Even if a wonder feels minor, it reminds us that everything that Cartoon Saloon invests their talents in results in open-hearted, warm, and affecting art that’s never saccharine but thematically matured in essential drops of wisdom.

The Duke is not his all-time-best picture, but it’s a very strong one, and it showcases his varied strengths as a filmmaker rather nicely.

The film’s embrace of compassion and forgiveness for everyone is heartwarmingly spacious. It shimmers with grace.

It takes a special screen actor to play a character who appears in almost every scene of a movie; is anxious, sad, or irritable in most of them; never talks about his feelings; and makes choices so upsetting that certain viewers might want to quit watching, but somehow leaves you thinking he’s not that bad of a guy. John Magaro is such an actor.

It's filled with images of ordinary objects and situations that have been filmed in such surprising and revealing ways by Davenport that when you encounter them again in your own life, you will see them differently, and think of Davenport's work.

In addition to Ozon’s impressive work as writer and director, much of the credit for “When Fall is Coming” belongs to the ensemble cast, each of whom brings a unique element to the mix that makes the story so engrossing.

The final sequences are the only "stock" moments in this very specific family drama, and something about the last scene left me cold. But the rest is so effective and emotional, a dedicated portrait of trauma passed down through generations, it doesn't matter.

This documentary does a fine job of capturing what made her special.

Dream Scenario gets many cringing laughs, and yet its humor—easy shots at vapid capitalist-pawn influencers, cancel culture, Tucker Carlson, and other culture wars Mad Libs—is mostly about the cheap comic thrill of getting the reference.

The result is the most fascinating documentary about a failed movie since 1965’s “The Epic That Never Was,” about the abortive Korda-produced, von Sternberg-directed, and Charles Laughton-starring film of Robert Graves’ great novel I, Claudius.

This is a great example of Olnek's style. It's respectful, but it's also alive. It's serious, but it's also tongue-in-cheek. Olnek's approach gives Emily room to breathe. At last.

What makes it special is that it truly cares about the nuts and bolts of marrying pictures to music and understands how to explain the finer points to people who aren’t musicians.

An action adventure that puts brain ahead of brawn as a valued commodity is always reason to celebrate. Add in the considerable heart that Baymax contributes (with elements borrowed from both “WALL-E” and “Up”), and you have a winner.

Populated with totally naturalistic performances, and a stunningly observed relationship between mother and son (their scenes together are phenomenal), Bad Hair works by keeping its focus on the small details of everyday life and its rhythms.

This is not so much a movie about a straight and cisgender-identifying person learning how to accept his old pal in a new package.

Willfully over determined and perversely stylized.

Similar to Lee’s public persona, “Highest 2 Lowest” is a chaos agent of a movie, the kind of lavish, unpredictable crime thriller that zips when you expect it to zoom.

Von Horn has crafted an impressive art film that tells a story outside of the pathological narcissism commonly associated with the world of social media influencers. Even surrounded by the alarmingly curated lifestyle, von Horn and Koleśnik together bring to life a story with more nuance, sophistication and genuine moral curiosity than we’ve seen from the genre.

A small but wonderful gem of a thriller: A film in which complicated people and a very complicated plot come together in a mechanism that leaves us marveling at its ingenuity.

Curiously, there’s virtually no mention of religion in the film. For that matter, politics creep into the tale only obliquely, and later. It appears we’re meant to understand that the band’s music and Farah’s lyrics have an edge of protest, but this is registered only as a very general sort of frustration and discontent.

Power Ballad is a movie that constantly surprises you by plucking chords of hope from a heartbreaking narrative.

Reality has never been this fun, even if it's frequently this random and hopeless. Better to take the oblong fantasy.

Kill tics off most of the essential boxes for a good popcorn flick, making it easy to resist but harder to pass up.

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.

More than just catnip for Trekkies. It’s also an often painful examination of the rocky father/son relationship that existed between filmmaker Adam Nimoy and his famous father, Leonard.

Miranda, who starred as Larson in a theatrical performance of this play, directs the film with a deep understanding of the passion, struggle, and ebullience of an artist committed to an art form that requires a lot of money and a lot of other people to be brought to life.

The work of a filmmaker I'm very excited to see and hear more from, “Starfish” is very much its own sci-fi mixtape—curated with hit and miss offerings, but with an undeniable and meaningful sincerity all the same.

There’s something about the savagery of “Conann” that’s freed the director to really go there, birthing a ferocious, fabulous Athena out of his splitting forehead.