Writer-directors David Zellner and Nathan Zellner’s fifth feature is easily their finest, a portrait of a Bigfoot community that starts out as an absurdist comedy before slowly transforming into a moving study of survival and loss.

Tears may well be shed but it is the actors who are delivering the goods rather than the script.

It’s a (virtual) life-affirming approach that is certainly affecting, but can feel a little disingenuous.

The film’s randomly generated structure manages to cohere enough to make the experiment mostly a success.

Even when the film risks becoming overly precious, Ronan keeps Rona’s struggles gripping. It is a tale not so much of triumph as one of melancholy resilience.

McBaine and Moss offer a celebration of the young women attendees alongside a consideration of the everyday sexism many encounter.

What results is an affecting tone poem which ruminates on the passage of time and the passing of traditions from one generation to the next.

The story is sometimes weighed down by an aggressive earnestness but, despite some overreaching and tonal inconsistencies, there is no denying the raw anguish that both Kaphar and his protagonist are trying to heal.

Some people will always want what they do not have, but it is hard to imagine anyone feeling short-changed by such a tonally rich, thematically ambitious film.

The film lacks the teeth to be an incisive takedown of romantic comedies — in truth, it works best at its sweetest. Dewey communicates a lifetime of longing in those soulful eyes that pop through Monster’s makeup, and Barrera brings an endearing amount of dorky energy. But whenever these characters leave the house, the problems start — both for their relationship and the film itself.

Hvistendahl gives her ensemble time and space to deliver the conflicted emotions they are feeling, a mixture of shock and longing playing out on their faces and in their movements.

There’s a lightness of touch to the performances, with Silver encouraging his actors to improvise on-set. Events may have made Ben something of a sadsack, but Schwartzman ensures there is still a glimmer in his eye, a hint that his lust for life is simply dormant.

The fantastical elements soon fade away and the film becomes grounded in the tender realities of growing up, finding oneself and questions about love, sexuality, home, family, and the future.

So many films have tackled the underlying tensions between diametrically opposed family members, but here Eisenberg sidesteps cliches, consistently complicating our feelings about these nuanced cousins.

Love Lies Bleeding makes no apologies for its stylistic boldness or its rising body count, but its swagger cannot hide a nagging hollowness underneath.

The ending is simultaneously satisfying and slyly subversive, allowing an unravelling of ideas that should lead audiences to think about what they have watched.

The film proves to be a sleek, efficient exercise, with Soderbergh riffing on the conventions of the haunted-house thriller while applying intelligence and technical mastery.

Making his debut, writer-director Josh Margolin combines acuity and playfulness in a funny action-drama whose spirit animal is Mission: Impossible.

[Boden and Fleck] marry splashes of dry humour to gallons of blood, and feature every musical genre from punk to hip-hop while connecting the stories to a strange green glow in the sky. If the end result never quite achieves the style and bite of the likes of Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, it is still a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, the film tends to underline its points, turning a clever idea into a fairly obvious one, and Love Me’s self-consciously innocent/sweet tone can become grating. But what holds the film together is the intelligence and commitment the two stars bring to this occasionally mawkish tale.

The spell that the writer-director slowly weaves is intoxicating.

Amir Ebrahimi gives a remarkable performance that’s a smart mixture of fiery and openhearted.

Frida is not just a broad brush affair; the artist is noticeably present.

Giving her characters shading and the story space to breathe, Talati has created a quietly captivating, sharply observed film.

Filmmaker Lina Soualem’s sentimental journey with her actress mother Hiam Abbass becomes a powerful celebration of lives marked by separation, exile and erasure.

This charming story . . . has a deft, audience-friendly lightness of touch, focusing on Armenia’s people rather than its difficult history. Nevertheless, it firmly makes its points about displacement, cultural cleansing and the difficulties of returning home.

Alex Schaad’s spiky, good-looking debut feature takes a clever concept and develops it into a witty, provocative exploration of identity, gender fluidity, sexuality and the pursuit of happiness.

While a few of the new songs are keepers, too often the razzle-dazzle distracts from a familiar but resonant look at the pain and pleasure of adolescence.