Miller isn’t here for tawdry melodrama, algorithmic plotting, or art designed for the small screen. “Furiosa” aims to blow you away. And it does. To Valhalla and beyond.

He’s a fascinating cinematic creation and a pronouncement of a major talent in Jim Cummings, the star, writer, and director of the SXSW Grand Jury winner, Thunder Road.

The movie would fit nicely in a film festival comprised of works with a similar theme, including "Legends of the Fall" and "The Revenant" and older wilderness dramas like "Jeremiah Johnson" and "Bend of the River."

Baahubali: The Epic may not deliver a better edit or experience, but it does highlight what was already great, especially once it settles into a groove following a ten-minute intermission break. By that point, most of the cuts have already been made, leaving the leisurely pageantry of Rajamouli’s regal milestone to speak for itself and at its own preferred volume, too.

The Assistant, a very good film, is especially good on power dynamics.

It’s just funny, sweet, and smart — three things that this father of three doesn’t get to say often enough about entertainment while watching movies with his kids.

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

Imaginatively edited, sexually explicit, and filled with eloquent and often boisterous individuals of a sort who rarely get to claim a spotlight in documentaries, the trans sex worker portrait Kokomo City is a blast of creative freedom in an increasingly corporatized period of nonfiction filmmaking.

Ghost Elephants is a portrait of obsession that, while gentler than some of Herzog’s other works, is mesmerizing from the first moment to the last, yet another title of note in what remains one of the most incredible filmographies of our time.

Hustlers as a whole is a blast.

This is the touch of a cinematic master. Claire Denis is the writer and director of this film.

Return to Dust abounds in small poetic touches from the director and his lead characters.

The masterful thing about Denzel Washington’s direction here is that he doesn’t exactly open up the play. Instead, he opens up the visual frame around the players.

Ruthless and precise, Steven Soderbergh’s “KIMI” is a timely commentary on isolation and intrusion.

This is a powerful movie, but perhaps its greatest triumph is that for a brief time it resurrects Kitty Genovese, and lets us see her as a person.

All these elements come together with a delicate tonal balance that would have been difficult even for veteran filmmakers to achieve. See “Twinless” with your other half, whoever they may be. This is a movie you’ll want to talk through with someone afterward.

Conclave is smart, provocative, sometimes funny, and determined to make us rethink our initial impressions. It challenges us to challenge ourselves and is wildly entertaining, one of the year’s standout films.

Its ending leaves the door open for interpretation and post-viewing discussion — just as the best sort of movie-going experiences often do.

Hermia & Helena’s touch-and-go approach weakens the movie’s key expression of being a relatable story about being lost during your late 20s/early 30s.

Suspiria truly is one of the absolute classics of the horror genre and anyone who considers themselves to be true students of the cinema owe it to themselves to experience it for themselves, especially if they get a chance to see it on the big screen where it belong.

Cinematographer Drew Xanthopoulos gives the actors very little room to hide, often framing their faces in extreme close-up during bracing moments of emotional nakedness. There are echoes here of Cassavetes’ most agonizing stretches in “A Woman Under the Influence,” as casual pleasantries detonate into a fiery inferno of resentment.

Even as the final act starts to get a bit manipulative by stretching some previously established realism, Mikkelsen holds it together, and then he comes out literally swinging in one of the best final scenes of the year. It’s such a jubilant moment that you may walk out of the theater feeling a little buzzed.

Despite my ostensible disinterest in the subject at hand, I found myself mesmerized by this spare, affecting, and powerfully humane work that may seem quiet and reserved, but which ends up packing a surprisingly powerful emotional punch by the end.

As a team, Seligman and Sennott share a spot-on sense of comedic timing, knowing just when to throw in the next cutting remark, eye roll, or fake smile. They hit bullseye each and every time, all the way to the credits.

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.

If you are willing to suspend your disbelief for 132 minutes, you may find yourself head-over-heels for this film's brand of gross, thoughtful pulp fiction.

The film's main goal is to make us laugh and pull the rug out out from under us. But while there's a bit of pathos here and there, the movie doesn't add up to much in the end.

The thing you'll remember about P'tit Quinquin, over even the most perfectly timed joke or the adorably misshapen head of Quinquin, is the face of Bernard Pruvost, as the detective protecting his flock from the murderer.