Vogt masterfully—undoubtedly infuriating for some - understates the horror in his film by filtering it through a bright summer Nordic sun while adults mill about oblivious to the violence around them.

One to One does the couple a disservice, being too fragmented and random to declaratively or persuasively elevate them as cultural visionaries despite featuring abundant never-before-seen material and newly restored footage. Strictly for fans of Lennon/Ono or very deep 1970s nostalgia.

Some scenes in The Painter and the Thief feel stagey, including a couple of delayed dramatic reveals. And the characters certainly seem aware of the camera’s presence. Seen in its best light though, The Painter and the Thief is a kind of Rorschach test: Do you see a tale of improbable friendship and compassion, or a story of trespassed boundaries and compulsion? Or, is this one of those “bistable” optical illusions, like the vase and the face, where different things are true, moment to moment?

Falconer allows viewers a glimpse into the ordinary lives of richly developed characters in Sunfish. The filmmaker presents their stories in an understated and unhurried fashion, showing lives led against a bittersweet, end-of-summer landscape that is tinged with nostalgia.

Intriguingly weird, and only loosely tethered to its own reality, Lawrence Michael Levine’s Black Bear is two movies in one - both on the theme of creativity-squeezed-from-pain, and both offering Aubrey Plaza the acting turn of her career.

What’s miraculous is that, through it all, Kaufman stays on course in a movie that is as intriguing as it is wonderfully odd.

Films about stalkers and obsession tend toward on-the-nose titles like Crush, Watcher, Creep or, well, Obsession, and Stalker. Lurker is thus, right from the title card, a refreshingly original take on the genre.

The archival clips are an enjoyable reminder of Fox’s ‘80s onscreen persona, as a 5’4’’whirlwind of mental and physical energy, with dazzling comic timing.

Schimberg’s film is a blend of low-level science fiction and mid-range body horror, though it’s body horror with a social conscience. It’s remarkable viewing, even as it distills its theme into a well-worn message of resilience that’s idealized rather than realistic.

Les Miserables is an intense ride, a gripping action-filled police procedural that leaves you with grappling with social issues and youth when the movie ends.

Clocking in at under two hours, virtually every word of prosaic bro dialogue, every dramatic exchange, every turn of events, is designed to do one thing: get us back in the sky twisting and turning at several times the speed of sound, narrowly avoiding crashes with other planes and with the ground.

It’s clever and backed up by enough tech-speak to give viewers a sense of the nuts and bolts of things without wandering into the weeds.

Though sometimes over-explanatory, the film gains in complexity as it progresses, raising thorny questions about the duty of victims to maintain their humanity.

A visceral cross-section of an Iraq War incident, related by the veterans who served there, Warfare stuns viewers into submission and leaves them with a grim apprehension of military service - albeit as close as one gets without being there.

What holds it all together is a superbly understated performance from Wang, who is fully three-dimensional as Chris — a decent kid trying to figure it all out. Absent here are all the usual cinema cliches and exaggerations about teen life, thank the goddess.

Lifted by a deep and thoughtful performance by Colin Farrell, After Yang is a poetic and subtle meditation about the aftermath of unexpected sadness over the loss of “someone” who is technically not human.

For a film where relatively little happens plot-wise, Gloria Bell is oddly beguiling thanks to its leads: Moore (reliably great) embracing every square-peg aspect of her character and Turturro, whose resting look — itchy, perplexed, possibly lost — is deployed with precision in a character meant to be wildly uncomfortable in his own skin.

Monos is an immersive, sweaty, almost hallucinatory experience of hormone-driven anarchy.

The stunts are super-human, the combat is exhilarating, and definitely in the realm of the unrealistic. But that’s the joy in watching an animated show and suspending disbelief. The audience wants to be entertained and this film certainly does that with its detailed explanations of how these technologically-backward heroes are even able to stay in the fight.

A circus of violence, it’s a noisy, non-stop combination of dance and Loony Tunes-worthy manic cartoonishness.

Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain is a carefully made film, a wonderful homage to a flawed hero. It will lift you up, it will potentially break your heart. But it will remind you that you’re not alone. We’re in this together.

Subtlety is the strength of The Humans. It is an intelligent even-handed drama where the family’s issues aren’t played to the point where they’re gruelling and destructive. Rather, they show us something more ordinary and therefore more truthful.

A tale of trauma told, fittingly, with a poker face, Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter is a sure-handed rumination on redemption and finding peace of mind.

The film gives us a glimpse into the band’s attitude (relaxed and casual) and their easygoing dynamics and relationships, and their very British sense of humour with its slightly satirical flavour.

Groff and Radcliffe are great in two very different roles (each won a Tony last year for their performances) but there really isn’t a weak link in the cast, and the music is grand.

Kristen Stewart makes an impressive directorial debut with her adaptation The Chronology of Water. The film is a raw, emotional primal scream anchored by a career highlight performance by Imogen Poots.

Directed by Alli Haapasalo and written by Ilona Ahti and Daniel Hakulinen, it is an empathetic, almost sociological portrait that could be shown in health class in a progressive high school.

In a word, it’s terrific.