The masterful thing about Denzel Washington’s direction here is that he doesn’t exactly open up the play. Instead, he opens up the visual frame around the players.

Ruthless and precise, Steven Soderbergh’s “KIMI” is a timely commentary on isolation and intrusion.

This is a powerful movie, but perhaps its greatest triumph is that for a brief time it resurrects Kitty Genovese, and lets us see her as a person.

All these elements come together with a delicate tonal balance that would have been difficult even for veteran filmmakers to achieve. See “Twinless” with your other half, whoever they may be. This is a movie you’ll want to talk through with someone afterward.

Conclave is smart, provocative, sometimes funny, and determined to make us rethink our initial impressions. It challenges us to challenge ourselves and is wildly entertaining, one of the year’s standout films.

Its ending leaves the door open for interpretation and post-viewing discussion — just as the best sort of movie-going experiences often do.

Hermia & Helena’s touch-and-go approach weakens the movie’s key expression of being a relatable story about being lost during your late 20s/early 30s.

Suspiria truly is one of the absolute classics of the horror genre and anyone who considers themselves to be true students of the cinema owe it to themselves to experience it for themselves, especially if they get a chance to see it on the big screen where it belong.

Cinematographer Drew Xanthopoulos gives the actors very little room to hide, often framing their faces in extreme close-up during bracing moments of emotional nakedness. There are echoes here of Cassavetes’ most agonizing stretches in “A Woman Under the Influence,” as casual pleasantries detonate into a fiery inferno of resentment.

Even as the final act starts to get a bit manipulative by stretching some previously established realism, Mikkelsen holds it together, and then he comes out literally swinging in one of the best final scenes of the year. It’s such a jubilant moment that you may walk out of the theater feeling a little buzzed.

Despite my ostensible disinterest in the subject at hand, I found myself mesmerized by this spare, affecting, and powerfully humane work that may seem quiet and reserved, but which ends up packing a surprisingly powerful emotional punch by the end.

As a team, Seligman and Sennott share a spot-on sense of comedic timing, knowing just when to throw in the next cutting remark, eye roll, or fake smile. They hit bullseye each and every time, all the way to the credits.

John Carney has a humorous and loving eye for detail, an intuitive ear for dialogue, and the film is extremely personal in a way that is universal.

If you are willing to suspend your disbelief for 132 minutes, you may find yourself head-over-heels for this film's brand of gross, thoughtful pulp fiction.

The film's main goal is to make us laugh and pull the rug out out from under us. But while there's a bit of pathos here and there, the movie doesn't add up to much in the end.

The thing you'll remember about P'tit Quinquin, over even the most perfectly timed joke or the adorably misshapen head of Quinquin, is the face of Bernard Pruvost, as the detective protecting his flock from the murderer.

"Bird on a Wire" is a time capsule of a specific period in Cohen's career. But it also neatly illustrates the singer's personality in an accessible and compelling way. It's that rare concert doc that isn't for established fans only.

It's no coincidence that outspoken women are often seen as a threat in conservative governments looking to unambiguously establish and advance a patriarchal order. This truth rarely comes into more urgent focus than in Afghan director Sahra Mani's harrowing, Jennifer Lawrence-produced documentary "Bread & Roses," a vital account of present-day Afghanistan under the Taliban.

Stern, herself deaf, crafts an intimate and moving documentary that takes us through the legendary life of Marlee Matlin, uncovering a legacy of advocacy, activism, and perseverance.

This cool, unhurried movie is firmly anchored by a spectacularly modulated performance by Caillee Speeney.

A deep empathy from Vogt for his child actors elevates this from what it could have been, even if it feels like there’s a tighter version that unfolds with a tad more urgency.

You could call it a musical performance documentary and not be wrong, but it's trying to do other things too, some expertly and others not so well; but there's never a point where you quite get a handle on it because it keeps changing in front of your eyes.

All In: The Fight For Democracy is a valuable public service wrapped in an educational, informative and engaging documentary.

The uncanny confidence of Dick Gregory comes through from the opening minutes of The One and Only Dick Gregory, and he only becomes more formidable as the film unfolds.

The movie is at its most fascinating in its depiction of Lennon as a pragmatic activist.

The concept of being seen through someone else’s eyes drives the best parts of The Painter and the Thief, a documentary that illuminates a great deal about the human condition even if it does kind of fizzle out in the third act.

It’s one of those movies that reminds us that great drama and comedy can come from the most unexpected, ordinary places. We all have a place like Green Lake.

Black Bear is ambitious for itself in its many layers of meta, but the observational moments of behavior is where the film soars. Writer/director Lawrence Michael Levine has created a highly self-conscious work that comments on itself and then comments again. Levine's sense of humor is one of his saving graces, and that's particularly true here. This is a disturbing film, and much of it is unpleasant, but it's also very, very funny.

16 Shots feels like an impassioned, intelligent document of a major moment in the history of Chicago.

It is in every frame a beautiful and powerful film — a masterpiece.

The trip to a remote farmhouse is just the narrative skeleton on which Kaufman hangs arguably his most challenging film to date, a piece that verges on Lynchian in its surreal register, moving back and forth between reality and a dreamlike commentary on connection, although there may be even less of the former than it first appears.

The film has an engrossing and powerful drama that is all the more effective for writer/director Vivian Qu’s refusal to keep the story from spinning off into lurid melodrama — all of the story points on display have the harsh bitterness of truth to them.

As the film progresses, Russell’s grasp of the subtle can sometimes get away from him; while “Lurker” doesn’t lapse fully into violent thriller territory, the stakes of each one of Matthew’s calculations grow larger and larger to the point where the script sometimes gets away from the filmmaker’s otherwise impeccable sense of control.

Tony Benna’s irreverent, frenetic bio-doc “André Is an Idiot” is unlike any cancer doc you’ve ever seen.

Schamus’ commitment to a style, and to the material, yields potent results.

While the clues of impending horror emerge long before this episode of camaraderie—signaled by Sune Kølster’s unnerving orchestral score from the opening frames—nothing can fully prepare you for the appalling dark places “Speak No Evil” is headed to.

While this film is often funny, its ultimate bit of wisdom, from the New Testament, is dark and undeniable: “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

The director was smart enough to take a trait that often caused an actor to be be typecast as a menacing figure and turn it into a strength.

There are life lessons here to be learned and shared, for sure. But the film moves with such thrilling pacing it feels more like a celebration.

Part of what’s refreshing about “A Different Man,” though, is that it never condescends to Edward—never treats him as magical or noble, the way many films do in depicting characters with disabilities.

It's a Russian nesting doll of a bio-doc, a piece about family as much as it is filmmaking because the two are inextricable for its subject.

All told, “Man on the Run” feels like an extra-long podcast episode featuring a celebrity promoting the latest project, coupled with a 90+ minute montage cut together so there’s something to look at on YouTube.

While Kim’s filmmaking is typically engaging, it’s really Song Kang-ho who carries the viewer’s interest.

There’s subtlety, and then there’s deliberate evasion. In pursuing the former, “Chile ‘76” only achieves the latter.

Les Misérables is a gripping experience, tense and upsetting.

July’s best and most mature work to date, the often hilarious and gradually heartbreaking Kajillionaire.

As sad as Garcia’s end is, Long Strange Trip remains an exhilarating and inspiring movie. For a not inconsiderable period, Garcia, Weir, Hart, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann and various fellow travelers saw the possibilities that their talents and the times offered them, and made hay of them.

"Sujo" is a direct, unvarnished window into the near inescapable pressure of cyclical violence.

It’s the type of animation that only Stephen and Timothy Quay, two extraordinary masters of their craft, could have conceived, a testament to a shared lifetime of dedication, artistry, and uncompromising vision. It is an undeniably (and inimitably) human work of art.

As the jets cut through the atmosphere and brush their target soils in close-shave movements—all coherently edited by Eddie Hamilton—the sensation they generate feels miraculous and worthy of the biggest screen one can possibly find. Equally worthy of that big screen is the emotional strokes of “Maverick” that pack an unexpected punch. Sure, you might be prepared for a second sky-dance with “Maverick,” but perhaps not one that might require a tissue or two in its final stretch.

This is a movie about people whose successes and failures originate in the same places: a tragedy shot and edited like an action comedy.

The lead performances are extraordinary. They're real-seeming, in the manner of so many gifted but relatively inexperienced performers who haven't yet had the spontaneity crushed out of them by the cliches of formal training.

Panahi can’t help but flaunt optimism wherever he sees it — he lets it rise above it all despite the odds.

Mc Carthy understands the horror tropes intimately, but he uses them with freedom and freshness, lifting his films out of a specific genre. "Oddity" is a murder-mystery, a supernatural horror, and a home invasion thriller, all mixed together.

Luzzu is a moving portrait of a world in flux, and one man attempting to survive the changes thrust upon him by a baffling outside world.

The writer-director’s sharp script examines the many ways that the pain of grief can manifest, physically, mentally, and emotionally, and how it can fracture relationships if you let it. But his film is not all dark. It’s edited with a delightful humor, often landing a laugh with a quick cut or sly pan.

All That’s Left of You, a multi-generational Palestinian epic, is the kind of accomplished, immaculately rendered film that’s indicative of a director who’s learned much and is ready to seize more.

Birth/rebirth has some "body horror" tropes and some straight horror tropes, but it's not really a monster story. It's more of a medical thriller, helmed by two twisted conspirators, both operating from a place of desperation and trauma.

Warfare is a viscerally impressive work. Your body feels it. But you might come away from it wondering what the point is, other than the fact that it happened to someone. And you wouldn’t be wrong to ask that question.

Police Story is one of the great 1980s action films. It’s also one of the most 1980s action films.

I could see passing references to “Eighth Grade,” “Skate Kitchen,” "Mid90s,” “Minari,” and “Minding the Gap”—better films that seemed to capture their intended spirit with greater urgency and originality. But upon a recent second watch, I have found that “Didi,” [Wang's] feature directorial debut, is far stronger and far more affecting than I initially gave it credit for.

It's easy to make a documentary about hateful people. It's harder to focus on the impact of hateful people on those around them.

So many visions of the future seem distant, but “After Yang” hits home in how it centers connection and experience to which we can all relate. It’s a powerful, moving drama about what it means to be alive.

With Love Antosha, there’s now a coda to Yelchin’s story beyond somber headlines and obits. There’s an impression of who he once was to those who loved him and a sense of how we might remember him having heard their stories.

The friendship between bear and mouse is truly touching and where the film's real heart beats.

In some moments, Gloria Bell is almost an exact recreation of the original, in shot construction and edit choices, even in dialogue (the script was co-written by Alice Johnson Boher and Lelio), but there's enough freshness in the approach that makes "Gloria" a unique experience, funny and a little bit messy. The mess feels real.

A fascinating and sometimes frustrating film.

This is not my favorite kind of documentary filmmaking. Eugene “Gene” Cernan, the subject of this film, who’s also the older fellow watching the bucking bronco, is a man deserving of a tribute such as this movie aspires to give him. The filmmakers, attempting to jazz up their material, get in the way a lot.

A good Woody Allen flick is a thing of joy these days and, at times, Blue Jasmine is even a great one, close to being an equal to 2005's "Match Point."

Veteran French director Anne Fontaine approaches a spiritually and emotionally complex real-life slice of history with deftness and understated drama in The Innocents.

As storyteller, Gibney finds a constructive manner to mindfully engage our admittedly bizarre fixation with murder (which would be worthy of a separate doc) while encouraging a more humane way to approach some of society's most violent figures.

There are no zombies in the streets, boogeymen in the basement or witches in the woods—and yet it is one of the most terrifying films in years.

One of the best films I’ve seen about fine art. It casts an entrancing spell that allows the staggering depth of its subject’s work to consume us, while showing how her trailblazing vision left an unmistakable imprint in over a century of iconic art spanning various mediums, resounding through history like a drop of colored paint in a pitcher of water.

Everything depends on the feel of the moment, the way the actors look at each other, or listen, or react. Directed by Sophie Hyde, with a script by Katy Brand, these risks more than pay off, and often in very unexpected ways.

Depression is such a personal, intangible, mystifying phenomenon. Signe Baumane tries to make sense of it in unexpected fashion — through colorful animation and dark humor — with Rocks in My Pockets.

Unless you’ve a vested interest in New York City or, like me, you were born and bred within its confines or in its neighboring shadows, The World Before Your Feet may seem like a hard pass for you. But this well-made and intriguing documentary isn’t about New York so much as it is about an unusual idea seen to fruition.

It's a confident and scary film.

What Trachtenberg seems to get about the Predator franchise, between “Prey” and this, is that the central appeal of the Predator is conceptual: How would we fare, we at the top of the food chain, if placed in competition with a hunter far more well-equipped than we?

Trust me. It was worth the wait. Stahelski and writers Shay Hatten and Michael Finch have distilled the mythology-heavy approach of the last couple chapters with the streamlined action of the first film, resulting in a final hour here that stands among the best of the genre.

Though it ignores the many situations that could go wrong in the ever-evolving universe of virtual reality, this fascinating ode to touchless connection proves beyond doubt that the intense emotions born in the skin of their avatars transcend into their flesh-and-blood hearts.

I was riveted by every moment of this haunting weird film. Enys Men made me legitimately uneasy.

Diab effectively creates a monster of blind hatred, and then holds all of us as captors and witnesses to a hateful world tearing itself apart.

Even though other characters appear from time to time, Barracuda is a two-hander, with one extraordinary scene after another (the script was written by Cortlund).

Wang's movie is empathetic enough not to pass negative judgment on the characters as they muddle through their experience.

Shuffle is admirable work from Flaherty, shining a light on the greed that mostly fuels these so-called wellness centers and the addicts who, unfortunately, get strung along. But I couldn’t help thinking he was biting off more than he could chew.

It’s a fascinating, moving documentary that transcends mere profile piece to reclaim a legacy, and it’s as inspirational as its subject.

It’s a well-made, accomplished piece of filmmaking that works because of how it focuses such a large case down to its key players, thereby illuminating how something like this could happen to anyone.

Though Sehiri’s third feature offers a seemingly minor concept, it’s certainly bountiful in its power to unearth the unspoken codes that reign over this community, where some men demand reverence from women solely for their gender-based status in the social hierarchy, where the notion of absolute loyalty to one’s extended family guides every decision, and where romantic companionship remains mostly transactional.

Most modern sports movies feel a few years behind the story—purposefully nostalgic for a feel-good, motivational story. High Flying Bird feels like a product of the 2018-19 NBA season, which may not have a lockout but is dealing with the same issues.

This is a hypnotic, invigorating film, and a step up for the duo—much like the diamonds that shimmer so seductively through their frames, it has a cold, bright, gem-like brilliance.

At times the movie feels like Hereditary without the supernatural elements and gore. It's a psychological horror movie about the ordinary miseries and compromises of family.

With The Card Counter, Schrader has a sub-theme he can toss off like a light cloak, and when he does, the movie swerves into a semi-surreal realm not entirely like that of the climax of First Reformed. But then it swerves back into a variation on Bresson that constitutes one of the most brilliant shots of his career.

One of Us is so strong as-is that its more harrowing sections — particularly Ari's account of his childhood suffering and the details of Rachel's fight for freedom — are so already hard to watch that you might want to turn away.

This is filmed theater in the purest sense.

What elevates Hamoud’s screenplay beyond typical Tinseltown fare, however, is what is at stake by rebelling against cultural norms and choosing a liberal lifestyle—namely, bringing shame to your loved ones and being ostracized by your community.

It’s in the climbing sequences that the movie’s animation is at its most imaginative, creating effects both exhilarating and harrowing.

Running only an hour, this documentary is as emotionally heavy as almost anything twice as long.

Santambrogio’s extraordinary cast of non-professional actors convey a lived-in, personal, and impossible to fake connection to the pleasures, struggles and intricacies of life in Cuba.