The success of Extra Geography rides largely on Clear and Duggan who make a wonderful odd couple pair.

While much of the film is built on repressed pain, there are moments of celebration, some reconciliation, and even laughter.

Any bona fide sushi fan stands to benefit from the general wake up call that "The Global Catch" provides in ample doses.

A clever, high-concept dark comedy that uses the moral clarity of “The Twilight Zone” to see through the veil of modern cynicism, Happily jackknifes into the murky waters between #RelationshipGoals and #BodySnatcherVibes as it skewers the assumption that something must be very wrong with anyone who’s too happy for too long.

Lester treats the whole thing with breezy exuberance, with colourful cinematography by legendary Carpenter, Zemeckis, and Spielberg collaborator Dean Cundey, and best of all, a killer late-disco soundtrack sweeps all your cares away.

From its title on down, Sauvage / Wild is a film that’s torn between different translations of the same basic principle — one soft and the other hard. There’s no judgement of him whatsoever, to the point where it sometimes feels like the character is more of a construct than he is a fully dimension person of flesh and blood.

As more people try to make peace with how their darkest hours have irreparably damaged them, actors with creepy smiles should breathe a little easier knowing that they’ll be employable for the foreseeable future.

Garbus, who has long been motivated by stories about remarkable women and horrible crimes, makes a strong showing with Lost Girls, her first narrative feature in her decades-long career.

Lewis was fighting for America’s future long before any recent conflicts, and the documentary makes a welcome case for keeping hope alive.

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.

While it might be legally accurate to say that Love and Monsters isn’t based on pre-existing material, it couldn’t be more obvious that it was conceived by someone who saw “Zombieland” on TV one night and thought to themselves: “I could do it better. And with bugs.” Lucky for us, they were right — or at least right enough that it’s a blast to watch them try.

Beers' screenplay manages to sustain the outrageous scenario with a string of jokes that don't take the underlying goofiness for granted. Instead, the writer-director builds on its crass foundations with constant inspired one-liners.

Complicated enough to lose a casual viewer but never so convoluted that André and co. are sublimated into the system around them (which would have been fatal for a film so attuned to the relationship between personal interest and collective perception), Bonitzer’s plot spins forward at the speed of an auctioneer’s mouth until raw suspense becomes appropriately inextricable from meaningless gibberish.

The result is a film that lucidly traces the specter of fascism (never extinguished, always waiting to exhale), and how unreal it feels for it to cast its shadow across Europe once more. It’s also a film that feels stuck between stations, so doggedly theoretical that it borders on becoming glib.

Charmatz’s nimble direction allows the action to flitter between the imagined past and the “actual” present without missing a beat, and that deftness proves key to the Pete Docter-like anthropomorphism that renders the Dark and his colleagues as working stiffs with a job to do.

Despite the claustrophobic entrapment in a violent and hyper-masculine world, The Shadow of Violence is an ultimately moving morality tale announcing a confident new voice in international cinema. Not to mention a powerful vehicle for its two leads, Jarvis and Barry Keoghan.

Though never entirely the sum of its parts, Party Girl delivers a gentle, somber portrait of the aging process that's consistently believable precisely because not much happens.

The movie assembles a whirlwind of whistleblowers and disease experts to break down each step of the timeline, lacing it together with smooth editing and ironic music cues that makes the overall experience both absorbing and frustrating, though not surprising in the least.

Green wisely cedes control to his actors, with Bullock as the main engine pulling the material along. But neither his direction, nor any of the formidable performances, can do much to alleviate the bumpy road of Peter Straughan's screenplay.

If Lady is more successful as a series of interconnected vignettes, than as one fluid narrative, it has a moving ending up its sleeve. After presenting a morass of rich themes, Nwosu teases out a small, surprising finale that transcends the blinkered concerns driving her protagonist.

Pawlikowski’s elliptical style — keen on empty spaces, minimal dialogue, and crisp cutting — has its limits in terms of achieving an emotional payoff, but the actors’ understated turns make for a captivating (and, at 82 minutes, miraculously short) elegy to a lost homeland at the kickoff of the Cold War.

A tense prison drama that’s penned into the trappings of a classic Western, The Mustang is a small movie about a subtle transformation, but its closing moments — however contrived they might be — are as touching as they are unexpected.

It’s so confidently directed and performed that even the obvious bits sink in.

The movie’s disquieting tone unfolds with a familiar kind of naturalism — devoid of soundtrack, it develops an engrossing reality filled with pregnant pauses and fragmented exchanges. There’s a palpable despair to this scenario rooted in the authenticity of its environment.

Set at a prestigious drama school and frequently engrossing, the film unfolds like an experimental acting workshop that occasionally falters when the plot intrudes on the performances.

Guided by El-Masry’s tender, understated performance and a tone that hovers between playful and sincere, Limbo manages to turn its downbeat scenario into a sweet and touching rumination on the quest to belong in an empty world.

The movie shows the mark of a filmmaker in full command of vintage horror’s most disturbing strengths — and well-equipped to resurrect them.

Creepy is both a return home and a return to form.

The simple film is a straightforward entry in Hong’s filmography that is unlikely to ever be held up among his true masterpieces. But its delightful execution of small details speaks to how clearly the artist understands his own strengths at this point in his career.

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.

Chevalier, despite its steadily devolving storytelling, is enjoyable and worthy of appreciation. When Williams and Robinson loosen up the strings and allow the film to feel as original and free as Bologne was at the height of his creative powers — a battle! with Mozart! with dueling violins! — and refuse to be beholden to the usual narrative beats and expectations, Chevalier soars. So does Harrison, whose cocky take on the young star is funny, flinty, and entirely justified.

Offering plum roles to Catherines Frot and Catherine Deneuve, The Midwife is a minor-key crowd pleaser about friendship, forgiveness and rolling with the punches.

It doesn’t look or feel or move like much else, all those other cinematic comparisons aside, and the sheer scope of its ambition is enough to inspire awe. Maybe the most obvious answer is the best one: love itself is a drug. So is cinema.

In Son of Monarchs, Gambis has mapped the butterflies’ migratory paths and genetic patterns onto Mendel’s search for belonging. It’s an inspired blend of science and narrative, and an affecting allegory emerges from the unique imagery.

Most of us could never hope to be as smart as Ricciardi was, but the movie he’s left behind does everything in its power to ensure that we’re not as dumb as he was either.

Landing somewhere between “Love, Simon” and “Superbad,” Alex Strangelove is a strange delight indeed.

Though full of anger and grief, the film is more than just a screed. Greengrass’ docu-real aesthetic doesn’t allow for grandiosity even when he gives in to more heavy-handed impulses. He’s on a soapbox at times, but his message is worth hearing.

Even as Honey Boy settles into the tropes of a familiar coming-of-age saga, it’s an admirable variation — the earnest attempt by an elusive movie star to bring his mythology down to Earth.

With self destruction as destiny, Reitman has made the equivalent of a Roland Emmerich disaster movie writ small, an apocalyptic scenario internalized by a single person.

By the standards of Jordan's earlier films, "Byzantium" is unquestionably a minor achievement, but its technical specs help flesh out a thick environment that elevates the proceedings to a lyrical plane.

It’s funny and strange and sometimes truly dark. Not all of it works or even coheres, but it also offers a fresh look at what love does to people, both on the big screen and out in the world.

Of course, it might take time for Jim Loach to catch up with his father's track record; Oranges & Sunshine is a good place to start.

At two and a half hours, Lincoln contains only a single battle scene in its opening seconds. The rest is pure talk, a keen dramatization of Doris Kearns Goodwin's tome "Team of Rivals," that delivers an overview of Lincoln's crowning achievement in chunks of strategy talk.

Tran’s debut feature delivers a ton of charm for a kung fu throwback, and kicks a lot of ass for a broad comedy about some old guys relearning how to honor each other and fight for themselves.

The most impressive element of Paint it Black is the respect it shows for both women’s grief, even while condemning certain ways that they choose to compartmentalize.

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.

You’ve seen this story a thousand times before, but Joris-Peyrafitte’s expressive direction and Margot Robbie’s sheer force of will are enough to endow the movie’s best moments with the same hope-and-a-prayer immediacy that its heroes take with them as they speed towards the southern border.

Because of its vignette-based structure, the film never coalesces into a single, engaging narrative, but it’s rich with wonderful moments.

An earnest, sometimes bland and unsophisticated look at Corinne's undulating relationship to spirituality in general and Christian dogma in particular. But it's also a surprisingly well-made character study outside of its specific theme.

Wearing its sincerity like an Armistice Day poppy, the resulting montage-film – which premiered at the London Film Festival ahead of future TV transmissions – does its utmost to honor the conflict’s fallen.

Although not exemplary, Janie Jones at least manages to give its tired scenario a sense of legitimacy.

A bluntly effective instrument of cinematic torture, the Tampa Bay-shot The School Duel is here to embed you in the bullets, shrapnel, and consequences of random violence.

While its energy starts to flail by the end of its second act, Golden Arm is able to end strong, using the grammar of sports films and the amusement of arm wrestling to deliver a satisfying win worth cheering for.

The imagery and impact of Kindred is impressive, and while it may not stick the landing, the path there is well worth flying.

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates may not be the first Apatow-era comedy about twentysomethings coming to grips with the fact that they won’t live forever (and it’s certainly not the deepest, as it lingers in your memory for about as long as a Snapchat), but it might just be one of the funniest.

The film’s hyper-naturalism is its raison d’etre, and Being 17 is at its best when it leans into that approach.

It’s not episodic, but feels more like the first act of a larger story begging for further exploration. Nevertheless, with a complex, ever-evolving turn by newcomer Sheyi Cole at its center, the story it does offer up turns on McQueen’s usual sophisticated narrative techniques and the same striking penchant to render Black British culture in complex lyrical terms.

While Peter Pan & Wendy is clipped and uneven in a way that prevents it from reaching the same heights as the director’s previous Disney project, this spirited fairy tale is still able to take flight for one simple reason: It maintains the courage of its own convictions.

Graf makes “Going to the Dogs” an unpredictable visual experience, bracingly experimental for a 68-year-old filmmaker who hasn’t run out of gas.

If Zombi Child gets snared in a web of symbols and ideas that it never fully manages to weaponize in its favor...it still provides a bold and compelling bridge between the living and the dead.

Check It is a powerful and electrifying film, full of characters who exude wisdom, authenticity, and bravado. Their lives beg telling, but this is only half the story.

Baby Invasion has a clearer focus this time: It’s to make you, the viewer, feel bad, and often wanting to beg to the screen, “Please god let this end,” or perhaps more aptly, “end me.” Here is a filmmaker who, these days, resents his own audience. Here is a movie for no one.

Visually dazzling and loaded with charm, the movie is also blatant in its quest for cultural sensitivity.

Veiel and Maischberger build a compelling case that she was in fact a Nazi, right up until the end of her life.

A minor effort in a filmography largely composed of them, All the Light in the Sky is nonetheless satisfying on the terms it establishes early on.

There’s so much to see in The Color Purple that this critic made the rare choice to see the film twice before reviewing it. The experience deepens, in both good and bad ways, with a second watch. The performances are better — Barrino’s subtleties are easier to track, Brooks’ absolutely star-making turn is even more dazzling and heartbreaking — but the overstuffed story sags more often and more obviously.

Titled like a sequel, plotted like a remake, and shot with enough of its own singular verve to ensure that most people never think of it as either of those things, Spike Lee’s deliriously entertaining — if jarringly upbeat — Highest 2 Lowest modernizes the post-war anxieties of Akira Kurosawa’s “High and Low” for the age of parasocial relationships.

Here is a rare new entry in that smallest of sub-genres: Movies that don’t punish teens for f--king their brains out (surprise surprise: it’s French).

Sutton’s tricky balance of B-movie caricatures and gloomy expressionism doesn’t always match up, but that very discordance speaks to the potency of its themes.

Fox is nothing if not a likable figure, and he and Guggenheim have crafted a likable film about both his suffering and resilience without turning him into a martyr. It’s not without some of the conventional beats of a star-driven documentary, but it also refuses to turn maudlin when it so easily could.

A bundle of taut nerves stretched to their vomit-inducing breaking point, Talk to Me, the directorial feature debut from Australian Youtube brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, is the type of horror film whose effectiveness arises from its barebones simplicity.

If Almereyda fails to pierce the inventor’s skin and expose his circuity, his gauzy film nevertheless has fun exploring the idea that we’re all wired differently.

Knock Down the House takes its viewers on the inside of a propulsive movement that’s changing by the moment, an energetic look inside history as its being made, even when the results aren’t always the ones that are so fervently hoped for.

Each portion of the story — the formation of the 9to5 group, its ambitious jump into union organizing, and its current aims today — could easily engender its own feature, but it’s the early acts of the film that are most successful on their own.

This is a strong movie about a man in need of a new start, made by someone who could benefit from one of his own.

Padilha channeled national frustrations into zeitgeist entertainment. The follow-up, Elite Squad: The Enemy Within, has less success than the first installment in achieving that aim, but still keeps the snazzy combination of spectacle and polemics in check.

At first, you may be inclined to reject it outright, but Game Night works so hard to win viewers over that it eventually finds its way to a winning formula.

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.

This is a movie about where strength comes from, who takes it from us, and how we get it back. It’s familiar territory, but First Match is such a powerful coming-of-age story because Monique makes us feel like she’s the first person to ever set foot there.

If this weren’t a Cartoon Saloon movie, it would probably fall apart long before Meg LeFauve’s screenplay arrives at its touching finale, which trusts kids to confront some of the more difficult truths that childhood forces you to intuit. But good news: My Father’s Dragon is a Cartoon Saloon movie, and the open-hearted sincerity of the studio’s work breathes singular life into even the least engaging scenes of its most anonymous feature.

Strong performances by both Clarke and Chiwetel Ejiofor, plus compelling production design from Clem Price Thomas (the pods and the wider world around them are instantly credible) recommend the feature, even if some of Barthes’ biggest ideas (she also wrote the film’s script) sometimes feel under-explored by the time the film reaches its conclusion.

Director Derek Drymon does better than you’d expect with Paramount’s spooky new feature film — expanding the swash-buckling legend of the Flying Dutchman (Mark Hamill) into a funny, vibrant hellscape sure to lure in kids and millennials alike.

As a cinematic achievement, “Bikram” is fairly tame; as a mass-media call to action, it’s an essential movie of the moment.

The Bay manages to scare up a real fear of environmental neglect. It's quite possibly the first example of jump scares used in service of activism.

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.

It’s a return to form, and its all-encompassing storyline plays much like a shinier, more magnificent Christmas special.

There are things in life that you can’t avoid, and things that you can’t take back. Vulcanizadora doesn’t know how to cope with these truths, and will alienate much, if not most, of its audience as a result. But the honesty with which it expresses these dark thoughts is commendable — and more reflective than a dozen articles on the “male loneliness epidemic.”

The Little Things is pulpy and ridiculous and requires some major suspension of belief, but — if you didn’t know any better — you might even say it’s beautiful.

Bier’s direction is coolly efficient, which fits the material to a t — anything more ostentatious would just feel wasteful.

It’s only a little while before this starts to feel like just another documentary, but even a short-lived miracle goes a long way. It’s still enough to make you believe in the impossible.

Its three narratives never fully work together, even as they begin to interlink. Its moments of true emotional poignancy work well, but are all too rare in a film that otherwise has plenty to say.

Yes, Ride’s life was rife with tensions, both personal and professional. So how do we build a film around that? Carefully. Perhaps too carefully.

Blanchett, a commanding figure who scowls her way through every argument, gives Mapes an involving screen presence that elaborates on the character's staunch resolve much better than the straightforward script.

Even as Almost Christmas follows a series of predictable twists, that doesn’t negate its charm.

Logan isn’t always a satisfying movie, but there’s a very satisfying answer to those questions waiting for viewers at the end of it. Satisfying not only because Mangold resolves things with some brilliantly expressive imagery, or because he endows this story with a no-shits-left-to-give honesty that defies its origins and justifies its spectacular violence and salty vocabulary, but because it proves how iconic Jackman has made this character over the last 17 years.

It's no less of an accomplished performance than Hilary Swank's similar turn in "Boys Don't Cry" or newcomer Zoé Herán's delicate achievement as the lead in "Tomboy." Unfortunately, Albert Nobbs traps Close's sizable talent in a simplistic drama--not unlike Nobbs herself who winds up trapped in a restrictive period.

Less moment-to-moment funny than committed to a sustained pitch of devilish glee, Never Goin’ Back couches its silliness in a credible milieu of American malaise. The women may never understand how they might find a better place, but the movie makes the case that their unending commitment to getting there might be good enough.

Perhaps a better film would have prioritized more of the personal over the universal and formulaic, but “Belén” seems more interested in being a rallying cry than a character study. On that count, it will almost certainly succeed, and audiences around the world might soon be chanting “I am Belén” as loudly as Argentine women did in 2017.