It works, and it’s no big mystery why — Johnson knows his form and format, and delivers on it, playing with tone and message but never losing sight of why these stories are so damn entertaining to watch and unravel.

A soaring, sweet documentary that welcomes its audience into an unexpected new arena, The Eagle Huntress offers up a movie-perfect story with a leading lady who has something to share with everyone.

Despite the density of their subject, Ford avoids heavy-handed platitudes and dramatic tropes, instead relying on a strong script and a pair of sneakily powerful performances from stars Brittany S. Hall and Will Brill. The result is a showcase for the film’s central trio, one that resonates long after the film’s slim running time concludes.

Sing Street is a winsomely entertaining musical tribute to how passion can pave the way towards a better life.

Letting the movie do the talking often works best.

Although The Witness functions just fine as a true crime documentary in the vein of such en vogue offerings as “Serial” and “Making a Murderer,” the film makes its mark when it leans in on the deeply personal connection between its subject and its storyteller.

Without hesitation, she talks about her own shortcomings too. She does so with an assured hand, an open heart, and a heady way of seeing the world. But other parts of her are obscured, and those questions might leave one wanting.

An exhilarating postmodern comedy about people fighting for every moment of screen time they’re able to wrest from this stupid world before they have to leave it, Red Post on Escher Street is the best argument for Sono’s vital body of work since 2015’s “The Whispering Star,” and a perfect opportunity for newcomers to get their toes wet.

While the broad strokes of Riegel’s story might sound familiar, Holler finds its power in the particularities, especially Barden’s unfussy and wholly believable performance.

It’s a pinhole portrait of life on Earth; a non-judgmental story about trying to reconcile meaning with meaningless before the well runs dry and it rains again.

Blisteringly cool one moment and ridiculously silly the next (much like its high school heroine), this punchy and propulsive late summer surprise is able to capture the way we live now because it displays such a vivid understanding of the reasons why we live that way.

Catechism sometimes feels intentionally obscure, much like Rohal's last movie. It's essentially a hilariously brazen lark, which is reason enough to embrace it.

The film serves as a tribute to a certain brand of journalism that can only be achieved by venturing out into the great unknown and putting one’s self in harm’s way. But more than anything, it tells a human story about someone who understood herself well enough to live the exact life she wanted while accepting every consequence that came with it.

By the end of this adaptation, we get the full picture of this romance and the two people involved.

While not the director's canniest piece of filmmaking, it's unquestionably his angriest, politically motivated achievement. Every missive hits its target hard with a comedy-horror combo aimed squarely at the kind of commercial stupidity that Cronenberg has avoided throughout his 45-year career.

Prometheus is an unquestionable good time, one of the best big-screen science fiction accomplishments since 'Avatar.'

Slickly made if not particularly stylish, the movie maintains its entertainment value for picking ideal models of American excess.

Being perpetually online sucks, but movies about it don’t have to, as Not Okay shows time and again.

If “Synonyms” was a howl, Ahed’s Knee is the spittle that was still left in Lapid’s mouth when it was over. It’s a smaller and less electrifying film — as contained and implosive as its title’s reference to Éric Rohmer would suggest — but also one that cuts to the heart of Lapid’s visceral genius and cauterizes the open wound at the center of his body of work.

It's a true winner and a genuine crowdpleaser, a human story told well through one incredible animal.

Considering that it’s a second sequel in a less-than-revered franchise, it’s a minor miracle that Cars 3 hits the finish line with a fresh sense of purpose.

Shot primarily at her eye level, Little Girl takes you straight to the heart of the trans child’s experience, seeing through her eyes the dogged support of her indefatigable mother and loving family.

A Photographic Memory is guided by a probing specificity, and the deeper it pushes into the weeds of Sheila’s past — and the harder it listens for how they might reverberate through Rachel’s present — the easier it gets for viewers to hear echoes from their own lives in the stuff of the filmmaker’s search.

Gavras never forces the material into allegorical turf; it's a relatively straightforward look at the ramifications of getting blinded by dollar signs, with perhaps one of the most clearly defined visions of economic depravity since "Wall Street."

Douglas Miller's Dinosaur 13 is both awe-inspiring and tragic. Conventionally made but featuring an undeniably compelling story at its core, Miller’s debut benefits greatly from the combination of passion and sadness embedded in its subjects’ tale.

In some ways, it’s the softest and most subtle of her six features. In others, it’s the most violent and stubborn of the lot, stunted in many of the same places where her previous stuff flowed like river water. But if Maya isn’t the best of Mia Hansen-Løve’s films, there’s a wayward urgency to the whole thing that makes it feel like it might have been a necessary one for her to make.

Herzog shoots first, and asks how the footage might be pertinent to his project later; Into the Inferno often feels scattered and listless as a result, but this tactic is also responsible for so many of the movie’s most perfect moments.

Pulling harder and harder at the tension between complex socioeconomic forces and the simple human emotions they inspire, R.M.N. masterfully spins an all too familiar migration narrative into an atavistic passion play about the antagonistic effects of globalization on the European Union.