The closing minutes are a completely original sort of survival drama, one that defies precise explanation even as it delivers significant payoff.

The Tuba Thieves is about embracing uncertainty and misunderstanding — something d/Deaf/hard-of-hearing people do every day. In fact, the film’s entire genesis was intended as a large-scale “game of telephone,” deliberately seeking out disorder and unexpected end products.

The humble visual language is a vessel for a rich human drama. Bear with what sometimes resembles a television movie for the slowburn panorama of life it captures.

As seen through the eyes of her former lovers (merely a few of many), Highsmith’s life is brought sharply into focus, revealing as much about her humanity as her work.

Significantly more intimate and grounded than the previous “Hunger Games” movies (despite being longer than any of them and responsible for seeding all of their lore), “The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes” is the rare prequel that manages to stand on its own two feet and still feel taller than the other stories it’s ultimately meant to support.

The movie — and maybe Beyoncé’s life — is a constant negotiation between giving viewers that perfect show they crave and these moments of spontaneity. “Renaissance” as a whole sometimes struggles to find that balance, as it moves through all of its different and equally intriguing ideas. But maybe that’s the point.

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.

The Meaning of Hitler doesn’t have to make sense of this decade’s chaos to clarify just how much it remains vulnerable to the same complaisant attitudes exploited by the German leader decades ago. The movie isn’t just another cautionary tale; it’s a jagged intellectual wakeup call that cuts deep, and America can’t hear it enough.

Menuez and Rendón share a terrific chemistry as long-holding-on friends questioning whether they should stay friends at all, and if they should, then why? Comedies like Summer Solstice rarely ask that question with such candor and insight, and with a trans lead actor and character the movie lets simply be themselves despite living in a world rigged against them.

Studio 54 isn’t an especially clever or innovative film, but it taps into its namesake’s dormant spirit, and reclaims a famous piece of Manhattan folklore for the people who made it possible.

In its revelations of Salinger's flaws, the documentary capably strips away the fanaticism associated with his books to create the impression of a human being.

While Of an Age leans a little heavily toward sentimentality at times, a sharp wit and a few wild shifts in tone keep things afloat.

A movie theater may not be the safest place to hide from a tornado, but this winning July blockbuster makes perfectly clear that huddling in the dark with strangers is a hell of a lot better than watching the storm from home.

While hardly reinventing the wheel, Donald Cried spins it faster than usual, taking cues from its memorably irritating protagonist. Beneath its entertainment value, the movie also hints at the tragedy of aimless adulthood.

When lifetimes of latent drama come home to roost in the surprisingly eventful final scenes, Fourteen builds to an unsparingly lucid assessment of what two friends can take from — and carry for — each other.

Even when accounting for its forced and uncertain finale, this is the most poignant and perceptive thing that LaFosse has ever made, and therefore also the most painful.

So much of Welles’ history has been relegated to scholarly texts that it’s a thrill to see this final chapter laid out with such clarity and charm.

Chukwu maintains an impressive command over her material, but Woodard herself becomes the movie’s central storyteller.

At its best, the film doesn't strain for meaning but instead treats all of its intellectualizing as a lark that can be taken seriously but doesn't need to be.

A testament to the power of community to heal the deepest wounds, My Life As A Zucchini takes on heavy subject matter with a light hand, and comes up with a delightful tale that is equal parts wrenching and uplifting.

Director Alonso Ruizpalacios’ exciting and unpredictable look at a pair of Mexico City police officers blends documentary and narrative techniques to deliver a refreshing and innovative look at the challenges of modern-day police work — as well as the underlying corruption that makes the most earnest officers vulnerable to a system rigged against them.

The movie deals less with awkwardness of this comedic scenario than the emotions it creates for its central duo, and the psychological struggle when words can only go so far.

While Love Life has its fair share of sharply written heart-to-hearts, many of its most touching moments (and all of its most telling ones) hinge on a certain kind of emotional geography.

Set in Gillan’s own hometown of Inverness, the film uses the tragic history of the Scottish Highlands (which has the highest suicide rate in the U.K.) to spin out an intimate coming of age tale, bolstered by Gillan’s dark sense of humor and a firm understanding of how to play with narrative conventions.

With a Michael Haneke-esque impassive glaze and a Ruben Östlund-level satire of manners and emotional stuntedness in adults, the film acquires a quiet power as it plays out all possible permutations of a swimming accident that may or may not have ruined the lives of at least two families.

The power of this sensitive and devilishly detailed coming-of-age drama is rooted in the friction that it finds between biblical paternalism and modern personhood.

This lilting tale’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it brevity proves inseparable from the lasting power of its punch-to-the-gut impact.

Amazing Grace is soulful ear candy. But Franklin’s sweaty, impassioned delivery, which galvanizes her audiences with an electric charge, extends her awe-inspiring musical convictions beyond religious euphoria. It’s a rousing portrait of creativity as a unifying force.