A film that feels like a sumptuous beach read on a lazy sunny afternoon.

Overall, Okiura stays very focused on Momo’s emotional journey, which is smart. It’s not as fantastical as “Spirited Away” or many other films about children who encounter the supernatural upon being forced to deal with death, as Momo always stays front and center. The final moments of her journey out of despair are powerfully emotional.

It's a confrontational fever dream film told from constantly shifting perspectives, and a chilly, dizzying trip into a genre defined by violently conflicting emotions.

It’s filled with stunning images of some of the world’s most beautiful mountains and canyons and heart-stopping GoPro footage that takes us into the air with the jumpers. It’s sometimes thrilling and sometimes horrifying as we see and hear terrible accidents.

Ejiofor’s movie eloquently harnesses all these customary elements and yields them into an irresistible family film that plays like a brand-new “October Sky” with an urgent human-interest dimension at its heart.

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.

Goldstein and Poots’ chemistry is authentic, and without it the film wouldn’t and couldn’t work.

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.

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.

Love remains distinct, given its unsparing view of people as flawed and not very sure of themselves.

Buoyed by a traditionally spectacular ensemble, The Phoenician Scheme feels unlikely to be anyone’s favorite Wes Anderson flick, but it’s so easy to like that it’s equally difficult to hate it.

Documentaries that rely on a steady stream of talking heads—interspersed here with fleeting film clips—usually are not my favorite. However, when those heads belong to talented and perceptive women who rarely get a chance to speak their minds let alone get hired to make a movie, I can definitely make an exception.

It’s a deeply human experience to long for someone who’s unavailable and to treasure a love that’s true but can’t last. “Oh, Hi!” ruminates on this to somber yet entertaining effect.

Indeed, the director of “99 Homes” and “The White Tiger” has proven a driving interest in telling stories that shine a light on injustice and cruelty. But here, the result suggests he’s dipping his toe into these enormous subjects rather than getting his arms around them in a smart and satisfying way.

If the movies have already made growing up seem like hell, director Alex Winter’s dispiritedly cynical but rousingly comical “Adulthood” reminds us that there’s always a tenth circle to that inferno.

It’s charmingly funny and shamelessly punny.

Somehow, Yamanaka finds a balance for her complicated character to navigate her tantrums and tender moments.

There are a couple of things that make Animals effective, the main one being the performances of the two leads and the symbiotic relationship they create.

The Eternal Daughter feels like a first draft, or a sketch to be filled in later. This is perhaps reflected in onscreen Julie's struggles to even write an outline. Hogg's outlines, though, are more interesting than other people's finished products. There's always so much to think about.

I’m not qualified to say whether it’s an effective delivery system for its Christian message, but I think I can credibly pronounce it a good popcorn movie.

Populated with totally naturalistic performances, and a stunningly observed relationship between mother and son (their scenes together are phenomenal), Bad Hair works by keeping its focus on the small details of everyday life and its rhythms.

Appropriate Behavior, even with its reliance on familiar types and tropes, feels like a unique vision of life seen through unique eyes.

It is incredibly difficult to love an addict. Not only does their addiction continuously define the dynamic of your relationship, but they are like a drowning man, able to take you down with them as they flail their arms and fight for air. Rarely has a film captured this better than Marja-Lewis Ryan’s 6 Balloons.

Hernández is the standout actor in the troupe of professionals and non-actors.

The third film from writer/director Travis Stevens (“Jakob’s Wife,” “Girl on the Third Floor”) is forged in fire and blood, taking his eye for striking visuals and elevating it to psychedelic new heights.

There are really no surprises here. But the action is bracing, Johnson’s performance is solid and, within its extremely narrow parameters, entirely convincing, and Gugino and Daddario are both gritty and attractive. The result is a pretty exemplary popcorn movie.

The main appeal here is the chance to spend time in the company of superb actors who all wear their characters as comfortably as an old silk robe.

Galveston is the film equivalent of a familiar, not too special song that's been brilliantly re-arranged and performed.

The culture clash here between "goddamn hipster freaks" and people of the woods is more complicated here, and the way it unfolds is brutal and shocking without being depraved itself.

On the Record does a lot of things very well, but what it does best of all is back up Mayo's eloquent and pained statement. Everybody loses when women go away.

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.

There are laughs aplenty, even as “Sister Midnight” begins to lose creative steam, with the wheels falling off, and the further it falls into the repetitive macabre. But Apte remains the glue holding it all together as the film imagines its prototype of the monstrous feminine.

While Westwood is certainly a remarkable personal and cultural figure in many senses, it’s too bad she’s not more willing to discuss the genesis of punk, since it’s likely to remain the primary thing she’s known for.

I’ll gladly take a documentary about a pop culture moment with too much to talk about when so many of them feel like they have nothing to say beyond what we already know and love.

"The Last Movie Star" paid tribute to Burt Reynolds' career, but also appreciated what he brought to the table as an old man. The Life Ahead operates the same way, allowing Loren similar grace and space.

Most effectively, Barfoot and his team turn this cold, remote estate into a character—returning to it provides none of the standard warmth of a happy home. We can feel the chill in the air.

It helps a great deal to have a wickedly fun ensemble ready to play this murderous game, led once again by a physical, engaged, immediate performance from Samara Weaving.

The result is a film that feels less like a lecture than a provocative X-ray of current American political realities.

Freaky is a fun, frisky, and nostalgic ride that delivers laughs, various inventively bloody kills, and on occasion, even some 21st-century-appropriate observations on gender norms and sexuality. Just don’t expect to be surprised a great deal by it.

The film’s most affecting moments are when Murad speaks directly to the camera.

Vigilante justice has taken a new form in an era of internet mobs, but Ryoo hasn’t made a simple cautionary tale about online justice—he’s crafted a film that’s wildly entertaining but also has a great deal on its mind about how far we should be willing to go to balance the scales. Is there such a thing as good murder?

Filmed in Central Appalachia—including the director's home state of West Virginia—King Coal moves beyond shallow impressions of the region with a real love for her neighbors and prodding questions about what it means to identify with an industry that has harmed and exploited generations of families.

Filmed in a rich black and white, director Zeshawn Ali’s documentary and feature debut Two Gods is an intimate, lyrical exhumation of the cycles that haunt Black youth and the challenge of putting to rest old habits.

The just-shy-of-great teen comedy Dear Dictator is the rare high-concept coming-of-age story with enough warmth and smart-ass charm to (hopefully!) make it accessible for a fairly wide cross-section of moviegoers.

Israelis call the events of 1948 The War for Independence, while Palestinians call it Nabka, or The Catastrophe. It's hard to imagine how the two could be reconciled, and "Tantura" doesn't try. It has its hands full just trying to establish what happened, and encouraging participants and beneficiaries into accepting what it meant.

A Cop Movie, directed by Alonso Ruizpalacios, is exceptionally challenging to begin with. As the movie unspools, and the layers of its production become clearer, we understand the challenge is the movie’s entire objective—up to a point.

Omen excellently captures the feelings of both cultural and generational alienation. In script and performance, there is never a moment of certainty.

As Vázquez keeps adding elements in its last half hour, Unicorn Wars starts to feel like the beginning of a trilogy, or maybe a TV series that got canceled unexpectedly and had to wrap up its storyline in a handful of episodes.

With such great music coming, one hit after after another, it's always a joy to watch.

Made in collaboration with Yves Saint Laurent, “Parthenope” is nothing if not a sumptuous feast for the senses.

Writer/director Zach Cregger proves himself to be a bonafide jack-in-the-box horror filmmaker with "Barbarian," beginning with a nightmare that could happen to any of us—a double-booked Airbnb.

A documentary with a defeated spirit, but with fleeting glimmers about why the oppressed keep playing.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage is zippy and breezy.

Written by Jesse Orenshein, the script for “The Secret Art of Human Flight” is just as inventive as it is emotional.

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.

Gagarine plays like a mournful lament for a community that banded together during hard times before being separated and scattered to the winds, leaving no trace of its communal existence behind.

Ip Man 3 also sneaks in welcome moments of mushy romantic sweetness between Master Ip and his wife, Cheung Wing-sing (Lynn Hung).

Even if it falls short in some regards, “Kidnapping Inc.” is a splashy debut that commands your attention from start to finish.

With a cast made up of dancers entirely, the resulting work feels like a bold, deeply personal, and psychological ode to the numerous facades of romantic relationships, both uplifting and gloomy.

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

Dupieux’s latest will either annoy or charm you depending on how much you appreciate being led around by the nose by a filmmaker and a cast of characters who seem pretty committed to jerking you around.

Before You Know It shifts seamlessly from quirky to sad to mysterious to wacky to surreal within just the space of a few days, so much so that you’d never know it’s director Hannah Pearl Utt’s feature filmmaking debut.

If smart dumb comedies hold a place in your heart, you'll like Masterminds. The main characters are masterminds only in their own heads, and the thoughts that tumble out of their mouths are as nonsensical as they are sincere.

To tell you the truth, The Better Angels, as pictorially beautiful and emotionally evocative as it is, is so bereft of conventional narrative momentum that you have to consider it a miracle it got made.

I often rolled my eyes at the kitschy, broad humor that Knife+Heart director Yann Gonzalzez (who co-wrote the film with Cristiano Mangione) sometimes used to characterize his sexually active queer characters.

Baumbach's adaptation of White Noise unpacks these complex themes with a playful spirit for about 90 minutes before the writer/director arguably loses his grip on the more serious material in the final act. Still, there's more than enough to like here when it comes to the unexpected blend of an author and filmmaker who one wouldn't necessarily consider matches.

The true measure of a good tale is in the telling, and writer-director Noah Buschel spins his yarn in an unexpected, ultimately satisfying fashion.

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

Draper wrote, directed, and co-stars as their mother and the lovely score was composed by their musician father, Michael Wolff.

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.

Just because we already sense or know a lot of what is in this film does not mean we won't benefit from hearing it in such urgent and compelling fashion.

Despondent and gloomy even while it’s against a backdrop of bucolic beauty, director Yûta Shimotsu’s debut feature “Best Wishes to All” is the type of unsettling, high-concept horror film that knows exactly what it wants to be and executes it with unforgiving verve.

This is very evidently a personal story for the people who made it, a heartfelt note of thanks for the fresh start they found in their new home, and for all fresh starts and the people with the courage to find them.

Farrant’s confidence as a storyteller — along with Rapace’s full-bodied performance — enrich the story and guide it toward its delicately bonkers premise.

Since Thunberg is one of the most gifted and arresting speakers alive today, I Am Greta is inherently compelling as a behind-the-scenes document of the vulnerabilities masked by her forceful persona.

Ralph Breaks the Internet dares to encourage kids to not only be themselves but allow their friends to be true to their wants and needs as well. Your friend doesn’t have to be exactly like you to be your friend. It’s a message that’s very well-threaded through an entertaining, clever ride.

Greene’s film is deceptively profound in that it’s about a specific woman with a specific kind of life, yet it has universal resonance as a reflection of the struggle so many women endure—the desire to be all things to all people and inevitably failing someone, the yearning to balance career and parenthood and never finding enough time to do either completely right.

A consistently intelligent (or at least bright), coherently constructed comedy that is on occasion a rather pointed critique of the American education system in the early 21st century. Don’t let that keep you away, though. It’s more often than not really funny.

For all its ferocious focus, this is a relatively quiet movie that embraces its smallness.

Happy Gilmore makes par through the strength of its sheer stupid energy and the game efforts of Sandler and his 50 or so co-stars.

See it with someone you love, and then just try to feel smug about the security of your own relationship afterward.

I didn’t laugh a whole lot while watching Adam, but I was never less than wholly engaged, and by the end, I felt grateful for having seen it.

Goofy, over-earnest, and just good enough where it counts, Kalki 2898 AD outdistances its competition simply by digging deeper than expected into its patchy lore’s rich melodramatic turf.

The film is best in its embrace of the random, its moments when the talented and funny cast goof off with each other, responding to one another's eccentricities.

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

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.

The Great Wall has significant problems — namely with Damon and sidekick Pedro Pascal's lack of bromantic chemistry — but chief among its rewards is its ability to marry its Eastern and Western sensibilities.

With Bullet Train Explosion, you get a straight-down-the-line crowdpleaser, replete with duty-bound authority figures in well-pressed uniforms, anxious and often self-absorbed passengers, Macgyver-like problem-solving, seat-of-your-pants close calls, that sort of thing. There are no real surprises here, just what you’d want from this sort of cheeseball entertainment.

While some elements of the story don’t work as well as the visual playground Ameen sets up for her characters, Scales is still an impressive feature debut.

Start to finish, the movie is delightfully dorky, irreverent and scrappy, the exact kind of project a young filmmaker would make if they just wanted to make fellow nerds laugh and were pretty good at doing so.

In many ways, the documentary is as unprecedented as Ardern’s career.

Ultimately, Mortimer and Rosen’s film succeeds most as a sincere, wonderstruck tribute to a fellow climber. And if glorifying a sport as lethal as alpinism itself runs a kind of risk, there’s no denying the heart-in-mouth thrill of watching Leclerc in the zone, following an impossible dream and, on his own terms, touching the sublime.

Girls Trip is the ladies-on-the-loose comedy that everyone needs right now, even if they don’t know it yet.

There's a propulsive force to every scene in "Scoop," with Sam propelling us forward as she stalks across lobbies and down hallways in her thigh-high boots.

The movie does not live up to the eternally enchanting music, but it serves as an enjoyable delivery system for experiencing it again, which is magic enough.

This is Everett's first film as a director, and there are times when it shows. But what he brings to the table - as a director, writer, and actor - is his intuitive "take" on Oscar Wilde and the performance alone makes this riveting and revelatory viewing.

It’s a movie that finds most of its power through silence—the proud and yet pained look Tucci gives to Firth during that speech will stick with me for a long time.

A film like Linklater's brings you inside the consciousness of a person whose perceptions of the world are simultaneously constrained and curious, and open to new experiences.