The drama Dom Hemingway explores involves a vicious lout finding a form of redemption, and while that's an all-too conventional scenario, Shepard's movie plays it out in a brisk, inventive fashion and delivers a moviegoing experience that's almost equal parts stingingly sharp and genuinely sweet.

Swank’s straightforward directness as an actor is just right for the plain-spoken, determined Sharon, who just might inspire some of us ordinary folks to try to be more.

Swanberg finds a pleasingly low-key tone throughout the film, which (blissfully) is especially true during the kinds of moments that usually are played for wacky laughs in pregnancy comedies.

It's suspenseful, but also hilarious.

Writer and director Ekwa Msangi constructs this nontraditional narrative with an attention to detail for each of these characters. Just as important as their conversations is their body language and how it shifts around one another.

If you go into a Herzog documentary hoping for a definitive, deep look at a certain subject, you're bound to come away disappointed. But if you go into them expecting a series of portraits of obsessed people, each painted by one of the most likable obsessives in cinema, you're likely to come away satisfied.

Eggers’ brand of psychological shock is bolder here than his prior works and potent in bursts, but barely works on boldness alone.

I’m not sure the ending lands, and some of the tonal jumps could have been refined, but there’s so much movie here to unpack and discuss.

As comedy, the events are more often charming than funny; even when some sequences fall flat, they show a dedication to the surrealism that’s charismatic.

Fighter never strays far from the path that other movies like it have previously charted, but it still delivers most of what it promises.

The Signal continues to get weirder, and creepier, and to bring up unusual questions for the viewer.

In a sense, the weirdest thing about Gimme Danger is how not weird it is.

Ultrasound is a beautiful sci-fi indie that shows us why the horrors of the future may not be so far away, and how our identity is memory.

Guy Ritchie's The Gentlemen plays like a tall tale, a yarn heard at the corner pub, filled with exaggerations and embellishments, where the storyteller expects you to pay his bar tab at the end. And maybe you won't mind doing so.

One of those quick-witted films in which if one character or plot thread doesn’t work for you, all you have to do is wait a minute for another.

While Own the Room succeeds at offering a captivating look at its incredible subjects, it also avoids more complicated questions about how we can best support young people and help them achieve their dreams.

Frustrating but engrossing, and impossible to critique in-depth without spoilers because it's driven by regular plot twists, I Am Mother adds another memorable creation to an already packed gallery of intelligent science fiction robots that are as complex as most humans.

It wants to scare the hell out of you, and it does that quite effectively with several serious jumps. About a half-dozen times, I’d say, Whannell creates moments that are legitimately surprising and frightening because he uses silence so well in contrast.

It’s a reminder of how good the director of “United 93” and “Captain Philips” can be at transporting us to unimaginable circumstances, and it plays like a truly phenomenal disaster movie that happens to be true, one of those flicks you almost always watch the last hour of if you catch it on cable.

A Hard Day has a breakneck pace that allows one to easily dismiss the more ridiculous, downright nonsensical aspects of its plot. Only occasionally will the eyes roll. For the most part, it works.

Just the Two of Us is not clever, self-important, or stylistically overt. This is a story, well told.

Not unlike “Mandy,” some of both halves feel self-indulgent, and I’m not sure Apostle quite justifies its 130-minute running time, but you have to say this about it: It’s like nothing else you could include in your annual Halloween horror marathon this year.

By Sidney Lumet won’t just make you want to revisit his works but reappreciate the role of a great director in cinema.

Korem doesn’t uncover too much that’s new, but more than three decades later, he gives key players the opportunity to share their memories and perspectives. The passage of time provides frank reassessments—some tragic, some humorous.

It is true that no movie can tell the full story of a man’s life. But movies like this one can tell us something important about our own.

Directors Leslye Davis and Catrin Einhorn present the film in an intimate, unobtrusive, understated style. They have the luxury of time so everyone on screen is completely relaxed and open, seemingly forgetting the cameras are there. Spending years with the family gives the story additional scope and depth.

The result is a story that’s hair-raisingly watchable and frequently moving, regardless of what you believe you might already know of Wilson’s life.

A well-observed and patiently told story, with one good scene after another, featuring amazing performances across the board, but particularly from newcomer Josh Wiggins.