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.

Every clip of Buckley performing lifts the film off the ground, highlighting how his talents often felt otherworldly.

OBEX is a warm yearn for simpler times, told by a distinctive cinematic voice.

Frustrating as it can be to watch such an intriguing movie get so high on its own supply . . . Chainey’s aggressive refusal to engage with the specifics of Darcy’s inner “rot” or to unpack Daphne’s artistic insecurities allows this delirious three-hander to remain appealingly immune to the “everything is trauma” approach that has made so much of modern horror feel like a form of collective psychotherapy.

The documentary acts as an intimate study of what it means to serve others when it seems like the world is falling apart and to be a partner and mother at the same time.

Two Women has nothing innovative to say about women’s desire at this moment in time. It feels like it might have been revelatory 10 years ago, but now women deserve more. Sure, sex is good, but it’s not enough.

This film is about the contagious power of storytelling — which includes lying and self-deception — and what a potentially lethal device it can be in the wrong or even right hands.

A collection of wistfully effervescent vignettes that resists the usual highs and lows of its format by drawing a gentle power from the stillness of the water that runs through it.

Ricky emerges as a marvelously understated examination of one man’s struggle to achieve stability.

Even without the editing problems, it’s not clear that the narrative bones of Plainclothes were ever strong enough for the movie to work. The entire film often resembles a jumble of queer cinema archetypes executed better on many other occasions.

There’s something quite moving about watching Matlin tell her own story, on her own terms.

If Lurker eventually succumbs to certain genre tropes and a handful of story bumps, it makes up for its limitations in perspicacity and the overall strength of its filmmaking.

Ultimately Holder argues that — despite gentrification — this place is still magical, except we never see any of the magic of which she speaks. We see a fantasy land, but that’s not the same thing as the true magic the city can offer.

All the promise of this premise is squandered in Lin’s adaptation, which in style and structure hews to hackneyed convention at every turn.

We are treated to all the joys and pains of 10 transformative months, with Ewing and Grady taking us inside an experience that’s both specific and oddly universal.

A documentary whose strengths and weaknesses all too perfectly reflect the nature of the crisis at its core — a crisis that stems from a vast confluence of geopolitical issues, but expresses itself through the siloed misery of loneliness and longing.

While the understated approach Zhu brings to her debut feature is authentic, it also underplays even big, dramatic developments in Rebecca’s life. The result is a tiny thing you can hold in the palm of your hand, soft and delicate and mild.

Twohy seems to have long ago lost the thread of what Bubble & Squeak was really trying to say and the inventive ways he might say it.

BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions is a rich visual assemblage born from an uncompromising artistic vision and collectively rendered praxis. One senses that it breaks typical forms, not to be contrarian, but to revel in its authentic self.

Gates only pokes fun at how America casts itself until she gets distracted by a cinematic fantasy of her own.

In the moment, it’s hard not to get pulled into the spectacle, stuck to the story, really connected to this crowd-pleasing (and -screaming) little ditty of a midnight treat.

With an economy of story elements and set design — where most of the movie takes place in nature’s open expanses — Bentley has crafted a plaintive and affecting film about how every moment holds value.

While Victor’s film might be rooted specifically in Agnes’ story and the bad thing at its center, in its specificity, there’s still tremendous room for wider recognition and and revelation.

Rebuilding accrues a lasting power from all of the impermanence that it collects along the way. Even the film’s most schematic moments make it feel as though Walker-Silverman is simply unearthing something that was already there.

In a world that often rewards mediocrity where true artistic greatness is hard to come by, a work like Opus had the potential to be a defining movie of our current moment, but the film’s half-hearted swipes at celebrity culture are never sharp or incisive enough to get under the skin.

Like “This Is Not a Film” before it, Zodiac Killer Project sees its director leveraging their misfortune into an impish and hyper-resourceful attack on the oppressive strictures of modern storytelling (in this case the rigid conventions of the true-crime genre rather than the mandates of a censorious regime), one that allows Shackleton to achieve a measure of freedom through the act of detailing his own cage.

While watching Andrew Ahn’s amiable dramedy, which expands on the original premise while maintaining its central themes of found family and tolerance, one rarely questions the story’s relevance. More vitally, it lacks panache.

Kiss of the Spider Woman is a flashy ode to the fairies and the radicals, the maricóns who’ve repurposed their oppression and media literacy into an outsize, fuck-if-I-care-what-you-think political identity. Yet there’s nothing revolutionary about the movie that contains them.