Mangrove becomes a full-on courtroom drama. The standard, expected beats and tropes are hit, but what happens within those elements makes the film so powerful and so rewarding. The lead actors also step up their game here, with each getting juicy dramatic moments that linger long after the credits roll.

Fessenden’s prickly sense of humanism makes a considerable difference in Depraved, his engrossing take on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and maybe his best movie to date.

You’d think we would be Emma-ed out by now. Not so. The new adaptation, starring Anya Taylor-Joy, and directed by Autumn de Wilde, is here, and it’s wonderful!

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.

A film of uncommon restraint and considerable compassion. It presents a seemingly helpless situation and focuses on the tiny, fleeting moments of regret, resentment, reconciliation, hope, loyalty and love within and between these characters.

Custody plays like a more humanistic Michael Haneke film. It’s emotionally bruising but not without some glimmer of hope, personified here by a close-up of the preternaturally kind face of a 911 dispatcher.

This is a movie that doesn't merely tell a gripping, important story, but reminds us that the storyteller and the storytelling matter just as much.

The Witch, a feminist narrative that focuses on an American colonial family as they undergo what seems to be an otherworldly curse, is more like a sermon.

This is the kind of film that tells its story well while simultaneously showing the joy of the creative act, in Bravo's filmmaking, yes, but also in Zola's decision to take to Twitter and tell her story in the first place.

One of the more striking and effective horror pictures of recent years.

Blinded by the Light, at its very best, captures the experience of being a fan, the pure exhilaration of it, and the sense of your vision opening out to vistas beyond your horizon.

What begins as a thorny meet-cute turns into the longest unofficial first date ever, unfolding into a survey of the difficulty of moving on and the joy of quick connection. Rye Lane is a playful rom-com for the modern age.

"Sujo" is a direct, unvarnished window into the near inescapable pressure of cyclical violence.

No Sudden Move is like watching a musician return to the themes and ideas explored throughout a career but with the renewed insight that comes after decades of success.

While “Souleymane’s Story” throws many roadblocks in this Guinean man’s way, it’s pretty clear where we’re heading. And while that predictability does slightly undermine the weightiness of the journey, the ending, a cathartic revelation, is granted immeasurable pathos due to Sangaré’s overwhelming openness as an actor.

A wildly ambitious and frequently fascinating film that moviegoers of all ages should find both entertaining and provocative in equal measure.

The sprawling scope of The Traitor is a big part of its dryly funny (though never in a ha-ha kind of way) appeal, and that takes some getting used to.

With robust direction in an incredibly confined space and Laurent’s phenomenal work, Oxygen should feel like a breath of fresh air for people looking for something to watch on Netflix. (Sorry.)

This vertiginous valentine to high-altitude sport attempts to portray, in the most poetic of terms, why mankind feels the need to defy gravity by painstakingly clawing its way into the upper reaches of the atmosphere while risking life and limb.

A sharply crafted drama that has elements of noirish suspense, the Danish-Swedish coproduction, which is distinguished by exceptionally fine performances by its three leading actors, offers an incisive, penetrating look at the psychological disorientation and dilemmas of people caught between cultures.

Panahi can’t help but flaunt optimism wherever he sees it — he lets it rise above it all despite the odds.

Set in Argentina in 1980, Azor is a quiet, unhurried, un-flashy film, and that's what makes it unnerving. You come away from it feeling that you've been given a greater understanding of how authoritarian power-grabs happen.

A film like State Funeral is a warning. History has lessons for us about what does, and does not, work, in politics, in leadership, in culture itself. We would do well to listen. We would do well to watch.

It features Cody’s hyper-verbal brand of snark, cynicism and subtle poignancy, but it’s tinged with the wistful perspective that comes from hard-earned maturity and experience.

This is heavy material, to be sure, but it’s not without dark humor.

Jinn holds several beautiful elements, especially in its central mother-daughter story.

The satisfactions of José as a whole offers are considerable, and they begin with the human element. Like the Italian neorealist classics from which it descends, the film has a keen appreciation for the lives of people who maintain a stubborn dignity and resolve under the challenges of poverty and other hardships.

Children absorb everything, good and bad, all the stresses, heartbreak, anxiety of the adults around them. Children can handle the difficult things. Oyelowo knows this and respects it.