It cannily draws its various strands together into a visually striking piece of rare immediacy and power.

Valadez and Rondero again mix grit and lyricism, this time to trace the coming of age of a boy growing up in a climate of lurking cartel violence. The new feature doesn’t match its predecessor’s distinctive spell or cumulative power, but its undertow of menace is expertly sustained, and its dread buffered by hope.

The best thing this movie does is boost visceral analog action over the usual numbing bombardment of CG fakery, a choice fortified by having the actors in the airborne cockpits during shooting.

It’s an affectionately told story of Canadian innovation, loss of innocence and of unlikely bedfellows making entrepreneurial magic.

An unflinching portrait of the harsh life this family of three ekes out, Gas, Food, Lodging is a warm-spirited testament to female strength. Screenwriter-director Allison Anders' skilled adaptation of Richard Peck's novel "Don't Look and It Won't Hurt" is a taut, off-road depiction of American life. [3 Feb 1982]

Succeeds so beautifully because of a compelling story, great acting, intelligent writing and sensitive direction.

This may be the Dardennes’ most emotionally engaging film in a while — a tragedy told with utter clarity, centered on protagonists entirely deserving of our sympathy, empathy, all the ‘pathies you’ve got.

The three main characters are all vividly sketched.

McCarthy’s approach to his original script is marked by an admirable economy of both narrative and style. Withholding plot details, limiting the cast to a bare minimum and confining the action to just a few claustrophobic locations combine to amplify an escalating sense of unease.

Naturalistic and a bit on-the-nose in spots, the film is also a moving tale of real-world strife — a sort of low-key, contemporary take on Visconti’s neorealist classic La Terra Trema, with EU officials and regulations undoing seafaring practices that have existed for generations.

While far too much of the film is staged discussion and smug political jousting, there is savage and lethal black irony.

At its heart, the film is really a classic story of redemption, taking lots of unexpected turns as it follows a down-and-out hero toward recovery.

The humor is an ingenious concoction of satire, spoof, burlesque, slapstick, raunchy dialogue and low-comedy sight gags. The jokes are directed at sex, politics, religion and almost everything else. The level of humor is not always consistent, but the filmmakers have thrown almost everything in with a shotgun approach and the routines work more often than not.

Worley has adroitly assembled the mega-mash-up into an engaging whole, with the help of an amiable cast and a crack technical team.

Simply lets the sinfully gorgeous music and emotions sweep over an audience.

It’s a moving and intimate narrative about the toll displacement takes on generations of people.

Moss tackles the idea from a more intimate and feminist perspective, questioning how far mothers are willing to go for their children, or simply to become mothers at all. If what happens in her movie seems altogether extreme, maybe it’s because the world we live in tends to push such women to extreme places.

As courageous as the platoon members are, Warfare is not to be confused with a movie about heroism; it’s a movie about hell that leaves you shaken.

One of rock's underheralded pioneers gets his due in Beware of Mr. Baker, an affectionate but unfawning portrait that finds the drummer of Cream still keeping the beat despite hardships both institutional and self-inflicted (heavy on the latter).

The movie’s shifts in tone and focus can occasionally be distracting, but through it all Jungermann maintains a suitably dark undercurrent with an impressively light touch.

The film repays patient viewing as it evolves into an engrossing, nuanced, philosophical drama.

It’s a reminder that you don’t need sensationalism to deliver something that’s honest and emotionally resonant.

An excellent documentary film. [3 Nov 1993]

As Precious, Sidibe is superb, allowing us to see the inner warmth and beauty of a young woman who, to her world's cruel eyes, might seem monstrous.

While Dìdi treats Chris’ feelings without sugarcoating or condescension, taking seriously his sense that he’s totally lost amid life-or-death stakes, it’s also blessed with the perspective of grown-up wisdom.

Grippingly depicting the ensuing tensions that constantly threaten to spill over into violence — even while raising discomfiting questions about the scope of First Amendment rights — the film is a nail-biter from start to finish.

This is a film of transporting grace and compassion, cerebral but never cold. It’s no small compliment to say that After Yang seems almost like an American sci-fi movie that Ozu or Kore-eda might have made.

The balance between detail and momentum can at times be off, and the helmer doesn’t entirely avoid generic tropes of the legal drama. But he conveys the enormity of the undertaking at the film’s center — the first major war crimes trial since Nuremberg — and it’s felt in every moment of Darín’s compelling portrayal.

A rich reminiscence of a gifted actor who died far too young.

Crucially, like its predecessor, Gloria Bell maintains a warm but rigorously unsentimental tone despite material which could easily lend itself to mawkish sentimentality.

Even in this fictional context, the line between portraying and exploiting abused innocence gets uncomfortably, offensively blurred.

One could walk away with deep thoughts about modernity and the relationship between nature and man, but that’s not required. Appreciating the beauty of an intricate process unfolding is more than enough.

Take a pinch of Top Gun, stir in a generous dollop of The Right Stuff, add a light sprinkling of Mad Men and you have the formula for this uplifting documentary portrait of former Apollo astronaut Eugene Cernan.

Although marred by a couple of too-convenient plot contrivances, this often humorous drama lands firmly in the plus column among the Woodman's recent works.

Directed by French director Anne Fontaine (Two Mothers/Adore, Coco Before Channel), this is another gorgeously appointed but also slightly overly formal film, with a muted emotional payoff that, while appropriate for the story’s convent setting, doesn’t exactly make for must-see cinema.

The film is attractively and professionally packaged however, with accomplished camerawork and editing supporting a narrative that eventually seems to reveal more smoke than fire.

The most sympathetic, illuminating study of domestic labor since Roma.

Chinese writer-director Zhang Lu’s minor-key drama will be too muted and elusive to break beyond festivals, but its melancholy spell stays with you.

An urgent film, it's filled with chilling detail and propelled by clear-eyed compassion.

There's a beautiful, multi-tiered exchange among artists happening in Junun.

With his fine cast and his gracefully restrained screenplay, Shults makes horror recognizable.

With writer-director del Toro given free license to go where his singular vision takes him, Hellboy II plays like Guillermo's Greatest Hits with even hotter visual effects.

Think of Please Give as a finely tuned short story with every glance and gesture full of suggestive meaning. Drama is not high on the agenda here. There is a bit of comedy and, briefly, sexual mischief even though it doesn't look like much fun.

If nothing else, the period picture represents an impressive change of pace from Ostrochovsky’s hard-knock feature directorial debut.

It's an eloquent contribution to af Klint's rediscovery, which began four decades after her 1944 death. It's also a cogent argument for why that rediscovery impels nothing less than a rewriting of art history.

Intimate in every sense, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande represents an affirming, immensely likable British comedy-drama.

The director clearly takes depression and suicidal urges and the possibility they may be hereditary very seriously but that doesn’t mean that the film isn’t often very witty.

This is a work of art so deep and resonant that it puts most narrative films to shame.

Though the story has undergone quite a few changes, what’s intact is the novel’s grittiness and emotional honesty, which more than compensates for the occasional coming-of-age cliche.

Predator: Killer of Killers provides the non-stop action that the diehard fans crave.

Bigger, badder, bolder, longer, and featuring nearly more spectacular set pieces than one movie can comfortably handle, this epic action film practically redefines the stakes.

A documentary that starts out odd and ends up oddly sweet.

Defying any logical narrative, the film relies on poetic images and associations. It suggests that the most frightening thing in the world can be in your own mind.

Running the gamut from social comedy to actioner to war movie, Clash is an original, often quite disturbing experience to watch.

Co-directors Julia Halperin and Jason Cortlund (Now, Forager), working from Cortlund's script, keep us guessing not only about the intentions of Sinaloa (Sophie Reid), but also about the path of their absorbing, mostly low-key thriller, which builds atmosphere, psychological texture, an ingrained sense of place and a needling undercurrent of dread.

This is derivative if well-executed product, except when it comes to the relationship at the film’s center.

A step up in terms of complexity, with more subplots and a larger cast of protagonists to juggle and less instantly sympathetic characters or an evident cause to rally behind, this drama again offers many quiet, often character-driven rewards but struggles to become larger than the sum of its parts.

I’m much more comfortable with Roadrunner as a portrait of an evolving, complicated, tragic TV personality, and as one of the best behind-the-scenes glimpses of a TV show (or shows) I’ve ever seen, than I am with it as an attempt to make sense of a man who, for whatever reason, no longer wanted to continue living.

Amanda Knox makes for succinct, involving viewing — a true-crime doc that acknowledges the lingering debates over its subject's guilt while prompting one to ask: Why did anyone ever believe this outrageous stuff in the first place, much less cling to it for years?

Becoming Bulletproof is as enjoyable as it is inspiring.

The gorgeous and often forbidding scenery (there's a harrowing episode set in an underground lava tunnel) should provide a visual balm to those suffering the claustrophobic effects of quarantining. The terrific music score, featuring numerous contributions by The Avett Brothers, feels like a bonus.

Soderbergh and McCraney have entertainingly stirred the pot and put a perspective on the screen that will stir some reactions in the real world and get the issue of ownership and fairness talked about, at least for a while. It’s a sharp-minded film.

The film is a remarkably insightful and powerful portrait of the human condition.

A companion piece of sorts to First Reformed, this is another bruising character study of a solitary, burdened man who processes his most intimate thoughts in a journal, living with his guilt until he’s handed an unexpected opportunity for redemption.

Tedeschi’s film is a declaration of love for the Beatles, but what distinguishes it is its curiosity about the America of that time, beyond the bubble of the four Scousers who can hardly believe they’re drinking cocktails in Miami.

The result is uniquely powerful, putting faces and human consequences to a political dispute that seemingly will never end.

One's appreciation of this film depends largely on one's ability to be amused by a Dadaist prankster and interest in the Pop Art scene in the middle of the last century.

Hong Kong writer-director Wong Kar-wai's "Chungking Express" is hip and entertaining... Technically, the film is first-rate, while all the principal performers are excellent. [9 June 1995]

Enlivened with droll wit and framed with robust sensitivity, O'Horten is an amusing and entrancing personal portrait. Succinct in its visualizations and crisp in its pacing, its deferential storytelling is in sync with its Odd subject.

After watching Maysaloun Hamoud’s sparkling, taboo-breaking first feature In Between (Bar Bahar), audiences will have to seriously update their ideas about the lifestyle of Palestinian women in Israel.

[A] small-scale but deeply moving documentary.

Powerful enough to make even the most cynical believe in the ability of ordinary people to induce political change.

There’s a beguiling dichotomy in Kristen Stewart’s accomplished first feature as writer-director — between the dreamlike haze and fragmentation of memory and the raw wound of trauma so vivid it will always be with you.

Catherine Gund's Born to Fly works very well as a portrait of a maverick artistic sensibility, even if it will leave some viewers wanting more in terms of performance footage.

The director's latest rise-and-fall chronicle suffers from a few structural problems that did not bedevil Senna or Amy. Most obviously, the subject is still very much alive, which may explain why this officially endorsed film feels more cautious and compromised than it might have been.

This isn’t Hiroshima Mon Amour. It’s more like Need for Speed Mon Amour done on a modest scale, with an effectively simple plot and nonstop action scenes that find a daunting number of ways to wreck and destroy cars.

Where director Yamada excels is in depicting the interior worlds of the two main characters, paying particular attention to details, whether visual or sonic, that seem to place a constant divide between Shoya and Shoko.

The film is anchored by incisive characterizations rich in integrity and heart, and by an urgent simplicity in its storytelling that's surprisingly powerful.

Engrossing and well-researched documentary.

Once again Bier demonstrates just how misleading appearances can be, as she artfully removes the veneers concealing the dark truths locked away by her intriguing characters.

The very personal nature of Taylor’s involvement with these magnificent creatures makes this quite an affecting account of their threatened survival.

Makes everything in the rival Marvel universe look thoroughly silly and childish. Entirely enveloping and at times unnerving in a relevant way one would never have imagined, as a cohesive whole this ranks as the best of Nolan's trio, even if it lacks -- how could it not? -- an element as unique as Heath Ledger's immortal turn in The Dark Knight. It's a blockbuster by any standard.

The Lost City of Z is a rare piece of contemporary classical cinema; its virtues of methodical storytelling, traditional style and obsessive theme are ones that would have been recognized and embraced anytime from the 1930s through the 1970s.

It’s a minor work for the director and its emotional heft feels softer than usual, but even his lesser films can be compelling, and Beer is never less than transfixing.

While constantly eventful and a feast for the eyes, it's also notably more somber than its predecessors. But just when it might seem about to become too grim, Robert Downey Jr. rides to the rescue with an inspired serio-comic performance that reminds you how good he can be.

Blind Shaft, a well-acted and well-produced film, is a quiet though searing indictment of contemporary China.

The pace is gently hypnotic and the topic fitfully interesting, but the format will test the patience of all but serious art-cinema fans with its narrow focus and chilly film-school minimalism.

Ultimately, Loznitsa builds up a portrait of a bitter clockwork world where the faces of the doomed are above all part of a landscape.

The Ballad of Wallis Island breaks no new ground, but it’s an unexpectedly pleasurable, funny-sad watch, full of sweet, soothing music.

Young and Whisenant hatch a finale that is corny and wonderful — a rare chance to watch someone's dream come true, and an exhortation for others to follow their own weird enthusiasms wherever they might lead.

Blue Ruin is a talented but sophomoric low-budgeter that straddles the divide between genre thriller and art piece with mixed results.

This is a gentle, reflective portrait that seldom gets personal and yet somehow feels quite candid.

Combining comedy, action, drama and an impressive number of different animation styles, The People’s Joker is a self-conscious, intentional cult film, crafted with genuine love for everything in the margins.

Throughout, the film's subjects convince us they're doing nothing more than being themselves, so much so that a cynical advisor told Sutton he should market his film as a documentary. That label would prepare potential viewers for Pavilion's lack of story, but it would make a lie of the movie's patient, finely drawn loveliness.

The Man Who Saves the World? makes for both fun and thoughtful viewing.

This overly meta farce beats its mildly silly jokes so steadily into the ground that it’s not so much a case of diminishing returns as humor abuse.

Throughout, Wang makes a virtue out of necessity: Her on-the-run scoping and jarring cuts infuse the film with a sense of desperate danger befitting its subject matter.

The story ends in a muddled rush, leaving many unanswered questions. Like a newly launched high-end smartphone, Ex Machina looks cool and sleek, but ultimately proves flimsy and underpowered. Still, for dystopian future-shock fans who can look beyond its basic design flaws, Garland’s feature debut functions just fine as superior pulp sci-fi.