The film never quite flies off the rails so much as it careens from side to side on the same beguiling path, with the most remarkable outcome being that the enigmatic pieces fit together.

Elizabeth Wood’s fire-breathing debut is an adrenalized shot of ecstasy and entitlement, a fully committed cautionary tale that’s able to follow through on its premise because — like the remarkable young actress who plays its heroine — the film is unafraid of being utterly loathsome.

See for Me wastes no frame in its brisk 92 minute running time, it’s a tightly-wound thriller propelled by enough turns that you won’t want to miss a beat.

The result is all the good, big words we want to hear about cinema aimed at our youngest audience members: it’s heartening and true and a little sad and incredibly inspiring with a big, ol’ message about the power of community and coming together in the face of major adversity.

Ultimately, while the visuals — along with Majidi’s sincere intentions — keep the film afloat, it never quite finds its footing. Heartrending one minute and heavy-handed the next, “Beyond the Clouds” is in equal parts beautiful and frustrating.

The King of Staten Island may not be the most flavorful thing that Apatow has ever served up, and it could be high time for him to consider a new recipe, but this wry and tender five-course meal of a movie still makes you glad that he’s not afraid to be himself — even when he’s telling someone else’s story.

It’s a deliciously unsubtle testament to the power of words and their infinite capacity to inspire.

Bolstered by sterling turns from stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Tatiana Maslany, and Miranda Richardson, the film is a showcase for what Green has always been able to do so well, and what his actors continue to excel at.

Dual adds a fresh sprinkle of doom to the already savage deadpan of Stearns’ previous work, and bitterly crystallizes the existential anxieties that have crushed down on so many of us with new weight since the pandemic started. That it also allows Karen Gillan to give two hilarious performances, both colder than death but at distinctly different temperatures, is just icing on the cake.

The first half of I'm Glad My Mother's Alive effectively inhabits a child's mind in a manner that recalls Maurice Pialat's marvelous 1968 debut "The Naked Childhood."

It grips the attention from start to finish.

Arctic works because it’s so believable. The movie never cheats or takes shortcuts.

While the bulk of the information presented about Whack’s music career is accurate, Cypher is certainly not a true introduction to the rapper and her artistry. But whether you’re a longtime listener or simply a documentary enthusiast seeking a break from the predictable monotony of musician profiles, Cypher is an experience worth seeking out.

This is a beautiful film, and an ugly one, and the tension between those two sides doesn’t abate until the very last scene.

It’s wild and funny ride, but comes equipped with a pinch of existential dread.

Casually cathartic at times, cathartically casual at others, this affecting little film about fathers and sons knows that some wounds never heal, but it’s never too late to stop the bleeding.

At its best, Haynes’ film is neither a dry accounting of who the Velvets were nor a heady evocation of their work; it’s a movie about the fires these people set inside each other and how they spread to anyone else who was burning and gave them the same permission to push back against expectations.

Frequently sublime ... a piece of work so feral and full of life that you’d never guess it was (at least) the 90th feature its director has made in the last 30 years.

The build-up to the film’s low-key, poetic resolution is made all the more moving by Shim’s intelligent performance, which is effectively informed by the actor’s positioning between two languages throughout, giving her a platform and reason to convey additional emotional nuances without dialogue — the performer, in a sense, also breaking free from “a cage of words” like her character.

"Deadstream" feels like ’80s Sam Raimi traveled forward in time, became obsessed with streaming culture, and turned Ash Williams into the dumbest possible stunt streamer. And it rules. With stunning creature effects, a great balance between laughs and scares, and one of the best uses of the Screenlife format, this is a film that could easily become a Halloween tradition.

As is so often the case for Hong, his latest is a gentle, hypnotically watchable film that breezes by as Iris does herself, dallying around Seoul in a loose summer dress and her striking bright-green cardigan.

The movie never lacks for insights into the nature of the disconnect.

Pavements is an important documentary. It’s a reminder that the fourth (and fifth and sixth) wall can be smashed, that the rock doc can be reinvented. And that when the message is meta for meta’s sake, why not make the medium that way, too?

Shot over the course of several years, the movie blends an intimate perspective with trenchant investigative chops, uncovering a transitory figure whose romantic ideals give way to a harsh reality check.

González’s fiction is so indelibly tied to the reality of the place and its inebriating spirit that certain segments of the film (particularly those focused on the painstaking work of making tequila) give the impression of watching an observational documentary.

Quincy is refreshingly devoid of talking-head interviews, relying instead on the measured ruminations of the man himself and the extensive archives Jones and Hicks had the difficult job of paring down. The result is a jaunty stroll through the last half-century of music history, and a fitting tribute to a living legend.

Despite the mixture of vérité footage and home movies showing the Angulos in their apartment, The Wolfpack feels more in line with a form of ethnographic storytelling than anything else, because the story is told exclusively in terms of their relationship to it.

Existing at the intersection of the specific and the universal, The Convert manages to combine an entertaining portrayal of an often ignored historical era with universal questions about whether it’s ever possible to build a human society on the foundation of something other than violence.

Despite its meandering plot, Bellflower presents its doom-laden vision as an astonishingly distinctive state of mind, arguing that the end of one self-made world always marks the start of a new one.

At heart, King Cobra compellingly traces the palpable tension between the performative nature of gay porn and the privacy of queer shame.

A tight script, stellar ensemble cast, and plenty of easy-on-the-eyes shots of California wine country make for a delightful time at the movies. Rich people might live in a world without consequences, but Pretty Problems reminds us that it can be pretty damn fun to join them for a couple hours.

Oddity delivers a brilliant, bespoke, and tightly entertaining string of ideas that work stronger as a collection

This is the kind of experience that might tell you more about yourself as both a viewer and a person than you’re comfortable knowing; it’s also the most alluringly strange movie of the year so far.

Here, the Norwegian’s filmmaker’s signature brand of existential dread (always coupled with and complicated by a youthful sense of becoming), is expressed through style more than action. This isn’t a movie where all that much happens, but every decision ripples with darkness.

Frankenheimer’s 1966 riff on identity (and lack thereof) and corporate paranoia is one of his most unnerving, claustrophobic and entertaining efforts.

Carousel feels ripped from the fabric of a million lives. Don’t let the seemingly small nature of the film fool you; there is career-best work here, especially from Pine, who was always made for a romantic drama. This one was worth the wait.

It’s not the most polished endeavor ... However, Bloom gives Wye such a dynamic screen presence that she often transcends the boundaries of the material.

Boyle's filmmaking style has a marvelous rhythm that weaves pop sensibilities into fluid and persistently exciting narrative experiences; he shakes these ingredients like colored sand in a jar, leading a fascinating degree of discombobulation.

With Dan Deacon’s cosmic synth carrying the strange twists along, “Strawberry Mansion” works its way through an absurdist romance with palpable depth.

The Last of the Unjust rewards those willing to invest in Lanzmann's pensive technique with a complex tale that's alternately sad, enlightening, unexpectedly witty and ultimately exhausting, but carried along throughout by Lanzmann's commitment.

The result is a stilted and unnerving film that chips away at the petrified staginess of its origins with every sudden noise, as if Karam were sledge-hammering little cracks into the hull of his film’s WASPy modern family.

Scrambled will make you text your ex — or former Hinge hookup with a “hey stranger” — but in the end, you’ll feel confident knowing your best self is still just dancing on your own. Here’s to that.

It builds, in the process, to a stunning and genuinely moving crescendo.

At its heart, Dead Talents Society is an affectionate ode to East Asian horror cinema, and its earnestness — and silliness — are key to its appeal.

Like any romance, Banana Split is constrained to some familiar beats, but Kasulke, Marks, and Power have such a handle on what makes the film tick — and Marks and Liberato are so charming and fun — that even expected turns feel clever and fresh.

A delightful mash-up of everything ’80s, from E.T. to Madonna, Princess Diana to Roxy Music, the Jackson family to Ronald Reagan, this anachronistic retelling is faithful to Coolidge’s original film, but with its own flashy new touches.

The staginess of the source material steeps the film in an uncanny atmosphere, where the secrets of the past bleed into the present. Actual ghosts might not be real, but the memories we repress are, and they can haunt us in ways we might not expect.

Featuring stars Regina Hall and Sterling K. Brown doing predictably divine work (do these two performers know any other way?), “Honk for Jesus” is equal parts hilarious and painful, an incisive upbraiding of the sorts of people who should have long ago realized no one — especially nattily attired pastors — is above God.

In its wonderfully irreverent way, Wrong makes it clear that this reality is never to be trusted as anything more than a succession of strange moments that coalesce into an abstract representation of the subjectivity that traps us all. This is the essence of new film noir, which challenges our perceptions through a series of compellingly ambiguous moments.

It comes imbued with the same twinkle in its eye, the same sense of mischief and Dadaist sensibility, that made Devo so alluring in the first place.

For everything that Mozart's Sister imagines, it leaves much more up to imagination.

There's a certain elegant simplicity to the movie's execution that maintains a spirit of familiarity but also keeps the material afloat.

Younger audiences will surely benefit from its messaging, but with such vivid characters it’s entertaining and emotional for all ages.

La Llorona is a quiet movie that shudders with spiritual trauma.

The result is a singularly American riff on “The Act of Killing,” a fascinating and dream-like mosaic that’s less driven by residual anger than by cockeyed concern, less interested in exhuming the past than in revealing its value to the present.

With an energetic set of young actors liberated by Hittman’s jittery naturalism, the movie remains a gripping drama throughout — a combination that speaks to the director’s emerging aesthetic.

Executed with wicked control to induce the sort of gut-level discomfort that is rare even in this genre of perverse pleasures.

Marcel the Shell seamlessly marries big ideas with charm and humor (and inventive stop-motion work to boot). In short, it’s the cutest film about familial grief you’ll see all year, perhaps ever.

With his unusually accomplished directorial debut Childhood of a Leader, Corbet delivers a strange and startling film that reflects the unique trajectory of his career, as well as the influence of the iconoclastic directors with whom he’s already worked.

With no score and zero levity, Lady Macbeth maintains a constant atmospheric dread. Oldroyd crafts a masterful sense of uncertainty about how far Katherine will go to preserve her dominance.

Even as Ullmann Tøndel’s two-hour movie grows a bit too winding and weird for its short film-scale conceit, Reinsve grounds the film’s more experimental, almost stagelike leanings in a constant state of heightened emotion that will make you love her even more than in “Worst Person” — and, even better, will make you scared of her.

While a degree of naturalism does still make its way into many slow-burn scenes, Quy’s filmmaking largely favors expressionism.

As this unclassifiable wildfire burns itself out, all you can say for sure is that these little zombies are alive in ways that most adults have lost the ability to imagine. Whatever demented game its characters are playing, Nagahisa’s live-action Twitch-fest is delightful for how it lets us watch along.

The Hand of God doesn’t always find the clearest way of knotting these various stories together, and the film’s second half — replete with so many highs — also feels like it leaves a number of important characters dangling in the wind.

"Mad Max" doesn't just depict conflicts with evildoers in a tattered existence. It delivers a rare alternative to aggressively stupid action movies. At a time of great need, Max rides again.

Foreign Correspondent hasn’t been as well remembered as some, but those who seek it out will discover a fun and highly entertaining picture awaiting them.

A strange, hysterical, and thrillingly audacious continuation of a saga about the nature of faith in a godless world, “The Bone Temple” might appear to be a more traditional genre offering than its immediate predecessor, but don’t be fooled by the fact that it wasn’t shot on an iPhone: This is very much the part two that 2025’s smartest and most humane studio horror movie deserves.

This is a study of power, and what power will do to survive; a study of how morality is more historically significant as a condition, and not a cause. The rich won’t save us — that’s what makes them rich. The fascinating Citizen K will leave you to determine the value in one of them saving themselves.

With "Gravity" around the corner, Metallica Through the Never isn't the year's most groundbreaking achievement, but it's surely the most earth-shattering, and that's enough to make it one helluva comeback story.

In fact, the two stars are so sweet and searching together — their characters’ respective power and mutual solitude pulling them together with practical magic — that some of the film’s more spectacular detours seem flimsy by contrast.

Spoor remains witty throughout, breaking even the tensest moments with the lead’s acid-tongued appraisals of the local hunters.

Angels Wear White brings into relief the bureaucratic corruption and class tension that inform the power dynamics of such situations.

Sure, the carnivalesque twist of the final hour is a touch heavy-handed, and it’s not the only one. Yet as the movie settles into a quiet, somber finale, life and performance collapse into a single contorted mass and Annette becomes a metaphor for its own bumpy ride. Hovering on the brink of collapse, it’s a delicate dance between genius and fiasco, much like Henry himself.

"Divide and Conquer” illustrates the similarities between Ailes and Trump so well that the documentary’s happy ending can’t help but leave behind a queasy aftertaste: Ailes may be dead, but he’s still the most powerful man in the world.

The Turning announces Sigismondi as a bold and adept genre filmmaker, with an eye for detail and impeccable casting choices.

Despite trafficking in a wide array of Sundance tropes — from its modest but ethereal monochrome cinematography by DP Laura Valladao, to Mahmood Schricker’s Sqürl-adjacent guitar score — Fremont is always more delicate than it is precious and mercifully never quite as cute as it sounds.

Summertime owes less to its plot development than the credibility of its performances among this trio of women as they present a fascinating set of conflicting perspectives.

This sordid excavation into the hollowness of a human soul is a strange fit for a director who’s spent his career searching for magic in the darkest margins of our world, but del Toro’s natural empathy for even the most damnable creatures he finds there sparks new life into “Nightmare Alley” as it narrows towards its inevitable dead end.

As ever with Aardman, the cleverest moments are also the most fleeting.

Even as California Solo plays like a track we've heard before, it's still worth a listen.

While Johnsen competently follows Ai over the course of more than a year of contemplation and anger, "The Fake Case" doesn't introduce anything new to the equation, and mainly succeeds by virtue of its subject's inherent appeal.

The pair blends storybook visuals with a stream of clever gags and oodles of pathos to deliver an infectious romance almost too eager to please at every turn.

Haley’s tender approach may not sting, but it does leave a mark. Yes, it has a happy ending, but the film also makes it clear that such conclusions are only the start.

Huesera: The Bone Woman remains a highly competent debut feature. It’s a chilling reminder that when something feels off, you should listen to your gut.

Giddy, exhausting, and breathtakingly violent.

Justin Corsbie’s debut would buy you a drink if you couldn’t afford one, hustle you for a hundred bucks in the backroom if you could, and leave you with a big hug on the way out either way just cause it was so grateful not to spend the night alone.

You may think you know your sports movie tropes, but you’ve never seen them used quite this way — that is, within a queer cheerleading drama firmly focused on complex female characters — and Waterson’s Backspot delights in skewing such expectations for often (but not always) new ends.

After four decades of crafting creatures for iconic films, Phil Tippett has finally unleashed his magnum opus, and it is worth the wait. Mad God exudes devotion, with every frame carrying decades worth of ideas and craft, resulting in a film that is just as hard to describe as it is hard to forget.

The film serves as more of a primer for the uninitiated. But even for the initiated, it could contribute to ongoing discussions on how to dismantle the American racial divide that is deeply entrenched in our national psyche.

Brimming with anger and intrigue, this fiery historical drama from a veteran Russian filmmaker revisits the tragedy with fresh immediacy, and gives it a human face.

Though the special effects win the day, Guardians of the Galaxy holds court with a sense of humor that transcends its more familiar ingredients.

When White Fang focuses on its real stars — animals, Alaska, the spread of untamed country — it’s as visionary as any animated film. Placed alongside ham-fisted humans, it loses its power.

If Logan Lucky begs you not to take it seriously, that doesn’t mean it lacks real soul.

Even as the high-concept premise wears thin, Palka manages to generate an unexpected degree of sympathy for the floundering couple, and the wordless finale allows for a complete transformation that extends beyond Jill’s bizarre condition.

Even as the story’s increased tension weakens its subtleties, Zobel's sensitive handling of the emotional tone throughout grounds the film with an overarching realism despite the far-fetched setting.

This leaves the viewer with two choices: reject the parasite or let it take you over. Fight it off and you’ll have a bad time; become one with it and you may achieve a kind of symbiosis.

The movie's light touch at times makes it difficult to engage with the stakes at hand, and Nichols' reverence for his couple's deep bond is practically so sacred he seems resistant to show any of their flaws.

La La Land is magically in tune with its reference points even as falls a few notes short of their greatness.