Of course, you might ask, at a time of such turbulence in the world, what do 19th century upper-class romantic machinations have to do with, well, anything? To which we say: Whatever! Bring it on. Distract us with your lovely frocks flowing straight from the bosom, your exquisite bonnets with feathers, your real-estate porn in the countryside and your smart dinner-table repartee. We could do a lot worse.

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

Regardless of any incongruities, “Monkey Man” makes for a forceful directorial debut from Patel. More than anything else, he brings a compelling gravity to a film that is quite serious about getting seriously brutal.

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.

In Us, Peele has produced a terrifying artifact: a sinister ballet of doppelgangers and inversions that makes flesh the unseen underbelly lurking beneath every sunny American dream and behind every contented nuclear family. It’s a scissor-sharp rebuke to anyone who’s ever held hands and sang “Kumbaya.”

Assuming it’s true, the film is a poignant and moving coda to a career spent chronicling personal indignities amid broader social ills like poverty and unemployment.

Since the men are Anthony Quinn and Kevin Costner and their mutual love is a stunning newcomer, Madeleine Stowe, the film rises above formula. [13 Feb 1990]

A diversion like Save Yourselves! might just save your week.

Some have likened Passages to a horror movie (though aren’t all coming of age movies horrors in some way?) Regardless, it would make a fitting double feature with Christian Petzold’s “Afire”. They are both films that let you dabble in the feeling of having had a semester abroad, tumultuous feelings and all, without all the actual emotional fallout or jetlag.

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.

This latest film by the great and astonishingly prolific Steven Soderbergh is not out to give the audience what they think they want from him. Instead, it’s a meditation on art, legacy, creativity and the oh-so-touchy subject of who has the right to critique.

It doesn’t always work, but has a natural engine and spirit to it that keeps you focused.

By breaking down some of the old mythology, Johnson has staked out new territory. For the first time in a long time, a “Star Wars” film feels forward-moving.

Chris Columbus, who wrote and directed as he did for Home Alone, enhances the comedic bits with commentary on the human condition: the emergence of male-female love; the silver cord between mother and son; the plight of aging single men whose only ties are their pub companions.

Science and belief clashes aside, The Wonder is a transfixing, transportive film, anchored by the incomparable Pugh.

Will you exit with any sort of elevated understanding of artists or love or tragedy? Maybe not, but, again, this thing called Annette has a way of taking up residence in your mind, whether you like it or not. If you’re even the slightest bit intrigued, you should let Carax and the Maels take you on this bizarre journey.

It doesn’t all fit together, and I Care a Lot has ultimately no way of resolving its fairly ludicrous plot. But it’s strong, gripping, unpredictable pulp, and Pike pulls something off that few else could as a protagonist. She’s quite detestable and completely compelling.

For an actress who’s hustled to get to this point, “One of Them” days is perfect platform for Palmer, scrappy and unstoppable.

In this forensic portrait of war, the only way to not get what’s happening on the ground is to be too far from it. François Truffaut famously said there’s no such thing as an anti-war film because movies inherently glamorize war. “Warfare,” though, is intent on challenging that old adage.

The film itself might not wrap up in any sort of tidy or satisfying way, but nothing leading up to the conclusion would lead you to expect something so basic.

Dosa uses July’s narration to frame the Kraffts’ story with a playful sense of wonder and whimsy — a sometimes overly intrusive, too neatly packaged device in a film where what’s on screen is so overwhelmingly powerful that it might not need the extra layer.

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

Gunda ultimately falls somewhere between banal and profound. Maybe it’s both.

We walk away from this funny, sad, scary film acutely reminded that if fame has two sides, one of them is pretty darned horrible.

What makes “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy” especially enjoyable, then — and the best since the 2001 original — is not that Bridget finds a way yet again to triumph over doubts and obstacles. It’s that she still makes us care so darned much.

Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, a rollicking virtual-world geekfest flooded by ’80s ephemera, doesn’t just want to wade back into the past. It wants to race into it at full throttle. For those who get their fix through pop nostalgia, “Ready Player One” is — for better or worse — an indulgent, dizzying overdose.

It has the makings of a stealth classic.

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.