While erudite, well-researched, and all too relevant ... [the film] is an unilluminating chore to watch, even as it convincingly argues the profound extent to which its subject helped blemish the moral complexion of the modern world.

Caught somewhere between a genealogy project, an oral history, and an in-depth video essay about the iconic scene that seared “Alien” into our imaginations, it reaffirms the film’s basic power without probing deeply enough to achieve any power of its own.

That this narrative is intense and entertaining to audiences — even those unfamiliar with the fashion world — is Tcheng's considerable accomplishment.

Roth’s expressions range from slightly dazed to slightly drunk, and so, as the days drift by, Sundown becomes a liberating blend of mystery and existential deadpan comedy.

It Is in Us All, a hyper-visceral portrayal of manhood in its purest unrestrained form, is anchored by the force-of-nature turn from its superlative star Cosmo Jarvis. Intoxicating to the senses, this film boasts an indomitable vitality, a zest for life so uncontainable it brims with mortal danger.

Plan 75 isn’t for or against assisted suicide, but it tenderly laments a society in which “death with dignity” is only offered as compensation for a life without it.

There’s a lot to enjoy about Companion, from Hancock’s sleek visuals, smooth pacing, and twisty script, to Thatcher’s uncanny performance as an android who borders on humanity without ever crossing the threshold. But while the film offers a snapshot of human-AI relations at an inflection point, it doesn’t fully probe some of the implications of its premise.

Viewers are spared by the tender mercies of biodoc tropes, as “Fauci” puts a pin in the action to wind back the clock and walk us through how its subject came to develop such an adamantium shell.

Like “I’m Not There” before it, “A Complete Unknown” would rather celebrate Dylan’s mystery than attempt to explain it (each of their titles emphasizes his elusiveness as a defining factor), but where Haynes’ solution was to make Dylan infinite, Mangold’s is to make him as small as possible.

It’s lovely, lively, and guaranteed to get kids interested in the wild world around them, all the better if that also includes some outside research into what really happened with Joao and Dindim.

While Ordinary Love is so hermetically sealed inside the bubble of its cracking relationship that the film always feels like it’s about to suffocate to death, it’s so attuned to the meniscus of a “healthy” marriage that it remains touching even at its most inert.

The singular vibration that Nichols brings to the golden age of motorcycles gives way to the all-too-familiar entropy that ended it, as a movie that busts out of the gate as some kind of new American classic ultimately runs out of gas on the side of the highway.

You couldn't ask for a more appropriate genre of music to carry a movie. As Didier explains the bluegrass appeal, "the banjo sort of snarls," bringing a primal form of energy that even he can't put into words. It's also the element that manages to rescue "Broken Circle" from the meandering nature of its structural looseness, which sometimes distracts from a thoroughly involving story.

Subtitled "a musical adventure," the actor-director's love letter to some 800 years of Neapolitan expression probes its subject with a wide romantic outlook.

More than just a hypnotically hyper-real distillation of what it means to be young, All These Sleepless Nights is a haunted vision of what it means to have been young.

Litwak’s ability to put such a fresh spin on a classic rom-com structure is evidence of both the genre’s enduring adaptability and his bright future as a filmmaker.

For true crime fans, Last Stop Larrimah isn’t an urgent must-see, and I am told that the “Lost in Larrimah” podcast from five years ago is an even sharper recounting of the mysterious events. But the unsettling unsolved nature of the tale remains pungent, and so do the Missing posters throughout the community.

Jalmari Helander’s Sisu is basically what might happen if someone transplanted “Fury Road” into Finland, lost 90 percent of what made that film into an unrepeatable force of nature, and tried to make up the difference by exploding as many Nazis as possible in outrageously violent fashion.

Semans’ film stands out for how purposefully it seems to walk the line between schlocky crap and serious cinema.

Though the film is all surface, that surface is precisely the point.

If all of Perry’s stories have been hard to stomach, Her Smell takes things to impressive new lows before hitting bottom and tunneling out through the other side. It’s truly one of the most noxious movies ever made, which might help to explain why it’s also Perry’s best.

The film is as incomplete as the city it’s portraying, but manages to say more with what it leaves unsaid than any of its dialogue.

While the documentary's structure is somewhat uneven, its protagonists remain fascinating subjects whose recollections — along with backstories fleshed out by their wives and parents — include revelations of much greater challenges than the movie itself.

The Nice Guys delivers enough brilliant physical comedy to smooth over its blunter narrative devices.

The Little Prince is probably too opaque for children, and it’s definitely too strained for adults, but it’s still refreshing to see a movie that flies with the untamed, sometimes illogical creative impulses of its target audiences.

Sorely lacking the energy that made “Mediterranea” such a vital shot in the arm, A Ciambra is a half-step backward for Carpignano, whose clear sense of place is too often hampered by shapeless plot.

The Young Wife can be a chaotic experience, but Poe has the skills to carry us through the noise and toward the future.

As is so often the case for Hong, his latest is a gentle, hypnotically watchable film that breezes by as Iris does herself, dallying around Seoul in a loose summer dress and her striking bright-green cardigan.