Ultimately, it’s a case in point for how an impeccably styled arthouse-grindhouse crossover can feel both dense with signifiers to unpack (although lacking more commonly understood kinds of “depth”), but also fleet, frothy and fun.

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.

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

Beatles ’64 does what it can to emphasize the positive — and downplay its sociopolitical theorizing — by seeing the British Invasion through the eye of the storm.

One of Us offers a rare window into a highly insular community that is often misunderstood, or tacitly sanctioned for fear of stoking anti-semitism.

It’s here, in these more high-altitude and less high-minded passages that “The Summit of the Gods” reaches the peak of its power, as the lush 2D animation indulges in the kind of ecstatically true vistas that live action would never allow, while Amine Bouhafa’s gorgeous and beguiling score makes every step feel like a spiritual proposition before exploding into an avalanche of synths.

The Chronology of Water can — and repeatedly does — churn itself to a forbidding standstill, and yet Poots makes every moment of it ecstatic in its immediacy.

You couldn’t ask for a better match between filmmaker and subject.

It's a touching story that would seem altogether familiar if weren't also loaded with urgency.

Setting the Taylors’ footage in such a quotidian structure is like setting the world’s most beautiful diamond in a ring pulled from a Cracker Jack box

A spectacular noir epic that's equal parts murky, bloated, flashy and triumphantly cinematic. Four years after Nolan's "Batman Begins" sequel "The Dark Knight" rattled audiences with a similar audiovisual overload, the new movie falls into the same rhythm and remains viscerally satisfying even when the story falters.

In spite of the movie’s tropes, Haapasalo clearly understands that, when you’re young, desire can feel confusing or gratifying, thrilling or overwhelming. In her snapshot of contemporary girlhood, Haapasalo contains all of the above — making the movie an affecting achievement that never feels less than loving.

Christian Petzold‘s gossamer latest film, Mirrors No. 3, is as compact as a novella, as ephemeral in its emotion, as delicate in register as one of the Chopin or Ravel pieces that float through it.

As Endgame sputters to the finish line, it leaves the impression of witnessing a Marvel Movie Marathon compressed to three hours — and 58 seconds, but trust me, they’re disposable — of unbridled fan service.

Only Boyle's unstoppable tendency to mouth off sustains the routine plot, but McDonagh pushes the limits of what he can make Gleeson say without making the crude nature of his asides overwhelm their comic potential.

The result is a cozy crowdpleaser with real heart and some lovely songs, and one that doesn’t trade honesty for predictable beats.

Coming out as a bold filmmaker with a fearless voice, prolific alt comedy editor Vera Drew’s mixed media dystopia is an experimental trans coming of age story wrapped in a scathing critique and confident rebuke of mainstream comedy. Fiercely original and deeply personal, it’s too damn good not to be seen.

Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie delivers everything a fan of the show could want, expanding the level of spectacle while keeping the core of the ongoing project intact.

Hooligan Sparrow is held tight on the strength of the solidarity it finds between these women, and while many other movies have more powerfully exposed the corruption of contemporary China, few have so articulately confronted the gendered weight of these prejudices, and how women always seem to be the first citizens to have their wings clipped.

The Bernard Hermann score adds another dimension.

The director ensures this chamber piece of moral conundrums never seems too heavy-handed; his fluids camera roams through each room so that at no time does the theatrical set-up feel like a limitation.

From one mesmerizing scene to the next, The Tribe never loses its flow. Even its harshest moments are defined by vibrant motion.

It’s the stirring chemistry between Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly as committed siblings that transforms these lively, violent circumstances into a sweet and intimate journey designed to catch acolytes of the genre off-guard.

Despite the simple question at the film’s core, Carax is unsurprisingly more interested in assembling compelling images and sounds than offering a sincere look inside the man crafting them. He orbits vulnerability like a moth swirling around a streetlamp, getting ever closer and occasionally touching it before instantly recoiling.

Ethan Hawke is theatrical in the best way possible, commanding the screen with his every gesture and utterance without overplaying any of them.

The film is determined to prove that people can meaningfully interact with the world in any number of ways, now more than ever, and it accomplishes that goal with real clarity and rare emotional force (the last shot is the kind of gut-punch that hurts so good).

Tonally, the movie often struggles to sort out whether it’s a disarming romcom or a straight drama, leading to some listless passages.

Whether it prompts genuine introspection, or even inspires further conversation on what Tesson argues, may provide some measure of how effective the film is. But whether or not viewers put any stock in his proclamations, it’s also perfectly OK to simply celebrate the grandeur in nature that the documentary exalts.