While the movie barrels toward some tense face-offs between the townsfolk, and more than a few convulsing moments of possessed (maybe?) hysteria, Zalava never quite takes off as a terrifying genre piece, even if Amiri’s attempt to exorcise his own demons is admirable.

Transmitting a massive download of ideas into one film, there’s no doubt that Williams and Uzeyman have creativity to spare, and they deserve all the support they can get to share it with the world. When you’re this close to the divine, the medium is a pretty-enough message.

A kaleidoscopic fantasy warped through the lens of a 1970s sci-fi Western, After Blue is a synthetic siren song for the freaks of the future and the past.

A beautifully tender comedy that tears your heart in half with a featherlight touch — a film that swerves between tragedy and gallows humor with the expert control of a stunt driver, and knowingly sabotages all of its most crushing moments with a deadpan joke.

It’s hard to predict what value this documentary will retain in the future (or if it will just disappear into the content void, where history streams a mile wild and a millimeter deep), but it’s safe to assume that it will never be more urgent than it is right now, in a country exhausted by its overlapping tragedies, when so many people of all stripes could use a shot in the arm to remember what’s at stake.

Few contemporary horror films start this strong to end so poorly, and with such a lack of ease. Molly deserves answers, but “Knocking” forgets what the questions were in the first place.

This tense, propulsive, and ultra-glossy Netflix oater might lay a thick new Jay-Z track over the opening credits (of a film that he also produced) and assemble an Avengers-worthy team of obscure Black icons from across the entire 19th century into a single explosive shootout, but Samuel has little interest in letting his film be ascribed to fantasy or lumped in with the rest of its genre’s revisionist streak.

This combination of lively image and mournful narration imbues the camera’s fly-on-the-wall perspective with a sense of melancholy. As life unfolds with verve and passion, the spectral narrator, L, exists at a remove, as if she were both present amidst the frolic, and distant from it, her heartbreak leaving her unable to get involved.

A missed opportunity through and through, The Addams Family 2 is a giant step backward for a franchise that already had its work cut out for it and mostly succeeded the first time around. If this is what the Addams family are up to these days, audiences likely won’t feel compelled to go along on the next altogether ooky outing.

Prism doesn’t provide us with easy answers, because it can’t. This is something that we all must confront together, and that confrontation is on-going.

The Tale of King Crab is an engrossing, if slight riff on 1970s foreign arthouse classics — though not quite as spellbinding as its forebears, despite a bifurcated structure that makes for two occasionally tantalizing films in one.

The Black Phone is a succinct and stressful terror blanketed with themes of friendship, family, and inventive portrayals of resiliency.

After nine years and four movies, it might be time to hit the “eject” button on the “V/H/S” series once and for all.

Too distracted to be a love story, too contained to be a city symphony, and not didactic enough to feel like an essay film, What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? gradually coalesces into a kind of abstract pastoral romance more than anything else — it finds the romance that fringes everything around us, and captures it on camera with the unbearable lightness of a movie that knows we could never hope to see it with the naked eye.

As a coming-of-age story about a 15-year-old forced to reconsider her place in her family after finally recognizing their place in the world, “A Chiara” can be vague and heavy-handed (even at the same time). As the final layer of a mosaic that renders Gioia Tauro a microcosm of the modern world . . . it’s hard to imagine a more harrowing or distressingly unsettled finish.

Told through the lens of three girls as they grow up in a rural town in the Guerrero mountains, Huezo’s film is a murky, mesmerizing look at what it feels like to come of age in a place where young women have a target on their backs, and where the adults are as powerless as the children.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage is at its best — and its most unique, amusing, and fresh — when it’s tossing out those expectations and letting its freak flag fly. There doesn’t need to be carnage (or, hell, even Carnage), there just needs to be Venom, and more of it.

Erin Lee Carr’s Britney Vs. Spears feels like a movie not searching for scandal but a genuine desire to help, to say something to Spears, to remind us why we love her and how we failed her.

The result might be the least exciting Bond film of the 21st century, but it’s undeniably also the most moving.

A slasher movie could be a compelling framework through which to subvert the (timeless but super Twitter-ified) temptation to reduce people to the worst thing they’ve ever done, but There’s Someone Inside Your House isn’t sharp enough to meaningfully subvert our bloodlust or eviscerate our need for blame.

There’s far more of Snakehead that works than doesn’t, and Leong shows a serious flair for crime dramas. Together with Chang and Wu, the talents of the film are for an electric trio, including stars worth watching and a director very much on the rise.

Coen smartly plucks his cast from a rich mix of famous screen actors (e.g. Sean Patrick Harris, Stephen Root) and world-class veterans of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

No matter how muddled it gets by the end, One Second also boasts something that even Zhang’s best movies haven’t always been afforded: A delicious and deeply layered sense of irony.

Adapted from Samanta Schweblin’s 2014 novel of the same name, Claudia Llosa’s faintly delirious “Fever Dream” is a head-trip of a thriller that’s true enough to its title from the moment it starts; it’s a cold shiver of a film that doesn’t unfold so much as it sweats out, the most effective scenes febrile with maternal panic so intense that you can feel the movie hovering between life and death — allure and repulsion.

It’s a fun watch, to be sure; as a home invasion movie of sorts, it has a number of thrilling moments, and lead actors Freida Pinto and Logan Marshall-Green each do a stellar job with what they’re given. However, the final product also exudes trepidation about its most intriguing aesthetic and narrative elements — ideas which may have only enhanced its genre sensibilities, had the filmmakers further pursued them.

Whatever compromises were required of Smith, she holds fast to the soul of a movie that ultimately cares less about how high Kate and Marine can fly than it does the exotic truths they might only be able to learn as they fall.

Of course, nobody does a better job of inhabiting their character’s future shell than Michael Gandolfini, whose performance as juvenile delinquent Tony Soprano is such a lived-in riff on his father’s most famous role that it completely transcends the gimmicky task at hand.

Wootliff cuts away everything other than the raw nerves that are left exposed, creating a film more elemental than narrative.

“Huda’s Salon” doesn’t waste a second in its crackling first 10 minutes ... but that rat-a-tat-tat opening eventually gives way to a drama that’s uneasy both due to its subject matter and its weak hold on it.

This is an odd film of poetic abstractions and ellipses, but consistently fascinating in its unrepentant coyness.

Any expectation that Salomon’s profound story might be depicted in grown-up, searching animation that’s still all too rare, is quickly dashed. Instead of being brought to a place of soulful contemplation, Charlotte merely becomes cinematic Ambien. What a tragedy.

Most of the movie’s machinations seem merely in service of deepening the central gambit, which is to follow Mona’s journey and to look cool while doing it. On that front, it succeeds, but the movie’s charms are limited when the originality it purports to offer only feels like a bit of a costume.

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.

The result is an impressionistic film that flirts with slow cinema on its way towards something more incantatory; a film that doesn’t want to lull you to sleep so much as it wants to lure you into a place so dark and dreamy that you can no longer be certain that you’re still awake.

With Bitterbrush, Mahdavian announces herself as a filmmaker with a keen eye for capturing the contradictions and complexities of outsider women’s lives.

Like its heroine and namesake, The Good House is a drama that strives to sell itself as a sly and vaguely supernatural comedy for adults. And like Hildy, the film waits far too long to relinquish that happy-go-lucky idea of itself.

At heart, Inu-Oh is a film about storytelling’s power to keep the past alive, and while Yuasa’s carnivalesque extravaganza can be too slippery to hold onto at times, it always proves unforgettable in a way that serves that ultimate purpose.

Montana Story doesn’t reinvent the Western wheel. Rather it offers tender mercies as a sentimental work that explodes in well-earned fury.

Seeing Cruz and Banderas show off their comedic chops is definitely a pleasure, and the farcical final scenes will leave viewers on a high. But this film won’t win many competitions, official or otherwise.

Old Henry is a retread of the same dusty plains and macho bonds we’ve seen too many times before. It tells its slim story competently, but it does so little beyond that that it can’t help but feel mediocre.

Lane set out to make a documentary about the nature of taste, and she’s accomplished that with panache.

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.

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.

A harrowing piece of filmmaking, and a fitting, powerful remembrance of those who fought for their humanity.

The film rockets toward an ending that’s somehow both sewed right up and blown wide open. Since neither interpretation really satisfies, it dilutes much of the creepy power that has come before. Instead, Bull’s script offers answers no one asked for.

Garbus takes the standard documentary route of examining Cousteau’s life from birth to death, and while individual elements of his life are compelling in the first half, the documentary seems to come alive more towards its second half. Maybe that’s because Cousteau was just doing so much toward the latter half of his career, but the pacing seems to feel livelier the closer things get to the end.

Foster’s performance is ultimately the only thing that holds The Survivor together across its three parallel timelines.

My Name Is Pauli Murray balances Murray’s varied interests and causes with a deft hand, acknowledging their contributions to the women’s movement while not minimizing their trans-ness, as many scholars had done until Rosenberg’s book.

With its “Glee”-colored dance numbers and drag-lite drag scenes, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie just isn’t serving.

Grillo and Butler may be on the marquee but it’s Louder’s movie. And what’s being marketed as a clash between the two brutes is actually a showcase for the actress, who exudes a natural badassery.

"Citizen Ashe” is a fascinating portrait that weaves together his on- and off-court life seamlessly.

Equal parts confounding, challenging, and insanely fun, “Dashcam” is horror at its most inventive.

Armed with eagle-eyed filmmakers and compelling subjects, the film deftly blends the (inextricably linked) personal and professional sides of the journalists’ work, offering up a wide-ranging look at a vital outlet with so many stories to tell.

Barnard once again proves herself the bard of the British working class. In Ali & Ava, she abandons her occasionally bleak realism for a kind of stubborn hopefulness, letting the delight of unexpected connection break through the storm clouds.

The latest of Eastwood’s many potential swan songs, this sketch of a movie is transparent enough to focus all of your attention on the shadow imagery behind it. On the brimmed silhouette that its director and star cuts in a door frame, on the six pounds of gravel that it sounds like he gargled before every take, and on the way that he plays Mike as a man who would give anything for a place to hang his hat if only he could bring himself to take it off his head. Better late than never.

Another World succeeds in captivating on the sheer strength of its caustic tone, which offers a sustained performance of ice-cold contempt quite unlike anything Brizé has tried before.

America Latina is brief 90-minutes of blatant boredom. The twist is so easily figured out but the feature doesn’t think the audience has guessed it at all.

There are flashes of deep emotional resonance . . . But there’s also a huge amount of whiplash, as the wide-reaching documentary attempts to crystallize something as mercurial as this through performers, fans, lovers, haters, naysayers, believers.

While this nasty film seems headed toward a conclusion where the rich win and the status quo is maintained, that’s abruptly shattered by a violent climax that assures that no one on either side of the divide is left without a bloodstain.

Sharpe’s portrait is so determined to capture the full rainbow of Wain’s singular hues that it soon becomes a muddled soup of mismatched quirks.

This is a film that trembles with a need for redemption that never comes, and the urgency of that search is palpable enough that you can feel it first-hand, even if Benediction is never particularly clear about the nature of the redemption it’s hoping to find.

A murky, vaguely sinister, but ultimately dreary coming-of-age film about a young woman’s blossoming sexuality under the spell of her mother’s old flame.

Gyllenhaal’s film is a story of self-ascribed transgression and of shame buried and turned bitterly inward, and it too, is made with such alertness to the power of cinematic language – particularly that of performance – that even as you feel your stomach slowly drop at the implications of what you’re watching, you cannot break its spreading sinister spell.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, and this scattershot crowd-pleaser renders them both in such broad strokes that it seems as if Branagh can only imagine the Belfast of his youth as a brogue-accented blend of other movies like it.

For better or worse, we’re on Tammy Faye’s side, but the film often embraces the worst bits of a complicated story in order to make Tammy Faye look better. Why not make her look more real, makeup and all? Chastain is always able to find that humanity, but The Eyes of Tammy Faye too often turns its attention to the wrong places.

Like that abyss, the film offers a substantial degree of exploration for those willing to do the work and take the dive.

The Mad Women’s Ball capably sells the fact that Salpêtrière was a naked reflection of the institutional sexism that existed outside its walls, but Laurent’s eagerness to confront the barbarism of Charcot’s hospital tends to stifle the finer details of a story that hinges on female empowerment.

While the film attempts to thread a tricky needle between absolute drama and wacky comedy — dramedy! — Harris’ script is actually at its best when leaning more into the story’s tougher stuff.

7 Prisoners is mostly powered by the natural tension of its premise, which is simple and gripping and develops along a linear arc from bad to worse.

The Last Duel reveals itself as something all too rare on the current Hollywood field of battle: an intelligent and genuinely daring big budget melee that is — above all else — the product of recognizable artistic collaboration.

If you’ve seen Moller’s The Guilty, well, you’ve basically seen Fuqua’s, but Gyllenhaal’s performance adds a go-for-broke turn that capitalizes on the actor’s deep emotional reserves.

A humorless melodrama about a woman haunted by her past, Malignant sits somewhere between a slasher, a ghost story, and a possession flick, never fully embracing either. The result is a confusing melange of genre archetypes that lacks a clear point of view, even a surface-level stylistic one.

Mothering Sunday pushes toward cut-and-dried conclusions, sewing up certain storylines with a finality that doesn’t befit the early sense that nothing is really ever over for Jane or the wounded world she inhabits.

Unfortunately, Stephen Chbosky’s poor directorial choices cancel out the rousing success Dear Evan Hansen was on stage, with a cascade of glaring distractions that continuously point out the artificiality of the genre.

"Blood Brothers” is worthwhile for the introspective investigation of lives so often, in the public eye, devoid of the tangled humanity that all interpersonal relationships carry.

The film seldom wavers from its singular idea and feeling; tonally, it’s a stroll across a plateau by design, but it teeters constantly over that plateau’s edge.

If this bloody entr’acte, whose title addition works as both noun and verb, has little to offer but a jacked up body count on a bed of fan service, it serves both with panache, charging forward as an almost elemental slasher outing unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.

Viewers are spared by the tender mercies of biodoc tropes, as “Fauci” puts a pin in the action to wind back the clock and walk us through how its subject came to develop such an adamantium shell.

This is a lovely film that will appeal to Bernstein’s most ardent fans, while warmly inviting neophytes into his world.

Roth’s expressions range from slightly dazed to slightly drunk, and so, as the days drift by, Sundown becomes a liberating blend of mystery and existential deadpan comedy.

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.

Is it good? In parts! Is it intoxicated with the same demented bravado that its namesake embodies when he sneaks behind the enemy lines of the Franco-Spanish War, but tragically lacks whenever he’s alone with his true love Roxanne (a ravishing Haley Bennett, with whom Wright himself is besotted in real life)? Absolutely. And that’s plenty to sing about.

Like all of the best rock docs, it will make you want to listen to the band’s albums. But after the second hour has come and gone, you might decide that you’ve listened enough, after all.

Unclenching the Fists turns out to be hardly the neorealist dip into misery that some of the film’s more disconnected camerawork from DP Pavel Fomintsev promises.

While occasionally veering into melodrama, Brady’s feature debut is a powerful slice of kitchen-sink gloom, and a blazing portrait of women on fire, unsure of where to go in the wake of rippling tragedy.

It’s a decent Cliff’s Notes version of the narrative with glimmers of something far more fascinating. It just feels like Broomfield missed the point on saying anything ground-breaking.

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

Campbell’s staggering performance becomes the film’s center of gravity, her captivating sense of chaos and complexity giving the audience emotional motion sickness as her moods shift between extremes.

As an intellectually empty piece of genre cinema, “Yakuza Princess” can’t even sit alongside movies that offer similarly obtuse ideas but that gain some favor through impressive spectacle.

Left behind is [Wright's] trademark hyperactive editing and insistent post-modernism; in its place is flowing movement and intense emotion.

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.

At just 95 minutes, Cohen and West hit the bullet points of Child’s life, much of it told through her own archival interviews and personal letters and diary entries, but bigger questions linger. It’s a delicious meal, but it often feels a touch undercooked.

Doing away with any pretense of docu-realism, Spencer is neither a film about specifics nor any of conventional biopic; it is instead a sort of haunted house chamber piece that doesn’t try to locate the real woman behind the legend — as the title might suggest — as it does to reimagine her within a wholly different pop lexicon.

In the end, Denis Villeneuve was all too right: Your television isn’t big enough for the scope of his Dune, but that’s only because this lifeless spice opera is told on such a comically massive scale that a screen of any size would struggle to contain it.

The film embodies its namesake’s oft-repeated — if increasingly suspect — ethos of making sure that fun comes first.

The results are a bit more wishy-washy than usual. If Mills’ films are typically aimed at the intersection where the personal and the universal collide, this one can be unspecific in a way that drifts toward vagueness.

That The Card Counter shakes your faith in the writer-director’s ability to beat the odds is part of its scabrous charm.

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.