Craig’s spin on Blume’s classic is just as exhilarating as her debut film “The Edge of Seventeen.” Her deep respect for the foibles of girldom and her emotionally intelligent exploration of prickly family dynamics make her a perfect match for the material, and elevates Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret far above most modern films that attempt to tackle similar material.

Thankfully, despite its creators’ general fussiness, The Truffle Hunters is good enough, if only because guys like Carlo and Angelo are more charming than they are eccentric.

In Judas and the Black Messiah, Daniel Kaluuya gives an electrifying performance that raises the hairs on the back of your neck.

Whatever “Flipside” ultimately “means,” it’s ninety minutes well, and often amusingly and movingly, spent.

I do know this for sure — I can’t wait to see this film again. It’s so layered and ambitious, the product of a confident filmmaker working with collaborators completely in tune with his vision. Every piece fits. Every choice is carefully considered.

After the Storm is one of our best filmmaker’s best films.

The President’s Cake is notable for its unvarnished, affecting performances; its digitally shot yet eerily film-like cinematography, which packs an amazing amount of crisply focused information into wide frames with rounded edges. But most of all, for the way it captures the strange disjunction between the monotony of daily life for children in a war zone and the anxiety between adults who are aware that everything could fall apart at any moment.

As gorgeous and impenetrable as a dream.

The movie is more stunning than ever, a daring blend of history and personal storytelling with one of the most striking performances of its era from Leslie Cheung, a performer who left us way too soon.

Even if Coogler doesn’t know where to end his movie, it’s tempting to be swept up in his expansive vision, if only because his intent is so firm.

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.

This documentary is as welcoming to intense fashionistas as it is to gauche fools like me.

Bolstered by expert empathy, understated direction, and evocative performances, Earth Mama highlights resilience while whispers of social misogynoir are incorporated without abandon and confronted head-on by the film’s women.

A stellar high school comedy with an A+ cast, a brilliant script loaded with witty dialogue, eye-catching cinematography, swift editing, and a danceable soundtrack. Most importantly, it’s incredibly fun to watch again and again.

Writing with Fire is a powerful piece of work, although it moves at a mostly slow and steady pace.

Red, White and Blue got under my skin in ways I was not expecting. McQueen uses the police procedural format to interrogate what it’s like to be the only Black person in a hostile and racist job environment.

As engrossing as it’s alarming, the documentary flows with a stream of consciousness about the illusion of the “Chinese Dream.”

Reality is a brutal film, with a short run-time and a story arc so strong it obliterates the memory of self-important complex films, weighted down with a "message," straining for relevance. Satter's film doesn't need to push. Reality wears its relevance on its fluorescent-lit short sleeves.

The sobering note on which the movie ends recalls a stone-cold classic from a sadly long-gone era of moviemaking. The homage actually functions as a token of this movie’s integrity and heartfelt sadness.

The movie makes canny use of non-linear editing, moving backwards and forwards with engaging fluidity, and it keeps this up throughout.

It’s a narratively simple film that has been interpreted differently by dozens of critics since its Cannes premiere last May, but it’s one that is impossible for this critic to shake, a reminder of what movies can do when they loosen the restraints of traditional narrative and remember that images are meant to evoke as much as they are to explain.

Rasoulof gets terrific performances from all of his cast, but particularly noteworthy is Sohelia Golestani's work as Najmeh, which captures the woman's subtle, gradual transition from defender of her husband to an ally of her daughters.

Morris' direction offers other filmmakers a template for how to make a small movie that feels big, just by making definitive choices and sticking to them.

Harmonium is consistently about mood more than anything else. You sink into the film at first. Then, with each new leisurely introduced plot point, you struggle to regain your sense of calm since, after a while, the film's protagonists are doing the exact same thing.

There are times when Anderson’s Buddhist leanings can be a bit overwhelming, and the piece ends a bit too abruptly for my tastes, although that almost seems thematically appropriate.

As [Farhadi] does to such masterful effect in “A Separation,” here he constructs a story that keeps revealing new thematic and psychological layers, ones that often come to light through the shifting of perspective from one character to another, a technique that deepens our sympathy for the people we’re watching to the point of our realizing that, as in Renoir, “everyone has their reasons.”

Depressingly universal and even more depressingly contemporary more than two centuries down the line.

This franchise has demonstrated an impressive ability to beat the odds and reinvent itself, over a span of time long enough for two generations to grow up in. It's a toy store of ideas, with new wonders in every aisle.

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 strength of Hama-Brown’s film is how deftly it captures that feeling that emotion can’t always be expressed through language.

Others may find In My Room to be a small gem thanks to Köhler’s eye for small details. He’s a keen image-maker; Armin’s story also resonates thanks to Köhler’s ear for naturalistic dialogue and novelistic detail, both of which serve the movie’s episodic narrative.

As a small amusement, “Chicken for Linda!” is an enjoyable enough lark. But its flightless emotional course leaves its profundity just out of range.

Jubilant, unapologetically massive, and bursting with a cozy, melancholic sense of communal belonging, In The Heights is the biggest-screen-you-can-find Hollywood event that we the movie lovers have been craving since the early days of the pandemic, when the health crisis cut off one of our most cherished public lifelines.

Fire of Love is one of a vanishingly rare breed of documentary that is determined to be "total cinema," not just capturing the facts of what happened to its subjects but creating an entire aesthetic—a vibe—around them.

Hamnet actually works best as a sensory experience, before its major plot points fall into place.

The Witch, a feminist narrative that focuses on an American colonial family as they undergo what seems to be an otherworldly curse, is more like a sermon.

A fascinating and fastidiously complex study of one man’s moral choices at a crucial juncture in his life, Cristian Mungiu’s Graduation is a thoroughgoing masterpiece which offers proof that Romania’s cinematic upsurge remains the most vital and important national film movement of the current century.

One of the most impressive elements of Kubo and the Two Strings — besides its dazzling stop-motion animation, its powerful performances and its transporting score — is the amount of credit it gives its audience, particularly its younger viewers.

Kaurismäki makes these bigots look ridiculous, but he also takes very seriously the damage they do, and the movie’s finale takes that into account.

How on earth Patterson made a movie about a UFO hovering over a small town in the late 1950s without falling back on every cliche in the book is the fun and wonder of The Vast of Night. You already know the plot. You've seen it all before. But the way the story is told is new. With The Vast of Night, it really is about the how, not just the "what happens."

Based on Jonathan Ames' novella of the same name, the film is rooted so firmly in Joe's point of view he sometimes is absent from the screen entirely. We're inside his head.

I rarely see a movie so original that I want to tell people to just see it without reading any reviews beforehand, including my own. David Lowery’s A Ghost Story is one of those movies.

The result shows the human stakes and often punishing difficulties of challenging entrenched powers and interests.

McQueen’s masterful film is the kind that works on multiple levels simultaneously—as pure pulp entertainment but also as a commentary on how often it feels like we have to take what we are owed or risk never getting it at all.

This first-time feature from writer/director Russell Harbaugh has an understated, intimate, pointillist style, with a cool jazz score that matches its improvisational tone.

But the movie is, for all its accomplishment, sketchy, tentative. And there’s something about the conception of Yoav that smacks of self-aggrandizement.

You won’t forget any of the young men who populate this film, nor will this be the last you’ll hear from them.

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

The objective seems to be to make you feel, by the end, as if you've walked a million miles in Neil Armstrong's boots. On that score, judged solely as a spectacle, First Man has to be considered a success — especially if you see it in IMAX format.

If the name "Gilliam" set off a little tremor of excitement when you heard it that is no accident because, with its combination of startling visuals, a head-spinning storyline and oddball characters that don't always conform to their presumed parameters, Snowpiercer is a film definitely in the vein of the works of the great Terry Gilliam, especially his 1985 landmark "Brazil."

Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power utilizes impactful interviews and captivating archival footage to demonstrate the county's culture and history as a representation of its importance in the Black Power movement.

The pacing works referentially to its namesake and real-time ambition, but the characters aren’t quite interesting or engaging enough to sustain attention for the whole runtime, and the film’s crawl eventually wears on weary knees.

This one stands out not only because it’s the fittingly agonizing climax to Wang’s trilogy but also for its sheer wealth of heartbreaking and totally convincing details.

Our Time Machine leaves you wanting a whole lot more, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Life After is a powerful movie that examines the political and social structures that surround and control people with disabilities, and comes to a conclusion that will spark many arguments.

A documentary that plays as cringe comedy. Like that sub-genre, it comes packaged with a star whose irascibility often leads to eye-covering levels of discomfort.

Stonewalling is a moving slow burn of a character study, as well as an examination of female stagnancy, personally and politically. There is a striking, human sense of suspense to the film as we worry for Lynn, and root for her to find her power.

The Tale of Silyan functions as a dialect between old-world wisdom and modern socioeconomic realities, between the natural realm and the worries of mankind; it’s both spiritual and humanist, about forgiveness and adaptability, and makes a case for holding on to what you’ve always known to fend off the illusion of progress.

Writer/director Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a sprawling, incident- and character-packed extravaganza that picks up at the end of “Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens” and guides the series into unfamiliar territory. It’s everything a fan could want from a “Star Wars” film and then some.

It asks a lot of us. In fact it asks us to set aside everything we've been conditioned to think movies are, and roll with a different way of seeing and hearing things, and connect.

It would be impossible not to be emotionally moved by this story, and in that way, The Rescue delivers. But between Vasarhelyi and Chin’s inability to speak with the boys or their families, and the documentary’s initially languid pacing, The Rescue feels like half a story told fairly well, but still, half a story.

Co-written by Rankin, Nemati, and Ila Firouzabadi, “Universal Language” is delightfully absurdist, with little moments in each story that both make sense yet defy expectations.

The Disappearance of Shere Hite feels like an epitaph and a reclamation of her legacy.

The situations in this scrupulous, compassionate, and quietly captivating picture, written and directed by Maryam Touzani, are tense, to be sure. But the movie itself doesn’t surrender to the tension. It depicts unruly passions as they stir the lives of circumspect characters.

Lo wants to make a point, obviously, but I came out of this picture with some questions. And I also thought of an observation made by the music critic Robert Christgau, a metaphorical point addressing a type of artistic preciousness: “If I found a cat trapped in a washing machine, I wouldn't set up a recording studio there—I'd just open the door.”

One of the essential documentaries on Hollywood.

Anchored by three of the best performances in a very long time and a graceful script from Jacobs himself, this is one of the finest films of the year, a movie that moves me so much that I can get emotional just thinking about it. Because it’s not just a showcase for powerhouse acting at its finest. Because it feels true in ways that movies about death are rarely allowed to be.

Custody plays like a more humanistic Michael Haneke film. It’s emotionally bruising but not without some glimmer of hope, personified here by a close-up of the preternaturally kind face of a 911 dispatcher.

Under the Shadow, a Farsi-language debut feature written and directed by Babak Anvari, creates a world where reality itself is suspect. In a year filled with great first features, add Under the Shadow to the list.

Even by Maddin's standards, it is a pretty wild ride in all aspects, starting with its very concept.

The Disciple is a great example of when filmmaking and acting styles complement each other, and it’s that bond that feels to be a significant part of what makes Tamhane’s film so special, so resonant.

Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi’s “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk” is not simply a documentary, but a poignant individual’s record. It is a reminder that every number we see on the news is a complex web of individuality. It’s historical sonder on screen.

There’s a core sweetness to “Between the Temples” that shines through. Gently but firmly, the film insists upon the miraculous nature of all the meandering paths we end up taking: in search of our lives, without a clue where we’re going, toward those who’ll give us meaning.

Wind is both benign and ominous.

But with his sophomore feature Limbo, a humanistic, tenderly deadpan plunge into the psyche of a Syrian refugee, Scottish writer/director Ben Sharrock sidesteps potential hazards like a patronizing tone and cultural insensitivity with deft, delivering something insightful, genuine, and universally relatable.

Bursting with humanity, grounded in humility, and in love with the poetry of faces, Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets is a classic indie film that will irritate or mystify some viewers while inspiring evangelical fervor in others.

"Cars" and its various derivatives aside, Pixar has never released a flat-out bad film. And this is a good one: pleasant and clever, with a generous heart, committed voice acting, and some of the kookiest images in Pixar history.

Terrestrial Verses, one of the most brilliant and provocative films to emerge from Iran recently, has qualities that link it to both the modernist formal traditions of post-1979 Iranian cinema and the more recent trend of social and political asperities aimed at the authoritarian repressiveness of the Islamic Republic.

The result, though not without flaws, is an invigorating and interesting observation of the man, his work and the entire medium of photography.

Rat Film is an odd and captivating experience, and its fluid style is its most distinguishing characteristic.

The Librarians is a documentary about the hysterical, unfounded, personal, and sometimes violent attacks on librarians. It is also about their unwavering commitment to making facts, literature, and inspiration available to anyone.

This is a good film, but change would be a much greater achievement. How much longer must we studiously document senseless suffering?

It doesn't move or feel like any other prison movie, or movie about theater students, that I've seen, and its commitment to the truth of its characters -- and of life itself -- is rare and precious.

20 Days in Mariupol, about the first 20 days of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, spares no one's sensibilities. It goes on a short list of great documentaries that the viewer will never want to watch again and likely won't need to because some of the images are so gruesome and the context so upsetting that they'll be burned into your memory.

While the film’s slightly bloated finale overpowers some of the leaner moments that come before it, Turning Red flickers with a bright feminine spirit, one that feels new, crimson-deep, and unapologetically rebellious.

As we tag along with Haroun’s characters, we learn to appreciate their story as a small, but vivid study of lives that are so much more than their progressive developments.

Several of To's recent films concern economic upheaval and its effect on personal relationships, but Office is one of his recent best because it makes something as dire as a financial crisis seem like a natural subject for a modern musical.

The dual nature of “Babi Yar. Context” as both an essay movie and a cut-up historic document might create an uneasy tension with viewers who would like to know more about whatever they’re looking at. If nothing else, Loznitsa succeeds at being upsetting.

Last seen in “Starred Up” and Angelina Jolie’s “Unbroken,” O’Connell continues to bring equal measures of toughness and vulnerability to his characters. Despite his good looks, there’s an everyman’s quality to him, which he uses to full effect in ’71.

In a sea of so much tragedy, it’s a marvel to stop and consider each individual’s experience fighting the tide.

A brilliant genre exercise, a cinematic study in tension, sound design, and how to make a thrilling movie with a limited tool box. The film’s own restrictions actually amplify the tension, forcing us into the confined space of its protagonist.

Of all of the things Tatiana Huezo captures in Prayers for the Stolen, her first narrative feature, the terror of the night is most unnerving.

Even without access to all that it references, I Wish I Knew functions as an admirable cinematic tone poem about a place and its times.

My own taste runs to different modes of poetic cinema, but I credit The Girl and the Spider for the seemingly paradoxical clarity of its mysterious vision.

Full Time looks and sounds like a nail-biting thriller and tells a story that many viewers will be able to relate to on an intensely personal level.

This is a frustrating documentary, in that it honors the work of its subject with wide-screen cinematography and leaves-crunching sound design, but as a viewing experience cannot shake the overall feeling of a dirge.

Predators often seems to be going for an Errol Morris-style, “What is the truth, and what does the word even mean?” approach that’s equally explanatory and philosophical. It succeeds a lot of the time, but other times seems to get bogged down in tangents that take it too far away from the central issues.

I found it compelling for its depiction of the mechanics of the current athletic scene and the triumphs and tragedies that occur along the way. It may not leave you cheering in the end, but it will give you something to think about the next time the Olympics come around.