What could have been a generic piece of standard Netflix fare in less skillful hands ends up being a nuanced story of belonging that’s slightly less cliche-ridden than you might expect.

While there's a casual dissonance to each twist in its winding plot that results in a disconnected and emotionally vapid experience, Detective Dee unquestionably achieves the escapism it intends.

Schrader’s direction is unobtrusive but agile, as though she considers it her duty to provide a cinematic soapbox for Zweig and politely exit the spotlight.

Thanks to the fleshed out messiness of Dyrholm’s performance, and how eerily the former Eurovision contestant brings Nico back to life whenever she sings, the movie is able to support the sketchiness of its approach.

Suri’s film is full of non-actors who excel at being themselves in front of the camera, the result so eminently watchable because it feels so remarkably like the real India.

Life and art will always be more tightly entwined for Stiller than he knows how to untangle; that he’s at least learned to become aware of that is perhaps as touching and honest a tribute as he ever could have paid to his parents’ legacy.

As a coming-of-age story about a 15-year-old forced to reconsider her place in her family after finally recognizing their place in the world, “A Chiara” can be vague and heavy-handed (even at the same time). As the final layer of a mosaic that renders Gioia Tauro a microcosm of the modern world . . . it’s hard to imagine a more harrowing or distressingly unsettled finish.

No stranger to crafting excessive anticipation, Reichardt has funneled that skill into thriller clothing. However, like all of her output, nothing is as simple as it looks.

As relentless, eager-to-please genre filmmaking goes, it marks the rare occasion where too much of a good thing is just good enough.

Wickedly lovable with the potential to be timeless, “Send Help” is controlled delirium microwaved on high heat.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, and this scattershot crowd-pleaser renders them both in such broad strokes that it seems as if Branagh can only imagine the Belfast of his youth as a brogue-accented blend of other movies like it.

While the particular brand of art that Meow Wolf crafts isn’t for everyone — audiences uninterested in participatory experiences may very well be turned off by the film’s synopsis alone — the story at the heart of “Origin Story” is universal.

It’s a return to form for its director after the misstep of “Men,” a film that’s grim and harrowing by design. The question is, is the emptiness that sets in once the shock has worn off intentional as well?

The scenes pile up with frenetic intensity; as with Soderbergh's other recent exercises in the suspense genre, no single cutaway goes wasted.

Ultimately, the movie belongs to Diggs, a Tony winner for “Hamilton” who comes into his own as a genuine movie star with a fully realized performance that easily outshines the bumpier moments.

A Private War resolves as such an effective memoir because even in its most clichéd moments — of which there are many — it resists easy psychoanalysis.

Despite the mixture of vérité footage and home movies showing the Angulos in their apartment, The Wolfpack feels more in line with a form of ethnographic storytelling than anything else, because the story is told exclusively in terms of their relationship to it.

The climax feels a bit under-realized, but never less than genuine. More than anything else, Morris From America excels at conveying the inherent power of companionship in a largely indifferent world.

Audiences may find the filmmakers’ approach more compelling than the film itself.

DAU. Natasha is haunting and effective, but not always the sum of its parts, and sometimes has a tendency to drag. Even so, the spell lingers long after the credits roll, and the opportunity to consider the many sides of DAU. Natasha is a unique intellectual exercise.

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.

A thoughtful, fast-paced, and immaculately acted procedural that unfolds with the urgency of a newspaper deadline, By the Grace of God zips through the facts of this horrid case, while also shaping them into a lens through which to examine the uneasy relationships between mercy and justice — between faith and the flawed institution that exists to preserve it.

There are moments when Tragos and Palermo run the risk of transforming their subjects into tools exploited for the sake of the movie's artistic vision, but the best part of Rich Hill is that its participants rise above the limitations of the material.

This spry yet increasingly bitter romantic drama is so vague and un-targeted that its social critiques feel less defined than ever. The anger is palpable, but its targets are hard to pinpoint.

The bigger these movies become, the smaller they feel. The more aggressively they reach for greatness, the more clearly they prove that its beyond their grasp. Marvel movies don't get much better than this. The trouble is, they don't want to.

What saves Late Fame at almost every turn is Jones’ direction, which infuses even simple dialogue scenes with breezy maturity and palpable longing.

The Baltimorons makes a solid argument that every one of us is only a dental catastrophe away from turning everything around.

While it’s far from a definitive study of her achievements, the film brings the painter back to life in a manner sure to initiate further study from fans and novices alike.