It’s truly astounding that Falcon Lake is the work of a first-time feature director. Le Bon demonstrates a masterful understanding of shot composition and pacing that allows her to craft a haunting vibe without turning it into a gimmick.

Sweaty Betty is the rare discovery that's bracingly original and down to earth in equal measures.

At a taut and elliptical ninety minutes, a couple of awkward final steps hardly feel like fatal flaws. Getting in, getting down, and getting out as style hopping sizzle reel, Disco Boy heralds a promising new talent who totally has the moves.

This particular tale of sound and fury signifies more than nothing, but only just.

The burden of familial obligation permeates Ms. Purple — who carries it and who passes it off, who outruns it and who lets it overrun them. It’s a ripe topic Chon clearly feels deeply, rendered in beautiful cinematography and delicate storytelling. It’s also a uniquely Asian-American story, rooted in loving specificity and beating with a universally human heart.

Sleepwalk With Me calls to mind Judd Apatow's "Funny People" for its focus on the eccentric, obsessive nature of the wannabe comic's mind.

With some memorably grisly moments and a star that’s committed to acting past his character’s spectacularly fucked fate, there’s plenty to enjoy while it lasts.

The Perfect Candidate can feel sedate and disjointed as a broad portrait of empowerment, but this is nothing if not a movie of its time, and it sings — sometimes literally — whenever it hones in on the unique struggle through which Saudi Arabian women might seize upon this historic moment.

The most impressive element of Paint it Black is the respect it shows for both women’s grief, even while condemning certain ways that they choose to compartmentalize.

The very last scene makes up for a lot of these misgivings: it’s a beautifully bittersweet last beat for the film’s theme of finding camaraderie in the uncertainty of life. For Campillo, it’s one of his greatest scenes as a director. For Cantent, it’s a fitting final statement.

Inspired by a rush of paranoia that Stourton once experienced at a wedding where he felt unwelcome, All My Friends Hate Me effectively splits the difference between Ruben Östlund and Ben Wheatley as it pinballs between squirmy laughs and sly horrors.

Dastmalchian's screenwriting debut bodes well for an alternative career alongside his performances. While never transcendent, the story's patient rhythms allow for a wholly believable world to take shape before it comes crashing down.

Ingrid Goes West is colorful and flippant enough that it can survive a lot of its more senseless developments, but the movie never digs beneath the most obvious layers of its L.A. stereotypes.

This raw and lingeringly sensitive film resonates more strongly when it’s lost in the ice maze than when it’s tracing its steps back to the entrance. The Breaking Ice sticks with you because it doesn’t lead its characters out of the maze, it just melts down the walls between them.

Ginsburg’s life — and its many lessons, both learned and taught — come to entertaining and energetic life. It’s a fist-pumping, crowd-pleasing documentary that makes one heck of a play to remind people of Ginsburg’s vitality and importance, now more than ever.

"It’s Only Life After All” paints a holistic portrait of two artists who became one, crafting a stirring collage of queer history with the engaging archival footage.

Foster’s performance is ultimately the only thing that holds The Survivor together across its three parallel timelines.

The film’s thesis isn’t as clear as his earlier efforts, but it’s still a highly effective story about how the world’s insanity poisons the mind.

Alien on Stage captures lighting in a bottle. Like a real-life “Waiting for Guffman” with a fairytale ending, it’s one of the funniest documentaries in years.

This elegant and surprisingly fast-paced blend of horror and suspense overcomes some of its more ridiculous ingredients thanks to endless invention.

The subtly profound ways in which this movie distorts the recent past makes it one of the most radically entertaining things its iconoclastic scribe has ever written.

Although Berlinger’s latest work is a dense, unsparing look at the offenses and trial of Whitey Bulger, it's equally concerned with capturing how the many members of Bulger's expansive web -- criminals and innocent citizens alike -- use their experiences to control their version of the man.

There’s a fine line between watching someone toil and feeling as though you’re toiling yourself, of course, and “Makala” doesn’t always land on the right side of it. It can be edifying at times to watch this, as the film is clearly a labor of love — even if the actual work depicted is not.

The ’80s-esque sensibilities and sweet quips, rivaled only by fellow Netflix film “To All the Boys I’ve Loved,” make “YASNITMBM” an easily watchable treat for the entire family. Cohen, who previously directed the Hulu feature “Crush,” and once again proves her bonafides when it comes to translating the pains and pleasures of coming of age to the screen.

If you have even the slightest emotional connection to Springsteen’s music — if you’ve ever found salvation in a rock song, or desperately wished that you could change your clothes, your hair, your face — this giddy steamroller of a movie is going to flatten you whether you like it or not.

The movie is able to ride a line right through so many of its genre’s worst clichés because it never stops negotiating between fear and desire, risk and reward. It’s an assured directorial debut from “The Mentalist” actor Simon Baker.

While Maine’s witty script is filled with more than enough sequences primed to get laughs out of any audience (with Dyer turning in a charming performance that never goes too broad), the real winners will likely be fellow Catholic school survivors, who will recognize many of the great truths in Yes, God, Yes.

Leguizamo may give one of his career-best performances in the feature, but it’s Ferreira’s surprising command onscreen that is the most memorable.