The Boys in Red Hats is a necessary watch that elicits frustration by exposing our insular ideology with a raw aplomb.

There’s a claustrophobic cause-and-effect in The Rental that keeps it humming, and feels fresh. The minute that two characters make a crucial decision, you know it’s all downhill from there.

I’m Your Man may not break the mold, but it operates within it with confidence and grace.

What The Spy Who Loved Me lacks when it comes to establishing the atmosphere of danger present in some the best Bond movies it makes up in spades in the creation of one apparently-impossible situation for the protagonist after the other, the kind that other entries would have been lucky to include a single example.

Sama owes much of the authenticity and visual panache of This Is Not Berlin to his cinematographer Alfredo Altamirano. The DP’s nervy, panoramic compositions heighten the precise production design of various multimedia art pieces and an assortment of impeccably choreographed street protests.

The film is, though, a fascinating account of a man who plays a role in order to hide the reality of his life.

Lenz’s frank, admiring approach adds a sense of clarity that gives the film an undeniable potency. Here is what she made, it says; is it not wondrous? Here is the hand she was dealt, it says; is it not unjust?

We Live in Time is a film that looks you in the eyes as it tugs on your heartstrings, a movie that would almost certainly fall apart with lesser performers to make this kind of shallow script feel organic. Luckily, this one has Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield.

The film resonates with deeper messages: the damage done by gentrification, the abyss between the haves and the have-nots, the poor treatment of workers by elites. You don't expect a romcom to explore these issues. But The Valet does. It works.

A Ciambra is not big on plot, instead relying on its main character and his dangerous and frustrating escapades to generate empathy.

The characters in A Perfect Day don’t get to indulge in much eccentricity because they’re too busy banging their wills against bureaucratic idiocy.

Porter’s delightful debut is perhaps most groundbreaking exactly because of this familiarity, one that grants a black, high-school-aged trans girl—a character we rarely see in cinema, if at all—a recognizable youthful tale not defined by bigoted adversity. At least not solely. In other words, what “Anything’s Possible” says is, “Here is a mix of teen romances and comedies you know, but featuring characters you might not have seen before.”

This is a very personal documentary that occasionally has the intentional feel of a home movie.

Madeleine (Adele Haenel) does not know that she is a character in a rom-com. She thinks she's in a war movie. Or, better yet, a dystopian post-apocalyptic movie. Anything but a rom-com. She does not smile until an hour and 20 minutes into Love at First Fight.

Though the film is limited by a point of view that’s too polemically reductive, the idealistic, difficult, sometimes lethal struggles it covers are undeniably revelatory and moving.

The film captures both the pain and the power of people at the base of a global infrastructure. By not departing from the frontlines of the fight against Amazon’s labor exploitation, Story and Maing bring the true face of their struggle into focus.

Familiar, even universal issues of growing up, identity, and intimacy are presented with a lyrical, dreamlike tone.

From the moment Selah is shown on her wicker chair throne off-campus, Selah and the Spades is impressively filled with style. Through the lens of cinematographer Jomo Fray, the film is vibrantly colorful yet moody, dripping with teen angst.

That it doesn’t quite come together in the second half after a riveting first hour is disappointing, but there’s still too much to like here to discard it as much as A24 seems to be doing.

By the end of this film, you might think that understanding trees on such human terms is not even close to doing them justice.

The real gem of this documentary are the incredible first person accounts from those who were there.

Shane Black’s The Predator is a fun, brutal, fighting machine that wastes no time getting down to business — not unlike its title character.

For all the psychological realism of Carrie and Margaret's relationship, however, this remake has a comic book feeling.

The whole thing is handled with sly wit as well as unfailing stylistic smarts, which makes for a very satisfying package.

The episodic narrative of Seoul Searching can be too long and unfocused, but its stubbornness comes from filmmaking that is overflowing with self-pride.

As “Las Hurdes” blurred documentary and fiction, this film blurs what we traditionally expect from animation. As for why to tell this story, it’s all really there in an opening discussion about the impact of art and what is gained from dissecting it vs. just experiencing it.

While the tonal shifts from melodrama to mordant comedy don’t always work, Fonda and Tomlin are as good as they have ever been and Moving On proves itself a powerful rumination on the strength it takes to age—mentally, physically, and economically.

Excels when it dives into the complications of race and authority, articulated vividly by three excellent lead performances.