Director Papu Curotto brings Andi Nachon’s tender script to life with stirring economy and warmth as well as a wistfulness so palpable it’s practically its own character.

[A] vital, absorbing documentary.

The utterly winning documentary The Anthropologist takes a unique perspective on the field of anthropology through the lens of a pair of female anthropologists and their daughters.

The Red Turtle is a visually stunning poetic fable, but there’s more on its mind than simply beauty.

Imitating the Bourne capers rather than establishing an identity of its own, “The Take” is a strictly by-the-numbers political thriller that fails to capitalize on Idris Elba’s formidable screen presence.

Peter and the Farm is ultimately a portrait of whatever the opposite of “getting back to nature” is: the cycle of the land as a circle of hell.

National Bird is powerful cinematic journalism.

Life on the Line traffics in piled-on, predictable melodrama, with only intermittent sparks.

There’s zero chemistry or feeling to this sweeping, predictable endeavor, only the scent of what might have been.

Written and directed by the gifted first-timer Kelly Fremon Craig, and graced by a superb star turn from Hailee Steinfeld, The Edge of Seventeen is the rare coming-of-age picture that feels less like a retread than a renewal. It’s a disarmingly smart, funny and thoughtful piece of work, from end to beginning to end.

The writer-director invests a tricky narrative juggling act with an intensity of human feeling that is the opposite of skin-deep. He tears through the veil of slick, self-admiring style that has both unlocked and at times obscured his very real merits as an artist.

Powerful, emotional filmmaking that leaves a scar, Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester By the Sea is heartbreaking yet somehow heartening, a film that just wallops you with its honesty, its authenticity and its access to despair.

It both benefits and suffers from the relentless commercial logic that has, for the moment, placed a bit of a stranglehold on its own considerable magic.

This capably-acted and shot film...tries too hard to hammer home its points. So much so that its messaging becomes diffused, if not lost, amid the overlong picture’s mounting frenzy.

Elle is a gripping whodunit, a tour de force of psychological suspense and a wickedly droll comedy of manners.

Hunter Gatherer is a warmly eccentric little indie that’s amusing, authentic and works against expectation. B

Despite a strong effort from Naomi Watts, Shut In is more effective as a 90-minute commercial for the L.L. Bean aesthetic than as a pseudo-psychological thriller.

Harvey delivers an in-depth cultural and sociological view of the sport, while making a compelling case for the necessity of fighting.

Like others in this series (“The Black List,” “The Out List”), it’s a mix of to-the-camera testimonials and archival photos, elegantly packaged, less a movie than a companionable hour spent with a diverse collection of people wonderfully articulate about the road they’ve traveled.

Beauty Bites Beast does lessen its usage of narration and animation as the film gets going, but the damage is already done. It blunts its own effectiveness by over-embellishing stories and facts that could have stood on their own.

Anne Frank: Then and Now may be an oddly structured little docudrama but it makes the most of its eerily cogent message.

Like “The Big Chill” and “Peter’s Friends” but without a single character you’d want to spend five minutes with, let alone a weekend, The Drama Club makes for a crassly unpleasant ensemble piece.

This isn’t meant to be a polished, restrained indie drama, but its flaws don’t solely reside in writer-director Alberto’s avant-garde approach. Instead, its biggest misstep is the two central characters who are so unlikable as to be unwatchable.

The brutally serene documentary Iron Moon from Qin Xiaoyu and Wu Feiyue spotlights a handful of bottom-rung workers who write achingly clear-eyed poetry that spotlights the contours of their lives.

Don’t Call Me Son, although built on conflicts that have fractured many a family, thankfully never veers into melodrama.

Even with several contrivances in the movie’s final third, this remains a taut, haunting ride thanks to solid writing and directing by Zack Whedon (Joss and Jed’s younger brother) and a strong, sympathetic performance by Paul. Find this one.

Summarizing the plight of the average working actor’s lot in three all-too-familiar words, No Pay, Nudity, is a tenderly observed, bittersweet comedy featuring a beautifully rooted Gabriel Byrne.

It’s not exactly side-splittingly funny, and it doesn’t amount to much. The ideas are strong, but the storytelling’s practically nonexistent.

Director Mario Van Peebles brings real tension and excitement to the scenes where these men are surrounded by predators, but the tone of the film is awkwardly split between the grit of modern cinema and the boisterous adventure of old Hollywood.

Greater technical and financial detail, additional period context, a deeper look at what makes daredevils such as Branson and Lindstrand tick, and snappier overall chronicling would’ve made this fun ride truly soar.

Not least of the surprises here is that even when The Monster is trying to scare you witless, its every scene insistently reaffirms its characters’ humanity.

The sharp satirical edge that earned Fountain’s novel comparisons to “Catch-22” feels duller and more sluggish on the screen as Lee strains to weave his story’s dissonant tones and subplots...into a movie that works as both a compelling psychological portrait and an astute political argument.

The situation seems dire in many ways, though Yastrzhembskiy offers some hope at the end of the film, along with solutions to controlling demand in the ivory market. It’s a powerful call to action and a reminder of the bloody global implications contained in a single trinket.

A terrific cast...helps create a vivid world, on the fringes of showbiz. But Schwartzman’s observations about music and money mostly stay locked in his head. Dreamland isn’t hard to understand by any means, but it does seem fairly negligible from moment to moment. Neither the situation nor the stakes are exactly life or death.

A couple of flashbacks color in their history but feel unnecessary, as the script and actors ably express the complicated history between the two men. The weekend in the desert is all that is needed to bring to life this romantic drama about revisiting the roads not taken.

Although the beguiling spell begins to wear off before reaching its full two-hour length, the film’s got style for days thanks to Biller’s affection for classic — as well as not-so-classic — cinema.

Arrival is really Adams' film, a showcase for her ability to quietly and effectively meld intelligence, empathy and reserve.

Although it’s an often repellant, uneven film that, in the end, doesn’t amount to a whole lot, there’s something thrilling and a bit liberating about the anarchic vibe that permeates this stylized walk on the wild side.

Overall, The Shelter is a bit too clever for its own good. The hero’s personal hell is too literal, and the movie as a whole is too slight.

[An] excellent documentary.

Apparition Hill is actually a compelling but unnecessarily long-winded sociological study about a group of adults recruited to watch for signs and wonders in a small village in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The gently affecting Keep in Touch extends its stay a bit too long, stretching the story where it could have been more efficient. But it’s a fine showcase for McPhee’s lovely songs, Bachand’s lead performance, and the assured direction of Kretchmar.

While the cast is talented and the tone is classy, The Charnel House never develops any momentum. The movie puts fright on the back burner to tease out a mystery that proves to be too profoundly idiotic to be worth all the bother.

Though there’s never a smooth path toward narrative or emotional enlightenment as you watch CRD, Kanadé’s willingness to explore the creative impulse through impish experimentation is amusing and infectious.

The story of The David Dance might have seemed more timely and vital when first presented as a play in 2003. Today, however, the delayed film version (it was shot in 2009) feels remarkably dated. It’s also logy, stagey and overlong.

For anyone who’s been on an indie film set, Fell, Jumped or Pushed is deeply relatable, and very funny.

The movie’s noisy, busy and not that funny. But there is a sweetness and a cockeyed optimism here. At heart, it’s a salute to American gumption — however misguided.

The script from Billy Morrissette — featuring disappearing narration, awful characters and no humor — is largely to blame, but director Anthony Edwards makes uninspired choices throughout, such as inserting random animated characters and allowing Gina Gershon to do a cartoonish French accent in a supporting role.

Featuring footage from the last six decades, All Governments Lie is a timely, convincing documentary that will cause audiences to question what they see and read.

The grim economic realities behind such trafficking are glancingly acknowledged. There’s real impact, though, in the anger and grief of law enforcement officials and conservationists when their tracking leads them to elephant carcasses.

One of the achievements of Buirski’s absorbing documentary is that it allows Lumet to remind us, in his own voice, of the passion in his ostensible dispassion — the way he deftly subsumed self-expression within the brisk rhythms of his material and the superb performances of his actors.

The Stooges were postwar kids who took to the stage with fearless, demented exuberance, Iggy writhing half-naked. With Gimme Danger, Jarmusch doesn’t ask him to strip down further. He simply thanks him.

Flaming out from the get-go, Trash Fire represents another soggy batch of Southern Gothic horror-comedy from writer-director Richard Bates Jr. that spews out pitch black smoke with little combustible substance.

Rose’s pickles might have a pleasant snap, but there’s none to be found in the tired, limp shtick in Sheldon Cohn and Gary Wolfson’s screenplay, which has been choreographed at a lumbering, drawn-out pace by director Michael Manasseri.

Loving is an unpretentious film about unassuming real people, but don't let that mislead you. Just as Richard and Mildred Loving ended up overturning the status quo and making American legal history, so this feature on their lives by writer-director Jeff Nichols turns out to be a film of quiet but quite significant strengths.

As infernally sugary as this movie may sound on paper, and however mercenary its commercial intentions, it’s hard to resist its silly, utopian vision of a world where happiness reigns, love wins and the mere sound of Timberlake’s voice carries the promise of salvation.

One of the pleasures of Doctor Strange is the way it both wholly embraces and gently mocks the unapologetic geekiness of the enterprise.

As unlikely as it is enchanting, The Eagle Huntress tells its documentary story with such sureness that falling under its sway is all but inevitable.

Gibson has made a movie that is somehow both deeply dishonest and crushingly sincere — and still at war with itself, long after the final shot has been fired.

Mostly The Windmill is about watching some morally shaky people die horribly. But they do it with such dramatic gravitas that their inevitable eviscerations seem almost profound.

Though the movie’s well cast, its central story rarely shakes off the derivative cloak to become involving. But Ron Livingston’s turn as a sorrowful Elvis Presley is a quiet revelation.

The rehabilitative power of forgiveness is thought-provokingly explored in Ilan Ziv’s An Eye for an Eye.

Although it aspires to be a kind of latter-day “Love Story,” the rote, overly earnest drama New Life exists largely on the surface.

Chief Zabu may have been buried for the past three decades, but this tiresomely talky would-be satire is no treasure.

Its conclusion, and its well-earned message, are more positive and hopeful than even its participants likely ever imagined they would be.

Slater has some effective moments and Franco excels at a certain kind of scary/funny psycho, but it doesn’t ultimately add up to much as either pulpy trash or exposé.

"Wereskunk” only wavers when it slips from the style of the era, with the usage of digital special effects or the odd modern reference. When it stays in the unique lane it’s established for itself, it’s plenty of silly retro fun.

Jack’s Apocalypse is unable to convey any realistic stakes or authenticity in its story line.

Despite the use of strong archival clips and photos, the film, with its ongoing stream of talking heads, can make for static, at times sluggish viewing. Still, this key episode in American military history deserves to be commemorated.

This movie’s about as scary as a jackhammer.

Daum acts as a thoughtful onscreen guide to what the picturesque hillsides and its stone remains represent.

A Billion Lives employs a variety of experts in relaying its message, but it sometimes feels like a statistic-filled, 95-minute commercial for the vaping industry rather than a feature-length documentary.

Mr. Donkey is deeply flawed but also fascinating. There’s a good story here, woven between the thudding jokes.

The punk and metal music-infused soundtrack belies the film’s largely gentle approach to a series of small, evocative and well-played moments that combine to slowly heal the Lunsfords and prove that you can go home again.

Even as Into the Inferno invites us to marvel at our insignificance in the face of Mother Nature’s seething primordial firepit, Herzog, being Herzog, refuses to lose sight of the human element.

What Fire at Sea appears to be and what it is are not the same thing, and it's that difference that makes it a masterful documentary.

It's not that "Inferno" as it stands doesn't provide hints of better things. The plot has its share of unexpected twists, peripheral characters hold our attention, wide-screen vistas of tourist destinations Florence, Venice and Istanbul are easy to take, and stories involving the end of the world have a certain built-in interest. But as presented on screen, none of this gels as it should.

The frenetic, ad-hoc aesthetic of the visuals complements the shaggy dog brilliance of Oasis.

At times, I’m Not Ashamed is vivid enough to make one pine for a Christian-leaning teen flick that doesn’t have such a blunt, preordained ending.

In its final moments, Boo! A Madea Halloween delivers a moral with after-school-special levels of subtlety. A jolting switch from oft-mean-spirited humor to a message movie, this comedy is unlikely to win over any new fans, but the devoted will find comfort in the familiarity.

Michael Mueller’s character-driven script is about the only thing that feels driven in this otherwise listless vehicle, and “The Beat Beneath My Feet” conveys all the pulse-pounding energy of a funeral procession.

Although the filmmakers use the soldiers’ own words, they fail to create believable characters who can engage the audience.

[An] engrossing, unexpectedly moving documentary.

Courier-X is so inscrutable and tediously boring that it will test the patience of even the most tenacious truther.

As it stands, this abysmal romantic comedy serves as an abject lesson against vanity filmmaking.

Sadwith, whose TV credits include the miniseries “Sinatra,” conjures a few memorable moments in his big-screen debut. But the most stirring moment belongs to Cooper, who turns a barely audible, exasperated sigh into a complicated life story.

It’s the journo’s open gaze and natural inquisitiveness, his refusal to merely demonize his abusers, that give the film its discomforting power.

Director Kijak deserves credit for constructing an engaging narrative that will have the uninitiated crossing their arms in an X in solidarity by the end.

By turns coolly observed and disquietingly compassionate — qualities that also describe Rebecca Hall’s brilliant central performance — the movie drifts alongside its subject, Charon-like, through the hell of her last weeks.

One could say the mechanical direction leeches the energy out of virtually every sequence, but that would imply there was any there to begin with — and, although the young actors seem likable enough, their characters never credibly come to life.

A memorable romantic comedy that stands to bring back the genre’s good name, “It Had to Be You” is as funny, endearing and enjoyably off-kilter as its adorable star, Cristin Milioti.

Hunt, whose debut feature was “Frozen River,” has a steadfastly classicist approach to tried-and-true genre storytelling that’s admirable, but instead of building tension, The Whole Truth lets it bleed out.

Before the Flood is neither dull screed nor stat-heavy pamphlet, thanks largely to the questing intensity of its marquee guide.

American writer-director Angad Aulakh tries to agitate the pensive set-up with sex and a supposed mystery that never raises the pulse. The Bergman-esque posturing falls so far short of the Swedish master that it wouldn’t even qualify as accidental parody.

The end result admittedly favors tone over substance, accentuated by Jeff Grace’s playful, mock Morricone score and character turns that affectionately flirt with conventions without giving way to outright parody.

Star and first-time director Ewan McGregor, working with screenwriter John Romano, has skillfully reshaped Roth’s tale for more urgent cinematic telling, covering a host of profound themes with disquieting power, reflection and grace.

Without sacrificing his taste for psychosexual perversity or his flair for violent grace notes, Park has given us a teasingly witty and elegant puzzle-box of a thriller whose pleasures are rooted not in visceral shock but in narrative surprise, and which wisely opts to seduce rather than pulverize its audience.

The Rob Zombie brand promises hard-core horror and scuzzy atmosphere, and “31” delivers just that. Even on autopilot, Zombie makes movies that hit hard and leave a stain.