Trainer was MASS MoCA’s founding director of development. Which means that in many ways she’s essentially telling a story about her friends — and often, with friends, it’s easier to avoid uncomfortable questions.

Despite or perhaps because of its lightly sketched premise, To the Ends of the Earth emerges as the director’s most gracefully assured work in a while, though his natural gift for building tension is still made subtly manifest.

Allowed surprising access to Sotudeh’s life, the film achieves stirring results if not an always fluid narrative.

While Fatale isn’t special, it’s better than most specimens of the genre due to its turns (again, I recommend skipping the trailer — which also makes it look like a differently made film, one using bolder cinematic techniques) and Swank’s exploration of her character.

Handsomely mounted if never exactly stirring, Louis van Beethoven honors the struggles that gnawed at brilliance but is itself little more than an elegantly tailored time-filler.

The movie’s final act takes too grim a turn, leading up to an ending that’s overly dark and disgusting. But even as it goes way over the top, “Hunter Hunter” stays focused on the fragility of the Mersaults, who want to live by their own rules but discover that nature has its own agenda.

There’s a lot to see and to think about here, all well-curated by a documentarian with a clear passion for his subject.

The real stars of this picture are the kids, who in many ways represent the century following the Century Cycle.

This quietly engaging documentary is also subtly political, showing with clear eyes how good people are trying to patch gaps in our society that shouldn’t be there in the the first place.

Even at its most scattered though, Finding Yingying is haunting, largely because it’s so personal. In a way, this feels like Shi reflecting on her own life by honoring someone who had hers cut short.

While Assassins may be somewhat unsatisfying as a true-crime story, it’s provocative as an examination of power.

Its beauty lies in its empathy — something currently in short supply and therefore very welcome in the stories we consume.

For roughly two-thirds of its running time, the big-screen video game adaptation Monster Hunter feels like an attempt to answer a question no one has asked: What would the “Jurassic Park” movies be like if they were drained of all sense of wonder? The film rallies toward the end with a few genuinely spectacular images, but even its best scenes fail to justify a tedious first hour.

Gadot and Pine give great pillow talk, and their easy screwball rhythms provide not just levity but ballast: They ground a movie in which time, for all its malleability, always feels like it’s slipping away.

If it’s an Ip Man adventure you’re looking for in which he’s a full-on superhero, this one exists. Just know you’re getting the B Team.

Greengrass can be as shrewd and skillful a storyteller as his hero, even if News of the World finally inspires something less than total belief.

The riveting and superbly acted Iranian drama, based on a real variety show, poses a moral crucible born out of a theocratic system that disfavors women amid the heightened tension of the on-camera spectacle.

For all the struggle that takes place in this movie, it is its quiet grace that you most remember. Minari shares its secrets with a whisper, and as it unfolds, you find yourself leaning into it, enraptured.

Director Deepa Mehta ambitiously juxtaposes a teenage love story with rising political tensions and ethnic violence in a film that is ultimately about thriving and sometimes just surviving as someone deemed “different.”

Mason does a lot to make the characters’ distanced interactions — mostly via video chat — seem natural and not like a gimmick. But the real-world resonances are actually fairly dull. Though not especially objectionable, Songbird may suffer a worse fate: being forgettable.

The result is something refined, naturalistic, specific, enigmatic and funny — not unlike an Eisenberg story, for one thing — but also akin to any trip one might make in a reflective yet anxious state of mind, with people you think you know but might be unsure about.

The movie is Barrymore’s, of course. Even after the initial jolt of seeing her as a cursing hellion and an ambitious hanger-on wears off, she does not disappoint.

Although the whole thing’s a bit of a jumble, the L.A.-set film becomes more immersive as we slowly adjust to its ambitious conceit and unique rhythms. A solid third-act twist helps square the preceding puzzle pieces and takes us out on a satisfying and moving note.

Writer-director John Patrick Shanley’s old-fashioned, at times transporting, romantic comedy Wild Mountain Thyme has a lot going for it, which makes it a shame that it’s not a wholly stronger film. That said, as a stress-free chance to take in the lush, gorgeously green Irish countryside, you could do worse.

A first-time performer without formal training, Betancourt is a true revelation and the most accomplished player in an impressive ensemble of nonactors.

Ordinary but sufficiently effective in its execution, the film’s most resonant segments are those where the upstanding son reflects on his torn family and a rotten system in which paroling alleged offenders even after so much time is seen as an affront to the toxic institutional loyalty to police.

Watching [Frahm] at work — and hearing the audience react whenever he hits an especially tricky stretch of moving between keyboards — is little like watching an athlete at the top of his game.

Like White’s music, this film is catchy and engaging, and it leaves its audience wondering why there isn’t more.