Barry loses its way when it reduces itself to a tacky diorama of its protagonist’s inner turmoil, and it does so frequently enough to dismantle any sense of narrative momentum.

If A Compassionate Spy is oddly dispassionate for a documentary so attuned to the humanistic inner-workings of history in progress, the film can’t help but find a measure of beauty in the unspoken trust that Ted and Joan placed in one another.

Post Mortem portrays the specter of dictatorship through the lens of one man's private hell.

Duplass' feisty energy is matched by DeWitt's constant smarminess, while Blunt's shy, fragile behavior balances off the forceful personalities surrounding her.

This is the kind of mad science filmmaking worth rooting for: Aster refashions “The Wicker Man” as a perverse breakup movie, douses Swedish mythology in Bergmanesque despair, and sets the epic collage ablaze. He may not land every big swing, but the underlying vision is hard to shake even when it falters.

Stillness dominates, from the first shots of cornfields at sunrise to the final one that finds Helmer lying among them. When "It's All So Quiet" comes full circle, the title is virtually an understatement.

Despite a strong start, Bertino’s grim and gruesome The Dark and the Wicked never coalesces into anything more than a collection of chilling images and a paper-thin logic.

This muscular and often brutal depiction is chiseled with authenticity, but it’s too psychologically schematic to make much in the way of an emotional impact.

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.

What Lawrence achieves here is extremely impressive, a marquee movie star throwing herself with abandon into a filmmaker’s warped and demandingly miserable vision.

Though often lethargic and listless, Is This Thing On? does stir up a vivid portrait of the New York City underground comedy milieu, even when New York City as a character feels more like the afterthought it isn’t supposed to be.

As with all of the best installments of the MCU, the film’s unique strengths have a perverse way of highlighting the franchise’s shared weaknesses. But Doctor Strange deserves credit for treating several of the ailments that have been infecting the series, and for diagnosing several more.

Instead of leaning into the ambiguous tensions and uncanny experiences, Watcher fails to live up to its inspirations, ending up a heavy-handed, predictable trip through genre tropes with a rather lifeless cast at its core. Watcher spells out every plot point to a tee, when we wish it would slowly, playfully tug at the threads of our anxieties.

The most fun and least depressing superhero movie in a very long time, Gunn’s deliriously ultra-violent “The Suicide Squad” wears the yoke of its genre with a lightness that allows it to slip loose of the usual restraints, if not quite shake them off altogether.

While Wigon's film lacks emotional weight, that deficiency is not a matter of style over substance, but an effective comment on the peculiarly isolating nature of modern communication technology.

The film is carried along on a powerful undercurrent of regret, and it comes to feel as though Bong-wan is a prisoner in the book-lined office where he ostensibly holds all the power.

Escapes prefers to approach its star in a roundabout fashion, immediately launching into one of Fancher’s slippery and rambling monologues about his wandering days as a charmed lothario.

Jacobs, working from a script by Patrick de Witt, takes a conventional coming-of-age story and does it proud, enlivening the plot with an almost experimental portrait of alienation and despair.

Barker's screenplay demonstrates a conviction that its genre can command great importance, allowing it to transcend the easy shocks associated with the exploitation movie experience and create an entirely fresh rhythm.

Like a gesture from the rapper acknowledging his crowd, "Time Is Illmatic" is competent bait for Nas fans that leaves the door open just wide enough for newcomers to appreciate the fuss from afar.

Late Night with the Devil fails to deliver an ending as fresh as the rest of the movie. The fact that you’ll see it coming makes it less fun but sure as hell doesn’t make it less honest.

There’s such a warm buoyancy to My Donkey, My Lover & I — such a well-earned, rejuvenating naturalness to the way that Vignol addresses the insecurities and frustrations that keep middle-aged women from loving themselves — that it eventually hits with the same oomph of a film that takes itself far more seriously.

It’s hard to imagine a subject better-suited to some gooey schmaltz that might wet a few cheeks and inspire people to do something positive for a change. And yet, Dana Nachman’s “Dear Santa” does everything in its power to complicate what should’ve been the easiest slam dunk in documentary history.

Not every moment stimulates a belly laugh, but that’s part of the point. My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea is more thoughtful than meets the eye, a cockeyed ode to what it feels like when nobody takes you seriously.

While hardly reinventing the wheel, Donald Cried spins it faster than usual, taking cues from its memorably irritating protagonist. Beneath its entertainment value, the movie also hints at the tragedy of aimless adulthood.

Our planet is a finite place, and our lives on it are finite, too. The twilight of Attenborough’s time here speaks to that truth so beautifully that you wish this documentary had more to say about it.

The seven filmmakers at the center of “The Year of the Everlasting Storm” do give a slash of cathartic release, a dash of humor and a large batch of necessary pathos to make the world feel a little less lonely, a little less small.

Oldroyd is clearly a master assembler of styles, but he never lets his vision outshine the wonderful central performances at the movie’s core.

Sardonic, unsentimental, and often so cadaverously stiff that the film itself appears to be suffering from rigor mortis, as if its images died at some point along their brief journey from the projector to the screen.

The film is gripping from start to finish, even when so much of its menace rings hollow.

At its core, The Double Hour is a classic noir story of deception.

"Saw" writer Leigh Whannell mixes metaphors in this limp remake, using gaslighting and privacy fears for his uneven sci-fi horror.

By far the most nuanced relationship here is that between Batman and Riddler.

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

Fed Up is a glossy package that gets its warnings across loud and clear: we need to change what we eat.

The plight of the alienated monkey is at turns absurd and genuinely bittersweet, not to mention a whole lot better than its premise might suggest.

Winstead's performance provides a trenchant wakeup call even when the movie can't keep pace.

“Superboys” is dedicated to those who devour and admire great movies rather than those who make them — and quickly shows that the line between those two categories can be breached if you’re brave enough.

Tyrel establishes its intentions within the opening minutes, and more or less follows a straightforward trajectory in its trenchant exploration of race relations.

More than any individual song or album, the film seeks to encapsulate the Swamp Dogg vibe. Effortlessly cool, thrilled to be alive, and mildly entertained by just about everything, the man offers what appears to be the perfect blueprint to stay in 2025.

This is a solid biography portrait with enough diaristic candor to compel a relisten to her greatest hits, in life and music.

Death rarely fades from view in Borgli’s increasingly bleak comedy, which does somewhat of a disservice to the narrative trajectory — not because it flirts with oblivion but because its path is so stratospheric and dogged in the direction it’s going that it can be pretty hard to hold on for your life and not get left behind.

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

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

There is precious little here that hasn’t already been more cogently unpacked somewhere else.

It's a reserved, almost conservative performance, and in holding so much back so much of the time, Cumberbatch makes his few outward displays of emotion far more impactful.

Rodrigo Plá's intermittently engaging A Monster With a Thousand Heads is unique for how it captures the urgency of a system that's designed to frustrate and confuse people into helplessness.

Entirely composed of archival newsreel footage, performance recordings, and rare interview excerpts from when the great “diva” sat down with journalist David Frost in 1970, the film unfolds like a second-hand sketch of a phantom who continues to haunt its director.

If The Raid: Redemption was a thrashing drum solo, its sequel is the opulent symphony where every instrument is played with fevered inspiration.

“Shang-Chi” may be built on familiar lines, but in the moments when it’s allowed to be its own film, it’s a vastly different (and vastly superior) film compared to its predecessors.

It may not be the best Pixar movie, or the riskiest — it sure as hell isn’t the most ambitious — but Luca is also one of the precious few that feels like it isn’t afraid to be something else.

How can even the most skilled Comanche warriors battle a massive alien being with a full arsenal of advanced technology? Now that’s how you orient a prequel. How Trachtenberg, Aison, and Midthunder interrogate that very question is a thrill, offering the most unexpected of movie treats: a once-stalled franchise that suddenly seems bursting with delights — and, yes, plenty of blood spatter.

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

The Safdies have stood out over the last few years for continually challenging audience expectations even while seeming to adhere to conventional storytelling traditions, and that's certainly true here: You've never seen a sports movie like this before.

In posing substantive questions about the nature of romance and relationships, it’s smarter than virtually any American studio romantic comedy of recent years

Despite the specificity of its story and the manner in which its told, the issues at hand remain universal, including David’s struggle to connect with his child and the way paranoia can make even the best friends into the worst enemies.

The Menu does do one thing exceptionally well: it holds your attention and makes you think for a time that any outcome is possible. That alone is something to salivate over.

Unlike recent activist documentaries about animal cruelty like "The Cove," Leeman's narrative doesn't feature any real villains. Balding's bond with Flora leaves him in a perpetual state of uncertainty about which possible new home for his elephant would provide the safest habitat.

A dense collection of inquisitive, unpredictable and often life-affirming responses to the pandemic from some of the most astute directors working today, Homemade is pure filmmaking talent in bite-sized pieces that doubles as a lively, scattershot collage of the world in 2020.

Despite — or perhaps because of — how evocative Reis’ performance can be, Catch the Fair One asks her to fill in too many of its blanks.

If only Heretic were as serious about religion as any of its characters (either for or against), perhaps the movie’s second half wouldn’t be so quick to descend into contrived parlor tricks and too-basic displays of suspense, but Beck and Woods aren’t really in the business of pushing any buttons.

In Anthony and Alex’s capable hands, the Susanne Bartsch legacy endures just as brightly as it began.

There may be individual shots in this movie that cost more than the director’s entire pre-existing output, but make no mistake: This is a David Lowery movie — a movie imbued with the same tactile nature and uniquely American flair for myth-making that characterized his Sundance breakthrough, “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints.”

At its best, Prevenge feels like a hilarious distillation of every conflicted, politically incorrect thought that many pregnant women are too polite to share in public.

Ema doesn’t always dance to a clear or recognizable beat, but anybody willing to get on its wavelength will be rewarded with one of the year’s most dynamic and electrifying films.

This is no simple story of girl power. In fact, it’s arguably less concerned with feminism than it is with the financial realities that impede it from taking root.

The Long Walk doesn’t tell you or ask you anything new if you’re feeling pent up with rage by American leadership these days, but the film’s grim commitment to the bit is a rarity for a studio movie: There’s no holding of your hand on this long walk, nor does it read you a bedtime story and tuck you in at the end.

Occasionally, Love + War does suffer from a sense of only skimming the surface of Addario’s life and complexity. . . But on its whole, it’s a smart, compelling documentary, one that sticks out by making its lead refreshingly, vulnerably human.

The road to the closing moments of “No Way Home” — both warm-hearted and heartbreaking — might have hit a few bumps, but the darkness is worth it. After all, when was the last time the third film in a franchise got audiences truly thrilled for what comes next?

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

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

The drama ramps up to a satisfying final act, and while Winocour and Green don’t splash out on surprises, the emotional value of Proxima soars high above the fray.

It’s fine that Bonello would rather raise unsettling questions than provide unhelpful answers, but his inquiry often feels every bit as confused as his characters. Nocturama is enthralling until the bitter end, but it’s so hard to distill its purpose that you can’t tell if the film is opaque or if it simply offers nothing to see.

Freeland builds from its humble start to a wrenching conclusion, and eventually coalesces into a poignant, understated character study about the destructive collision of nostalgia and regret — a stoner midlife-crisis drama that fully belongs to the era of legal weed, and what happens when people get screwed by it.

The story of Eternal Spring deserves to be told — but Loftus’ film falls victim to the kind of insidious propaganda members of Falun Gong once tried to fight.

The film has the power to make our bodies catch up with our hearts — the power to help us safely experience the kind of terror we need to remember in a way that makes it impossible for us to forget.

Chastain and Sarsgaard give a pair of haunting, expert performances as damaged people making sense of their own agony together. Franco gets out of the way of his actors without manipulating them.

Listless at times and lacking the killer instinct required to follow through on the emotional toll that the fighting took on its survivors, the documentary is far more insightful about the buildup to bloodshed than it is about the mess that was left behind in its wake.

Edge of Tomorrow is slick, but once its fancy plot dressing takes form, it has little more to offer aside from a few impressive action sequences and the infallible grin of its nimble lead.

Just like To’s characters all have a little something to learn from each other, Three is a master class in how movies can be as unique and infinite as the people who make them.

Recording "Body and Soul" with Bennet only a short period before her death, Winehouse's simultaneously effusive presence not only illustrates her fragility but stands in sharp contrast to the stable work ethic that Bennett has cultivated over the course of his 60-year career.

This is a soul-stirring and fiercely uncynical film that suggests the entire world is a living museum for the people we’ve lost, and that we should all hope to leave some of ourselves behind in its infinite cabinet of wonders.

Progressing with a coldly observational pace, Rapt often strains its drawn-out structure, creating a lethargic experience despite essentially taking the form of a Bressonian suspense-thriller.

Writer-director Yen Tan renders Adrian’s world with understated intensity; each frame feels so precise, as if the scenery is holding its breath along with Adrian. Every silence, every space left open, echoes the liminal moments between what the characters say and what they mean.

A blood-soaked, bone-crunching hymn to religious devotion and faith, Hacksaw Ridge doesn’t hum Mel Gibson’s favorite themes; it shouts them.

No matter its silliest missteps, Welcome to New York has an impressive engine of ideas in line with the director's other New York stories. [Unrated Version]

American Selfie is an urgent look at a fractured country and culture.

"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.

Much like its subject, the film is beautiful, compelling, hard to watch, and spread too thin to stay with us for long.

It’s one of the best films in the recent crop of anime TV expansions, and its bittersweet teen love story is certainly potent enough to make you cry.

Not only is it the only movie she hasn’t written from scratch, and the only movie she hasn’t centered on a woman, it’s also the only movie Holofcener hasn’t been able to make into something more than the sum of its parts.

While Olive’s apparent desire to layer together Lacy’s tragic story with historical stories of lynching and the way they impact current culture is understandable (and admirable), the trio of stories that make up Always in Season never fit together.

Exit 8 is a cinematic captcha, tasking us with finding the difference between one image and the next to prove our humanity.

Black Death embraces its horror roots with ample bloodshed, at which point the silly costumes and anachronistic dialogue no longer seem so absurd.

Fiennes wisely stays out of his way here. Zizek is the star, edited down to digestible elements, with archival footage used adroitly to drive his arguments home.

Fans of the two cinematic titans will find plenty of cinephile brain candy in the meandering back-and-forth. It’s a long, drunken party conversation that allows you a seat at the table.

Charli xcx’s casting adds a metatextual richness to the movie and vice-versa, as the friction between her pop star persona and Bethany’s somnambulant everywoman deepens the sense of a woman divided between the superreal and the literal, the spectacular and the mundane.

Make no mistake: Mickle wants to make you jump and scream, but death only arrives in this movie once its world comes to life, which makes each sudden turn all the more intense.