This is a film we’ve never seen before: Syeed explores the heart of a rarely visited landscape, and the souls of the resilient Kashmiri people. This is an amazing film.

At first, it seems Carpet Cowboys, the debut documentary from co-directors Emily MacKenzie and Noah Collier, intends to merely tell the unsung story of this niche industry and the quirky artists, businessmen, and scientists who earn their living working in it. But the filmmakers use it as a launching pad to chart the deconstruction of the American Dream.

Chained for Life is more than a polemic. There's a free-floating absurdist mood established, humorous and self-referential, allowing space for the audience to not just feel, but think. This is no small feat.

The Other Side of the Wind is a very rich film and a very difficult one. I’ve seen it nearly three times now and what I intuit about the aspects of it that “work,” and those where the seams just show too nakedly shift all the time.

Hoppers is Pixar at its best, a story with warmth, humor, exciting action, endearing characters, and a reassuringly expansive notion of community.

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On will make your spirit soar and remind you to enjoy those you love, inhale a bit of fresh air, and respect the earth every second as though it were your very first time.

One of the essential documentaries on Hollywood.

With remarkable grace and compassion for his characters, Baumbach portrays divorce as a great equalizer, turning us into versions of ourselves we didn’t expect to become.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s golden, shimmering vision of the 1970s San Fernando Valley in Licorice Pizza is so dreamy, so full of possibility, it’s as if it couldn’t actually have existed.

It’s movies like these that prove that cinema still has the capacity to surprise, even in criminally goofy comedies like this.

The narrative, which is wonderfully told through a kind of archival collage that, along with the futuristic soundtrack of the profiled composers, makes it feel like an avant-garde art film.

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

Foster is masterful in evoking a child's point of view.

A slow burn, sometimes to a fault, I’m Your Woman proudly revives a type of old-fashioned cinema with something new to say.

Is the movie too adulatory? It is not the most subtly layered documentary I've ever seen, but these days it's no longer verboten to take a stance in docs. And there is so much to be admired about Hanna. Plus…if you've never seen some of those songs performed…it's electrifying.

While I’m not a parent myself, I can see how Like Father, Like Son would be a tough sit for any parent. Tough, but extremely worthwhile.

It is in no way a criticism to say that this is a solid, conventional film, skillfully made.

Though this is a story of enormous cultural importance and dramatic power, it’s virtually impossible to imagine today’s Hollywood making a movie about it.

This a super-Sorkiny Aaron Sorkin script — full of the kind of well-timed zingers and clever turns of phrase that never occur to us in real life.

If “Palestine 36” is indeed a filmic history lesson, it’s one worth sitting through. That a traditionally realized historical drama with impeccable production value and consistently effective performances centers the Palestinian perspective makes for an essential endeavor.

This is a beautifully conceived and executed chamber comedy/drama with tragedy at its core. Potter’s characters are committed to a better world even as they make their own modes of living completely dysfunctional.

Devotion walks the tightropes between discord and harmony, hard lessons and heroic triumphs, and full-throated allyship and useless white guilt with aplomb.

Nick Naveda's strong, smart script is based on the award-winning novel by Julia Walton. Adam is a perceptive and sympathetic character and director Thor Freudenthal brings us inside his perception of the world with striking visuals.

If there’s one misstep to “The Bone Temple,” it’s the ending, which features a cameo that alters the tenor of the picture’s emotional hostility.

Mitchell makes a very solid case that the Black cinema of the ‘70s was just as formative and influential as the white auteurs who so commonly define that revolutionary era.

In the end, [Cregger] wants to take you on a ride, and so he’s got to provide both hills and valleys, producing a horror film that’s equally hilarious and chilling.

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.

To be clear, “Kingdom” doesn’t have the answers. But you can bet your bottom dollar that this rare, deeply cinematic Hollywood franchise won’t stop digging until we get a little closer to knowing.

"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.

Italian drama Mia Madre is an either/or film, a humorous and poignant character study that frequently becomes an ensemble piece.

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.

It is an infuriating reality that The Hunting Ground exposes. I was rattled watching it, finding it hard to catch my breath and harder still to imagine how many people are in positions of power who have heard these stories so many times and turned their backs on victims.

The movie's major, perhaps only, fault is that its brilliant construction denies it the storytelling clarity and basic insights that conventional nonfiction films provide.

The dramatic, personal story of Colvin herself is absorbingly told here, largely because of Pike’s dynamic performance, showing us a woman who was courageous enough to risk her life for a story on a daily basis but remained vulnerable enough to make the stories viscerally compelling.

This is an exhilarating debut that courses with an all-enveloping urgency and life, even if you may occasionally want to look away.

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

More than an explainer of motives behind a single person mass shooting, Nitram is a character study wrapped in a tone poem, an unpacking of a man who feels like he has run out of all potential paths to happiness and believes that acts of violence spark action.

After the pure joy of the musical numbers, the best thing about this movie is that even with all of its abundance it leaves you wanting more.

Foumbi’s Our Father, The Devil manages to take overused themes like trauma and grief and imbue them with every facet of their respective meaning.

This is a fascinating piece of work that approaches “Citizenfour” in its deconstruction of governmental failure and the systems underneath the war on terror that are not only failing to keep us safe but impacting the entire world political scene.

The resilience in Scrapper is a type of lived creativity, an imaginative space where Georgie—and her father—make up their own rules and their own world. This is an amazing directorial debut.

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.

Because it is the first film to be released by Higher Ground, the production company formed by Barack and Michelle Obama that signed a highly publicized deal with Netflix, American Factory will no doubt find an audience far larger than the typical documentary focusing on the contemporary labor movement.

Ixcanul combines its fable-like plot with striking realism.

Intelligently conceived, beautifully executed and filled with surprisingly convincing performances all around... We Are What We Are is that rare horror film that could play at both arthouse and grindhouse theaters without seemingly out of place at either one.

The best thing about Welcome to Mercy is that its creators don't go for cheap thrills ... not many, anyway.

Dinner in America, written, directed, and edited by Adam Rehmeier, is a movie with anti-establishment anti-social quicksilver coursing through its veins, but at its heart it is a sweet love story, one of the sweetest in recent memory.

The film’s final scene is both charming and hilarious and puts a delightful ribbon on top of what the film’s opening so sneakily established.

Most modern sports movies feel a few years behind the story—purposefully nostalgic for a feel-good, motivational story. High Flying Bird feels like a product of the 2018-19 NBA season, which may not have a lockout but is dealing with the same issues.

What Trachtenberg seems to get about the Predator franchise, between “Prey” and this, is that the central appeal of the Predator is conceptual: How would we fare, we at the top of the food chain, if placed in competition with a hunter far more well-equipped than we?

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.

Super Dark Times has a deeply unnerving mood, more unnerving than "what happens."

This is a special movie. It has a life force unlike any other crime thriller I’ve seen. It’s about characters who suffer a personal failure but emerge transformed. It’s a violent movie, but not a cruel one, and unexpectedly moving by the end.

Avalon is often a warm and funny film, but it is also a sad one, and the final sequence is heartbreaking. It shows the way in which our modern families, torn loose of their roots, have left old people alone and lonely--warehoused in retirement homes. The story of the movie is the story of how the warmth and closeness of an extended family is replaced by alienation and isolation.

One of the most influential science fiction films that most people haven't seen, Jean-Luc Godard's 1965 Alphaville is a combination film noir, social satire and riff on tough-guy movies, set in a world of nearly nonstop night.

Similar to “Gravity” or “Avatar,” it offers viewers experiences that can only be seen in large scope storytelling, this one coming with the budget of NASA trips to the International Space Station.

There are so many ways to go wrong with this story, which we are told was inspired by an unidentified real father and son. Writer/director Uberto Pasolini does not let that happen, relying on the most ordinary details to take on greater and greater weight.

It draws us in with acutely observed details and relatable characters that portray universal conflicts, all with nuance and good humor.

What elevates Hide Your Smiling Faces is Carbone's gentle, lyrical touch where other filmmakers would have turned the same thematic concerns into melodrama.

Chainsaw Man The Movie: Reze Arc is a beautiful, bizarre, and poignant adaptation worthy of its source material.

The most enchanting thing about “ChaO” isn’t necessarily its hyperpoptimism, but the many little ways in which its breezy and arresting style reflects its creators’ lightly held Utopianism.

The Mermaid will make you laugh. It doesn't matter if you don't like subtitles. It doesn't matter if you've never heard of the director. It doesn't matter if you've never seen a Chinese movie in your life. It will make you laugh. Guaranteed.

Without making it blatant, this is a film that is obviously building to disaster, a story of a man who is the human iteration of one of his high-speed vehicles, just hoping not to crash.

While the documentary does conjure up the whole sex-drugs-rock ’n’ roll ethos of that fabled time with great flair and pungency, it also movingly probes the hazards and costs of the overindulgence and self-deceptions the era’s lures often entailed. In essence, it serves up the myth and a necessary corrective to it simultaneously.

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

The Pivens, who literally grew up together and made this as a passion project, have a shared vision, and a level of comfort and communication that brings sincerity and authenticity to the performances at every level.

Centering the character’s experience is pivotal to making the movie so effective, but when it deviates from those visual guidelines, it feels like it loses a touch of its power. As a trained actor with a camera on him throughout the entirety of the film, Poikolainen shoulders the task with a stoic grace and a sardonic wit.

Simply put, this is one of the craziest films to come along in a while and I can confidently say that anyone who sees it will either hail it is some kind of crackpot masterpiece or dismiss it as one of the silliest damn things they've ever seen.

One can sit back, relax, and enjoy 80 for Brady, understanding that nothing here makes sense in terms like “might happen” or even “should happen.” Just as all fairy tales should, this movie lives in the land of “wouldn’t it be wonderful.”

The archival footage Pollard uses has people saying the same things they’re saying today, and the same negative ideas are being thrown around in regard to the rights of Black and brown people.

Inspired in part by Saada’s own grandmother, the filmmaker infuses “Rose” with an infectious sense of joie de vivre. It’s a film about appreciating the small pleasures in life, like dancing alone in your kitchen while baking sweet treats for a lover.

Those who are willing to give it a chance—and that would include thoughtful teenagers who would respond to a film that approaches their lives in a serious and reasonably non-judgmental manner—are likely to find it as fascinating as I did.

Arrebato invokes cinema as an otherworldly entity that possesses, just as addictive and destructive as mind-altering substances injected into the bloodstream.

This is a tearjerker of a film but also a joyous one.

It is purposefully slow, a film meant to be lived in and considered carefully when it’s done. Almost none of it feels as “important” as my teacher explained and yet it is still great drama.

One of the most striking things about the movie is how it reveals the way in which all adult children feel forever small when contemplating the life experience of their parents: the brave or reckless choices, the beneficial and destructive outcomes, the redactions and blank spots, and the mysteries that will never be solved.

Kaphar’s film bloats its runtime, with a handful of conversations going back for seconds on a full stomach, but it still manages to be utterly moving, entrusting its cast completely with carrying its ideas to touching fruition.

As far as spin-offs go, “Lightyear” is a lot of fun. The voice talent is topnotch, especially Palmer and Evans.

Like classic military comedies from “Catch-22” to “M*A*S*H,” Talya Lavie’s Zero Motivation offers its own appealing blend of irreverence and absurdism.

A deliciously unstable comedy.

Braga has created a formidable force of nature in Clara.

Ultimately, Futuro Beach is a film about displacement and identity, love and its costs. Its considerable satisfactions, though, come mainly from the way the story is told, which spells nothing out, and in fact is so reticent that the viewer is constantly drawn into the creation of meaning.

The documentary features some archival footage, but its power lies in the vivid, heartfelt interviews with the surviving twins and Richter and her husband, who respond to sensitive and sympathetic questions from filmmakers Perri Peltz and Matthew O’Neill.

Robert Browning promised that old age would be "the last of life for which the first is made." But in Some Kind of Heaven, a documentary about a retirement community with a population the size of New Haven, we see that for better and worse and despite the best efforts of all involved, the last of life is filled with many of the same uncertainties, conflicts, loneliness, and fears of all the other ages.

A more audacious film, bolder and more violent than its predecessor. It’s also surprisingly hilarious, wringing humor from physical pratfalls and dry wit in unexpected moments.

Suffice to say that in the end, “Presence” is less of a horror movie or even a traditional ghost story than a drama about personal morality, responsibility, self-inquiry, and personal evolution, told from the perspective of someone who’s not alive anymore.

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.

Tsang has made a small, affecting, and studiously minimalist film here, with lived-in and tactile visual and design elements signaling a major auteur in the making.

Nina Conti’s delightfully crude and disarmingly heartwarming directorial debut, “Sunlight,” adds an intriguing hook to the two-wayward-souls-on-a-road-trip subgenre.

It's so bombastic that it makes "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice" seem modest.

Melodically vital and bracingly frank, Questlove’s uptempo Sundance documentary “Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)” is a sonic kick to the soul.

The Cathedral marries form to content in a striking way.

Thankfully, Eileen doesn't betray its source material by turning Eileen into something more palatable and sympathetic, but the film loses something in the transfer.

For all the nostalgia that comes with seeing David pop in a VHS tape, the movie’s time period allows Stevenson to focus our attention on the horror emitting from just one screen.

Huerta is such a commanding figure, and the array of historical footage marshalled on behalf of her story is so impressive, that the film makes a strong impression.

It feels immediate and rings true, thanks to the performances of its lead actors, and the storytelling of director Yen Tan and his co-writer, co-editor. and cinematographer, the single-named Hutch.

Queen & Slim is not interested in "neutral tints" either. Or "understatement." I appreciated the "big mood" of it all, even in those sequences that don't quite work. I responded strongly to the film's sense of scope and scale. The "rhetoric" of Queen & Slim reverberates with anger and love and mourning.

The superhero power of this movie comes from its endearingly offbeat characters, goofy humor, and gentle insights about finding optimism even when things go wrong.