It’s a messy movie about messy lives, occasionally in ways you wish it wasn’t. But The Iron Claw is also a story of redemption that’s less about pinning down opponents and much more about breaking cycles.

A mesmerizing mood piece.

Writer-director Jacques Audiard (A Prophet) probes the psyches of two people in crisis. His hypnotic film means to shake you, and does. Schoenaerts reveals unexpected layers in Ali. And Cotillard delivers a tour de force of unleashed emotions. She's astonishing.

This hard-hitting doc is like Summer of Soul in reverse — instead of a feel-good music celebration, it’s a long day’s journey into “Break Stuff.”

My advice, in the face of such hallucinatory brilliance, is that you hang on.

The suspense is killer as military minds in the US and the UK come together only to lock horns on a drone operation in Nairobi.

The filmmaker is walking a creative tightrope. How do you resist that? My advice is: don't. There are a few fits and starts, and a palette switch from black-and-white to color. But Ozon is onto something about nationalism, borders and a hatred of the other that's as timely as Trump.

Val is simply the reflections of an actor with a knack for self-documentation, who has seen better days but remains buoyant by the prospect of making art in one form or another.

The Fight may be cursed with a generic name. But it’s a 100-percent accurate one.

There's more palm-sweating suspense in one minute of this baby than in all of "The Omen."

What makes this documentary more than just a feature-length DVD supplement is how these peeks behind the curtain are offset by a connect-the-dots case study of obsession and devotion taken to extremes.

The British, Nigerian-born Oyelowo has proved himself an actor of extraordinary power in roles as diverse as Dr. Martin Luther King in "Selma" and the resentful son of a White House servant in "The Butler." As Robert, the actor radiates warm humor and quiet strength.

So what if nothing is revealed. Todd Haynes is a mischievous visionary who puts the music and the myth of Bob Dylan before us in I'm Not There and dares us not to revel in the troubadour's poetic, contentious, ever-changing essence. It's a feast for the eyes, the ears and the Dylanologist scratching around our minds and hearts.

This sequel knows that when you leave childish things behind, you risk leaving key parts of the child’s personality and personal growth as well. It also recognizes that young adulthood is a different game altogether.

Veering on the maudlin, the film ultimately succeeds by striking a universal chord on the subject of inconsolable loss. It's a stirring, humane testament from a surprising source.

Steadily engrossing and devilishly funny, and, o brother, does it look sharp.

If you've forgotten the kick you get from watching a globe-trotting, butt-kicking, whiplash-paced action movie done with humor, style and smarts, take a ride with The Bourne Supremacy.

The Fall Guy is at its delirious best not when it’s ginning up sound and fury and mayhem, but when it simply lets Gosling and Blunt trade screwball banter and give every scene they share a will-they-or-won’t-they tension.

Creed III is very much a boxing movie. But it’s got a gnarled, contingent conflict at its center that’s a little too knowing for the movie not to have a little more than usual on its mind.

Fans have been patiently waiting for the screen version of Wicked for decades now, and it’s safe to say that their faith will be rewarded. It’s also obvious that as much as this is still a tale of two witches, each blessed with equally beautiful voices, there’s a very clear standout here that’s lifting this occasionally leaden jazz-hands-extravaganza up to higher ground.

Every move Hoffman makes subtly rivets attention. There's the uncanny German accent, the boozing, the chain-smoking, the glances at his assistant (Nina Hoss), the secret life he keeps hidden and the betrayals even Günther can't see coming. Hoffman is simply magnificent. Face it. We won't see his like again.

We may never see the likes of something like this again, even as climate change makes the impetus behind Biosphere 2 that much more urgent. But if Spaceship Earth proves nothing else, it left behind some one hell of a stranger-than fiction yarn.

It's instructive to note what a killer actor Richard Gere can be when a movie rises to his level. Arbitrage is such a movie, a sinfully entertaining look at the sins committed in the name of money.

The World to Come is full of inversions, deviations from the usual themes, complicated as it is by interlocking contrasts, unexpected emphases. This is a movie in which love springs in winter, whereas spring beckons devastation.

The women's characters are as well drawn as the men's in a splendidly acted film that captures the confusion of love in ways that are ardent, affecting and wonderfully funny.

Even the opaque hints can drive you cuckoo with frustration. Lanthimos does not coddle his audience. His M.O. is to shock, provoke and leave you talking to the voices inside your own head. The choice is yours.

Yes, his direction hits a few tonal bumps; he could have been tougher on his screenwriter on tightening the plot twists. No matter. Wind River packs an elemental power that knocks you for a loop.

Come for the uplift of an underdog sports story centered around the guys who made you realize a shoe isn’t just a shoe, superstar foot or not. Stay for the film that Davis gives you when, standing unguarded, she’s suddenly passed the ball, effortlessly rolls it off her fingertips, and gets nothing but net.