Medel, seldom off-screen, turns in a marvelous, utterly engaging portrait of an intelligent, caring person slowly stretched to breaking point.

A compelling and illuminating story of four people who form an unlikely and momentary friendship of considerable depth.

It’s the pairing of Bellingcat’s story of citizen journalism with the larger story of the state of media and its relationship to democracy that makes this documentary stand out. It’s frankly a relief to hear someone explain how we got here, how the culture of “fake news” came to rule the day, and then provide a clear example of how one group of people is standing up against it.

As action, it's niftily executed, the suspense neatly built, and the shocks expectedly surprising.

Charlie Polinger opens his thrilling and uneasy directorial debut feature The Plague with an arresting sequence that quickly establishes the haunting undertones of this adolescent psychological thriller.

Downey plays off his own bad-boy image wonderfully. The writers give him great lines to work with and ditto that for his Girl Friday, Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts, whose own svelte lines cannot be improved on.

Reygadas has hitched his austere and protracted style to an allegorical tale of subtle strength and depth.

Scenes of dark humor abound as well, like the episode in which the gathered journalists react in fury when they are not provided with pictures of the infamous deck of playing cards depicting the "50 Most Wanted" Iraqi figures.

Manning Walker does a fine job building a sense of dread and shifting tone without losing the story’s momentum.

Only Lovers Left Alive is an addictive mood and tone piece, a nocturnal reverie that incidentally celebrates a marriage that has lasted untold centuries.

Schimberg confidently blurs the lines between fantasy and reality (more than once a scene that appears to be real is actually fiction and vice versa), though never to the point that it detracts from the people onscreen.

A lively, sometimes very funny comedy.

Celebration ultimately resembles more of a snapshot than a fleshed-out portrait, but it's one that's likely to linger in your memory for a long time afterwards.

Intelligently written, vividly shot, tightly edited, sharply acted, the film represents a rare example of craftsmanship working to produce a deeply moving piece of history.

Anya Taylor-Joy is a fierce presence in the title role and Chris Hemsworth is clearly having fun as a gonzo Wasteland warlord, but the mythmaking lacks muscle, just as the action mostly lacks the visual poetry of its predecessor.

Driven by Cummings' transfixingly vulnerable performance, the movie not only justifies returning to the source: Shockingly, it does so without even using the device that seemed key to the short's success.

Another charmingly eccentric exercise in meta-fiction from Portugal's offbeat new directing star Miguel Gomes, Tabu chooses to explore its characters without following narrative rules, or rather, by reshuffling hackneyed tropes from film and novels to turn them into strange, modern entertainment.

As the script and performances dive inward, exploring David's ability to endure while sending Cal into memories of hunting trips with his own father (Bill Pullman), the movie uses Todd McMullen's fine scenic photography to show how stranded they are.

It’s a trippy, meandering journey, but the moments of amusement and insight are ample.

The central character never develops in an interesting way. Well before the wrap-up of this brief tale, her cultivated recessiveness becomes tiresome and, in these particular circumstances, a bit dull.

Under director Emir Kusturica's gifted hand, lunacy here takes a poignant and, ultimately, uplifting turn. [28 Oct 1996]

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes manages to do at least three things exceptionally well that are hard enough to pull off individually: Maintain a simmering level of tension without let-up for two hours, seriously improve on a very good first entry in a franchise and produce a powerful humanistic statement using a significantly simian cast of characters.

The film, narrated ably by Leonardo DiCaprio, who seems to share the audience's amazement at what is appearing onscreen, is over too quickly in a mere 43 minutes. So line up and see it again.

Punchy delivery styles, shimmering personalities and kaleidoscopic perspectives make up the soul of D. Smith’s gutsy documentary Kokomo City

Part workplace dramedy, part revenge fantasy, the film weaves together a series of satisfying, organic-feeling turns.

The film slowly but surely works its charms, painting a rich, emotionally complex portrait of a woman who, like Denis herself, will not let herself be boxed in.

Meticulous care is evident in every aspect of the film. All three actors playing Pi are outstanding.

Key to the remake's ultimate success is the casting of the troubled young leads.Smit-McPhee and Moretz possess the soulful depth and pre-adolescent vulnerability necessary to keep it compellingly real.

Costa's inquiry into that life offers a deeply felt angle on the broader realities of life in Paraguay during the '80s; while the intimate film is unlikely to expand beyond niche theatrical bookings, it will affect many who see it.

Haunting and atmospheric, For Those in Peril proves that creeping grief and guilt can deliver just as much dread-filled dramatic tension as a straight horror movie.

Metalhead is uninterested in caricature or easy laughs, and its embodiment of guitar-hero obsession is one much more closely resembling someone you knew in high school, albeit someone who's had an exceptionally hard time dealing with childhood trauma.

This is an elegiac story, a humanistic metaphor for a vanishing world seen through the prism of a vulnerable couple cruelly written off by their families as worthless encumbrances.

Denzel Washington and Viola Davis know their parts here backward and forward, and they, along with the rest of the fine cast, bat a thousand, hitting both the humorous and serious notes. But with this comes a sense that all the conflicts, jokes and meanings are being smacked right on the nose in vivid close-ups, with nothing left to suggestion, implication and interpretation.

The film doesn't really manage to sustain attention through its brief running time. But it is heartening to see that the filmmaker, now in his mid-80s, is as passionately engaged as ever.

What in lesser hands might have been just another tiresome COVID-19 quickie, locking us into a reality we’re all desperate to escape, becomes a tautly suspenseful nail-biter in Kimi, thanks to tirelessly eclectic director Steven Soderbergh and seasoned screenwriter David Koepp.

Few films feel as cathartic as James Solomon's documentary The Witness.

What makes Twinless special and surprisingly compassionate is how this director handles grieving characters.

Fast and dangerous, Miss Bala is a hair-raising actioner.

The birds are not only gorgeous but, as they poke for food and rustle around, entertaining.

Berger does a fine job controlling all of these performances, and he also creates a rich atmosphere for the production.

A superb murder mystery, with twists coming thick and fast yet always at the right moments.

A stiff central performance diminishes its emotional impact, but the visually alluring film's sensuality and tenderness give it a lingering spell.

Only in an extended sequence late into the proceedings...do we get a sense that Pineiro has tried to move outside of his comfort zone and does the film really become affecting.

Another Round ultimately has little fresh or profound to say about intoxication and addiction, but it is an engaging tribute to friendship, family and bacchanalian hedonism in moderation.

As the filmmaker traces a season of range riding for two exceptionally skilled and resourceful young women, her documentary becomes more than a portrait of against-the-elements fortitude; it poses piercing existential questions about purpose and independence, particularly for women choosing work that has long been deemed the exclusive province of men.

Anchoring it all is Sennott, deploying a stealthy, low-key timing that's perfectly suited to a character still struggling to figure out, and get comfortable with, who she is. The actress makes you lean in, her face a frequently blank canvas animated by sporadic squiggles of wit, neediness, resentment and longing that recede almost as soon as they appear.

While all the interview subjects are enthusiastic, the overall lack of familiarity with Rodriquez's personal background and career collapse begin to drag.

The young nonprofessional actors are a fresh, natural bunch, even if the bandmembers might have benefited from more individual character development.

A spare, claustrophobic film.

While Brawl in Cell Block 99 remains gripping and unpredictable throughout, the two-and-a-quarter-hour running time does feel a tad bloated, and the movie might benefit from being trimmed by 20 minutes or so into a tauter edit.

Ra'anan Alexandroricz's documentary uses a simple framework - a starkly photographed series of interviews with nine retired judges and lawyers instrumental in administering the often arbitrary laws - to deliver a provocative examination of the nature of justice.

Despite its commitment to biting humor and acerbic analysis, Competencia Oficial is, at its heart, a celebration of artists and their process.

The result is a highly unusual viewing experience that stimulates the senses and the conscience simultaneously.

By contrasting what the investigators are trying to uncover with the youthful adventures of the children, Dumont seems to suggest that the world of adults, despite appearances, is so rotten that it can only be stomached and perhaps even saved by two things: laughter of the tragicomic kind and a child-like innocence that somehow needs to be maintained into adulthood.

Firing on all cylinders as a creepy thriller, police procedural and "All the President's Men"-style investigative newsroom drama, the smart, extremely vivid production oozes period authenticity.

The film is an atmospheric and complex thriller that, while not quite living up to its thematic ambitions, more than sustains interest along the way.

Winnepeg filmmaker Guy Maddin isn't known for run-of-the-mill movies, but the feature he debuted at the Toronto Fest was outrageous even for him. A silent film taking the form of a twelve-chapter Feuillade-flavored serial and designed to have live accompaniment, the movie itself is a match for any of his features to date, and could outstrip earlier efforts in the arthouse arena.

Playing out against a dreamy Caribbean backdrop, Sand Dollars is indeed about dreams, unpicking those of a gracefully aging lady and her young lover with a trembling delicacy and attentiveness.

A charmer with strong appeal for video release, it is lively enough to merit a niche theatrical run beforehand.

The clashes between Afghan women and the Taliban forces oppressing them is captured with clear-eyed honesty and a compassionate eye in Bread and Roses

Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore does offer an engaging, exuberant portrait of the relentlessly likeable Matlin.

It elegantly upgrades a key player in the Elvis legend from the sidelines, and anyone attuned to Coppola’s distinctive wavelengths will find it a pleasurably emotional experience.

The lonely, uncanny and sometimes unthinkingly violent world of childhood is explored with chilling candor and exceptional skill in writer-director Eskil Vogt’s arthouse horror feature The Innocents.

Throughout the film, a talent-rich gang of cinematographers (many doc-makers in their own right, like Approaching the Elephant's Amanda Rose Wilder and Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo's Jessica Oreck) favor that intimacy over the big picture.

South Mountain transcends the limitations of some nakedly personal films to offer an affecting vision of frayed family ties.

All In offers compelling visual history and civics lessons that will still serve an educational purpose long after the next presidential inauguration.

In its mix of remarkable archival material, the film is both tender and galvanizing, summoning up what New York felt like in 1972 (yes, I would know) and offering a fresh slant on a country’s upheaval and a generation’s countercultural awakening.

Indeed, White Swan/Black Swan dynamics almost work, but the horror-movie nonsense drags everything down the rabbit hole of preposterousness.

The film’s sustained intimacy speaks highly of the trust the subjects came to feel for the filmmaker, who is able to cut to the quick as he follows and reveals their life phases while also maintaining a filmmaker’s discreet distance. It’s an unusual look at the slipperiness of the human condition.

If Sunfish is a vacation, it’s the kind that’s less about escaping into a fantasy than about trying on a different reality: learning your way around the terrain, getting to know the locals, falling into their everyday rhythms.

A slippery psychological drama that starts out talky and perhaps intentionally distancing but becomes retroactively gripping once its big switch is revealed, this is a darkly playful deconstruction of the indie filmmaking process that digs into the artist-muse dynamic and the power structures in relationships, constantly teasing the viewer as to what's real and what's part of the writer character's imagination.

Reteaming to play a duo similar to the one in A Prophet, Rahim and Arestrup maintain the film’s tense and sinister tone – the former providing a convincing mix of fragility and machismo, and the latter looking and acting more and more like Brando in the latter half of his career.

The filmmaker's intent was obviously to concentrate on the specific incident and its aftermath, but personal details would probably have enhanced the overall emotional impact. Nonetheless, 16 Shots is a worthy addition to what has sadly become a proliferating documentary subgenre.

Earnest and slow, the film takes time to reveal its intentions and the result is worthy but not engaging.

On many levels it's a bold, brilliant work, uncompromising in its darkness and distinguished by rigorously committed performances from a superb principal cast. Yet in many fundamental ways, the movie is frustrating; it's frequently a hard slog, as distancing as it is illuminating.

Perhaps Qu’s near-passive tone is meant to suggest that women don’t have much of a voice in society. But the story's almost complete lack of emotion also negatively impacts the viewers’ interest in the women’s plight. What does come through loud and clear is that Angels Wear White paints an unflattering portrait of not only how women are treated but also of how men try to protect their turf at all costs.

The movie arguably takes a little too long to kick in, but once its sense of danger — devious, disturbing, wryly amusing — is established, it never stops.

Though peppered with lots of photos and clips fans haven’t seen, rapid-fire editing ensures we nearly never see enough for a rare clip’s humor to land — instead, the montage persuasively conjures the camaraderie and creative enthusiasm we all wanted to believe in: Yes, these guys were great friends while they were transforming comedy. Then they weren’t. Now they are again.

Funny, sad and uncomfortable in shifting proportions, the film is at once an urgent public service announcement and a documentary memento mori — not always pleasant to watch, but far more pleasant to watch than the subject matter would suggest.

There's no such thing as a sure bet in career jumps, so the elegant execution, the incisive grasp of character and milieu, and the stealthy but sure arrival of pathos are extremely gratifying.

Strong performances from the four leads, plus the film’s unsettling visuals and crafty use of score, sound and strategic silence make it both a tough watch and impossible to look away from.

This is Holofcener’s sweet spot, the depiction of the emotional confusions, self-deceptions, uncertainties and misguided decisions that can cloud and get the better of otherwise bright, aware people, especially the female characters she tends to specialize in.

If the film is as disorderly in its structure as the messy family history it surveys, time spent with these wonderful subjects makes that seem sweetly appropriate.

Guggenheim’s particular approach here leaves lots of room for the next documentarian who wants to celebrate Fox’s life, but with its tight focus and distinctive style, it delivers an essence of Fox’s energy and generation-spanning appeal.

The story’s twists and turns maintain our interest throughout, with the narrative taking on a cleverly deconstructed play-within-a-film format reminiscent, at times, of Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York.

Even working with some of the most mainstream ingredients one could possibly find (including, in a funny moment, an NSYNC video) and one of the most familiar settings on earth, Guy Maddin knows how to make things strange.

Perhaps inevitably, the film moves toward a deeply poignant conclusion, but there are enough rambunctious and slightly zonked-out moments to provide a vivid, full-blooded portrait.

A ferociously entertaining thriller with sympathetic characters, stunning set pieces and pulsating excitement.

There’s a lyrics-and-melody power to the interplay of sharp observations and visuals that dive deep into archival material — a fitting dynamic for a film about someone with a preternatural gift for infectious tunes. And there’s a playful, irreverent bounce to the film that’s in sync with the Liverpudlian music hall tradition that McCartney, more than any of the Beatles, has held close.

Several impressive action scenes sustain the tension and electrify this overlong, often hard-to-follow story.

Heavy-handed and predictable in spots, yet engrossing and provocative in others, it’s an impressive if somewhat unruly debut

A prickly little gem by a singular artist.

An inspirational film for cinephiles everywhere.

Demanding but deeply affecting, My Flesh and Blood ultimately takes on a literal, highly visceral meaning that transcends notions of conventional family dynamics.

With Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn turning in superb performances, Roman Holiday is 118 minutes of sheer entertainment.

This entertaining, inside-show-business documentary is greatly enhanced by the presence of the two engaging "boys" of the title -- brothers who found harmony through music and dissonance with each other.

Though it doesn't answer every question it raises and may occasionally confuse the uninitiated, the polished film easily stirs indignation.

Long Strange Trip is an affectionate and well-crafted documentary, but it would have benefited from a little more of this emotionally raw material and a little less fawning reverence.