Miss Plowright's performance is an absolute marvel. Her transition from the acid-tongued widow to a wisely compassionate woman warms the heart. [20 July 1992]

Barbarian is firmly of it’s time — online house rental bookings, smart-phone flashlights and real estate square footage listings — and yet timeless, like an arm ripped off and used as a club. It was predictable and yet was impossible to predict.

The film is a wonderful collaboration between [Byrne] and writer-director Bronstein, who drew inspiration from her own experiences with motherhood. It also has given Byrne, an actor of effortless appeal in lighter films, a chance to display versatility and grit in surely the toughest dramatic role of her career.

It might not be masterpiece material, but it has a soul and is an undeniably beautiful, worthwhile addition to the canon.

While it doesn’t always work, Riley has clearly held nothing back and after 25+ years of using his voice and unique point of view in the world of hip-hop, this is as audacious an entry into the world of feature filmmaking as one could possibly make.

Yes, it’s a dazzling technical feat. One could also consider it a gimmick, or at least a method that threatens to distract the viewer’s attention. But that ignores the fact that this very filmmaking style is also hugely effective at delivering this particular story, in the most visceral way possible.

If there’s a critique to be made about the film, it’s that the satire and caricatures are a bit heavy-handed, with most of the male characters being not-so-subtle misogynists. But that overkill is part of what makes it so much fun.

I’m still not entirely sure what it all adds up to, but it is provocative, difficult and bleak and leaves you with a very precise feeling of despair and aloneness — just like the best of the space independents do.

Bring your hand warmers, toe warmers, heart warmers and soul warmers — this update of the 1922 silent vampire classic will chill you to the bone...But it may not terrify you. Everything in Robert Eggers’ faithful, even adoring remake, from his picturesque 19th century German town to those bleak mountain snowscapes leading to that (brrr) imposing castle in Transylvania, looks great. But with its stylized, often stilted dialogue and overly dramatic storytelling, it feels more like everyone is living in a quaint period painting rather than a world populated by real humans (and, well, vampires) made of flesh and, er, blood.

The Personal History of David Copperfield is one of the more lively, colorful and whimsical Victorian costume dramas you’re likely to see. It’s a movie flowing with fresh air, which isn’t something normally said of adaptations of 700-something-page books.

A Secret Love is guaranteed to pull at your heartstrings. It might be the quarantine or it might just be effective storytelling, but a scene near the end of the family coming together — not even a sad scene — left this reviewer in tears and I’m willing to bet I won’t be the only one.

Till, an aching wail of a movie, is a story in many ways about the inevitable tragedy of American racism.

Nope has also already had some critics throwing out less than favorable M. Night Shyamalan references. But it is full of vibrant life, too. It goes a long way in forgiving the reveal, which I’d even argue is beside the point. This is a film that offers a lot to chew on, which is more than most big summer spectacles can promise.

Monroe, steely and strong, cuts like a knife through this almost cartoonishly severe film. Nasty stuff? Yep.

By the end of this illuminating film, we’re forced to confront something much deeper and more insidious: society’s need to divide humans into a binary system, and the sometimes disastrous results for those born with reproductive or sexual anatomy that isn’t neatly “male” or “female.”

Broker is definitely a slow burn that can feel a bit repetitive at times, though the introduction of Hae-jin (Im Seung-soo) as an 8-year-old orphan with Premier League dreams helps get the film over a meandering hump.

Women Talking is not melodramatic or desperate or exploitative. It is astute and urgent and may just help those previously unable to find words or even coherent feelings for their own traumatic experiences. And hopefully it might just inspire more works of wild female imagination.

Stand and Deliver is a kind of thinking man's Rocky: melodramatic, full of street-level emotion, with a knockout of an ending that may even convince you that good can occasionally triumph against implausible odds. [07 Apr 1988]

The Royal Hotel shares a vibe with Alex Garland’s sophisticated horror film “Men” — an arty indictment of toxic masculinity that often felt like a lecture. But Green’s film doesn’t feel like that. The final scene will make you cheer, even if the ultimate message is murky.

Babyteeth is an assured and stimulating feature debut from director Shannon Murphy, who is working with a script by Rita Kalnejais. It is raw, funny and often uncomfortable.

The framework, as predictable as it is, works because of the sincerity behind the endeavor and the depth of Collins’ performance. He is the heart and soul of Jockey, and no one who gives it a chance will be forgetting his name anytime soon.

David Mamet's lean, hard screenplay and Sidney Lumet's no-frills direction give the audience someone to root for, just like Rocky Balboa. And Paul Newman has the role of his later career. [7 Dec 1982]

“Let me entertain you,” Williams seems to be screaming through every scene. Mostly, he succeeds.

Much is just out of reach in Arnow’s shrewdly perceptive and very funny new film.

The camera is the ghost in Steven Soderbergh’s chillingly effective, experiential haunted house drama “Presence.”

Maestro is a fine portrait of a complicated marriage. But for a man who contained symphonies, that leaves a lot of notes unplayed.

As in Lord and Miller’s animated movies, their tone and pace remain singular. Project Hail Mary might blow past a two-hour runtime and yet there’s rarely a dull moment with all the problem-solving, earnest irreverence and unabashed commitment to imbuing life and wit into every molecule of the story. Daniel Pemberton’s unusual, buoyant score and Joel Negron’s sharp editing are key.

It is charming, genuinely funny and a breeze to watch.

Not all of it works. Heavy doses of melodrama and flashy surrealism sap some of the lurid spell of “Love Lies Bleeding.” But this feels tantalizingly close to the idealized version of a Kristen Stewart film.

Like “Boys State,” this film presents a fascinating microcosm of American teenagers.

But Clermont-Tonnerre has established herself as a filmmaker to watch with The Mustang, and has also made the most compelling case yet that Schoenaerts can not only handle an American accent, but excel with it too.

This is an unusually soulful coming-of-age movie considering the number of spinal cords that get ripped right of bodies.

It’s an exploration that touches not just on policing and justice, but astronomy, politics, phrenology and race.

There’s something comforting about the fact that Jarmusch is still doing his thing, exactly how he wants to, and that so many great actors are lining up to be part of it. He’s a singular voice in a landscape that’s always in danger of flattening.

Shayda is set in 1995 and yet still feels quite relevant, and not just for Iranian women. In Niasari, we have a brave and distinctive new filmmaking voice and I can’t wait to see what she does next.

There’s nothing terribly interesting about the way it’s told, it’s just a straightforward underdog story with a big beating heart.

I Carry You with Me couldn’t be any more specific about the trials of an undocumented gay couple trying to carve out a place for themselves, but it’s that specificity that makes its themes and emotions all the more universal.

The destination may be startling but, thanks to a magnetic star turn from Krieps, the voyage is never boring.

Red Rocket could have soared in a traditional Hollywood feel-good way but instead stays small and down to the ground, sticking with you uncomfortably and brilliantly.

Bahrani, with Paolo Carnera’s vivid cinematography, builds a dense, incisive film that nevertheless feels uneven in structure.

Kids movies so often bear little of the actual lived-in experience of growing up, but Yamada Naoko’s luminous anime “The Colors Within” gently reverberates with the doubts and yearnings of young life.

Another of the most cherished cartoon features ever. [05 Mar 2007]

As in any Sorkin joint there are at least three lines of dialogue that might make your eyes roll into the back of your head and your body produce an involuntary groan so extended that you will likely have to rewind. But it just goes to show how good the rest of it is that a few clunkers could stick out that much.

Flora and Son, like a B-side to Carney’s earlier hits, may sound a little like a tune you’ve heard before. But it’s sung with enough heart to have even the coldest cynic humming.

Dave is a movie packed with many, many magical moments. They seem childlike in their simplicity, just as spontaneous ... and just as charming. [06 May 1993]

It’s a triumph of small-budget, naturalistic filmmaking, where cars on a gravel road kick up choking clouds of dust and arm bones crack when pressure is applied.

We Grown Now is slightly dreamy and stylized, too, but instead of a liability, it makes this very small story feel grand, poetic and cinematic — just like it would for an 11-year-old.

Taylour Paige is phenomenal, for one. The movie, though, is a bold and admirable experiment that doesn’t totally work.

A stylish, well-crafted piece of filmmaking that marks the auspicious arrival of twin Australian filmmakers Michael and Danny Philippou.

Paolo Sorrentino’s films can be overwrought, grotesque and uneven but they are rarely not alive. His latest, The Hand of God, is a catalog of wonders — of miracles both banal and eternal.

Spencer may be a let down as a story about Diana, but as an exaggerated portrait of Stewart, it’s magnetic.

The story is so sensational that you almost wish Cassandro was instead a feature-length documentary.

With so many murky motives, there’s little to care about, no way to anticipate the next con and no sense of real peril.

The film looks of its time, but it also feels fairly modern in its sensibilities which makes it always seem more like a re-telling than an in-the-moment experience. This may be to its detriment, yet it’s still an undeniably riveting and compelling watch.

There are, hopefully, still many stories left to be told about the phenom of the Williams sisters. But King Richard is a very good start.

There are few more daring actors around right now than Moss, and “Shirley” may be her best performance yet. She’s brutally cutting but the pain of every slight ripples across her face.

The film is exactly what you need it to be: An exciting and emotionally true spectacle that required a heck of a fight to simply exist.

Asteroid City, with its sprawling cast, beautiful hues, mumbled jokes, box-within-a-box setup, references that only the 80+ crowd may truly get and retro-cool soundtrack, actually makes you feel things even if it can’t quite make sense of itself.

Nouvelle Vague, with a young Godard making things up off the cuff and on the fly, is a reminder how less can be so, so much more. And how it’s nice, as a young filmmaker with big ambitions, to have some company.

Hokum has so many of the right ingredients going for it.

Morrison is a celebrated cinematographer known for “Black Panther,” “Fruitvale Station” and “Mudbound,” making her feature debut as a director. And it’s a promising one, full of beautiful shots, unexpected choices and rousing fights inside the ring, anchored by a thoughtful, engaging script and compelling lead performances.

A powerful, gut-wrenching film that ranks in the top of the 1984 product. [19 Nov 1984]

It’s only appropriate that Encanto — fueled by eight original songs by Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda — turns into that most special thing of all: A triumph in every category: art, songs and heart.

It would be easy to hail The Naked Gun as something better than it is, since it simply existing is cause for celebration. But like most reboots, particularly comedy ones, the best thing about the new “Naked Gun” is that it might send you back to the original.

The movie’s earnestness carries it through these less smooth moments. So does the cast. Any opportunity to see Freeman or Harris, still at the top of their games, is a chance to be treasured.

The celebrated folk singer and activist was singing about civil rights, of course. But what we learn in the thoughtful, thorough and sometimes harrowingly intimate Joan Baez: I Am a Noise is that Baez was also seeking to overcome much on a personal scale: anxiety, depression, loneliness and, late in life, troubling repressed memories about her own father.

It is simply terrific — an understated but smartly told crowd-pleaser about the legendary comedy duo in their last act, with wonderful production value, a sharp and surprisingly poignant script and brilliant performances from John C. Reilly, as Oliver Hardy, and Steve Coogan, as Stan Laurel.

The Two Popes might promulgate an optimistic portrait of the Catholic Church and its leaders. But in these sweetly sincere scenes, you forget Benedict and Bergoglio are pontiff and pontiff-to-be. And the moment of respite from the world’s arguments and divisions feels like a benediction.

Forty years ago, The Crucible was a cautionary tale cloaked in thumpingly good entertainment. It remains that now, and Miller and Hytner deliver the material with the ferocity it deserves.

Perhaps there is something to the fact that fairly or not, some of the luster has dulled due to familiarity, but The French Dispatch remains a highly enjoyable, sophisticated and experimental ode to the romantic, and fictionalized, idea of the midcentury heyday of magazines like The New Yorker and The Paris Review.

There is perhaps an intriguing movie here somewhere — “Who decides what is God’s will?” is one lingering question —but to find it you have to slice away all the bawdy and ultra-violent excesses that are clearly intended to push buttons, like a 5-year-old testing her parents’ patience. Yawn.

It lives in the unglamorous and sleepless postpartum haze of breast pumps and swaddles. But like “Poppins,” Tully is a fantasy of parenthood — a homely fairy tale about a haggard mother who’s feeling her younger, former self slip away.

A powerful, shapeshifting teenage girl and a disgraced knight-in-training suspected of killing a beloved queen are at the heart of Nimona, a vibrant and irreverent animated adventure set in a futuristic fantasy kingdom.

So many films are described as love letters — to places, to time, to people, to even the idea of cinema — that the phrase has almost been rendered meaningless. But Belfast really is the quintessential cinematic love letter.

Dread permeates every frame, whether it’s a quiet moment of smart conversation, a white-knuckle standoff or a deafening shootout on 17th street.

There’s an upside to the film so eagerly jumping from anguish to slapstick, from social drama to buddy movie. Blindspotting is, like the Oakland it so dearly loves, always many things at once.

It’s an impressive work of independent cinema that stays shockingly grounded thanks to its two leads and their fearless performances.

Baltimorons is one of those little movies you might stumble across and be surprised that it hooks you. It does so despite — or more likely because — of its complete lack of flashiness or any self-evident attempt to “hook you.” Instead, it manages that simply with low-key charm and a warm, unpretentious humanity.

Polite Society, the feature film debut of writer-director Manzoor, creator of the British sitcom “We Are Lady Parts,” is a fun and increasingly preposterous comedy. But it’s propelled by an infectious and genuine punk-rock energy. Make no mistake about it, the sisters of Polite Society are here to take down Pakistani tradition, the patriarchy and anything else you got.

The Bob’s Burgers Movie feels very easy and lived in thanks at least in part to the fact that its vocal cast has been doing this for over 200 episodes.

The film doesn’t quite earn the emotional catharsis it seems to be striving for. It’s a little too insane and also underdeveloped, especially Piper’s character, to let the audience in on that level. But if you’ve come for unexpected scares and creativity, “Bring Her Back” will not disappoint.

Luckily we get to look long and and hard at this Emily, brought provocatively to life by O’Connor and her star. Strange or not, it’s hard to look away.

It is a powerful and artistic interpretation of an academic book that was anything but an obvious candidate for a narrative feature.

What carries it through, above all, is the great command of Bigelow (“Zero Dark Thirty,” “Detroit” ), who knows perhaps better than any working filmmaker how to turn bracing real-life, or near-real-life crises into heart-pounding thrillers.

It doesn’t all work, but Titane is a messy, provocative and wild piece with attitude and style that is never uninteresting.

Hatching is an assured and promising debut for Bergholm with a jaw-dropping ending that may just cement it as a cult classic in the making.

Radio Days maintains a joyful balance between reality and a world of dreams. [14 Mar 1987]

Not all the jokes land but they do fly. Bottoms, a queer comedy with a chaotic beat, is here to break stuff — and that’s a very good thing.

If the framework is less inspired, the story remains grand.

Not surprisingly, Carmichael proves a director who is nothing if not confident and comfortable with the UNcomfortable. He keeps the action moving — at a few moments, the film even feels like an action pic.

The Sea Beast is notable for its refusal to dumb itself down for a young audience. It’s anchored by interesting and fairly complex characters who actually have arcs to play.

Raya is undoubtedly a visual feast. It’s also the best kind of feminist film in that it’s one that doesn’t clobber you with the message. Raya is allowed to be awesome without the script shouting about it all the time and it’s better for it.

This story is about two older white men fighting about a contract, sure, but Betts and Wright expand its scope with sensitivity and nuance. Like many good courtroom dramas before it, this case is bigger than just these two guys.

Nobody’s perfect, though Bobo may think she is. But in Venter’s performance, Davidtz has found something pretty close: a child actor who can carry an entire film and never seem like she’s acting.

Catherine Called Birdy is an unabashed delight for everyone. It just might run a little deeper for a certain age group.

Director-writer Megan Park has crafted a wistful coming-of-age tale using this comedic device for “My Old Ass” and the results are uneven even though she nails the landing.

The “Jackass” gang make for a rollicking antidote to the beautiful, unblemished people who play superheroes that never so much as bleed.

Bones and All can be both brutal and beautiful. You have the sense of seeing a movie that in shape and style reminds you of countless others. But, well, cannibalism just has a way of throwing things off balance. The result is something that feels both archetypal and otherworldly.