Most filmmakers barely know how to capitalize on Dawson’s talents other than to fill up the screen with her goddess-like beauty. But Rock treats her single mom who boasts a checkered romantic past along with strong opinions as an equal sparring partner.

The climax of Godland feels conclusive in ways that the rest of Pálmason’s mystery play does not, making one wish that there was an extra hour or two between its beginning and the very end.

There's so much detail and such a clear sense of dramatic proportion that it almost doesn't matter that the movie doesn't resolve itself traditionally or with a full stop. You can still get a clear sense of how time moves for the workers in Zhili in "Youth (Homecoming)" without necessarily knowing what comes next.

What this film may lack in terms of visual flamboyance, it more than makes up for in telling its simple and direct story with a raw, emotional power that doesn't need lavish spectacle in order to get its point across.

I had some minor quibbles about Coco while I was watching it, but I can’t remember what they were. This film is a classic.

Lisa Cortés uses the Big Bang as a visual motif throughout, with stars and galaxies exploding, hurtling out into the darkness. It is an apt analogy.

A daring, studied, mannered true story that is at once remarkably genuine and deeply cinematic at the same time. It’s one of the best films of the year.

Pixar might have uncovered the mysteries of our brains with “Inside Out.” But Aardman knows its way around our funny bones.

Lush melodramas are a dying breed, especially masterful ones like Karim Aïnouz’s Invisible Life that wear Douglas Sirkian genre conventions on their sleeve proudly and abundantly.

Boesten’s picture leaves viewers contemplating all that they have been unwilling to forgive, and all that could be achieved once that baggage has been thrust from their shoulders.

In the end Foxcatcher proves impossible to embrace because of fundamental miscalculations in performance, direction and makeup, along with a certain clumsiness in the way that it tries to use its profoundly sad story to make some kind of grand statement about American values, or the lack thereof.

The melancholy that falls over this chapter is hard to shake but its tempered slightly by the love Gomes has for his characters, bad habits, ingrained sadness and all.

Demme’s concert films aren’t just recordings of events—they’re cinematic embodiments of their musicians, capturing in a moment an energy that transcends time.

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.

Gutnik keeps the film’s narrative progression steady and unsettled, positioning his film as a ground-level dispatch from the conflict’s frontlines.

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.

There are two movies in Jackie, Pablo Larraín's film about Jackie Kennedy (Natalie Portman) immediately before, during and after the assassination of her husband, President John F. Kennedy. One of these movies is just OK. The other is exceptional. The first one keeps undermining the second.

Gottlieb (the director) uses a very light touch throughout. This is a family affair.

To its mild detriment, Beginning stays on a cerebral plane even at its most ravaging and emotionally intense. But in its muted havoc lies a potent intellectual laceration.

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.

Despite the compact running time, it is easy to feel that you have come to know—and likely admire—Elizabeth Murray. So, mission accomplished.

It’s a series of comedic sketches about people who are too self-involved to empathize with each other. It’s also a plaintively blunt wake-up call, and an effective demand for viewers' vigilant sensitivity.

Coupled with the talents of cinematographer Ludovica Isidori and music by Rob Rusli, Ford’s Test Pattern is an engrossing human drama, one that examines the intersections and inequalities between race, gender, and healthcare in a poignant and powerful way.

Mungiu doesn’t traffic in easy hero and villain narratives. He’s more interested in revealing how easily anyone can be both.

Inherent Vice is a film about a stoner which itself seems stoned. This is just one small part of what makes it distinctive.

Although unintentionally funny throughout, its evocation of life in a totalitarian society is ultimately chilling. The happy picture the North Koreans struggle to present implies unfathomable depths of violence to the human spirit beneath its glossy surface.

With its frequent dramatizations, zippy editing, and song-driven soundtrack, Three Identical Strangers may be said to indulge in the most potentially egregious of mainstreaming devices used in contemporary documentaries. Yet because the story itself is so, well, juicy, and the subjects one-time pop culture phenoms, the approach feels acceptable if not entirely “right.”

It’s a profoundly Catholic work, whose slippery sense of sin and living instils great confusion and consternation to those occupying the narrative’s solemn monastery setting.