Lewis was fighting for America’s future long before any recent conflicts, and the documentary makes a welcome case for keeping hope alive.

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.

While it might be legally accurate to say that Love and Monsters isn’t based on pre-existing material, it couldn’t be more obvious that it was conceived by someone who saw “Zombieland” on TV one night and thought to themselves: “I could do it better. And with bugs.” Lucky for us, they were right — or at least right enough that it’s a blast to watch them try.

Beers' screenplay manages to sustain the outrageous scenario with a string of jokes that don't take the underlying goofiness for granted. Instead, the writer-director builds on its crass foundations with constant inspired one-liners.

Complicated enough to lose a casual viewer but never so convoluted that André and co. are sublimated into the system around them (which would have been fatal for a film so attuned to the relationship between personal interest and collective perception), Bonitzer’s plot spins forward at the speed of an auctioneer’s mouth until raw suspense becomes appropriately inextricable from meaningless gibberish.

The result is a film that lucidly traces the specter of fascism (never extinguished, always waiting to exhale), and how unreal it feels for it to cast its shadow across Europe once more. It’s also a film that feels stuck between stations, so doggedly theoretical that it borders on becoming glib.

Charmatz’s nimble direction allows the action to flitter between the imagined past and the “actual” present without missing a beat, and that deftness proves key to the Pete Docter-like anthropomorphism that renders the Dark and his colleagues as working stiffs with a job to do.

Despite the claustrophobic entrapment in a violent and hyper-masculine world, The Shadow of Violence is an ultimately moving morality tale announcing a confident new voice in international cinema. Not to mention a powerful vehicle for its two leads, Jarvis and Barry Keoghan.

Though never entirely the sum of its parts, Party Girl delivers a gentle, somber portrait of the aging process that's consistently believable precisely because not much happens.

The movie assembles a whirlwind of whistleblowers and disease experts to break down each step of the timeline, lacing it together with smooth editing and ironic music cues that makes the overall experience both absorbing and frustrating, though not surprising in the least.

Green wisely cedes control to his actors, with Bullock as the main engine pulling the material along. But neither his direction, nor any of the formidable performances, can do much to alleviate the bumpy road of Peter Straughan's screenplay.

If Lady is more successful as a series of interconnected vignettes, than as one fluid narrative, it has a moving ending up its sleeve. After presenting a morass of rich themes, Nwosu teases out a small, surprising finale that transcends the blinkered concerns driving her protagonist.

Pawlikowski’s elliptical style — keen on empty spaces, minimal dialogue, and crisp cutting — has its limits in terms of achieving an emotional payoff, but the actors’ understated turns make for a captivating (and, at 82 minutes, miraculously short) elegy to a lost homeland at the kickoff of the Cold War.

A tense prison drama that’s penned into the trappings of a classic Western, The Mustang is a small movie about a subtle transformation, but its closing moments — however contrived they might be — are as touching as they are unexpected.

It’s so confidently directed and performed that even the obvious bits sink in.

The movie’s disquieting tone unfolds with a familiar kind of naturalism — devoid of soundtrack, it develops an engrossing reality filled with pregnant pauses and fragmented exchanges. There’s a palpable despair to this scenario rooted in the authenticity of its environment.

Set at a prestigious drama school and frequently engrossing, the film unfolds like an experimental acting workshop that occasionally falters when the plot intrudes on the performances.

Guided by El-Masry’s tender, understated performance and a tone that hovers between playful and sincere, Limbo manages to turn its downbeat scenario into a sweet and touching rumination on the quest to belong in an empty world.

The movie shows the mark of a filmmaker in full command of vintage horror’s most disturbing strengths — and well-equipped to resurrect them.

Creepy is both a return home and a return to form.

The simple film is a straightforward entry in Hong’s filmography that is unlikely to ever be held up among his true masterpieces. But its delightful execution of small details speaks to how clearly the artist understands his own strengths at this point in his career.

Listless at times and lacking the killer instinct required to follow through on the emotional toll that the fighting took on its survivors, the documentary is far more insightful about the buildup to bloodshed than it is about the mess that was left behind in its wake.

Chevalier, despite its steadily devolving storytelling, is enjoyable and worthy of appreciation. When Williams and Robinson loosen up the strings and allow the film to feel as original and free as Bologne was at the height of his creative powers — a battle! with Mozart! with dueling violins! — and refuse to be beholden to the usual narrative beats and expectations, Chevalier soars. So does Harrison, whose cocky take on the young star is funny, flinty, and entirely justified.

Offering plum roles to Catherines Frot and Catherine Deneuve, The Midwife is a minor-key crowd pleaser about friendship, forgiveness and rolling with the punches.

It doesn’t look or feel or move like much else, all those other cinematic comparisons aside, and the sheer scope of its ambition is enough to inspire awe. Maybe the most obvious answer is the best one: love itself is a drug. So is cinema.

In Son of Monarchs, Gambis has mapped the butterflies’ migratory paths and genetic patterns onto Mendel’s search for belonging. It’s an inspired blend of science and narrative, and an affecting allegory emerges from the unique imagery.

Most of us could never hope to be as smart as Ricciardi was, but the movie he’s left behind does everything in its power to ensure that we’re not as dumb as he was either.

Landing somewhere between “Love, Simon” and “Superbad,” Alex Strangelove is a strange delight indeed.