Gulner, who has five other writing credits but directs here for the first time, is a sturdy filmmaker with a solid feel for pace and tone. With The Beldham, she has crafted a clever piece of writing whose ending recontextualizes the whole film in a magnetic flash.

Ultimately, the film is far too placid and noncommittal to earn its more moving climax. It's hard to really care about these characters when their stream of decisions seems either improperly motivated or else frustratingly selfish.

Bull Run is so devoid of substance that much of it is taped together with ironic usage of stock photos and archival footage, as if to constantly point at the vapidity of its own enterprise.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Peas and Carrots is amateur on almost every front, and whatever it has to say about finding one's proper role in society is hidden inside some utterly confounding plot devices.

Though rooted in familiar territory, it lands on an unexpectedly resonant note, blending humor, heartache, and hard-won connection into a conclusion that works marginally better than its formula suggests.

Oxman’s directional choices — such as lingering close-ups — are added benefits that enable us to connect more deeply with its characters. And thanks to some very powerful performances from Bateman and Dillon, this isn’t just a story that invites us to explore the effects of childhood troubles. It reiterates that understanding is all we ever truly want and need from others.

Serious People doesn't deal in cynicism. Its quiet ending wraps things up too tidily, but there's a strange sort of optimism to its idiocy that is quite endearing.

Despite this being a film billed as "samurai versus cannibals," it is actually at its best before the fighting begins.

Ultimately, Brechin appears less interested in crafting a vicious aquatic thriller than in condemning the cruelty of animal captivity. While Killer Whale succeeds as a somber meditation on that subject, it falters as a survival film, offering too little spectacle, tension, or invention to justify its genre trappings.

In implicit ways, Deepfaking Sam Altman demonstrates just how out of touch from basic humanity these programs still are, which makes it all the more terrifying when we hear how they are being peddled as tools which can literally decide the fate of human lives.

The color palette stays consistently vibrant with the comedic theme of the film and of a city like Alabama. Paired with measured pacing and a satisfyingly calibrated ending — where most characters get what they deserve — Signing Tony Raymond leaves viewers smiling at a familiar underdog story, confidently and capably told.

Worldbreaker has the skeletal framework of a great dystopian thriller, but never progresses beyond surface-level worldbuilding. Even so, it effectively captures the resilience of a family that doggedly battles the odds for survival in a world teeming with chaos.

Lang really goes for it here, and he sells the material as best as he can, but suffice it to say that Hellfire is only as entertaining as your bandwidth for bog-standard action fare.

Despite having some really good parts driving it forward, it's unfortunate that The Mortuary Assistant never quite finds its rhythm.

The creepy imagery in the first act improperly sells just how dull the movie ultimately ends up being for the majority of its overlong runtime, and while its snail-like pacing and lackluster acting fail to make its psychological themes land with anything more than a mute thud.

Sykes brings what she can to the proceedings, but there's only so much she can do to make Undercard even slightly distinctive.

If Heated Rivalry could help with queer representation in sports, perhaps Youngblood could help crack the foundation of racism in hockey.

It's a deliriously perfect, laugh-a-second satire.

Despite its outward sullenness, The Projectionist is so well observed in its smaller moments that it contains within it an unusual kind of hope.

Thankfully, despite the movie feeling imbalanced in parts, One Another still proves to be a generally charming enough diversion.

In between nonchalant murders, Beers, Bacon, and Sedgwick aim for grounded heart-to-heart conversations of a kind that don't exactly feel at home in the movie's otherwise topsy-turvy world. But being that this is a real family that has worked together for decades, their chemistry elevates the somewhat lackluster writing to deliver a pleasurable, if tame experience.

This may well be Fanning's best performance to date, an intricately laced characterization of someone who is as filled with determination and dignity as she is by indecision. As Wendy, Fanning has a special way of presenting someone that can be both open and closed in equal measure: smiling through difficulty, forceful and righteous when angry, light and airy when experiencing joy.

Einbinder, who is about to enter into the last season of Hacks, for which she has won an Emmy award, turns in a magnificently dialed-in, heart-forward and honest performance. Theroux has rarely been this funny and he somehow makes what could be a cartoonish character feel believable and sympathetic. Reynolds and Gluck equally bring forth gravitas to two roles which are tricky for any actor in that neither character is particularly open with who they are, nor where they want to go. And yet their lives feel written all over their faces. It's one of the best ensemble performances of the SXSW festival.

Sender is not the easiest watch. An anxiety-driven nightmare, Goldman's film doesn't just examine surveillance habits and the cycle of supply and demand, but our relationship to these things and the comfortable embrace of addiction. This is where Julia Day (Severance's Britt Lower) lives, and to help us understand what it's like to be inside her head, Goldman and editor Marco Rosas cut with dizzying alacrity, snapping space and time like a folded belt.