One of the great director Terence Davies' best films: an example of old school and new school mentalities coming together to create a challenging and unique experience.

Its easygoing intimacy is what puts it over the top.

Rebeca Huntt's Beba is the coming-of-age story that Black American children have been waiting for, a documentary that encompasses every step of reclamation of an American bloodline.

Directed by Molly Bernstein and Philip Dolin, “Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse” is a remarkably cogent and compelling presentation not just of Spiegelman’s life story but also his personality and art.

The movie deserves to be known, first of all, as a terrific example of intelligent, captivating film craft—further proof of the recent strength of Mexican cinema.

Bad Axe really gets at how much the national anxiety of the 2020s broadened the chasms that already existed in our society, pushing politically different people against one another in ways that historians will debate for eternity.

It’s thrilling for even a novice fan to watch Pearce.

Jubilant, unapologetically massive, and bursting with a cozy, melancholic sense of communal belonging, In The Heights is the biggest-screen-you-can-find Hollywood event that we the movie lovers have been craving since the early days of the pandemic, when the health crisis cut off one of our most cherished public lifelines.

It’s one of the year’s best and most distinctive movies, though sure to be divisive, even alienating for some viewers, in the manner of nearly all Malick’s films to one degree or another.

Whatever the Lutherans thought they were paying for, they accidentally unleashed our most deeply cynical artist at the height of his ferocity toward the country's decaying morality, and wound up funding one of the most upsetting films of the '70s.

Lusciously lensed by cinematographer Jigme Tenzing, the ensemble comedy examines how the country’s upcoming mock elections affect the titular monk, a rural family, an election official, and a desperate liason from the city, all of whose lives collide in minor and major ways.

The compassion expressed here, and the rich complexity of everything the movie takes in, make this Poitras’ best film.

It's as engrossing, thoughtful, heartfelt, angry, hopeful, and altogether valuable as his best work. If it is indeed Loach's farewell, it's one hell of a fine note to go out on.

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.

You think [Spielberg's] giving you everything and that it's all right there on the surface, but the movie lingers in the mind, and the longer it stays there, and the more times you re-watch it, the more you realize it's giving you something different from, and better than, what you saw the first time.

It was about the act of seeing, being seen, preparing to see, processing what had been seen, and finally seeing it. It made explicit and poetic the astonishing gift the cinema made possible, of arranging what we see, ordering it, imposing a rhythm and language on it, and transcending it.

Writer-director Sean Durkin ("Martha Marcy May Marlene") has delivered a nearly perfect film here — the cinematic equivalent of of those substantial, long-but-not-too-long short stories that says everything about its subject without actually saying everything.

There’s been nothing quite like Alla Kovgan’s Cunningham, an exhilarating testament to documentaries as a boundless form of art.

For the bulk of Shoplifters, Kore-eda works in a beautiful register that feels both detailed and genuine at the same time. We get to know these characters so deeply, watching them all at their jobs.

Easily among this year’s finest films and laced with an unapologetic social message, Happy As Lazzaro dares one to imagine a reality where each individual would task themselves to be as selfless and morally whole as its main protagonist. If only.

The most pleasurable aspect of 20th Century Women (and it's pleasurable throughout) is that it allows itself to be messy.

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.

Beyond the political implications, this is a terrifically dramatic and very emotional film; understandably, some of the interviewees struggle to maintain composure when recalling their past trials.

Writer-director Mike Leigh is 81 years old, and his movies consistently have a fire that's practically adolescent while imparting a wisdom that's possibly ancient. "Hard Truths" is a tragi-comedy character study of near-febrile vitality. And, entering the sweepstakes rather late in the game, it's one of the very few great films of 2024.

This is screen acting of a very rare sort, and Clemency is a vital emotional powerhouse sorely deserving of being seen.

Chinese Portrait is a stunning work of photography and a simple work of empathy that asks, "How much goes into making sure we all get to just live?"

Before Midnight is moving because it acknowledges that even love stories that began as beautifully as Jesse and Celine's must still endure the wear and tear of real life.

Everything in The Lego Movie is, indeed, awesome.