The wisdom of this meticulously crafted film is in its genuine irony, which amplifies steadily throughout until culminating in a moment of real heartbreak that, ironically enough, only sets the stage for a cycle of deceit to begin again.

It’s an unflinching depiction of life in a vulnerable city, a place where innocents are constantly under attack, and the few people doing their best to protect it.

“Vol. 2” avoids many of the flaws of the first movie, and does several things notably better. It’s fun, clever and a great kick-off to the summer movie season.

This is Smith's show, and it's all about the writing here, with Smith serving more as a town crier, an information delivery device in human form.

For far too long, nothing especially creepy or unsettling happens on screen.

It’s not involving; it’s not scary; it’s just kind of miserable.

Small Crimes works in part but is strangely murky in others. There's a lot of dead air. It's the pettiness, the small-ness of the characters that makes the greatest impression.

The real draw of Natasha is without a doubt its young, charismatic lead Gordon, who portrays an emotionally tarnished young woman’s complex journey with a cool kind of unaffectedness. She effortlessly brings out the best and most mysterious in Bezmozgis’ unassuming little film.

In the long list of movies about death, this is one of the most original in recent memory, if for its emotional delicacy in sparing us hollow, tear-gushing grandiosity, and for its attitude on life: In most movies about grief, you are waiting for the characters to cry. This is a marvelous story about loss in which you are waiting for them to laugh.

It’s a movie that puts the viewer into a bad dream, and is very canny in dispensing the keys to unlock the meanings of that dream — and in strategically withholding some of those keys.

Whereas crime docs typically seek to offer everything that is known about a crime, Casting JonBenet proves how little we will ever understand about that night.

It’s an auspicious debut from this up-and-coming filmmaker, who once worked as a receptionist for J.J. Abrams’ production company, Bad Robot.

How to Be a Latin Lover all too quickly devolves into a nearly two-hour slog showcasing Mexican comedy superstar Eugenio Derbez’s attempt to seduce U.S. audiences with a cheesy bilingual spoof of an ethnic stereotype long past its expiration date.

Has a lot of good ideas and a few engrossing sequences, but it never quite finds a groove, or even a mode, and it ends in an abrupt, unsatisfying way.

The fascinations of Obit, Vanessa Gould’s slick but entertaining documentary about the New York Times obituary department, operate on two levels.

This movie won an award in the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes last year, and was also Finland’s entry for consideration for a 2016 Academy Award. For all that, I should warn some readers that this is a movie that’s laid back to what many would consider a fault.

Dumont's characters' motives are consequently hard to divine, despite convincingly twitchy performances from French actors Fabrice Luchini and Juliette Binoche. So while I do recommend Slack Bay, I must warn you: this is a misanthropic comedy that features cannibalism, weird religious overtones, and a lot of goony pratfalls.

Fernando Coimbra’s Sand Castle offers too little to the War is Hell genre to be noteworthy.

While Tramps may be inspired and unusual, it’s hard to shake off the idea that Leon isn't just making the film he wants to see, he's riffing on himself.

One of the strongest aspects of The Student is that, while its view of Venya’s beliefs is decidedly skeptical, it doesn’t ridicule him or suggest that others are immune to his Biblical zealotry.

The movie hits its cinematic stride, as it happens, when events are at their worst. The Promise is drenched in production value and replete with ravishing shots of sunrises and sunsets, but it’s in the scenes of fleeing, of battle, and of horrendous loss that the film is at its most effective. The depiction of the savagery inflicted on Armenia is bracing.

The film patly confirms what "The Lion King" already taught '90s kids: we should take comfort in knowing that everything in life is natural when seen as part of the "circle of life," as surprisingly effective voiceover narrator John Krasinski reminds us.

There’s trash, and then there’s good trash. Unforgettable falls into the latter category. Slick, glossy and radiating juicy villainy, it knows exactly what kind of movie it is and goes for it with giddy abandon.

Free Fire is neither the best nor the worst of the Tarantino wannabes; at its worst, it's tediously unoriginal, and at its best, it's funny and reasonably involving.

An utterly lifeless and profoundly unoriginal animated effort that is desperately lacking the very thing in its title.

It takes its stylistic cues from a variety of sources, including German expressionism (particularly the frequent silhouettes) and "A Charlie Brown Christmas."

It is a movie for golf enthusiasts, pure and simple.

This documentary directed by Lydia Tenaglia is a conspicuously imperfect movie that turns more compelling after trying your patience, then yields a final half-hour that’s as engrossing as a finely-wrought suspense drama.

Heal the Living is director Katell Quillévéré's third feature, and shows her humane vision of the interconnectedness of humans and the fragile miracle of life. The plot comes straight out of any hospital-based episodic, but it's Quillévéré's approach that is so unique, and ultimately, so powerful.

In Richard Gere’s deft, veteran hands, Norman Oppenheimer is consistently, completely fascinating. You may not be able to root for him, but you can’t help but feel for him.

It is grounded, and made most exemplary, by Cynthia Nixon’s performance. Every actor in this movie is wonderful. But Nixon’s precision in portraying every particular mood of Emily — for each individual scene calls for absolute specificity — is simply spectacular.

Little Boxes doesn’t manage to summon as much unique insight into prejudice as screenwriter Annie Howell and director Ron Meyer probably expected to achieve. But what keeps their movie watchable is that Lynskey, Ellis and Jackson are completely believable as a loving family unit.

Chasing Trane streamlines the story of the jazz saxophonist, but it does so in a way that doesn’t feel like cheating. Scheinfeld’s approach is to give the viewer the forest, point out a few trees and get out, confident that those trees will inspire the viewer to spend more time in the forest.

Those who don't know anything about the tale going in (a category that included me) might be gobsmacked by what happens. The order of events doesn't stick to any established commercial movie template. What happens feels as random yet eerily inevitable as life itself.

The Fate of the Furious distinctly drops the level of quality in this series for the first time this decade.

The film's short-comings are especially upsetting since Schwarzenegger is actually rather good in the film, and proves once again that, despite a severely limited range, he knows how to brood.

This is a modestly scaled B-movie by one of the best genre filmmakers of our time, Walter Hill, that has enough skill and personality going for it to make it worth checking out, even if it doesn’t quite live up (or down, depending on your perspective) to its borderline sleazy premise.

If Gifted works for you as it did me, it’s mostly because of the cast, but also the way the story unpeels.

Every time that Mine threatens to come apart under its own pretensions (which is relatively often), Hammer does something subtle and believable to ground it.

Salt and Fire is fundamentally bad, in its filmmaking and expressiveness, whether there is any meaning to a parrot quoting Nostradamus or not.

Ends up being an emotionally empty, thematically ill-defined, and listless affair. It is never able to communicate the complexity of the woman at its center.

While Smurfs: The Lost Village may not be better or more entertaining, the acknowledgment that it is aiming solely for the kiddie audience this time around at least makes it slightly more palatable than its predecessors.

Knowing how it all ends is the main problem with a lot of gambling movies, and Win It All is no exception.

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.

This movie feels as if somebody woke from an intense nightmare, decoded it and realized it was rather unsubtly working through some of their unresolved issues, then brought it to Judd Apatow and said, "Here's your next comedy."

The comedy is bigger, the supporting players are wackier and the antics move to the bouncy beat of an incessantly perky soundtrack.

Despite the care put into the story and its heavy themes, Live Cargo has no emotional impact.

Nighy is never less than splendid.

It’s a beautiful, captivating piece of work that gets off to kind of a rocky start but achieves remarkable momentum toward an emotional, powerful ending. And you won’t see a better-looking animated film all year.

This cockeyed, oblique attempt to get closer to the worldview of David Lynch — one of American cinema’s finest oddities — is a compelling slice of cinephile inquiry.

The entire thing feels like it's happening underwater, sound distorted, movements impeded. A lot happens, but without any urgency inspiring it.

Johnson keeps it all moving at a decent clip, though, with the help of Michael Penn’s score. And she photographs Powley and her mesmerizing blue eyes so lovingly that it’s hard not to find her adorable—even when she’s being awful.

Full of dazzling images that suggest a rich, profound narrative the film is never able to achieve.

Cézanne et Moi is at its most intoxicating whenever it looks and acts like a landscape painted by its title 19th-century French artist.

The effort is noble, to give Bishop a chance to tell her story, however compromised its framing and end product might be, but it leaves a lot of unanswered questions.

No wonder the lean, 79-minute running time of All This Panic is not a liability: Gage makes each minute boldly and deeply matter.

Much like any child, even a supposedly surefire nugget of an idea requires careful nurturing. In this case, The Boss Baby often tries too hard and succeeds too little.

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

The small but wonderfully rich details of the film invite us in: the trembling of a wrinkled cheek, the arch of an eyebrow, the flicker of a candle, and especially the superbly evocative sound design.

As Antonina, though, Chastain seems bound up as an actress, held back in creating a character mainly by the demands of doing a Polish accent.

American Anarchist presents us with a young man who believed he was living in the apocalypse, and whose book has gone on to have an apocalyptic effect on society.

Only worthwhile storytellers could take an elevator pitch like this one (the last two people on Earth) and produce long-lasting curiosity about its inherent beauty and horror.

Lowe's attempts at getting into anti-heroine Ruth's head are largely unsuccessful, though her performance is sometimes effectively hysterical.

Tomas Weinreb and Petr Kazda’s film, on the other hand, narrates a true-life crime but fails to provide an element that might’ve lifted it above tasteful art-house ordinariness—an engaging point of view.

I Called Him Morgan evokes times and places, and the sorrows and joys of the jazz life in those times and places, with real integrity.

While Wilson peters out at the end, one can’t totally dismiss a movie that gets away with a visual “Umberto D” joke and showcases probably the worst tramp-stamp tattoo ever.

This is an uncommonly smart, well-made and ultimately touching meditation on grief, revenge and the ordinary perils of adolescence that should resonate strongly with adults and thoughtful teenagers alike.

Through it all, a few performances actually increase the disappointment, for one wishes they were in a better film. Leo is perfect casting as a woman whose acerbic personality helped define her.

This isn't a knowing parody of a beloved show, a la the 2012 reboot/parody "21 Jump Street"; it's a sample of the brain-dead entertainment against which its creators are supposedly reacting.

Life struck me as several cuts above “meh” but never made me jump out of my seat.

A Woman, a Part mixes passion and ambivalence to create a work with ambiguities that seem earned, and lived in.

Loud, trashy, sweet and weird, the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers reboot Power Rangers is not merely an ideal film for rambunctious and undemanding 12-year olds, it actually sees the world through their eyes.

As for Paxton, he enters the story with an edge, establishing the authority and revealing sensitivity of a single father with a powerful job. It’s not a career-topping role by any means but it is a reminder of how the late actor could take on a role with sincerity and breathe some type of life into it.

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

This reasonably engaging picture is being pushed as a kind of diversity-prioritizing indie comedy as opposed to the YA film it really is, for reasons not entirely clear to me.

I found myself captivated by The Devil's Candy because of how well Embry conveys his character's angst-y struggle to understand himself.

The first Malick film I’ve watched where the dots never came together to form a legible image.

While it is far from Ozon’s worst movie, it is perhaps the first one he's made that feels like it could be the work of any other director.

The characters could have embodied traits of typical office drones and managers, turning the film into a savage black comedy. But those elements aren't developed beyond a point, making the movie's only selling point its excessive gore and violence.

If you long for the gritty charms of mid-‘90s indie cinema in general and “Trainspotting” specifically, T2 Trainspotting gives you exactly that. And by “exactly,” we really do mean “exactly.”

This “Beauty” presents a far more inclusive view of the world. One that is awash with a sense of hope and connection that we desperately need right now. If you desire an entertaining escape from reality right about now, be my guest.

While Suntan is more than just a tale about an older man becoming involved with a younger woman, it's unfortunately not as profound when it later claims to be a statement on the movie you think you're watching.

This Beautiful Fantastic is not meant to be realistic. It's supposed to be a fairy tale. That's fine, but it's a very low-stakes fairy tale, wrapped in a strained garden metaphor.

This Louis Theroux-starring film belongs to the Michael Moore school of docu-making, in which much hinges on the personal viewpoint and observational wit of the on-camera investigator.

Upon taking in the gorgeousness — and it is really something; the production design of this movie, by Luca Tranchino, is exceptional (as is Daniel Aranyó’s cinematography, which shines when he’s shooting in the natural world) —Lillie observes, “It’s like being inside God’s thoughts.”

A somber and derivative relationship drama.

Not to sound derisive, but there’s definitely a target audience here. What they’ll get will be mildly satisfying: a film that’s well-acted but tastefully restrained to a fault, with gentle humor about aging and a central mystery that isn’t all that engaging.

Burning Sands, Gerald McMurray's feature filmmaking debut, is one of the fresher entries, thanks mainly to its setting: a historically black fraternity on a historically black campus like Howard, the university where the co-writer and director got his degree.

Well, if there’s one positive thing to say about Brimstone, it’s that it doesn’t lack for lunatic ambition.

It should be required viewing for everyone in a position of power worldwide, especially those who would choose to enable genocide and stigmatize those who flee it.

They (Assayas/Stewart) have managed to out-do themselves with a work as mysterious, moving and haunting as anything that has materialized in a movie theater in a while.

It may not sound like it on the surface, but Raw is absolutely a celebration of female power — of realizing who you are, what you want and how to go after it, albeit with brutally bloody results.

Indian melodrama Rangoon somehow manages to be emotionally resonant despite being overstuffed. This is no small feat given how many different genres, tones, and characters this film juggles.

It’s a fantastic piece of observational filmmaking about a small town on the edge of Texas and three of the men who live there.

The monsters are brilliantly designed and skillfully animated (except for a few shots where Kong looks a tad cartoony), and the army of visual and sound effects artists convince you that that these CGI titans live and breathe and weigh hundreds of tons.

Whatever its limitations, though, The Settlers provides a vivid primer on a situation that looks inherently tragic.

Though the picture is admirable on a conceptual level, its execution is incoherent, interminable and a colossal strain on the eyes.

Blood-soaked Indonesian martial arts flick Headshot is for anyone who liked "The Bourne Identity," but wished it were way more violent.