Mister Organ gives good reason to think that Farrier has never encountered such a narcissist before, which makes this film significant as a ruthless cautionary portrait, however much it may be a visceral flashback for others. If you know anyone with Michael's aura, if someone makes you feel like this unforgettable movie does, this is your sign to run.

It is sweet without being sugary, colorful, and very charming, with terrific voice talent and a lot of music. It’s the best of the three.

28 Years Later is a deeply earnest film, a picture whose sincerity is initially off putting until it’s endearing.

By and large, though, Only the Animals is an effectively convincing slow-burn thriller that marks the welcome return of Moll, who first made a splash with the wickedly entertaining thriller With a Friend Like Harry.

Loud, smart and ferociously committed to its premise, and it leaves an intriguingly bitter aftertaste.

Starred Up is HEAVY with slang and accents. You won’t understand a third of it. But there’s so much going on in between the lines of dialogue that you won’t care.

Its lessons about how kindness and inclusion benefit both the giver and the receiver are welcome, but its gentle reminder to view even the oldest and best-known story with fresh attention and connection may be even more meaningful.

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.

While it does profile the work of brilliant dancer, the film also contains two complex and moving love stories as well an account of a physically devastating tragedy followed by an extraordinary tale of struggle and survival.

This potentially maudlin stuff is elevated by the work of all of the actors. What matters here is not just what is being said, but the emotions underneath.

Limbo is entirely engrossing as it brings its discomfiting points home.

Miranda, who starred as Larson in a theatrical performance of this play, directs the film with a deep understanding of the passion, struggle, and ebullience of an artist committed to an art form that requires a lot of money and a lot of other people to be brought to life.

It works. It really works. It's goodhearted and clever, and it knows when to end.

Tigertail floats back and forth between the present and the past, an effective device that creates comparisons, often painful, between Pin-Jiu's hopes as a young man and the disappointments and hardships of the years following.

Çatak and co-writer Johannes Duncker have tapped into a largely unexplored subcategory of the thriller, one with unlimited potential to illuminate everyday life.

Cave's soulful performance, shot in real-time and in extreme close-up, is that much more impressive once you realize he's playing a song for Forsyth and Pollard before he's performed it in front of a live audience.

Power Ballad is a movie that constantly surprises you by plucking chords of hope from a heartbreaking narrative.

There is so much earth-shattering bravery on display in the miraculous Sabaya that you wonder how the Swedish-Kurdish director Hogir Hirori managed to pull off a documentary that avoids showy, predictable notes of brouhaha throughout.

“Copperfield” is a grand, long novel, and in reducing it to 120 minute scale, Iannucci has hewn it to something almost anecdotal.

Night Moves eschews traditional tension-building through plot twists and betrayals to focus on its characters, as Reichardt uses her increasingly impressive sense of composition and intuitive pacing to slow burn the audience into a state of anxiety instead of manipulatively pushing them there.

Hokum rises above so many films like it because it takes its character’s plight seriously, never winking at the audience, even as the impossible happens.

John Carney has a humorous and loving eye for detail, an intuitive ear for dialogue, and the film is extremely personal in a way that is universal.

The film has an engrossing and powerful drama that is all the more effective for writer/director Vivian Qu’s refusal to keep the story from spinning off into lurid melodrama — all of the story points on display have the harsh bitterness of truth to them.

If anyone is concerned about the way women are presented on the big screen these days, just look at how an evolved male like Hiccup respectfully treats his girlfriend Astrid (America Ferrera) and the portrayal of Blanchett’s Valka.

Yeoh is the anchor of the film, given a role that showcases her wide range of talents, from her fine martial art skills to her superb comic timing to her ability to excavate endless depths of rich human emotion often just from a glance or a reaction.

Yes, The Death of Stalin is a kind of farce, but it’s a mordant one. It never asks us to laugh at cruelty; it does make us laugh at the absurd pettiness and ultimate small-mindedness of the men perpetrating that cruelty. And Iannucci is a superb ringmaster.

So really, what's great about "Master Z" isn't the way that its creators transcend their chosen formula, but rather how they perfect it.

The Spanish maestro knows precisely how to get all the colors out of his charismatic muse, and in turn, the veteran star takes his material and makes it feel both fiery and grounded.