A delightful and uplifting study of kids and families by Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda.

But even if What Richard Did is sometimes a little too understated for its own good, this is still a classy piece of work which convincingly captures the emotionally complex, morally murky texture of real life.

Most magically, it transcends the colossal power of its own story to show how individual beings, one step at a time, can right the course of inequality and injustice.

End of the Century is at its best whenever Castro keeps things thematically and temperamentally woozy.

Writer-director Goran Stolevski’s Housekeeping for Beginners (Domakinstvo za pocetnici) is a fizzy, huggable portrait of a self-made, roughly blended queer family.

What makes the sharp-as-a-tack nonagenarian Apfel such splendid company is that beneath the busy prints and multi-layered accessories is a woman who is less an eccentric than an ineffably sane, sensible commentator on her own colorful life and the world she inhabits.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens pumps new energy and life into a hallowed franchise in a way that both resurrects old pleasures and points in promising new directions.

The film is exceedingly funny, even in translation, right up to the point where the tone shifts dramatically. Deeply endearing on every level, from its anti-authoritarian politics to its body positivity to general joie de vivre, this is a crowdpleaser through and through (unless the crowd happens to be made up of moral policemen and dogmatic clerics).

White Riot is a timely, engaging exercise in social and cultural history, but a wider focus might have given it deeper context and broader marketability.

There is no denying the cumulative power of the material, in large part due the protagonists’ endless reservoirs of humanity, dignity and selflessness in the face of one of the world’s worst biggest current and most incomprehensible tragedies. Light on background and contextual facts, Last Men in Aleppo speaks very loudly from the heart.

The documentary — a polished directing debut for veteran sound editor Costin — will leave many geekier audience members wishing it were three times as long.

It’s a documentary about the fight, one that takes the necessity of the fight as a given. That’s amply inspiring

This impeccably assembled and argued film represents a brave, timely intervention into debates around the organization that have been simmering for some time.

The premise of this Hungarian/German/Swedish co-production is solid, even if the execution feels a little slack and the running time too long.

The film boasts a terrific newcomer in the lead role, exquisite widescreen photography and a powerful sense of place.

If ever a film cried out for the 3D treatment, it's The Mill & the Cross, an ambitious but frustratingly flat attempt to explore, analyze and dramatize a masterpiece of 16th-century art.

This is a compassionately observed story told with unimpeachable naturalism and without a grain of sentimentality, propelled by a remarkable performance from Charlie Plummer that's both internalized and emotionally raw.

The two main characters are both so funny, human and touching that Sunset Story ultimately possesses an emotional quality missing from many similarly themed efforts.

Feeling more spontaneous and improvised than ever, this tale of chance encounters at a big film festival is easy on the eye and strewn with humorous gems, as it wryly reflects on the festival business and its denizens.

Halfway between fiction and documentary, Last and First Men is a visionary work about the final days of humankind that stretches the audience’s ability to imagine not only an immense time frame reaching over billions of years, but huge steps in human evolution.

Delicate, droll and imbued with a haunting, understated wistfulness, Bergman Island wears its layers so lightly it may take you a while to notice just how much it’s got going on.

Aida's Secrets unravels its complex scenario in compelling, page-turner mystery fashion, proving yet again that truth can be much stranger than fiction.

Barbie is driven by jokes — sometimes laugh-out-loud, always chuckle-worthy — that poke light fun at Mattel, prod the ridiculousness of the doll’s lore and gesture at the contradictions of our sexist society.

In his first narrative feature, documentary maker Jeremiah Zagar (In a Dream, Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart) captures the feel of the novel with uncanny precision, notably in the visceral charge and physical heat of tightly wound bodies almost constantly moving in close proximity.

Pure dead gallus (that's Scots for 'wonderful').

It's caustic, irreverent, constantly amusing and a tiny bit rude. Not a lot, though. This isn't the "Beavis and Butt-Head" or "South Park" movie. It's almost -- dare I say it -- charming.

[A] minor but enjoyable doc.

Even if the film could be accused of lacking subtlety and overloading on whimsy, it spreads a sobering message in a lucid story that remains visually alive and inventive throughout — its aesthetic keeps constantly shifting yet remains fluid.

Finders Keepers charts out a screwy insight into humanity that is usually only captured in the minds of twisted cartoonists.

An English cousin to the earlier Jamaica-set films "The Harder They Come" and "Rockers" that is vastly superior in cinematic terms and just as valuable as a cultural document.

Nutty, arcane and jaw-dropping in equal measure, this is a head-first plunge down the rabbit hole of Kubrickiana from which, for some, there is evidently no return.

In the end, it plays a little too often like an academic pastiche of horror tropes even though its emotional core rings with resonance.

While its stylings are purposely retro, its aims are very much of the here and now. This is a film that digs deep into Chile’s colonial past — especially during a closing section that transforms the story into one of historical reckoning.

It’s a documentary of sterling musical moments and clever connections between culture and the city that all the principals here so clearly adore.

The film maintains a certain level of suspense as it leaps between various epochs, often without warning. But, like many of Bonello’s movies, it lacks forward momentum and a sharp edit, lumbering along as it reaches into a grab bag of thematic and aesthetic concepts.

There’s no question that Hanks is perfect in the part, as the actor’s amiability and unquestionable sincerity make for an ideal match with the unique television personality. Marielle Heller's film itself, however, is a rather more modest achievement, sympathetic and yet entirely predictable in its dramatic trajectory of making a believer of an angry, cynical journalist.

The 40-Year-Old Version is a beautiful achievement, one that ultimately calls attention to the huge gaps in representation of different kinds of black characters on film. It’s a gap that Blank clearly intends to fill; I can’t wait to see what she does next.

As dour as it often seems with its reek of stale booze and cigarette smoke, there’s joy here for patient audiences willing to find it, and to forego the easy consolations of a more conventional outcome.

It feels like a gift from one outstanding character actor to another, but never one that indulges the thesp at the expense of the film.

Through a pointed script and propulsive storytelling, Moratto smartly makes the stakes of living within such a perverse system clear.

A "little" film with a great reach.

On his third feature after "Tower" and "How Heavy This Hammer," Radwanski hits his quiet stride here, and the directing matches Campbell’s intuitive approach. Ajla Odobasic’s delicate, fast-moving editing reflects Anne’s uncertain hold on reality, while the open ending lets the viewer decide whether Anne or reality wins in the end.

Quiet and carefully made but cryptic, it relies on the viewer to complete its metaphors.

A deeply dispiriting portrait of the systemic persecution of the LGBT community in Uganda, the country that seems to be ground zero for homophobia.

Thanks to the script which invests the smallest scenes with dramatic significance, Tokyo Sonata enthrals audiences for the first hour with the pacing of a thriller.

A film that can be somewhat conventional in form, including a score that overdoes it on the pathos, but one that still provides a fascinating deep dive into organized failure.

It’s a nightmare, and not one a mainstream audience would relish. But aficionados of this nearly extinct form of special effects will relish the chance to see a labor of love whose roots go back to circa 1987.

Thoughtful and less sensationalistic than its premise might suggest, it's made for arthouses and offers a fine showcase for costar Rutger Hauer.

Long deemed unfilmable, the 18th century novel finds the perfect interpreters in director Michael Winterbottom and actor Steve Coogan.

Moviegoers who know their American political history will respond to the film's immediacy and forgive the film's tight focus and narrow view. Anyone hoping for an entertaining drama about newsmen and politics along the lines of "All the President's Men" will be disappointed.

Neither over-bleak nor falsely heroic, the movie sensitively observes a short span that, however things work out, is going to be a turning point in their lives.

Remarkably, it never comes across as fawning or hagiographic. Instead, Crosby and his interviewers collaborate to create something that feels honest and insightful.

Aquarela takes a deep dive into watery realms around the world, offering up an experience that can truly be described as immersive.

It is the director’s extraordinary intuition about the synchronicity of history, geography and the physical universe – a mysterious relationship that has nothing to do with cause and effect – that gives the film and its predecessor their undeniable power.

A stunning documentary that not only beautifully elucidates a nearly forgotten incident but touches on crucial themes involving isolation, sanity, self-worth, impossible dreams, the nature of heroism and limits of human endurance.

Nichol has created a loving valentine to all the iconoclasts who resist what the rest of the world defines as progress.

Ríos captures the village’s decline with a fair amount of affection and a keen eye for natural beauty.

With its intriguing performances, narrative restraint and unanswered questions, the movie delivers a strong pull of yearning as well as tantalizing currents of suspicion and dread.

It’s never assembly-line generic: Zlotowski is coloring within the lines here, but with generous strokes of nuance and feeling.

With his nod to the sparse mise-en-scene of his mentor Hou Hsiao-hsien (who produced his first short film Huashin Incident) and the philosophical reflections embodied in the films of Edward Yang — there's also a certain, faint echo of A Brighter Summer Day in the narrative here — Z has proved that the spirit of the New Taiwan Cinema remains very much alive.

Like a crafty predator, the Danish knock-out Holiday lays patiently in wait as long as it needs to — in this case nearly an hour — before stunning its prey, the spectator, with a shocking scene that catapults the film to a whole different level.

A fable-like story about a young African girl banished from her village for alleged witchcraft, it blends deadpan humor with light surrealism, vivid visuals and left-field musical choices.

Binoche and Stewart seem so natural and life-like that it would be tempting to suggest that they are playing characters very close to themselves. But this would also be denigrating and condescending, as if to suggest that they’re not really acting at all.

This is a marvelous family story, tapping into all sorts of childhood dreams and nightmares involving Mommy, monsters and heroic youngsters. Selick's imaginative sets and puppets are in perfect pitch with Gaiman's fantasy.

Dealing with its potentially discomfiting subject matter with sensitivity, insight and humor, the pic marks an auspicious debut for its director-screenwriter, who also plays a supporting role.

A Still Small Voice is about listening for inner truth and bearing witness.

Things head eventually in an abstract direction that may have played better onstage than it does here ("we must forget what we didn't see here," guests are eventually instructed), but a compelling atmosphere lingers.

Gasoline Rainbow pays homage to all the road movies that ever were but is still its own quirky thing, uniquely of its time.

The Ice Tower doesn’t grip you as much as it asks you to gaze at its hazy, nightmarish imagery, and either fall under its sway — or not.

Modest in scale but rich in sensitivity, this is an unassuming film, made all the more transfixing by its defining delicacy and understatement.

Introducing is a remarkably moving portrait of a 40-something woman forced to reevaluate her relationships and her sense of self in the face of a chronic illness that leaves her sometimes unable to speak or control her movements.

Though more an atmospheric and sensorial experience than strictly a narrative one, this languorous and handsomely produced (by Call Me by Your Name producer Rodrigo Teixeira) feature is a lovingly textured addition to the coming-of-age genre.

Arthouse audiences could drink this down like a glass of Chardonnay.

A brainy blend of farce and heart, this is one of those movies that veteran moviegoers complain they don't make anymore.

The Endless is not just about latent power struggles within cults but also within families, and about how both are eclipsed by more ancient, malevolent cosmic forces.

Side-stepping what could have been a cheap, morbid peek into the lives of two beautiful teenagers who were born joined at the hip, Indivisible strikes out on its own path, sounding an exhilarating note of freedom for its protags.

As the story grows increasingly bleak, it feels not only increasingly depressing but also more miserably authentic.

A lyrical work that’s as bright and captivating as it is poignant.

The film makes plenty of mileage from trading on the charm of a good bad boy, and Redford’s long experience in playing such roles serves him beautifully here; he knows by now he doesn’t have to push his attractiveness to be ingratiating. His work here is natural, subtle, ingratiating and doesn’t miss a trick.

It's tempting to call The Four Times documentary-like, except that documentaries usually explain what it is we are seeing. Instead, Frammartino uses his background as a video installation artist to create something that one could just as easily come across playing at an art gallery.

An acutely observed chamber piece played out by two exceptionally well-cast actors who keep you guessing about the subtle shifts in their characters’ relationship, this is an unflinching account of human lives rendered disposable by greed and corruption.

Thoughtful performances and earnest (if especially subtle) writing keep the film compelling enough until its final minutes, which are even more startling in their heart-wrenching effectiveness than in their mind-bending twists.

Wellesians will vigorously debate the aesthetic results of this torturously achieved accomplishment but, to the credit of those who, against daunting odds and nearly a half-century's worth of obstacles, arduously pushed this project to completion, the end result feels like a plausible fulfillment of the style Welles himself established for it.

An assured nonfiction storyteller, Smith works with editor Joey Scoma to weave together a nonstop, inventive collage of ephemera around concert footage, music videos, pre-existing and new interviews and a generous sampling of Mark’s graphic arts contributions, often spinning into animation.

Arnold plunges us straight into her subject’s point-of-view and never leaves it until the bitter end, during a final scene that’s shocking in its bluntness.

Thorny, blood-boiling and finely made.

Less a political movie than a boxing film without the gloves.

Comprising seven individual films with a cumulative running time of more than 8 1/2 hours, Have You Heard From Johannesburg (the title comes from a Gil Scott-Heron song) naturally will find a more receptive home on television and home video, but New York's Film Forum, presenting it in three parts, is to be commended for giving the series its world theatrical premiere.

It is fresh and spontaneous, plausible at its most logically improbable, thanks to Altman's superior direction, Lardner's script, the fine selection of actors and to an omnipresent camera under director of photography Harold E. Stine and operator Bill Mendenhall.

Which Way is the Front Line is more than a chronicle of a life and a brilliant ten-year career cut short at age 40. It’s also a strangely beautiful insight into one man’s distinctive way of looking at and experiencing war.

Refreshingly free of the tired human-interest personality profiles that afflict sports documentaries on both the big and small screens, director Eryk Rocha has created an impressionistic, visually stunning cinematic essay.

By focusing his camera on those “half-men, completely broken” by Habre’s reign and allowing them to tell their stories, Haroun is helping his country to finally mourn its own tragedy, while his warm and understanding approach offers up what feels like a path toward appeasement.

At first, the writer-director’s onscreen presence feels like an unnecessary distraction, and it could certainly be pared down. But as his interviews push deeper into the situation — and its overlap with the water crisis in Flint, Michigan — his investigative methods and congenial manner of confrontation prove productive, the results compelling and revelatory.

The script dares to go deep and confront what is going on in the hearts and minds of all three family members, but it does so articulately and without hysteria.

Most importantly, the pic gets laughs out of the class system without being glib about its cruelties. The gulf between rich and poor clearly matters to Huang, who poignantly shows how poverty robs even the dead of dignity.

Lee's direction is utterly masterful: delicate, lively, rambunctious and spontaneous all at once. The performances are similarly splendid, particularly Sihung Lung as the embroiled father and Chien-Lien Wu as his careerist daughter. [03 Aug 1994]

Harka darts between genre conventions: One minute it feels like a thriller, the next a heart-wrenching drama, another a psychological study. When the risky mix-and-match works — and sometimes it doesn’t — the results are emotionally potent. Nathan is fascinated by desperation, the kind that roots itself in the mind and soul. What lengths will a desperate person go to in order to survive? That is the essential, thrilling question coursing through Harka.

Gariépy, masterful in her emotional and physical exactness, is a revelation as the enigmatic Kelly-Anne, whose stringent control over herself and her environment masks a sick compulsion whose origins we can only guess at.