Korem doesn’t uncover too much that’s new, but more than three decades later, he gives key players the opportunity to share their memories and perspectives. The passage of time provides frank reassessments—some tragic, some humorous.

Even at 74 minutes, “Family Portrait” sometimes feels like it would have made a stronger 20-minute short film. It’s stuck in that space where a filmmaker has too many ideas for a short but not quite enough meat on the bones for a feature. And yet, a mastery of tone here makes that criticism fade in memory—kind of like how we pick and choose what we remember from family gatherings.

A long-winded but engrossing kidnap thriller.

In the long list of movies about death, this is one of the most original in recent memory, if for its emotional delicacy in sparing us hollow, tear-gushing grandiosity, and for its attitude on life: In most movies about grief, you are waiting for the characters to cry. This is a marvelous story about loss in which you are waiting for them to laugh.

While its horror elements and overall structure lack gratification, it's the woman at its center and the submergence into her spirit that make it a poignant, wonderfully personal character study.

Our Nixon seems to be more interested in evoking emotional than intellectual responses.

I’m not convinced that “Friendship” is the corrosive comic masterpiece that early festival raves primed us for. But it’s impressive, not just for the leaps it makes but the assurance it displays.

Far from being just a simple comedy about fitness and weight loss, Brittany’s journey includes the healing and forgiveness it takes to really meet those goals.

What they tell us is inherently alarming, yet it’s a shame that such crimes aren’t conveyed in a more visually compelling way.

Oppressively bleak mood piece Alléluia is a horror film for people who like to be scared by a grim, joyless and thoroughly depressing character study.

I’m not sure the ending lands, and some of the tonal jumps could have been refined, but there’s so much movie here to unpack and discuss.

The Wedding Plan feels less like “My Big Fat Jewish Nuptials” and more of a faith-based variation on a Disney princess fantasy. Instead of a fairy godmother, God himself will find her Mr. Right.

This an impressive debut movie, revolving around the sorts of lower middle-class people rarely seen in American cinema anymore, told in a style that's just as much of a throwback. It gives veteran character actors a chance to shine, not just in lead roles but supporting parts and one-scene cameos written so thoughtfully that you can picture the character starring in a movie of their own.

Although Sisters on Track has some gaps in its narrative that seem as if certain chunks of the girls’ lives were compressed or skipped over, it's most impactful when offering a thoughtful analysis of the rapidity with which children grow, adapt, and change.

Director Greg Berlanti, who has helmed a string of hit television shows as producer and writer, uses the familiar teenage romance genre to tell an LGBTQ story, and in so doing makes these tropes feel fresh, fun, entertaining.

A compelling historical drama in Diplomacy, which benefits greatly from the razor-sharp, theater-honed skills of two formidable French actors, Niels Arestrup and André Dussollier, who created the roles on stage.

I'm No Longer Here (“Ya no estoy aqui”) is one of those Netflix movies you’ll wish you’d watched on the big screen. The film from Mexico City-born writer/director Fernando Frias de le Parra is so gorgeously shot and offers such a rich sense of place that it’s always visually compelling, even when the narrative tends to sag a bit.

The greatest tribute to this tribute to Ashby is that this movie will add “Shampoo,” “Coming Home,” “Harold and Maude,” “The Last Detail,” “Being There,” and his other films to at lot of watch lists and Netflix queues.

For fans of the genial, garrulous Gold, of Los Angeles culture or of films about food, City of Gold will easily merit four stars and its 90-minute length. For those less enamored of those subjects, its claim on any stars will be qualified by some serious questions about its cinematic worth.

The plot does have a few weak points and dangling threads, and the PG-13 rating ensures that the violence is tamped down before it can reach its full bloody potential...But the tongue-in-cheek tone is so consistent that M3gan is a hoot anyway.

Someday, there will be a take on the life and work of John Belushi that is as fascinating, complex, and entertaining as he was. Belushi, however, is not quite that film.

Always Shine is an immersive nightmare of merging, over-identification, and projection. Its strangeness (and I yearned for more strangeness) is part of the fascination.

As a showcase for young American talent, it’s tough to beat. At its best, it reminded me of a rougher, more glassy-eyed 21st-century version of the kinds of movies Whit Stillman—and later, Noah Baumbach—have made.

Lacking personality or insight, King Jack is a ho-hum tale of young aggression—been there, bruised that.

What’s frustrating is that I totally agree with everything Bong is saying, I just wish he were saying it with a touch more finesse. Maybe they can do some fine-tuning in the lab for next time.

Blow the Man Down isn’t an earth-shaker, but it’s a small pleasure that makes you wish for more from its filmmakers, and soon.

Co-directors Aisling Chin-Yee and Chase Joynt exalt the professional and personal life of Jazz musician Billy Tipton in No Ordinary Man, and avoid simplification of the trans masculine experience.

One only has to go into his latest effort, Happy End, for a couple of minutes to realize that the old Haneke is back with a vengeance.

Though this isn’t very gory, the intensity level is impressive in the haunting scenes, so much so that, at one point, I caught myself watching through my fingers. The sound design also deserves mention, because a haunted house is only as good as its noises, creaks, and moans.

He was a real artist and, especially if you believe that art is all about asking questions, about life and about art, he was a great one.

Gibney made his film without the cooperation of Jobs’ wife and their children or Apple, and thus his account doesn’t have either the authorized angle or wealth of insider-ish detail of Walter Isaacson’s capacious biography.

One of the greatest science and moral fiction movies ever made.

Nearly every scene in Sophie Jones is either meditative or combative in some way, and Barr nails the flickering, shifting, visceral emotions of adolescence.

There are conflicts in Princess Cyd, but they're on a low boil. One of the pluses of Cone's approach — if you're open to it — is you are sometimes confronted with your own preconceived notions about people.

While the end result may not quite reach the heights that Miyazaki has regularly hit during his amazing career, it is nevertheless a worthy effort, filled with visuals that frequently dazzle the eye even if the story is more likely to inspiring the scratching of heads instead.

Zahler and his talented cast are willing to take this journey deep into the heart of darkness, and it’s their commitment that makes the entire project more than skin-deep.

The film is not one for any viewer who’s never heard of Assange. Indeed, it’s best suited to audiences who are familiar with the basic Wikileaks saga and thus prepared for Poitras’ much more intimate and nuanced view of events and personalities that the mainstream media tend to present in more reductive terms.

It’s a wonderful film to experience as an acting and filmmaking exercise. Just take the trip.

Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower is not a great film on the order of Nanfu Wang’s “Hooligan Sparrow” or Alison Klayman’s “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry,” both essential profiles of muckraking activists whistleblowing against government corruption in China, but it does have an equally great story to tell.

In capturing Hardison's breakthrough as a model to her trailblazing as an activist, Invisible Beauty is profoundly inspiring and thoroughly adoring.

The final four minutes turn what was already a fine picture into an unforgettable one, affirming Morchhale’s status as one of the most exciting figures of the Indian new wave.

7 Days has an overall sweetness that keeps it charismatic for its 85-minute runtime, with an agile directorial eye that makes sure the back-and-forth scenes of them talking have enough life in them.

7 Boxes is both a tense and frightening crime film as well as a sometimes-dreamy evocation of life in the sprawling underclass, its hallucinatory aspects, its chaos and violence, its fantasies.

What makes Meeting Gorbachev most interesting is the way we see Herzog shape the narrative through his questions, narration, and filmmaking skills.

The strength of Nine Days is not so much the scenario (although that is imaginative and well-constructed) but the mood Oda sets, the clarity with which he establishes this world, how it operates, its rules and traditions.

Mike Wallace is Here, a documentary about the legendary and influential television interviewer who defined a particular kind of broadcast journalism, feels different from other documentaries about such figures, because it features no contemporary talking head interviews.

Weathering With You, Shinkai’s latest animated romantic-fantasy to be released in America, has the same spark of ingenuity and consistency of vision as his earlier work.

It’s a great compliment to say that Infinity Pool works completely divorced from the legacy of the man who made it. Brandon has become his own captivating filmmaker. He’s no clone.

It leaves us with a series of stark images (of the struggle to harvest wheat during a snowstorm, of lamp-lit farmhomes, of Sorenson’s tireless Model T). And it also acts as a reminder of how much of American history stands in danger of being overlooked just because it happened outside the American mainstream.

When it should be jostling us in one way or another, "Piggy" feels like it's just killing time.

It’s a gorgeous artifact and a cinematic experiment that works beautifully, one innovative frame at a time, centered on Ronan’s soaring and soul-restoring performance.

A Finnish ensemble comedy about a wannabe black metal band, is probably the only film you'll see this year with a crowd-surfing corpse. Don't let the last part of that sentence dissuade you from seeing Heavy Trip: it's a real crowdpleaser.

Angelina Jolie's First They Killed My Father is far and away her best work as a director: a rare film about a national tragedy told through the eyes and mind of a child, and as fine a war movie as has ever been made.

The goal of Power is to call police brutality into question, not put it on trial. It feels like a primer, a crash course for those who didn’t know and more food for thought for those who do know of its dangers and its harrowing legacy in this country.

This weird world is the perfect place for a movie like Screwball, Billy Corben’s stranger-than-fiction telling of the Biogenesis scandal and a movie filled with enough memorable moments that it should please both fans of baseball and those who gave up on the sport years ago.

Luce is the worst kind of provocateur; it tosses out all manner of outrageous ideas and then, like those pathetic dudes on Twitter, it yells out “DEBATE ME!” As soon as you accept the challenge, the film folds like cheap origami. And this film has a lot to toss at you.

It's a deceptively complex piece of filmmaking, something that feels artfully executed and organic at the same time. It has so many layers, all of them covered in the emotions that erupt when we reconnect with our families.

The movie is certainly colorful — this is a guy who, when he had it made, lived VERY large, even if he continued on what seemed like a quest to break every bone in his body multiple times. And it tells, as it keeps reminding us, a very American story. For all that, though, it doesn’t illuminate the guy’s character beyond what’s obvious.

Aaron Swartz’s story should make you furious. In an era when real criminals of our financial crisis ride limousines to dine with the President, our government overzealously tried to put a man behind bars for decades because he tried to better the world.

There is a warmth to this film, an easy charm, that comes from a script aware of the genre conventions with which it’s experimenting and from a cast willing to jump headfirst into whatever surrealism is required.

Despite its early unevenness, Only the Brave tells its story in a sincere and relatively non-exploitative manner that isn’t overly dominated by visual effects, and the cast does some very good work as well.

The result is a film that can be a bit dry when Oppenheimer leads the scientific discussion but that comes springing back to life when Herzog the filmmaker allows his awe to come through the camera.

The Sheep Detectives brims with charm, wit, and a twisty murder mystery that can only be solved by the most endearing set of farm animals since Farmer Hoggett said “That’ll do” to Babe the pig.

This is an informative film that deals up its facts in a sober, linear fashion. This is salutary in that it avoids sensationalism that might lead to accusations of conspiracy-theory mongering. But it also has the effect of making the film feel a little dry.

Mister Organ gives good reason to think that Farrier has never encountered such a narcissist before, which makes this film significant as a ruthless cautionary portrait, however much it may be a visceral flashback for others. If you know anyone with Michael's aura, if someone makes you feel like this unforgettable movie does, this is your sign to run.

Despite the heartbreaking notes of its ending, this vibrant film makes you want to believe that things will somehow and magically turn out OK for her, simply because she deserves it.

This film takes no prisoners, offers no explanations, and forces you to go on its twisted journey that blends found footage structure with something that H.P. Lovecraft might have dreamed up. It’s a ride.

An exhilarating switchup: A comic fable that’s both deftly clever and irrepressibly goofy.

It’s in trying to locate the — for lack of a better term — heart of the movie where problems emerge.

The Mad Women's Ball is part psychodrama and part melodrama, and it wears those mantles proudly and confidently. Each scene throbs with urgency and emotion. Nothing is unimportant. At the same time, the film is highly controlled, with a taut assured script.

Blitz Bazawule’s new film combines the best aspects of each disparate form, structuring a stunning hybrid that combines the visceral meditations of the written word with the thunderous energy of musical performance.

Watching The Lure is a bit like having manic depression—the thrilling high points are just as relentless as the crushing low-tide ebbs.

Mistaken for Strangers was a group effort. And also an act of love.

This is a smart and loving movie about female friendship.

Christine, centered on a riveting and at times unbearably emotional performance by Rebecca Hall, attempts to give a three-dimensional and respectful-yet-honest portrait of a complex woman. Sometimes the film is successful in this, sometimes it's not.

A sweet film with a purity of purpose and intent, elevating it above other films portraying similar struggles.

Abrams and his screenwriters (Robert Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof) are so obsessed with acknowledging and then futzing around with what we already know about Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Scotty and company that the movie doesn’t breathe.

Dope alternates between being shockingly tone-deaf and surprisingly on-point.

It also serves up a smorgasbord of explicit homoerotic imagery, surrealism and ambiguity at a time when Western culture seems to be stampeding towards 1950s prurience, fascist-scented literal-mindedness, and corporate self-censorship, "Queer" is a film out of its time in just about every way. That's what's invigorating about it.

The Great Invisible is strongest when it focuses on the micro rather than the macro. How the spill impacted individuals in the region is the real story of The Great Invisible.

You’re likely to laugh and learn in equal measure–and so will your little ones.

Bugonia is an enraged picture. It’s mad at the world; it’s mad at humanity. Nevertheless, the structuring to reveal the full scope of that anger is surprisingly deliberate.

So really, what's great about "Master Z" isn't the way that its creators transcend their chosen formula, but rather how they perfect it.

Instead of piling on contrivances and cheap psychology to move the story along, Kavtaradze keeps "Slow" situated in a refreshingly human level, respecting the intelligence of her characters and the audience.

With sharp character design, entertaining dialogue, and positive messaging, “Orion and the Dark” is an early-year Netflix original surprise.

A soulful, uplifting, but also heartbreaking look at race and poverty's impact on troubled childhood, Alexandre Rockwell's Sweet Thing is a welcome return to form for the accomplished indie filmmaker.

Author is a particular kind of documentary: a first-person account of the creation of a myth by its creator. As such, it poses all sorts of questions about the intersection of art, celebrity and psychological disturbance in our media culture, but it also gives us Laura Albert as a shape-shifting artist of astonishing talent, resourcefulness and originality.

Possessor is humorless, start to finish. Its energy is ponderous and glum, and the provocative ideas are not given a chance to really take on a life of their own. Still, there's much here that is imaginative and fresh.

India's Daughter is a sorrowful and angry movie, yet measured. It seems determined to see a bigger picture without letting one victim's story get lost in the canvas.

Blade of the Immortal required the hand of an experienced director, and they don’t get much more experienced than Miike.

As Alice, Piponnier is phenomenal, putting in a meticulously reserved performance in what could very well have been a melodramatic role.

Martine Syms has a singular voice, flowing with creativity. Using her own background as an artist, Syms has taken artistic academia and the whiplash of exiting the comfort of school and churned it into a jungle juice of weed, ketamine, and self-discovery.

Lesage supplies exemplary tension and intrigue over the course of two plus hours, while at the same time suggesting to the viewer, accurately, that anything in the way of a definitive resolution is not in the cards.

It takes prodigious comic gifts to make a loathsome, pathetic character so mesmerizing that you enjoy watching him dig himself into a hole for 90-plus minutes. Jim Cummings, the star, editor, co-writer, and co-director of The Beta Test, has those gifts.

When it comes to conjuring a sense of place, Driver’s film succeeds spectacularly, though it comes up short in other areas.

It’s a low-key trippy sci-fi movie about booty calls with an unwieldy space squid, but I wish I could say it was much more than that.

Does it matter that the trajectory of The Eagle Huntress feels scripted at times and the actions we witness are sometimes staged or even manipulated? Somewhat.

The result is a project that feels true to its source, a well-crafted epilogue for a beloved character who vividly understands the concept of consequences.