Indignation is a thoughtful examination of romantic courtship and educational routines that’s best when its writer-director prioritizes characters over plot.

Throughout his films, Waititi has always been skilled at melding comedy with trauma and crafting screenplays with crowdpleasing callbacks. Hunt for the Wilderpeople is another such example of amiable, kind-hearted storytelling.

Goat is a compelling watch, but in the end, its themes are a bit muddled, and certainly not unique.

Elmer Bäck’s performance as Eisenstein is exceptional, his manic energy somehow able to match that of the film’s visuals and achieving a synergy of exuberance.

Every grunt, groan, and eye-roll feels genuine and relatable.

Strikingly shot and politically rich, Aferim! feels important, but too often it also feels like a fiery lecture inflected with moments of poetic grace.

Though the film struggles to wrap up the proceedings in an overlong final act, it thankfully stays true to its characters by not oversimplifying a complicated subject.

Despite a compelling performance, we rarely get an authentic sense of the psychology behind her eyes.

There are no grand revelations or heightened emotions to be found in this film. Rather, Reichardt is keenly aware of small interactions, whether it be a few words or a glance, that make the most memorable moments in one’s life

What’s lacking in aesthetic cohesion, pacing, and subtlety is made up for in a powerful lead performance and an essential story with compelling religious undercurrents.

With a docudrama approach capturing moments of reflective tranquility next to the beach or on a rooftop, Viva feels deeply rooted in its location.

There are no clichés here, and Lonergan flawlessly carves out the most sincere moments to reveal a sprawling, deeply affecting odyssey of emotional recovery.

Taking a straightforward approach isn’t necessarily a negative, but the sedate camerawork and editing make the movie’s progression staid. Even the musical moments are invigorating due to the music itself, and not by how it’s presented.

The documentary elements are fantastic; then we have to return to 2073, a time and place that simply lacks the story, conception, cinematography, and funding needed to make it work.

It offers no easy answers while spinning an evocative web of ideas, treating the mineral and all that follows as a religion complete with sacrifices.

Several directors have told the tale of Pinocchio over the years, but none have been anywhere near as successful in reimagining it to fit their own sensibilities. Del Toro putting his own name in the title isn’t a move motivated by ego—nobody else could have made it but him.

While Noyce and Watts try their best to ramp up tension, Sparling’s foundation proves too flimsy to comply.

The film’s opening quirky comedy routines give way to something much richer––a startlingly observant, sharp, romantic, provocative, and poignant view of millennial culture and how life comes at you fast.

Kore-eda’s preoccupations with death are on firm display here yet again, and over time Nozomi sees that even if there is a painful impermanence when it comes to living, we all leave something of us behind after we go.

Griffin has made a comedy, but she pulls no punches.

Its parts recall many later works as diverse as Trainspotting and The Ring, its depiction of addiction and stasis leading us towards a legitimately brilliant ending that brings the whole thing into meta territory with its film-within-a-film coaxing us to enter the fray ourselves.

Shithouse, written and directed by the 22-year-old Cooper Raiff, tells a familiar story with a specificity that cannot be ignored.

There’s a lot to chew on here, and if Burden is ultimately buried by its muddled central character, it’s as much a testament to the filmmaker’s refusal to sugarcoat this story as it is a criticism of the final product.

Even if the conceit is faulty, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible for this film to rework this material into an intelligent riff on the play. Unfortunately, it still doesn’t.

Are the grand and absurd moments of our lives perhaps more closely acquainted with one another then we’d like to admit? Grass seems to think so, and it delivers that assumption with a welcome–indeed, almost humane–dose of humor.

This is a richly rewarding film, packed with ideas and riddles, that will surely benefit from repeat viewings.

Bispuri challenges us to do away with conventional notions of what a perfect mother should be.

The surprise winner of the Berlinale’s Golden Bear is a film not easily summed up in an elevator pitch. It is, however, a studious, intelligent, if flawed and scattershot, work with an open mind about modern sexuality and intimacy. That open mind will need to be replicated in the audience too.