Exquisitely researched, beautifully put together, with that celebratory knowledgeable chorus of voices pouring over us, what Spike Lee's documentary really is is an act of love.

The Lobster plays rigorously by its own rules without once telegraphing "Just kidding!" While extremely funny, it is a bitter and ruthless film. Lanthimos plays target practice and his aim is deadly.

An intimate epic, Testament of Youth has great historical sweep yet remains focused on the human vicissitudes experienced by Vera and her circle.

Mustang grabs you with its own sense of haunting melancholy, as well as an increasing feeling of urgency and outrage.

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.

Welcome to Chechnya is both astonishingly groundbreaking in its use of technology, and difficult to watch.

There are no zombies in the streets, boogeymen in the basement or witches in the woods—and yet it is one of the most terrifying films in years.

It is about those human elements that transcend the five senses—loneliness, jealousy, fear, etc.—and how they are heightened in times of stress. However you interpret it, Vogt's film lingers, haunting like imagery that refuses to fade away in memory.

Hall, Grau, editor Sabine Hoffman, and composer Devonté Hynes do an excellent job of casting a hypnotic spell on the audience. This is a deliberately paced film with enveloping moods that feel like symphony movements.

The Love That Remains plays out with remarkable intuition and sensitivity about its troubled characters, ones who try to love and reckon with hard feelings when those endeavors don’t work out, and you have to sift through the rubble to find meaning.

Qhile this particular story takes place nearly a decade ago, it remains unfortunately timely as Russia’s horrific war in Ukraine rages on; Klondike helps put a specific, vivid face on a faraway conflict.

Asili experiments with cinematic form as he considers “inheritance” as legacy, heritage, and tradition, resulting in an engrossing, challenging film that allures and confronts you in equal measure.

So often, Disney films smooth over some of the uglier bits that plague human society. However, in showcasing Charles and Vera's journey from Lagos to Istanbul and eventually Athens, award-winning Nigerian film director Akin Omotoso refuses to shy away from the racism, xenophobia, humiliation, and everything else the two encounter.

Omar is a thriller and a romance, with unabashedly melodramatic elements (there's even a love triangle), all of which are brought into stark relief by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Unlike in Judd Apatow's "Knocked Up," with a similar circumstance and where abortion is not even mentioned by name (except for the cowardly "schma-shmortion"), Obvious Child is honest.

Once the action kicks in, though, Shadow is on rails. Zhang, co-screenwriter Li Wei, cinematographer Zhao Xiaoding, production designer Horace Ma, and costumer Chen Minzheng work in seemingly perfect harmony to create a visual scheme that the director has said is based on the brush techniques of Chinese painting and calligraphy.

Balancing itself with an enviable self-assurance between drama, comedy, character study, and, in the last ten minutes, suspense, the film sends the audience out of the theater with a sense of shame for laughing when the narrative wanted us to.

Don't let the tacky American-friendly title of Kill Zone 2 fool you: the martial arts genre's next big thing is here, and it is way meaner, more technically accomplished, and more exciting than its disappointing marketing strategy implies.

Partly a tribute to the routine occurrences that collectively make a place feel like one belongs, Monica Sorelle’s delicately galvanizing slice-of-life debut “Mountains,” set in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood, overflows with such details.

Refusing to explain Ted Bundy is the strongest possible choice Berlinger could have made because it destabilizes reality. The film itself gaslights us, and this is where Berlinger and Zac Efron — an inspired choice—are powerful co-creators.

Easily the most daring and politically provocative film yet to emerge from Iran.

This film's message that it's truly better to give than receive is especially timely, combined with the now-nostalgic images of maskless people crowding together and giving each other hugs.

Against the Ice delivers all the delirious period drama thrills and survival horror angst that you could want from a movie with that title.

All of which makes I, Tonya such a wonder. Not only will it make you think about Tonya Harding again, it will make you do so with unexpected sympathy.

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat succeeds as an intense piece of reclamation and rejuvenation, giving breath to Lumumba’s spirit by sporting the same kind of defiance the political leader espoused.

This is a movie that’s impressively, if not stubbornly understated, where life stories come from select bits of precise dialogue, with lovingly rendered characters put into a collection of scenes that simply allow us to live with them.

The film is thought-provoking, visually arresting, and occasionally very self-important.

Despite the harrowing stories that fill the film from start to finish, Dreamcatcher is not hopeless.