Polinger’s film isn’t a comfortable watch and it’s not meant to be. It gets under the skin.

I Swear — at a perhaps overlong run time of two hours — is full of warmth and even humor, with Davidson occasionally laughing at himself and inviting us to join in.

The film often feels in many ways as an attempt to correct history, or at least the previous Dunaway-Beatty-led portrayal of a bumbling Hamer. But there are moments of beautiful stillness and nicely-filmed sequences — like a nifty car chase in dust clouds — that make the hunt enjoyable.

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]

A deeply felt film about one teetering marriage, and a work whose power sneaks up on you slowly.

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.

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.

While there is a case to be made for the final fight to, let’s just say, go a different way than it does, Creed III is still a knockout.

It’s a true triumph of storytelling and performance and a reminder that films don’t need to be flashy or big to be great.

Child's Play is more than just an odyssey of revenge; it is a chiller that will make you think twice about cuddling those ugly little Cabbage Patch kids or visiting Barbie's townhouse. [21 Nov 1988]

[Ronan] gives one of her finest performances in a two-hour study of addiction that is poignant, sometimes beautiful but always painful to watch — and would likely be too draining if not for the luminous presence at its core.

Gladiator II isn’t quite the prestige film the first one, a best-picture winner, was in 2001. It’s more a swaggering, sword-and-sandal epic that prizes the need to entertain above all else.

Shyamalan doesn’t pump up the violence, nor does he rely on plot twists to carry Knock at the Cabin along. Instead, the film works as a brutal, neatly distilled kind of morality play that toys with fatalism, family and climate change allegory.

An extremely pleasant, supernatural comedy. [12 Nov 1984]

No matter how you feel about the history here, it’s a visceral performance that simply demands to be seen.

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.

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.

It is such a rare pleasure to watch three superior actresses practicing their art that the filmgoer almost forgives "Agnes of God" for its imperfections. Almost. [7 Oct 1985]

The film has a few odd jumps and seemingly comes to a fiery conclusion — finally some warmth, good God — but it’s a false ending. A much better one awaits, one that’s unexpected and very, very satisfying. Stay to the end — as long as you’re bundled up.

Aside from verging on the one-note, that focus constricts the very linear, very self-contained Ad Astra, a taut but inflexible chamber piece in a genre given to symphony.

You may know the outlines of the soccer legend’s life, but there’s no way you won’t learn something from Diego Maradona, Asif Kapadia’s absorbing and exhaustive new film.

It doesn’t always work, but the writing is sharp, the performers top-notch and the set designs achingly beautiful.

All the assembled parts here, including an especially high-quality cast (even Wendell Pierce!) work together seamlessly in a way that Marvel hasn’t in some time. Most of all, Pugh commands every bit of the movie.

It’s a little shaggy and you’ll occasionally yearn for a bit more humor along the way. But “Caught Stealing,” based on Charlie Huston’s 2004 novel, is a ride, foremost, in ‘90s nostalgia.

Concrete Cowboy, an impressive debut by writer-director Ricky Staub that overcomes formulaic dialogue and we-saw-that-coming plot twists with its sheer heart, is based on a novel, Ghetto Cowboy by Gregory Neri.

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

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.

Despite the gripping action scenes and a mostly witty, mile-a-minute, off-color script, the movie ultimately fails to produce the emotional tug of other films about journalists in war, particularly Roland Joffe's "The Killing Fields" and Peter Weir's "The Year of Living Dangerously."The script borders on pompous silliness when Boyle launches into a diatribe on American hypocrisy, and unbelievable sentimentality when Salvadoran rebels are shown in heroic poses as Latin American folk songs ring out in the background... Nevertheless, "Salvador" still has the gritty, violent quality shared by other films by Stone: "Midnight Express" and "Scarface." None of these films is easy to watch, but each keeps you glued to the screen.