Ripstein, who began his long career working with the maestro Luis Buñuel, has his one-time mentor’s post-idealistic anger but doesn’t adopt an insouciantly ironic mode to filter it through; his perspective is determined but never detached.

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 is a solid, intelligent, occasionally inspired comic book movie that delivers most of what a popular audience demands from the genre (including interstellar voyages and massively scaled action sequences) plus a little bit more.

What’s remarkable is how Alexandra Pelosi, shooting much of the footage herself with a handheld camera, captures images that resonate on multiple provocative levels following the events of recent months.

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.

Comedy being what it is, your mileage may vary, but for me the pure candy-colored exuberant silliness of Barb and Star didn't just make me laugh. It provided solace, too.

Citizen K is skillfully made, with a compelling story, or really stories.

A digitally restored version arrives in spectacular fashion with its mixture of bold imagery and biting wit.

Baldwin's voice as a writer comes through powerfully anyway. It was wise to have Jackson read Baldwin's words plainly in his own voice, rather than attempt an impersonation.

With stunning performances from two completely genuine young leads, this is a movie people will talk about all year.

It’s a powerful piece of work with poetic direction and incredible work from Krieps, an actress who increasingly feels like she’s never going to miss.

Bonello knows exactly when he's said just enough, and that makes the experience of watching Nocturama more engaging.

The greatest tribute to this tribute to Ashby is that this movie will add “Shampoo,” “Coming Home,” “Harold and Maude,” “The Last Detail,” “Being There,” and his other films to at lot of watch lists and Netflix queues.

Defa’s film aligns with the notion that it’s how a story is told--how it feels--and not just what it is about. And there is so much to feel from his take on dysfunction, including how it presents siblings who can sing and dance in unison but are not friends.

[Costa's] outsider perspective gives no warmth of familiarity, only the startling realization of what they have accomplished so far and what remains ahead for a democracy trying to regain its footing.

My Golden Days exists simultaneously within and outside of its characters' headspace, a testament to Deplechin's powers of imaginative sensitivity.

Watching the scientists research the mysteries of humpback whales is an inspiring tribute to the power of curiosity, purpose, and the triumphant joy of adding one more piece to the jigsaw puzzle of knowledge.

The extraordinarily assured feature film debut by writer-director and standup comedian Bo Burnham, starts out with one of these videos and it is so touchingly real, so embarrassingly true to life, you might swear it was improvised, or found footage. But it's not. This is Elsie Fisher, a 13-year-old actress herself, amazingly in touch with what it's like to be in the stage of life she's actually in.

After Earth is ultimately too thin of a story to support all of its grandiose embellishments, but so what? It's better to try to pack every moment with beauty and feeling than to shrug and smirk. The film takes the characters and their feelings seriously, and lets its actors give strong, simple performances.

Cretton shows as much care and kindness with the minutiae of the daily routine — as he does with the larger issues that plague these lives in flux. He also infuses his story with unexpected humor as the kids hassle each other — and their supervisors — on the road to healing.

They hold our attention with skillful use of animation and other visuals, touches of wry humor, and brisk pacing, but it is the heroine at the heart of the film who gives us hope and perhaps inspiration to try some town halls, petitions, and lawsuits of our own to protect the voting rights that are essential for a just and trustworthy government.

Watching Krisha is a revelation: there are expected "rules" for such material (a former addict returns home for a holiday), but then director/writer Trey Edward Shults breaks every rule, making those rules seem tired and arbitrary in the process, and he does so with bravura, confidence, flash.

Blitz Bazawule’s new film combines the best aspects of each disparate form, structuring a stunning hybrid that combines the visceral meditations of the written word with the thunderous energy of musical performance.

A completely innocent, at times screamingly funny movie that’s mostly about an idealized world made of '60s cultural icons, a slicing of reality’s fabric so we might step directly into Zombie’s visions of his past sitting in front of the TV.

Like Lee Daniels' hit TV drama “Empire,” Furious 7 is stuffed with situations that require go-for-broke absurdity, but even Daniels and his nighttime soap predecessor Aaron Spelling would pause before attempting the level of “get the f—k outta here!” style shenanigans director James Wan and writer Chris Morgan employ.

There’s an infectious joy to how the actors handle the morbid humor here, and it is never mean-spirited.

With his rich coming-of-age drama The Hand of God, Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino not only courts, but squashes comparisons to formative maestro Federico Fellini.

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.