While Mouret can’t resist the desire to tie it up into a neat little bundle, just like some of its less inventive genre peers, Love Affairs still manages to end in an unexpected way that feels just right — unwilling to settle on a tidy outcome, and open to the possibilities of what could happen next.

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.

This is Hamilton as you always wanted to see it, and it always will be.

While even the movie’s best moments are derivative enough to deserve that kind of mix-and-match categorization, Welsh shoots the whole thing with such a knowing sense of time and place that its age-old story of revolt can feel like it’s happening for the very first time — like it’s now or never, and there’ll be no going back once the sun comes up.

The well-intentioned and wincingly naive work of a white filmmaker who recognizes the need for change but fails to comprehend the full extent of the problem, “Women in Blue” is most valuable as yet another reminder that defunding the police isn’t a radical position so much as it’s the only feasible way forward; it’s the difference between moving deck chairs around the Titanic and building a safer boat.

If the intimate storytelling doesn’t hit viewers where it hurts, the film’s timely exploration of topics seemingly ripped from the headlines are destined to sting on their own.

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.

Even Bautista and a genuinely cute kid co-star can’t enliven this predictable and humorless entry into a micro-genre long due for a refresher.

Sensitive and lived-in and strong in ways that a more forceful version of this story could never have been, Bora’s debut sketches a portrait of a girl coming into her own strength, and learning to see the blank page of her life as an opportunity rather than a death sentence.

This modest recollection is a quiet act of defiance and course correction. “Ghost in the Noonday Sun” may not be worth anyone’s time, but The Ghost of Peter Sellers is another story — and a much better one.

Despite a bumpy screenplay and some odd tonal choices, Garcia excels as a monosyllabic Bigfoot who casts a big shadow and uses it hide from the world.

One way or the other, the biggest issue with “The Story of Fire Saga” is that most of it is just too limp and anodyne to register.

Through even-handed reporting and a series of emotional first-person accounts, Athlete A excavates one of modern sports’ most horrific abusers and systems. It doesn’t do that by being preachy or shrill, instead working from one key belief: It must have started somewhere. Hopefully, Athlete A can contribute to ending it for good.

A Capra-esque moral comedy that unfolds with all the subtlety of sky writing and none of the same panache, “Irresistible” is a perverse bid for clarity that feels like it was left behind like a relic from some long-distant past.

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

Perhaps what is most radical about Disclosure is the wide array of trans spirits both onscreen and off. In making the film, Feder and Cox are rewriting the very history they set out to tell, adding one more title to “positive representation” list. That alone is worth coming out for.

Fun and winsome and always full of life, A Whisker Away naturally finds a way to land on its feet.

Despite the strong performances and meticulously crafted world they exist inside, the film’s narrative isn’t nearly revelatory enough to match its most winning elements.

Bacon holds it steady, setting up residence in an uneasy, unwell character, unconcerned with making him likable or worth rooting for — the kind of person who gets left behind, and with good reason.

7500 takes a familiar scenario and doubles down on its claustrophobic potential to make it fresh.

It’s not that darkness isn’t a part of the film, but that The Short History of the Long Road approaches even the most tense interaction with a bent toward positivity in all people. It’s, in short, nice.

It’s an ambitious piece, but in the dance between experimental ideas and grounded storytelling, Aviva should have listened to her body.

Hong gives us a soulful, subtly acerbic, tongue-in-cheek critique of narrative coherence.

While the movie gets a little too lost in Demers’ headspace, his story brings to light the limitations of the “Blackfish” effect, and shows why the war against marine park cruelty has a long way to go.

Caldwell’s Infamous, at turns nihilistic and uncomfortably believable, may be built on a thin premise — what if its star-crossed pair of criminal lovers was, as the kids say, doing it for the ‘gram? — but an appropriately nutso performance from its star and some sharp writing keep it from feeling as disposable as its worldview.

It is a stirring call to action, and an urgent warning to those who place religion above their child’s survival. Most importantly, however, the film does not judge or speak down to those who most need to hear its message.

And that, perhaps, is the easiest way to explain its overarching failure: In a film built on a bestselling eight-book series, filled with all manner of magical beings (including Colin Farrell), and rich in fairy tale history, the best scene is one in which its grating narrator farts on a passerby. You didn’t see that in the “Harry Potter” films, and for good reason.

As with most films that are eventually suffocated by their own eccentricities, Sometimes Always Never is strange enough to hold our attention for a while.

As Jess, Jasmine Batchelor (the film marks her first starring role in a film, the actress also produced it) turns in one of the year’s best performances, profound work that twists an already propulsive concept into a riveting character study.

A loose, caustic look at the Vietnam war through the prism of black experiences, Da 5 Bloods wrestles with the specter of the past through the lens of a very confusing present, and settles into a fascinated jumble as messy and complicated as the world surrounding its release.

Leonard and Weixler’s lived-in chemistry and quirky writing (again, largely improvised) keep their characters feeling real even in the midst of their wilder adventures.

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.

A braindead slog that shambles forward like the zombified husk of the heist movie it wants to be, The Last Days of American Crime is a death march of clichés that offers nothing to look at and even less to consider.

While Wake Up: Stories from the Frontlines of Suicide Prevention is a slim, if deeply well-meaning endeavor, it will likely spark some necessary conversations. That those conversations need to go far beyond simply watching a film is a problem not unique to this film (or in this moment), but Townsend manages to effectively disseminate important knowledge in an economical and sensitive way.

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

For all of its low-key revisionism and post-modern flourish (most explicit during a kung-fu style training montage set to Leonard Cohen and a funny “Gladiator” reference that lands at a pivotal moment), Foulkes’ confident and kooky feature debut is less interested in subverting its source material than in continuing the puppet show’s long tradition of keeping with the times.

Becky is as grim and gruesome as any horror movie in recent memory, but that alone can’t save this gross-out thriller.

Structured like a half-remembered pop tune and drifting by at a 75 minutes that feels as if it might not even be half that long, I Will Make You Mine is a sweet little bop about trying to find the rhythm of your life when you don’t really know how the song is structured. Find the melody and you’ll be humming it to yourself for days.

It’s a clever exercise in no-frills science fiction that should please fans of the genre, but it’s more than just a sci-fi exercise thanks to a script that prioritizes, and cares about, its characters.

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.

The strength of the pair’s chemistry — with Johnson cast as the smart but starry-eyed Maggie and Ross doing a lighter spin on her own real-life mother’s mythos as the larger-than-life Grace — helps guide shaky character development, though The High Note is less successful at making its stars shine when they interact with others.

While the plot is not overly complex, Lucky Grandma benefits from a compelling array of supplementary characters.

With director Elizabeth Carroll as skilled sous-chef, Diana Kennedy: Nothing Fancy brings bold flavors together to serve a scrumptious delight of a film.

The American Dream may be a mass delusion, but it’s the realest thing in the world to those under its sway. Zhuk was able to manifest her destiny and make it across the ocean, and her movie offers a compelling glimpse at why that may have been the only choice her country ever gave her.

Nash is very easy to invest in, even in surface-level observations — before the other shoe drops and “Underestimate the Girl” goes somewhere much more raw and rewarding.

Dumont regards history as a focal point for national identity, finding France’s leadership rooted in dry pontification and meandering religious fervor. He gives us a complex world so keen on taking itself seriously that it becomes parody, leaving only Joan’s stone-faced expression to point to a higher truth.

Michael Showalter’s follow-up to “The Big Sick” is as flat and algorithmic as his last rom-com was poignant and alive. The only thing the two films really have in common is a winning performance from Kumail Nanjiani.

Though Stein’s film doesn’t exactly work up to a big surprise, it does unveil some new twists in its final act that hint at better craftsmanship than what was initially on offer.

While the laughs are still easy and frequent, this time around they feel more like the exception than the rule, and the final moments irrevocably tip the scales toward the unironic sobriety the series has been flirting with for so long (a replica of the Trojan horse comes to symbolize how this supposed romp sneaks past your defenses).

This is powerful and uniquely disquieting cinema that should reward the curiosity of those brave enough to seek it out, but you can only stare into a bottomless abyss for so long before you lose the will to keep looking.

Part origin story of the Mystery, Inc. team (Scooby-Doo and the rest of them, for newbies), part Hanna-Barbera homage, the animated feature is a charming enough diversion that adds to the appeal of the original show.

Even as Castle in the Ground begins to fray and fall apart, Joey Klein’s dour but gripping opioid drama remains believable for how perfectly it dovetails with its grieving protagonist.

A gross-out comedy masquerading only in the flimsiest sense as a romance, The Wrong Missy still knows its way around genre convention, but Spindel and company seem compelled to use those expectations to tee up cruel gags that do little to advance the film’s plot or central romance.

Hardy’s grotesque performance doesn’t invite any sympathy for the devil, but it hobbles him in a way that renders Scarface human.

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.

For a film that explores how the way that we’re looked at can inform how we see — a film capable of knotting the beautiful and toxic aspects of that process together in a way that makes room for them both — Clementine is too prone to navel-gazing to leave a strong impression.

At just 81 minutes, the film’s sagging middle soon gives way to a zippy and very funny final act, which ties up big plot points while still hinting at more adventures to come for its charming trio.

On a Magical Night is a fanciful tale of marriage and its malcontents; a muted sex farce that unfolds like an overwhelmingly French twist on “A Christmas Carol” for people who are sick of their spouses.

Like most bad trips, Cary’s documentary is ultimately harmless. And like most bad trips, you realize something’s gone wrong after just a few minutes, and then start to freak out that it’s never going to end.

The Wretched doesn’t reinvent the rules, but it has a timeliness to it that’s hard to shake. There’s not quite enough substance here to launch a franchise, but with a story so attuned to perils of a neglected world, it doesn’t need a sequel when we’re living in it every day.

Spaceship Earth touches down as a grounded and even clinical analysis of our natural skepticism towards dreamers — of how our hope can sour into hostility as soon as it loses an iota of its shine.

While the film’s star and subject is never less than dazzling, even her most inspiring moments can’t obscure a paper-thin exploration of a remarkable life in transition.

It’s a shame that You Don’t Nomi, a new documentary about the failure and reevaluation of Paul Verhoeven’s 1995 pulp film “Showgirls,” doesn’t live up to its truly inspired title.

The movie is a visual investigation into the roots of sexual liberation in societies steeped in repression. Watching it from start to finish is a means of engaging with the inquiry at its center.

The film has more success in smaller beats, when it’s not hamstrung by over-the-top performances or obvious drama. It has just enough going for it to hint at the deeper story beneath the surface: a film only about half measures, not the kind that dishes them out on its own.

There’s a fine line between resilience and false hope, and All Day and a Night walks it with purpose even when it’s tripping over itself.

A Secret Love is full of the kind of gentle ribbing and loving chuckles one would expect from any adorable old couple, but it’s made all the more poignant by the fact of Pat and Terry’s trailblazing personal histories.

The Half of It has lofty aims for its version of the classic tale — which it mostly achieves, albeit without much fanfare.

Always legible, sometimes reductive, but never condescending, Pemberton’s film offsets a lack of complexity with an abundance of clarity.

It may not be a great zombie movie, but it’s a uniquely powerful reminder of why zombie movies are great.

Shaggy and unformed as Pahokee often seems, the film — like its subjects, and the town where they live — is more than the sum of its parts.

The movie’s topple into melodramatic excess is fitting for a film set in the 1960s, a time dominated by melodramas. And also like the cinema of the 1960s, there’s a grit and urgency to To the Stars, of something bigger and darker coming along with the changing times.

Robert the Bruce seeks to explore the relationship between a ruler and their people, offering intimacy and personal concern as the best defense against a puppet government. Unlike its namesake, however, this cold and slapdash costume party of a film never figures out how to unite its many scattered parts.

It might not change anyone’s mind about the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, but Mayor presents a fresh window into the challenges of leadership on the latter half of that equation.

Poe has built a rich world that’s equal parts “Rushmore,” “Heathers,” and “The Godfather,” with all the unpredictability that teenage behavior can possibly engender.

There’s no question there is much to admire about both Vieira de Mello and Moura’s soaring portrayal of him, but it’s all buried under the weight of a biopic too afraid to really show the truth about a flawed world, and a flawed man who loved it.

With a more streamlined script, or even fewer characters and more developed relationships, Abe could have made a real impact. As it stands, there are too many cooks in the kitchen.

While there are flashes of originality in the film’s script — which quite artfully builds on Bowie’s worries with a distinctly personal edge — most of it is relatively straightforward, never as psychedelic or sophisticated as its opening shot, which finds Flynn stuck in spacesuit and unable to engage with the world around him.

There’s a fine line between awe and tedium, and sometimes not even Chris Hemsworth is able to blur it for us.

The Willoughbys is different — or, perhaps, just different enough to stand out, as it sends up the vast assortment of kiddie stories about missing, dead, or just plain bad parents, and finds something fresh and funny in the process.

Much of the movie operates as a playful nostalgia trip, and at two hours that’s asking a lot, but Beastie Boys Story is also imbued with a moving sense of purpose: The story doubles as a tribute to beloved multi-hyphenate Adam “MCA” Yauch, whose 2012 death from cancer catalyzed the dissolution of the group.

The experimental approach takes some time to settle in and doesn’t always click, but at its best, The Infiltrators manages to personalize the undocumented struggle by transforming it into an unlikely blend of activism and suspense that makes a compelling case for the abolishment of ICE.

Karen’s dogged pragmatism, and her complex relationship to the smut that provided her family’s livelihood for thirty years, is why Circus of Books is such a rare delight — and a nearly perfect documentary.

Butt Boy dares you to give it a shot, and operates on the assumption that most people will write it off from the start. It’s hard to believe this movie even exists, but equally worth recognizing that it’s not entirely full of shit.

There’s much to enjoy in the film’s first hour, which plays out a bit like an updated “Four Weddings and a Funeral.” It’s a chatty comedy populated by amiable leads and a constellation of wacky supporting stars, with an ill-fated would-be couple at its heart.

Yang infuses his earnest, semi-fictionalized story (inspired by his own father’s experiences) with the evocative narrative traditions of modern Asian cinema, from Wong Kar Wai to Edward Yang, resulting in a rich and intimate atmosphere at every turn. While the movie doesn’t achieve the narrative mastery of its influences, Yang’s first feature has a touching emotional through line grounded in authenticity.

If nothing else, the movie makes a strong case for Cox’s astounding resilience, an ability to take even the most routine gig and deepen its potential. It helps that The Etruscan Smile sputters along more than it belly-flops, and stabilizes by the poignant finale.

It both hurts and helps that Bibb and Duhamel have real chemistry, and their initially combative relationship — a staple of the romance genre — is believable and with some actual heat behind it.

It’s a stupid movie with deep ambitions, energized by that trippy neon palette, and the occasional hot beat.

Though hardly subtle in its metaphoric intent, this story of a rural cult of all women, segregated into “sisters” and “wives,” led by a single powerful man makes for an unnervingly effective thriller dripping with atmosphere and foreshadowing.

While the film is understandably concerned with its titular characters — Ed Helms as straight-edge Detroit cop James Coffee, young star Terrence Little Gardenhigh as his plucky pre-teen foil Kareem — its real standouts are supporting talents like Gilpin and Taraji P. Henson, who end up holding together a film that perhaps should have focused on them instead (cutesy title to come).

Clover is at its best when it leans into its more silly side, playing up the ludicrousness of many of its twists alongside a cast that’s not interested in winking at them or going for the easiest of laughs.

In these trying times, you generally can’t go too wrong with Almost Love, a film where, for the most part, everyone is nice to each other and just trying to be a good person. But the third act becomes a pile-up of soap-operatic incidents that try too hard to advance plot arcs . . . that are less interesting than the spiky, perky characters at their center.

There’s Something in the Water doesn’t break any molds in terms of documentary form, and it’s less impressive as cinema than activism. But it’s easily digestible and well researched, with the aid of Waldron’s book.

The result, vibrantly narrated by Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, is a slightly bouncier, more buoyant feature than some of its cinematic brethren, but one that accomplishes the necessary: it brings viewers inside the world of its awe-inspiring title stars.

While Kovgan, a Russian filmmaker who has made her own contributions to the world of dance through film and performances, has a clear affection and respect for Cunningham, her solo feature debut is unable to do much more than hold him at arm’s length.

Inevitably, Tape will inspire conversations — its woefully conceived final sequence literally begs for them — but perhaps not the ones Kampmeier anticipated when crafting a film that, for all its missteps, is built on necessary storytelling.

You’re reminded of the all-time “Twilight Zone” chillers that left you pondering and unsettled in your living room, questioning how well you knew the people sitting next to you. Given the current state of things, you’ll have to experience Vivarium in much the same way.