If “Unstuck in Time” offers an erudite and affectionate portrait of its subject despite being so oddly generic, Weide shares his own frustrations with it in such a plainspoken way that he can’t help but pass them along to us.

Here’s a classic story outfitted into something perhaps more bracingly modern — even if its storytelling techniques, female body horror aside, largely are traditional.

Paragas’ film finds fresh ground to explore the price and the power of the American dream, bolstered by country crooning and heartbreaking (and very real) legal worries. It’s a concept that might sound played out, but deft directing and a number of strong performances recommend it, a down-home answer to the similarly charming 2018 drama “Wild Rose.”

Gottsagen is sympathetic without being pitiable, sweet without being saintly, and funny without making himself the butt of every joke. While the writing is often perfunctory, Gottsagen has a way of making every story beat feel sincere.

A fitfully amusing erotic thriller in which nothing is what it seems, anything could happen, and everything is at least a little ridiculous.

Bolstered by a strong performance from Teresa Palmer (who only gets better with each role, and seems happy to mix things up when it comes time to pick them), Berlin Syndrome doesn’t break much new ground in the genre, but it’s certainly a worthy entry into it.

This time, Morris has less command over the edgy material, positioning his modern-day Keystone Cops in a series of smarmy vignettes that don’t cut quite as deep. But it still delivers a scathing and often very funny indictment of homeland insecurities.

Cynical, sad, increasingly fucked up, and often gloriously mean, Song has turned the genre inside out to show us how shallow these stories can be.

Ultimately, Reversing Roe is a productive contribution to its ever-growing genre because it sharply dissects the process by which abortion soured from a private medical issue to a public political one.

Despite the apparent care and respect that went into Keough and Gammell’s film, “War Pony” also makes clear how very far there is still left to go when telling “authentic” stories.

If this was the last romantic comedy of 2023, it’d already have been a great year for rom-coms.

The Phoenician Scheme is the busiest of Anderson’s films, and also — at least on first viewing — the least rewarding.

An alternately wise, melancholic and good-humored look at people surrounded by support but nonetheless alienated by their incapacity to confront their problems.

Helms plays angelic insurance agent Tim Lippe with gentle nobility and hilarious naivete.

Radical can’t escape a formulaic construction with scenes that pack a predictably saccharine punch (see: kids rushing to hug their beloved teacher once he has proven himself an ally). And yet, as unsubtle as the story beats tend to march on, the backdrop of poverty and hopelessness make the light that Derbez’s character brings into the classroom, and in turn into the youths’ lives, earned.

Because of its vignette-based structure, the film never coalesces into a single, engaging narrative, but it’s rich with wonderful moments.

Esteban is a black hole that sucks out all the air from the space around anyone in his midst; Bardem’s perpetually alpha aura makes for a great match to the material. His performance is terrific and internalized as ever, bringing vulnerability and edge to a stereotype.

Operation Varsity Blues provides more than proof that the American educational system is broken; it shows how many people want it to stay that way.

You’ll have to wait a while before Tigerland introduces its eponymous stars, but like many elements of Ross Kauffman’s emotional, often harrowing new documentary, the eventual reveal will be worth it.

Watching Candy Land is a lot like eating beef jerky from a truck stop. In both cases, you might find yourself thinking, “if someone told me this was made in 1973, I’d believe them.” Yet both experiences can end up being enjoyable despite leaving you with an overwhelming desire to shower.

Sweetly funny and relatable, Happy Christmas builds on the director's previous work by channeling its strong aspects — naturalism and self-effacing, true-to-life humor — into a relatively straightforward but utterly enjoyable character study.

Even at its most serious, Okko’s Inn is calibrated for the attention span of a five-year-old; as mature and abstract as the lessons its protagonist learns might be, there’s no use making an uncommonly honest kids movie about death if kids aren’t interested in (or able to) sit through it.

The Threesome doesn’t always feel like what you might think of when you imagine a “modern” rom-com, but that’s what makes this one of the rare movies that actually fits the bill.

Smooth but vulnerable, clever but anonymous, desperate to provoke a human response but willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done, “Relay” isn’t out to set the world on fire, it just wants to be a hand-crafted thriller that communicates a real sense of personal investment.

Structured like a half-remembered pop tune and drifting by at a 75 minutes that feels as if it might not even be half that long, I Will Make You Mine is a sweet little bop about trying to find the rhythm of your life when you don’t really know how the song is structured. Find the melody and you’ll be humming it to yourself for days.

Mohawk offers a very clear commentary on the displacement and genocide of Native Americans, which is apparent through the American militia’s ruthlessness and crude racism.

Földes’ movie succeeds as both a tribute to a living legend and a reminder that nothing is ever quite as unfilmable as it seems. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is far from the definitive Murakami movie. But for now, it’s one of the best ones we’ve got.

Guillory’s ability to embody the intensity of his obsession, despite its simplicity, speaks the commanding screen presence he’s immediately able to establish.