal never reaches the heights of its Hitchockian inspirations.

The result is a low-key but lingeringly resonant tale about a strange chapter in the life of a grieving theater director — an intimate stage whisper of a film in which every scene feels like a secret.

A rousing documentary that’s equal parts inspiring, entertaining, and educational.

Unlike "Citizenfour," there's not a whole lot here that hasn't already been revealed through the scrutiny of Assange's iconoclastic legacy, but the filmmaker's skillful treatment of the material yields another look at major historical events on an intimate level.

The movie subtly examines whether people accustomed to a precise way of life can deal with cataclysmic change; by extension, it implies similar questions about Schwarzenegger's career as he heads toward his seventies, and makes a solid case that more new directions await.

By turns engaging and flashy, the film probes the narratives propping up the multi-billion dollar diamond industry and posits that it’s all a house of cards. With a peppy original score, a flurry of colorful characters, and a disruptive subject matter, Nothing Lasts Forever is an invigorating study of how myths are made.

About Dry Grasses is among the most brilliantly off-putting works to be featured at Cannes in recent years, with so rotten a core that every hint of virtue or even normalcy in the camera’s peripheral vision becomes a tragedy unto itself, simply by way of being ignored.

Sweaty Betty is the rare discovery that's bracingly original and down to earth in equal measures.

It’s only because Freire’s hyper-combustible debut feature remains so true to itself that we believe Malu and Lili might find what they’re looking for, even if it ultimately doesn’t look anything like what we expected them to find.

In Beans, Deer has transformed the most painful experience of her life into a vital human story, while holding an unflinching mirror up to the racism and discrimination indigenous communities still face to this day.

The Last Showgirl is both the role of a lifetime for Anderson, one that can fully capture her incredible emotional intensity and vulnerability, and (we can only hope) the start of a brand new career for her.

Here is a smart, fun, and deeply unsettling post-modern slasher that know it can’t manufacture anything scarier than what people scroll past on their phones every day, and leverages that awareness into a multiplex-ready meditation on the terror of living in a world where even the worst atrocities have been flattened into digital wallpaper.

Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie delivers everything a fan of the show could want, expanding the level of spectacle while keeping the core of the ongoing project intact.

This is a rare nonfiction chronicle of an artist that also avoids hagiography — we see Dion at her lowest because that becomes the reminder of who she is at her very best.

Burton has thrown everything at the wall and then carefully sculpted what has slithered down into a rollicking yet disciplined supernatural caper with a heart.

The burden of familial obligation permeates Ms. Purple — who carries it and who passes it off, who outruns it and who lets it overrun them. It’s a ripe topic Chon clearly feels deeply, rendered in beautiful cinematography and delicate storytelling. It’s also a uniquely Asian-American story, rooted in loving specificity and beating with a universally human heart.

The Bad Batch further solidifies the strength of Amirpour’s idiosyncratic vision, which takes familiar details and bends them into spiky bursts of unpredictability.

The pandemic spawned plenty of run-and-gun projects. Many of them chart the circumstances that made them possible, but Wein and Lister-Jones’ winsome spin on a well-trod concept is as fresh and funny as anything inspired by the last few wretched months.

The eventual twists might shock, but Horvat lands it all with a bruiser of an ending, as funny and scary as anything Hollywood itself has churned out in recent years. If this is do-it-yourself cinema, more filmmakers would benefit from being as laser-focused as Horvat is on making something that truly has something to say.

Hovering around the prosody of “simp” is the word “sub” — Paul is certainly a proud sub, as we gradually understand his content isn’t solely cheery scroll fodder, but that he’s also happily exhibiting his sexual preference as an “out” kink enthusiast, shining visibility on himself and perhaps others like him to come as the 2020’s continue on.

It’s fascinating to watch Mitchell grasp for a bigger picture with the wild ambition of his scruffy protagonist.

While Sweet Country snakes along to an inevitable outcome, Thornton retains a sharp control over the movie’s ravishing visuals, assembling them with a rhythmic quality that transcends any specific time and place.

At times a rich, intimate observation of emerging sexuality, the movie also maintains a quiet, observational rhythm that peaks around wintertime when things grow dark for the character and then more or less watches her grow up.

Intermittently action-packed and lethargic, the movie dances around formula. By delivering an expressionistic character study with bursts of intensity unlike anything else in his oeuvre and yet stylistically representative of its entirety, Wong practically has it both ways.

Obsession should keep everyone awake long after they get home from seeing it.

Even when the jokes miss the mark or the central mystery seems too easily solved, Vengeance is sustained by the question of what its characters mean to each other; a question asked sweetly but shrouded by an ever-growing darkness that allows the film to wander into dangerous territory by the end.

Gandbhir’s unforgettable documentary crystallizes the horrors of stand-your-ground laws by examining their effects through the lens of a single case — one that harrowingly illustrates the defects of castle doctrines (among other policy failures) by painting a microcosmic portrait of white America’s inability to parse between fear and anger.

The film is realistic about the role that art can play in overthrowing an oppressive regime, but ultimately reaches the conclusion that we should pursue it anyway. Movies might never be the thing that stops evil from triumphing, but making them might stop it from using you as a vessel.

You’ll have to wait a while before Tigerland introduces its eponymous stars, but like many elements of Ross Kauffman’s emotional, often harrowing new documentary, the eventual reveal will be worth it.

For all of its elusiveness, In Between Dying is a film that wants to be found.

Buck Brannaman, the subject of Cindy Meehl's engaging documentary profile Buck, has a warm presence and knows how to tame horses better than anyone else.

Plan 75 isn’t for or against assisted suicide, but it tenderly laments a society in which “death with dignity” is only offered as compensation for a life without it.

Clara Sola is fleshed with the feeling that love and repression are braided together. It’s bound by the sense that we smother the things most precious to us in order to keep them from getting away.

The most impressive thing about In the Land of Blood and Honey is that Jolie makes you feel it.

It’s a taut setup that risks veering into soapy territory, but Farhadi reveals just enough involving details to pause at individual moments and rest on more intimate observations.

The climax is a little too clever and far-fetched-an unnecessarily neat finale for a movie that works fine when dealing in broad strokes, some of which are nothing short of masterful.

Before all else, Villneuve's grim chronicle of the fallout when two young girls vanish in a small town succeeds at crafting one powerfully suspenseful moment after another.

Snazzily directed by J.J. Abrams with vibrant effects and a busy plot that sets the whole franchise in motion all over again, The Force Awakens delivers on expectations with a fun, polished space odyssey that embraces the appeal of the originals.

Finding Dory doesn’t feel lazy, cynical, or like a rehash. On the contrary, it does what a sequel should — it’s a compelling argument for why we make them in the first place.

Worth the wait? Yes, and we can’t wait for the next one to take wing (wink).

Binoche gives a predictably excellent performance, embodying Marianne with just the right amount of elite obliviousness without ever turning her into a caricature. It’s touching to see her become more empathetic as the story progresses, even if eventually snapping back to her old ways was the only possible outcome.

Director Bennett Miller has produced a warm and generally agreeable character study about the pratfalls of athletic institutions and the willingness to think outside the box.

Despite its predictably cheery vibe, Being Elmo implies a certain darkness lingering beneath the surface of Clash's life.

This is one of the most hopeful movies you’re likely to see anytime soon.

Though the film is all surface, that surface is precisely the point.

Coming out as a bold filmmaker with a fearless voice, prolific alt comedy editor Vera Drew’s mixed media dystopia is an experimental trans coming of age story wrapped in a scathing critique and confident rebuke of mainstream comedy. Fiercely original and deeply personal, it’s too damn good not to be seen.

Relic exists firmly in the realm of allegory, and if you’re looking for answers to the film’s spooky ambiguities and uncanny set pieces, you won’t find them. James is more concerned with creating an atmospheric rumination on intergenerational trauma, death, and dying that also happens to be a striking horror movie.