Dayveon stands out with its vision, regional flavor and overall personality.

Stewart and Erskine light up the movie with vivid, layered, authentic performances that capture our interest but throw the movie out of balance. One more screenplay draft would have been worthwhile; there are glimmers of a better version that create some optimism for Angarano’s next film.

Marianne and Leonard turns out to be a rather run-of-the-mill documentary about Cohen's journey, taking us down well-documented paths.

22 July is at its most engrossing and moving in its depiction of one brave kid, a victim of Breivik who was shot five times and lived, and that kid’s eventual resolve to face the terrorist in court.

Stephen Curry: Underrated is the lightest feel-good sports entertainment possible in that it does have plenty of wins and losses from Curry's college and pro days, with the momentum of an underdog’s drive.

A world in which the stunning nature docs of shows like “Planet Earth” and “Our Planet” exists is going to make projects like The Elephant Queen harder to stand out in comparison, but I highly recommend at least watching the final half-hour in theaters or on Apple TV. It’s some of the most powerful nature footage in years.

It's less concerned with covering the totality of his life than evoking his life force, which is good-humored, earthy and inspiring.

In its style, “Magpie” is a marital thriller with noir trappings galore, including an almost ridiculously convoluted (yet satisfying) conclusion. Still, it’s most effective as the study of an angry wife’s chaotic psychological state.

It’s a bit too long and a lot too silly, but most people won’t care. And in a year with almost no even-modestly-good holiday offerings (sorry to the two “Red One” fans), this might be the best Christmas movie of the year.

A furious and often terrifying documentary about the militarization of US police.

Director Wheatley has already shown his aptitude for sardonic horror-commentaries, and Sightseers is his best film to date. Sightseers is dark, gruesome, blithely amoral and thoroughly entertaining.

The intentionality and editorial eye that make the style of this film so compelling feels sorely lacking from the script, which is at once scattered and repetitive.

Silver’s latest film Uncertain Terms finds some substance within its ideology of evaporated ambitions, though there’s plenty of empty space in which the film is still able to limit itself.

The Harder They Fall is a bloody pleasure: a revenge Western packed with memorable characters played by memorable actors, each scene and moment staged for voluptuous beauty and kinetic power.

The movie never delivers on its considerable promise because it's always in such a hurry to get to the next action scene.

It is a well-intentioned film that buries its affectionate heart in disjointed, unnecessary, forced banter.

The Taiwanese horror movie The Sadness is both conceptually exhausting and viscerally upsetting—an ideal summer movie for the third year of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The web spun by The Origin of Evil arguably features one twist too many, but the viewer is in for more than a pound by the time it happens. Largely thanks to Calamy’s rock-solid performance.

As the saying goes, inside of me are two wolves: one wishes “Out Come the Wolves” dared to explore the wounded masculinity and murderous love triangle of its first half, while the other wonders if that’d be any better or more interesting than the bone-cracking, arrow-shooting carnage of its second.

It’s a movie that only begins as a commentary on doping in sports and becomes something greater about the dangers of being a whistleblower, especially when the whistle blows on Russia.

So often bogged down by pseudo-naturalistic long takes and generic cop/robber power dynamics that it makes one wonder what the point of watching such a film is.

Kourosh Ahari's The Night, about a couple confronting their personal demons in a haunted hotel, is a knockout debut feature—so assured that it stands on its own as a filmmaking achievement apart from its historical significance, which is considerable.

The Luckiest Man in America is good follow-up viewing for “Quiz Show,” a drama about the 1950s quiz show scandals that prompted congressional investigations and led to reforms in the television industry. It’s also an example of how to make a low-budget movie that immerses you in a long-gone world and the minds of people who lived in it, while maintaining a tight geographical focus on a small number of characters.

But there is much to like, and pay attention to in First Match. It’s a film of small moments.

It’s a film with a lot on its mind, a frenetic energy to make it to the end of the day, and a character we root for from start to finish.

Good intentions do count even if the outcome is not perfect.

This sounds very dark. But I Used to Go Here, grounded by a beautiful performance from Gillian Jacobs, treats its subject light-heartedly, while still managing to be honest.

Fans of Herzog — and that really should be all of you — should seek it out.

A sharp, funny, and bizarrely responsible documentary about an amusement park in Vernon, New Jersey.

Misshapen parts and all, “Fortune Favors” fulfills its purpose as a joyfully eccentric tribute to personal authenticity.

As is often the case with Berg’s films, it’s technically accomplished, but it’s lacking the depth of a project that comes from a creative spark. Everything here feels routine—more like an inevitability than a work of art or even a piece of entertainment.

While it’s not a thoroughly satisfying stew of style and substance—plus, it could’ve used some sharper scares—Lamb nonetheless leaves a unique enough aftertaste for one to crave more of the same distinctive weirdness from Jóhannsson in the future.

Even though Fighting with My Family is undoubtedly about branding the WWE as a fantasy factory, its biggest strength is in its wit and surprisingly big heart, celebrating underdogs who rumble for what they love.

Holland’s film manages to get under one’s skin on the whole, remaining a compelling watch throughout in spite of its rambling feel.

With its script (co-written by German and Yulia Tupikina) that lacks the traditional structure of a three-part act, Dovlatov managed to evoke in me an overall feeling of internment. Along with it crept in a gloomy mood, gradually formed through the collective frustrations of the time’s hampered dwellers.

For those who have understandably not seen Takakura's original film due to international distribution issues: think "The Fugitive," only this time, Tommy Lee Jones' gruff cop is replaced by a more sympathetic hot-shot detective.

There’s so much going on in Three Months, so many emotional pieces in motion, but very little of it is particularly moving.

At the ripe age of ninety, Shatner remains as alive as ever—his eyes wild with curiosity and humor, his honeyed voice barely worn down by years of voiceover and soliloquy. But he remains deeply aware of his own numbered days, which makes “You Can Call Me Bill” feel like something of a self-administered cinematic eulogy.

Sadly, despite a compelling lead and strong craft behind the camera—the color palette, in shades of lavender, pink, teal, and gray, is capably chosen and very of the moment—Smile is diminished by the sheer fact that it’s not as fresh a concept as it might seem.

A deliciously unstable comedy.

The Conjuring is as toothless as it is because it's two different kinds of boring. The film's plot is explained exhaustively whenever loud noises aren't blaring, and random objects aren't teasingly leaping out at you from the corner of your eye.

A diminutive and misleading title for such an affecting, often profound film.

Two Pianos is a melodrama, and damned proud to be one.

The film does a great job of contextualizing the phenom of Dr. Ruth.

It was perhaps a strength as a critic and a weakness as a person that she never understood how painful her words could be.

Most importantly, this is not a film to be “solved.” It is a mood piece made by someone constantly playing with structure, but never in a way that calls overt attention to itself.

Sembene! is most illuminating when it is simply showing us clips from the director's features and behind-the-scenes or "making of" footage, with very little in the way of verbal setup, and then letting them play out.

In the end, What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire? feels less like a complete piece, and more like the start of something searching for its perfect form without an ideal end in sight. Considering the country’s current political landscape, it seems fitting.

The Homesman doesn't play things safe, and that's a welcome change.

The director’s greatest asset here is surely Gelbakhiani.

Based on the autobiographical book Everything Went Well by the late Emmanuèle Bernheim (a frequent Ozon collaborator), Everything Went Fine is an emotional and complex portrait of a family in crisis, the father's stroke exposing underlying cracks, old pains, new anxieties.

This is an impressive movie that feels much bigger than it is, and even when it seems to be coasting a bit on its own arresting look and vibe, you don’t mind very much because it’s a seductive and thought provoking ride with sensitive and surprising performances, by Parker especially.

Thunderbolts is an odd duck of a superhero flick, one that almost leans into the skid of the MCU, and, by doing so, might actually straighten it out. It can’t quite shake loose of the consistent problems in the MCU’s recent output (turn a light on!). Still, it challenges blockbuster fans in unexpected ways, presenting them with richer acting than we’ve seen in these films in some time and, perhaps most shockingly, a final act that’s emotionally grounded instead of just “CGI things go boom.”

There’s some appreciable serenity and a lot of personal grief on display in Out Stealing Horses, but it’s only visible in fits and starts.

What makes Early Man enjoyable is the way Park and his writers detail the heroes' good-natured oafishness and the bad guys' snooty arrogance.

The East prizes an initial air of mystery over consistent drama, and as a result ends up squandering its intriguing premise.

"In a Violent Nature" is soaked in as much atmosphere as it is blood and viscera, an inventively cozy approach from an exciting new filmmaker.

For all of its flaws, it's the first film since "Eastern Promises" that has added anything truly fresh to the old school street-level gangster story.

What’s interesting about The Wave is stepping back and considering just how well-constructed the whole thing is. The slow-burn build-up is just long enough, the disaster itself is just harrowing enough and the final act is just intense enough to keep us engaged.

Much of the film's appeal lies in watching the two lead actors enact subtle, honest moments of observed behavior.

An impressive display of film craft and a profoundly ugly movie—so gleeful in its violence and so nihilistic in its world view that it feels as though the director is daring his detractors to see it as a confirmation of their worst fears about his art.

Meerpool’s movie is scary without being alarmist.

In spite of some compelling performances and a consistent mood, the film fails to ground any of these aesthetic flourishes in story or emotion.

Deerskin isn’t weird enough to be great, mostly because Dupieux (“Rubber, “Reality”) is a little too precious when it comes to pacing, characterizations, humor, etc.

Villain is the kind of stiflingly reverent genre picture that is so beholden to its main characters’ pity-me worldview that its predictably downbeat ending feels like the kind of hero worship that you often find in either a cloying biopic or a hidebound true crime adaptation.

While Own the Room succeeds at offering a captivating look at its incredible subjects, it also avoids more complicated questions about how we can best support young people and help them achieve their dreams.

Downfall so completely erodes trust in a once-revered institution and the others meant to regulate it that Boeing’s recent claims the 737 Max’s issues have been addressed—that the aircraft is now safe to fly—can only be met with high skepticism. If it’s Boeing, I’m not going.

The film offers no easy answer for their situation. No happy resolution. There is just love in all its forms; messy and simple, spoken and unspoken, shared and hidden.

It’s very clear that Braverman has a lot of respect and reverence for his subject, and it’s worth a watch for those who are curious about this goofy guy who used to slap on a foreign accent and play with bongos & people’s perceptions.

Saying that it makes these concepts “fun” or “accessible” is an overstatement, as “Harvest” can feel interminable even when a viewer is engaged with its ideas. But it does bring them to vivid, even bawdy, life.

Change is about decisive shift in speed, emphasis, and norms over a period of time, as much as it's about the shock of any individual event. Homeroom is at its best when it's helping us see this.

Despite the bleak-ness of the situation, the film vibrates with color, noise, music, ferocious arguments (both serious and teasing), and eye-catching snapshots of everyday life in Havana.

Given its loose-knit narrative, the film doesn’t have anything like a conventional structure. Yet it’s steadily engrossing due to Boorman’s surpassing skills as both a storyteller and a director.

For those of you who miss films made by adults and for adults, films which treat things like sex and loneliness with respect and honesty, "True Things" isn't to be missed.

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women aims to shake you up, make you think and maybe even squirm a little. Make that a lot. This movie is sexy as hell, featuring several scenes of steamy three-ways and kinky S&M games.

Chuck ultimately works, mainly because Schreiber is so watchable. There's something compelling about seeing a man who is so strong and so weak, simultaneously. You like him in spite of him.

The film is too ordinary to feel like it does her legacy complete artistic justice.

Director Eva Orner makes her story both about the predator and the victims, and delivers an appropriately cut-and-dry case that Bikram more than deserves that third title. But she connects these sensibilities with an approach that too often feels like an info dump, instead of a gripping mediation on the larger themes and harrowing stories that inspired it.

An uncommonly promising debut.

Children absorb everything, good and bad, all the stresses, heartbreak, anxiety of the adults around them. Children can handle the difficult things. Oyelowo knows this and respects it.

It is also the post-punk writer/director Sion Sono's most accessible film: a middle-aged filmmaker's tribute to the kind of epic-sized gangster-romance he used to fantasize about making.

As much as Eastwood finds to condemn in the movie’s designated villains, he does not deliver any comeuppances to them in the end. Which is merciful in the context of fiction, and kind of the mordant point in the context of fact.

Poser might have been more satisfying if its gauzy night-club aesthetic and bold, underlined dialogue didn’t smother viewers with trite observations about hipster artistes.

The sounds that go bump in the night, the wet footprints on a dock when no one else should be there, the writing in the fog on a shower mirror—these beats are brilliantly handled by Bruckner and Hall, who understand that uncertainty is the scariest state of being. Especially at night.

Would you enjoy a movie where Warren Buffet robs a bodega — and kicks the bodega cat for good measure? Because that’s what American Animals feels like.

The editorial assembly and talking-head presentation of “Love, Charlie” is a bit too dry for my taste, struggling to build an intriguing pacing with and-then-this-happened storytelling. But the emotional power of the film benefits from its extensive archive, and how it displays it.

Similar to other disaster flicks, this film worms through oddball characters, takes interest in the disintegration of society, and the tension that arises from disparate people pushed to survive with each other. But Leave the World Behind struggles where it matters most, fashioning real stakes to accompany the turmoil.

What’s good about this movie is funny, and refreshing, enough to make the dry spots feel more tolerable in retrospect.

Far stronger than its lackluster buzz from Cannes suggested, this film is yet another testament to Farhadi’s genius in mining immense power from silence and stillness.

The Wedding Banquet serves its richest dish through the shared love amongst its characters, even inspiring a few organically shed tears during compassionate, wisely written moments between Chris and Ja-Young, especially Angela and May.

Bears also features nearly wall-to-wall voiceover, but this time it comes courtesy of John C. Reilly. His inherently likable, goofy sweetness shines through, making the material, um, bearable, if you will.

It will likely fall through the cracks a bit between “After the Storm” and “Shoplifters,” but it’s worth the time for fans of Kore-eda, a group that seems to be growing every day.

If Hustle passes around a lot of sports movie cliches, it does so with a light touch. And its sense of atmosphere, and depiction of Stanley’s milieu, is sensitive and knowing, But be warned: this movie is VERY basketball-oriented. If you’re not a fan, you might feel a little lost.

In movies, there’s “character driven,” and then there’s “CHARACTER driven.” Earl Lynn Nelson, who plays one of the two lead roles in Land Ho! a truly disarming and beguiling movie, seems from all indications to be an all-caps character.

The story’s ending, complete with lyrical voice-over, conveys the beauty and emotional attraction of the place and its traditions, virtues also relayed by Joshua James Richard’s sumptuous, sometimes breathtaking cinematography.

Thank You For Your Service, an involving and often wrenching drama about Iraq War veterans adapting to civilian life, is a film that teaches you how to watch it.

Imperium proves to be a depressingly familiar (when it isn’t just depressing) thriller and the casting of Radcliffe only contributes further to its failings.

Language Lessons is an alternately comforting and challenging watch, and between this and Morales’s other 2021 directorial effort, Plan B, she is making plain the winsome appeal of films about platonic love.