The movie is largely a story of personalities. Karl is fiery, brilliant, disorganized, passionate. Engels is, despite his courage and curiosity, a bit more of a wide-eyed innocent and certainly a more organized person. Their female partners do take secondary roles, but the movie depicts them as committed, innovative, and acute: true fellow travelers and comrades. The actors portraying these figures are all exciting to watch.

The movie is a very sincere and good-hearted adaptation, but it loses focus by trying to include too many elements of the real-life story.

If you’re watching “Leo,” it should be to see Vijay show off in between animal attacks, car flips, and celebrity cameos. And even if you don’t expect much from “Leo,” it still might give you exactly what you need.

Watching Douglas behave like a narcissistic scumbag is an absolute pleasure, one in which viewers of action-adventure Beyond the Reach can happily indulge.

Gentle and lilting, "Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom” moves at a hiker’s pace.

Corbijn, as has been his custom in directing features, goes for mood and feel rather than narrative momentum, although his scope is clearly hemmed-in by the production’s budget; there’s not much here in the way of effective ‘50s-New-York evocation. But the actors and their exchanges ring true, and by the time the film reaches its lonesome conclusion, the resonances are eerie.

The story's heart is Kemper’s Helen, of course, and this role is a perfect fit. Helen is less sunny than most of Kemper’s roles, allowing her to show more subtlety, depth, and complexity.

It will only take a few seconds on Google to tell you how this election ends, but what only the film can do is show you how Bobi Wine evolves into a powerful spokesman for democratic values as he tries to save Uganda from autocracy.

Paddington 2 proves the smart-but-sweet combination that marked the first live-action film was no fluke.

It's an unsettling, and sometimes high-concept doodle, but it's awfully hard to resist a film that marries Atomic Age paranoia and optimism with Kurosawa's signature post-modern, atmosphere-intensive style.

A tidy and tension-filled exercise in terror that takes stage fright to literal extremes.

Billed as “an unromantic comedy,” Covino’s is a film that recalls comedies of the ‘70s in its willingness to allow its quartet of lead characters to be horny, problematic, and generally idiotic.

The film Shackleton wanted to make clearly wasn’t a passion project coming from his deepest soul. It’s not like he’s Orson Welles yearning for the unfairly butchered “Magnificent Ambersons.” “Zodiac Killer Project” is fairly thin in both conception and execution, but it is very much “my kind of thing,” particularly his dry, humorous tone. He makes a good and entertaining guide.

The golf cart scene is an excellent example of what Greener Grass is attacking, and it's a sharp and subversive critique: it would be great to live in a more civil world, but too much civility leads to golf carts stalled at a four-way intersection.

The movie is so consistently moody, and so focused on driving you towards a gut-punch finale, that even valid complaints seem negligible in retrospect.

Tokyo Tribe, an adaptation of a popular Japanese manga, is bound to charm viewers — both the uninitiated and the diehard fans of director Sion Sono ("Why Don't You Play in Hell," "Love Exposure") — with its boundless energy ... for a while, anyway.

If the most engaging and satisfying documentaries about musical acts tend to come from filmmakers who are smart, passionate fans, that rule perhaps applies doubly when the subject is obscure rather than world-famous. So it is with Revenge of the Mekons.

Probably a lot of people who see this film will get fed up with Gili's passivity, but some people in life are passive in a way that feels like a defiantly inactive reaction to ill treatment. These boys don't view her as a person with feelings, but Gurfinkel's film does.

With a tender spirit, gorgeous Tulum locations, and a poetic, dialogue-driven calmness, Pritzker’s “Ex-Husbands” is a surprising delight, astute and humorous about humans that both lived a long life and are just starting out their adventure. It’s a movie that looks back and moves forward, with grace and wisdom.

The entire movie feels like something out of a dream, probably one that struggles to work through something real that keeps getting hijacked and twisted by the mischievous unconscious.

A movie like Make Your Move rests on the success of its various dance sequences, not its plot. And the dancing here is exciting, innovative, and specific.

Vibrant, silly, and unwaveringly vulnerable, “Pools” is an invigorating party movie whose non-stop reverie uplifts its protagonist’s downcast spirit.

The film grants hope for the women of Iran through its thick-skinned subject, putting her resume and grit on display. But with sharper editing and a bit more eagerness for the personal, “Cutting Through Rocks” would supersede general hopefulness for a more intricate touch to the heart.

Not Without Hope is a respectful and impactful dramatic interpretation that feels true to the real-life events.

It’s simultaneously a parody of American middle-class notions of contentment yet at the same time a disarmingly sweet and sincere endorsement of it.

Cyrano gets the big things right, and Dinklage embodies it all.

The film’s sci-fi tone holds best, not when the McManus brothers try to explain the technological components, but when these characters’ find solace in their shared trauma.

Parker has made a tough, brutal, and often riveting thriller.

Heading into the homestretch of this year’s election, Represent feels like a balm. A reminder that, win or lose, there’s something to be gained by reigniting people’s interest in civil engagement, especially at the local and state level.

Cinematographer Mathias Herndl shows us that Floreana is not a postcard-pretty island paradise. Still, a harsh and unyielding setting, and Hans Zimmer’s score evokes increasing uneasiness as the story builds to a climax of violence and chaos.

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.

Like “The Deeper You Dig,” Hellbender gets better as it gets more surreal, but this one has a nice balance to the out-there imagery in Zelda’s grounded, coming-of-age performance. I love the movies she’s making with her family, but I’d also really like to see what she could do with another director too. She’s got the range and potential.

The mode of this short movie is naturalistic. There are interviews of people in voiceover, but not a lot of talking-head footage. The perspective is of an observer sauntering through the town and then thrust into the middle of a fearsome but exhilarating spectacle.

This is a movie of visuals first and foremost; it’s no fluke that director Warwick Thornton shared cinematography duties with Dylan River. In addition to capturing stunning images, Thornton has a sleight-of-hand maestro’s joy in shuffling and fanning them. Lightning-fast cuts to flashbacks and flash-forwards keep the viewer on his or her toes in a bracing fashion.

Health care is unquestionably one of the most complicated problems the government ever has to grapple with, even without the obstacles and obfuscation from dark money and corporate lobbyists. We do not need a briefing book, but the film would be more effective if it clarified some of the priorities Barkan and his group are advocating.

As a personality portrait, it’s superb. The inherent instability of the filmmakers’ approach fuses with the manipulative charm and psychic damage of their subject.

The film doesn't burden pinball machines with more meaning than they can stand. Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game is strictly low stakes. This is part of its knowing charm.

Kroll and Slate, though, give performances that have the opposite effect. They aren't the best people, but the relative goodness of their intentions is never in doubt. My Blind Brother puts these characters through the comic wringer, but the humor is founded on the characters and their flaws, not the circumstances.

Their tangible shared pain quickly turns an awkward performativeness into a most genuine therapy session, one that is both disarming and uplifting to observe.

By anonymizing both the callers and the places featured in the documentary, “Intercepted” becomes a sobering portrait of the many millions of lives interrupted by this war.

The Beasts may not be realistic, but it is genuinely eerie.

The German boys are very well cast, with young actors Louis Hofmann and Joel Basman especially giving the kind of striking performances that should lead to other films.

While the autobiographical elements are incredibly light, there’s enough humility here to make the viewer surrender to the film’s melodic charms.

It is a sweet little end of summer sorbet with appealing young performers and a script that refreshes the original without overdoing it.

It doesn't go quite far enough into melodrama to fuse all of its different pieces together into a satisfying whole but it's an engrossing film all the same: intelligent, sincere and unabashedly goodhearted.

Darkly funny and deeply twisted, 13 Sins grabs you from its startling opening sequence and doesn’t let go.

A well-done but all-too-woeful wallow of a documentary.

For however quaint and sporadically quirky it is, The Mole Agent is an earnest look at old age, and a community full of people just like Sergio.

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.

The funniest thing about “Daaaaalí!” is how often Dupieux succeeds at tricking you into thinking that he’s about to zig when he’s clearly ready to zag. It’s not a sophisticated bit, but Dupieux’s commitment to illogical anti-humor remains pretty disarming.

Whether or not we get more rounds with this hand of fate, Talk to Me lingers as a striking and confident directorial debut from the Philippous, whose penchant for hyper-active YouTube fight and prank vids is mostly evident in this movie's emotional carnage.

While this is a true story, Ozon goes the fictional movie route, taking a bit of dramatic license while keeping most of the actual details intact. The director impressively juggles the large scope of his script while maintaining the sense of intimacy for his male actors that he normally reserves for his female characters.

It’s an earnest, crowd-pleasing family film – nothing snarky or self-referential, no on-the-nose needle drops - just a sweet, beautifully made movie that earns the emotion it’ll surely draw from its viewers.

“Le Mans” may not be the film for which McQueen is best-remembered, but the documentary makes a convincing case that it was formative in his life and career, impacting the way he saw family, cinema and the thin line between life and death.

Private Violence is extremely sad, but it has a lot of hope.

With a screenplay by Brian Sacca, who grew up in the Buffalo area, Buffaloed is a showcase for the mega-talented Deutch, who tosses herself into the role like a maniacal fidget-spinner, all flash and charm.

It’s not an especially deep script in terms of character, but there’s something inspiring about seeing a comedy production in which everyone is on the same page, harmoniously working off each other’s personalities like a choir.

If Tenet can be a hard movie to engage with emotionally or even comprehend narratively, that doesn't take away from its craftsmanship on a technical level. It’s an impressive film simply to experience, bombarding the viewer with bombastic sound design and gorgeous widescreen cinematography by Hoyte van Hoytema.

There’s a priceless scene in Jack Bryan’s new documentary, Active Measures, where McCain is seen smirking through a speech delivered by the Russian president, as he sneers with theatrical menace in the senator’s direction.

With "Confessions of a Good Samaritan," Lane is in her most confessional mode yet, finally turning the camera fully on herself.

Tim Roth gives a career-high performance in this meticulous, disturbing film written and directed by Michel Franco.

LBJ captures a tumultuous political era and one of its most profanely colorful leaders with a good deal of insight and emotional torque.

The backstage scenes are almost as entertaining as the mayhem of the campaign.

The story itself is so absurd and is told with enough surprises and dry humor that it’s constantly engaging.

So if you're wondering if you should see He Never Died or not, consider how much time you want to spend in Rollins's company. He proves himself to be as charming as a younger Arnold Schwarzenegger, but his appeal is just as limited.

Through cinematographer Mark Schwartzbard’s lens, The Photograph feels like a gentle throwback to romantic movies that left their audiences in good spirits as they filed out of the theater.

The narrative never really builds a good head of steam. That could just be because as a Westerner with extremely limited knowledge of Estonian culture and mythology, the barrage of tropes from there is relatively overwhelming for me. Even so, November never stops being a visual trip. And that may well be enough.

It glides along the surfaces of its characters and its world and rarely digs as deep as one might like. But the experience is intense, and the surfaces are beautiful.

Just you try to resist the impossible adorableness offered up in the latest Disneynature documentary, Penguins. You cannot do it, despite the cutesy anthropomorphizing, the too-tidy nature of the story it’s telling and the knowingly cheesy soundtrack of ‘80s tunes accompanying these creatures’ adventures.

Like the director’s 2017 profile of Dries Van Noten, Martin Margiela: In His Own Words explores how its titular subject is driven by ideas rather than ego or a desire for stardom.

It is lively, fast paced, charming and funny, and it showcases an especially delightful comic performance from Belgian and French cinema stalwart Olivier Gourmet.

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.

The Green Inferno is not exactly a feel-good film, but it gets a very particular job done.

More about ambience than narrative progress, so if you don't like these kinds of characters (ie: hippy-dippy aesthetes), the film will drive you up a wall.

It doesn’t deal in easy gags or low-hanging speeches. It understands both the thrill and the agony of desperately waiting for your dream to ripen on the vine.

Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed has a fairly standard talking head and archive video approach, but it has an inspired variation on the common documentary storytelling method of animation or art.

Hicks avoids the traditional bio-doc route by turning Keep On Keepin’ On into more than just CT’s story, chronicling how the legendary musician continues to inspire young artists to this day.

The beats play in a suspense thriller’s register, creating a heightened tension that is often unnerving. We are living the story through the eyes of a lover desperate to reconnect with her beloved, and her feelings of desperation, concern and fear bleed directly into the frame.

Audiard is invigorated by these vibrant, gorgeous young people, delivering one of the most sexually active films in years, even for the French. And his cast fearlessly work through their characters most private moments and emotions, leading to a movie that isn't voyeuristic as much as it is genuine.

This is quite a good sports documentary, moving and unafraid of making you work for its pleasures.

It’s impossible to deny the power of much of what’s on display here. Wilkerson looks at the racial discord and violence in the world around him and has the courage to examine his own legacy instead of just casting off the concept as something that happens to or is perpetrated by others.

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.

Deliver Us stands out because its creators have struck the ideal balance of lull-inducing silences to daft genre trope punctuation. It doesn’t make much sense, or flow smoothly from one scene to the next. But boy, Deliver Us sure does what it does.

The message about never confusing kindness with weakness is a valuable life lesson and a reminder of why the Smurfs are so enduringly beloved.

This movie's makers haven't met a formula cliché that they don't like.

What makes it a better-than-average satire on the unthinking hostilities that human beings are prone to is its steady intelligence, combined with a humor sometimes so dry as to be undetectable.

It is a daring and assured subversion of conventional film language that will likely infuriate certain viewers and reward others.

The entire documentary is unnerving. Focusing on four separate rape cases with eerie similarities, Audrie & Daisy is a stark portrait of a problem which is not in any way local, aberrant, or random. The problem is systemic.

The film’s greatest asset, along with a sun-dappled cinematography, Banks is certainly game for every shade of Hope in her journey of poor decisions, escalated by bad luck and an eerie city that couldn’t care less about who falls down or survives the elements unscratched. In that, “Skincare” nails a routine well worth investing in.

I Was at Home, But... creates a space where questions are asked, but rarely answered, where things are suggested and never underlined, and every element — camera placement, music, blocking, sound design — is so deliberate that it pulls you into its vortex, and it makes you submit to its severe rhythms.

The pacing is so zany, the jokes are so rapid-fire and the sight gags are so inspired that it’s impossible not to get caught up in the infectious energy of it all.

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.

It’s a story we’ve heard many times, but it always feels triumphant, similar to Marcella’s approach to cooking: it’s “very simple but not easy.”

As written by Sean Baker and Chris Bergoch and directed by Baker, it's assured and immensely likable, and truly independent in story and style.

The scattershot approach sometimes works to the detriment of his message, but “Fahrenheit 11/9” is ultimately Moore’s best film in years because its message is really simple and nonpartisan: get mad about something and do something about it.

Watching his Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 is to see a director who knows how to balance corporate need with personal blockbuster filmmaking. Mostly.

Calling Space Station 76 a spoof of 1970s science fiction doesn't do the trick. It's quiet, slow movie that's often funny, sometimes sad, and occasionally uncomfortable.

Little Fish would have left a lingering, wistful feeling under ordinary circumstances. Debuting during a pandemic, however, adds a layer of poignancy to this story of a worldwide virus that causes memory loss, creating loneliness and isolation for both its victims and their loved ones.