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.

Old Henry is a retread of the same dusty plains and macho bonds we’ve seen too many times before. It tells its slim story competently, but it does so little beyond that that it can’t help but feel mediocre.

Providing many questions and very few answers, Alegría and co-writers Fernanda Urrejole and Manuela Infante make a point to show that life can emerge from death, imploring the audience to stop fixating on the damages done in the past and focus on saving the present and future.

This is Aileen’s story and when “God’s Creatures” makes the odd choice to turn away from her just as things are reaching a fever pitch, it dilutes the power of both her performance and the film itself. She’s gone mad, but God’s Creatures isn’t willing to follow her there, perhaps the craziest choice of all.

Quinn has clearly done the work to establish meaningful relationships with many of his subjects, and you can see the pain and concern in their eyes. Still, Eating Animals feels every bit as scattershot as it sounds, the film’s moral argument cornering you from all sides rather than attacking head-on.

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

It’s a topic so vast that even a sprawling miniseries would struggle to contain it, and yet directors Edivan Guajajara, Chelsea Greene, and Rob Grobman manage to wrap their arms around the disaster in a little more than 80 minutes; not by simplifying the situation, but rather by contrasting the apocalyptic plainness of the problem with the infinite complexity of solving it.

Though it lacks a cohesive means of fusing together its interlocking vignettes, Palo Alto effectively showcases the despair and sophomoric rebellion of teen life with a mature eye that clearly establishes a new filmmaker to watch.

It’s a knowing smile of a drama that leaves you eager to follow Haugerud through his other two new films about the life of the mind, the last and best of which (“Dreams”) recently won top prize at the Berlinale.

Lion, the first feature directed by Garth Davis, sufficiently realizes the emotional arc built into Brieley’s experience.

The problem is that, after that early peak of a first act, The Accidental Getaway Driver doesn’t have much tension.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a small movie, far too modest and knowing to surrender to melodrama and apply cosmetic fixes to deep wounds...but it beautifully articulates the need for young people to realize the validity of who they are, and even more beautifully crystalizes the moment when that starts to happen.

Rather than revealing much about the man behind the music, Rocketman seems more content to hover inside of it, exploring his unique synthesis of blues, rock, and every other relevant genre as a natural extension of his personality.

Matching a crackling wit with the absurd dissonance of time and place found in the best of Monty Python and Mel Brooks, Little Hours is so eager to please that its one-note humor lands with ease.

Escape from Planet of the Apes is, in fact, a superior film in many ways to the first, but is lacking that film’s freshness and originality. Still: an undeniable high watermark for the franchise.

This is a gentle and joyous film not to be slept on, even as its low-key aura lulls you into a soothed state of mind.

The documentary works because of its expansive timeline and creative casting choices. While Liese herself is not trans, and it shows, she approaches her subjects with utmost respect and sensitivity, placing the kids firmly in charge of their own stories.

Enlivened by elegant handheld cinematography and a galvanizing breakout performance from Phillip Lewitski, Wildhood is a beautiful testament to the power of authentic storytelling.

He may not have formulated every aspect his genius in his own words, but the movies he made speak for themselves, and this reverential documentary is another welcome excuse to revisit them.

Daddy’s Head offers enough bone-chilling imagery — often delivered via razor-sharp jump scares — to make Shudder’s latest headscratcher worth a watch and a think.

It’s charming enough, although flashes of flinty humor hint at something edgier underneath. Henry, capable of bringing deep emotion to even small parts (“If Beale Street Could Talk”), often finds unexpected grace notes.

Cronin’s Evil Dead Rise is a blood-soaked blast. He summons all of the best aspects of the franchise, while still creating a beast all his own that can boldly stand apart from the series. This is the kind of horror franchise film that make audiences fall in love with the genre all over again.

At times, the movie excels at portraying the dread of children forced to confront a world indifferent to their concerns. But no matter how many times Pennywise leaps out from unexpected places, it’s impossible to shake the feeling that we’ve been here many times before.

The movie delivers a bewitching dissection of happiness and unhappiness in love. Digging for Fire is a promising peek into the future of Swanberg, and one that only signals more to come.

A smart twist on the coming-of-age comedy.

As much as Tuesday strives to be an adult fairy tale about accepting loss, it struggles to be truly effective because, by design, it traffics in an adolescent sandbox. The fantastic can bring a fresh lens to old truisms, like how the dead live on in the stories and memories of the living, but it’s difficult to enliven them while utilizing the language of a child.

The Sun Rises On Us All soon becomes the disheartening but affecting story of a pair of broken people for whom salvation is simply unaffordable in a morally expensive world.

The directors do a brilliant job of making its ad-hoc, mixed-media aesthetic into more of a feature than a bug. Glitched together from dozens of Charli’s boom-tastic PC Music bangers and punctuated with computer-generated animation (impish avatars and the like), the film nails the semi-digital existence that we all have come to understand as its own kind of reality.