This first English-language outing by the ever-adventurous French director Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust and Bone) is a connoisseur’s delight, as it's boisterously acted and detailed down to its last bit of shirt stitching.

Beautifully put together in just about every way, it will be potent stuff on the small screen but deserves its moment in theaters.

The auteur seems to be squeezing everything he can into a personal manifesto in which cinema, history and real life become interchangeable, and in which he tries to situate his output within film’s larger trajectory.

The doc is as much a profile of its passionate central figure as an account of Brinton's importance to the history of cinema.

Blue Moon is a deceptively modest project, but it’s beautifully executed and fascinatingly nuanced despite being quite straightforward in terms of plot.

David Yates, in his go at the helm, throws the emphasis on the gathering storm clouds even as Harry and his fellow wizardry students make further discoveries involving the opposite sex.

Boasting a pitch perfect voice cast led by a terrific Ginnifer Goodwin as a righteous rural rabbit who becomes the first cotton-tailed police recruit in the mammal-centric city of Zootopia, the 3D caper expertly combines keen wit with a gentle, and very timely, message of inclusivity and empowerment.

The film is very invested in proving the validity of the social relationships created in virtual space. To me, that’s the easy part. Video games can absolutely be nourishing and substantive and healthy. And I’m not even sure Ibelin confirms that in a smart way.

Sustains a pervasive feeling of anxiety and suspense, despite an absence of dramatic conflict or resolution.

This is a comedy that finds poetry in unexpected places: the ancient cuneiform that Alma studies, and the invented past that Tom concocts to explain their romance. With sly humor and no small ache, I'm Your Man asks if we really want our fantasies to come true, and what happens when we fall in love.

It’s a pleasurable enough watch — nicely acted and with a gentle rhythm tuned to the main characters’ searching paths as they drift in and out of each other’s lives over 30 years — though ultimately, it lacks weight.

If the film doesn’t exactly transcend its familiarity (the elegiac tone, the sun-baked, wind-swept scenery, the wistful acoustic guitar score), it succeeds, often with understated magnificence, in finding ways to sidestep it — to make you not mind in the slightest.

The documentary isn’t as thorough or enlightening on border issues as something like Netflix’s Immigration Nation, but the young heroes make At the Ready a good vehicle through which many viewers will be able to process their own preconceptions and opinions.

There are chuckles and even guffaws throughout, though the comedy is streaked with despair, and also great tenderness. It’s the latest evidence of the director’s gift for tackling grave subjects with the lightest of touches; the film flows airily along, then knocks you off-balance with the weight of its insights and implications.

Achieves its goal of shining a spotlight on its subject while delivering a fascinating true-life tale.

Never weighted down with thematic preachings, Mississippi Masala is a captivatingly quirky love story which, through its combustive energy, probably conveys more about cultural assimilation than all the sociological treatises in the Kingdom. [05 Feb 1992]

More than most adaptations, this is a film true to Shakespeare's practice of employing all means at hand to keep the crowd entertained.

At a time when people feel obliged to choose which side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict they stand on, Holding Liat takes a thoughtful middle ground that exposes the situation without exploiting it.

Not unlike her gutsy protagonist, Twomey moves through the charged landscape with extraordinary agility. Combining gripping suspense with a quote from the immortal Persian poet Rumi, she creates a stirring final sequence from the rising chords of terror and resilience.

Accomplished and affecting art house fare.

Jodorowsky keeps circling back to the question of who he is and how poetry is inextricably linked with how he experiences the world.

Making his feature directorial debut (he's written such screenplays as Insurgent and Underwater), writer/director Duffield expertly handles the complex tonal shifts, keeping us on edge even as we're laughing. We're also thoroughly engrossed in the main characters' fates, thanks to the witty, perceptive dialogue and the two leads, who bring an unforced, charming naturalism to their performances.

Recounting his attempt to learn more about his great-grandfather's killing of a black man in 1946, Wilkerson is a compelling enough guide that it may be some time before the audience starts to wonder if the central mystery is a red herring.

Eliza Hittman's second feature is very much the work of a filmmaker with her own distinctive voice, combining moody poetry with textural sensuality to evoke the dangerous recklessness that often accompanies sexual discovery.

Powered by two first-rate performances, Jorge Gaggero's debut feature is full of psychological nuance and keen social observation.

This exercise in style and tongue-in-cheek melodrama from Canada's iconoclastic Guy Maddin will be lionized by admirers for its audacity, but will wear thin for many audience members, who will find it tedious and repetitive.

Lee and Smith shine a damning, sorrowful light on American racism, through the shattered prism of spring 1992 in Los Angeles. With its dazzling wordplay and densely layered profusion of history and biography, Rodney King is an experience as cerebral as it is visceral.

On the surface it is indeed a gentle, well-mannered and elegant affair, but its caustic undertow, which becomes increasingly apparent, ends up making the viewer angry about a world that seems hell-bent on finding divisions where there need be none.

Director-screenwriter Cregger displays an obvious perverse glee in guiding his audiences through his outlandish twists and turns.

Alternately haunting, inspiring and dreamily meditative, this is a visually majestic film of transfixing moods and textures.

One of the finest costume dramas in a long while.

Miraculously, it manages to unpack this perplexing issue with precision and intelligence but without any moral panic-mongering, condescension or dumbing down the complexity of the science stuff.

Cobb’s face is a canvas for a world of yearning that can’t fully be revealed to us because she doesn’t have the language to articulate it yet. That truth allows the film to feel both specific and universal at the same time.

Through all this, Byrne’s high-wire act remains riveting, scrutinized for long stretches of the film in DP Christopher Messina’s probing closeups. It’s a bruising performance, digging deep into the intense pressure and isolation that can sometimes accompany motherhood.

The film has two powerful, loosely connected stories to tell but not a unifying vision that could package the often-potent material for maximum impact.

One of del Toro’s finest, this is epic-scale storytelling of uncommon beauty, feeling and artistry.

While the filmmaking is raw, undisciplined and groaning under a cargo of self-conscious quirks, it scores points for originality and wacky creativity

Exhaustively tracking the five-year battle to overthrow California’s ban on same-sex marriage, they distill the dense legal process into a lucid narrative while illuminating the human drama of the plaintiffs, and by extension, the countless gay men and lesbians they represent.

An unnervingly powerful picture of atrocity.

Only the film's slow pace softens its powerful message.

The few instances of humor offer a welcome reprieve as the film's mood shifts from summery and sultry to increasingly dark and moody.

As tough as it is, France is also warm and subtly heartbreaking, offering a moving vision of life for those stuck in legal and emotional limbo.

Somewhere between Hayao Miyazaki and Terrence Malick lies Away, a gorgeously made minimalist cartoon that’s long on beauty and breathtaking scenery, if somewhat short on traditional narrative.

Nearly every scene offers a general backdrop of tragic sadness leavened by the quotidian necessity of fulfilling basic requirements, doing a job, tending to the moment-to-moment needs of others and finding hope wherever one can.

Sedentary at these encounters may be, they are also frequently riveting and invariably fascinating, as they provide first-hand accounts and insider insights of the sort infrequently heard. These almost invariably underline the significance of the film's title in the scheme of diplomacy and rewardingly reveal the hopes and regrets that come with the territory.

Despite that ominous theme, The Great Lillian Hall is a lovely tribute to life in the theater, with all its personal compromises, and a showcase for Lange, who deftly shows the character as a vulnerable woman and also displays the distinct style of Lillian the bravura actress.

Even if the film is mostly hitting familiar notes in terms of story and theme, it expresses a concise, focused and expertly managed vision with which there’s little to quibble, and the extraordinary style represents the fruition of a long-imagined dream on the part of many directors and cinematographers. From now on, when the discussion turns to great works of cinematography and camera operating, 1917 will always have to be high on the list.

Kedi eloquently taps into the mutual attraction between the cats and their people, as well as the animals’ complexity and resilience.

Overall, though, the project brings enough good into this rough corner of the world that viewers can walk out with honest cause to be hopeful for its inhabitants.

Led by an almost unrecognizable Simon Baker as a jaded cop, Limbo weaves in themes of racial inequity, broken individuals and fractured families to build quiet potency.

Providing important historical and sociological context, Hitler's Hollywood emerges as a compelling cinematic essay that should be essential viewing for cinephiles and history buffs alike.

Direction by George Cukor is ever a display of fine craftsmanship. He utilizes small mosaics of sharp characterization in building to his climax and works in each facet faultlessly. This is the job for which Cukor admirers have been waiting.

The most compelling parts of The Substance deal with how social conventions turn women against themselves. A stronger version of the film might have dug into the complexities of that truth, instead of simply arranging itself around it.

While its two credible leads are certainly up to the challenge, there's a relentless claustrophobia that prevents the film from taking on a fully dimensional life of its own.

Wholly one-third of the country, some 11 million people, watched the finale. Marking's film is too astute to pretend that such fleeting things can bring about peaceful democracy, but it's also perfectly aware that they certainly can't hurt.

Bielinsky is a most expressive director, achieving considerable nuances and depths of emotion with characters' looks, gestures, body language and silences.

There’s uncustomary warmth here and a sensitivity to the characters’ vulnerabilities that often is missing from this director’s work.

Working with a script by first-time writer Rebecca Blunt, Soderbergh has made the sort of breezy, unpretentious, just-for-fun film that scarcely exists anymore, one almost anyone could enjoy.

Peach will enthrall viewers with its blend of comedy, stop-motion animation and special effects. [8 Apr 1996]

When film lovers these days enjoy movies, we’re not always sitting in the dark before imagery that dwarfs us. But whatever the size of the screen, Desplechin convincingly argues, that screen is a place where reality, transmuted, “glimmers with meaning.” As it does in this artful blend of narrative and nonfiction.

One of the smartest things about Parmet’s film is the way it portrays internalized misogyny in her female characters. The Starling Girl is a complex, often disturbing portrait of the way women have been pressured to shrink themselves and pass on that shame to their daughters.

Without Denis’ typically transfixing aesthetics and with a storyline that lumbers along in places, High Life is not always an easy sit, even if occasional outbursts of violence spice up the action in distressing ways.

It’s a Gothic horror nightmare heaving with sumptuous visual detail, groaning under the weight of portentous dread, writhing with both convulsive violence and sweaty eroticism and leavened by sly hints of fiendish camp.

What’s remarkable about The Blue Trail and makes it such a delight is that despite all the oppression in the air, it’s a movie filled with hope and faith in human resilience at any age. The closing image will make your heart soar. And no, it’s not the one you were expecting.

Even the art house crowd will find the film off-putting not only because of its vagueness but because of its thoroughly unlikable characters.

Following Matt through a public transition and capturing its unique set of complications, Del Monte offers a warm portrait of a thoroughly winning subject.

For both diehard and casual fans, Marshall's entertainingly packaged film delivers a nostalgic tour back over the decades that shines a deserving spotlight on the group's artistry, an element too frequently overshadowed by their phenomenal chart reign.

Despite a warmly interacting cast that includes Jennifer Ehle as Emily’s sister and Keith Carradine as her lion-maned, lionized father, and a valiant effort on the part of Nixon and Davies to externalize the poet’s inner demons in emotional, high-tension scenes, the film can’t escape an underlying static quality that extinguishes the flame before it can get burning.

A welcome corrective to the abridged and widely accepted narrative that dismisses Cash's first marriage as "troubled," My Darling Vivian relates a little-known love story, great in its own right — and immortalized in Cash's first hit, "I Walk the Line." And it offers a nuanced portrait, loving but not fawning, of a complex woman.

Tracy Droz Tragos works to get beyond us-versus-them simplicity in Abortion: Stories Women Tell, focusing on personal narrative over politics in a humanistic look at an issue that promises to remain divisive for the foreseeable future.

Tickling Giants provides a comprehensive examination of Youssef’s career highs and lows while providing a vivid personal portrait of its subject whose cheerfulness and resolve began to wither in the face of constant threats to himself and his family.

An uncompromising drama from one of Iran’s most outspoken directors.

With a delirious mix of the sublime and the silly, Hong Kong comedy king Stephen Chow Sing-chi has taken the kung fu comedy genre to new heights of chop-socky hilarity.

Meru is an engaging and cumulatively exhilarating debut from wife-and-husband team Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin.

Armando Iannucci's The Personal History of David Copperfield turns the author's well-loved autobiographical epic into a fast-moving yarn, sometimes hilarious and always entertaining.

The film might be conventionally structured, but the singular ebullience and warmth of its resilient subject make it highly entertaining.

It's the humanity and compassion invested across all the principal characters that makes this contemplative examination of the terrible weight of taking a life so commanding.

Interspersing technical talk with a quick history of nuclear testing and other near-misses, the doc demonstrates how often situations like this arise.

Fancy Dance presents a broader narrative that emphasizes the connections that sustain families, communities and tribal nations, even when confronted with a legacy of disenfranchisement. Tremblay’s film validates the varied expressions of that experience with an affirming account of resilience and hope that sparkles with authentic performances, sensitive scripting and a genuine sense of place that resonate well after the final credits roll.

Scorsese has crafted a rip-roaringly gorgeous-looking, beautifully acted biographical epic. But while firing on all cylinders, there's something oddly distancing about the picture.

Nonetheless, Island of the Hungry Ghosts casts an undeniably hypnotic spell. The documentary also serves as an important reminder that the United States is far from alone in mistreating its would-be immigrants.

Fans of queer cinema, "A League of Their Own" or just good old-fashioned love stories will find much to celebrate in A Secret Love, including a profound wedding scene that rivals any of the nuptials in cinematic history. As it turns out, there is crying in baseball.

Till is more effective as an intimate portrait of devastating loss than a chronicle of the making of an activist. But the film has a powerful weapon in its arsenal in Danielle Deadwyler’s transfixing performance as a broken woman who finds formidable strength within herself.

A thoughtful, provocative effort that makes up for its narrative failings with its astute philosophical musings.

At once impressive and indulgent, hypnotic and patience-inducing with its languorous rhythms. It is, in other words, decidedly not for everyone.

If the feature film reached for, and often failed to achieve, great emotions to match its imagery, the non-contemplative Imax Experience seems even farther from this goal. Vastness and infinity are all fine and good, but the beauty of the universe tends to feel monstrous and inhuman without an element of human chaos to counterbalance it.

One of the more effective entries in what has essentially become a documentary subgenre, the film focuses on the surviving Green Berets who recall their experiences with a combination of pride and sorrow.

As well as building a strong case, through example, of the implications for towns and cities across the country, the film delivers telling glimpses of the personal day-to-day coping mechanisms of the cops themselves.

Like in all of the director’s work, psychologically reductive readings of the characters are absent, though intriguing performances give audiences a way into the material.

What makes Obsession so fun, and so disturbing, is how it takes typical aspects of dysfunctional romantic relationships to initially comic and then horrific extremes.

Audley (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints), in practically every frame of the film, has to carry this feather-light narrative on his shoulders and does so with ease.

The maturity of the directorial voice is evident in its clear-eyed, rigorously unsentimental assessment of a shattering situation.

Trapped is a succinct and heart-rending revelation of this complex and controversial subject. Most strikingly, it puts human faces on a social and personal issue that has been often engulfed by the invective surrounding it.

Like in any good genre yarn, there are a lot of unexpected twists and turns as characters run into each other — often quite literally and sometimes even with their vehicles — in the desperate hope of getting their hands on the money.

Mann, Hoffman and Feldman are clearly having a good time, and their comedic chemistry carries the film. But for the most part, Poetic License feels just as aimless as Liz, wandering from scene to scene without much of a vision.

Because it wants to be a primer on a serious subject, an exciting cinematic exposé and an argument for more openness and some kind of regulatory framework, the necessities of these different strands end up getting in each other’s way.

It won’t be to everyone’s taste, but Nope offers up a glutton’s feast for Peele disciples and fans of brainy sci-fi thrillers, ushering the director into an intriguing new phase of cinema that’s as rhapsodic as it is demanding.

Through its droll combo of stillness and churning dysfunction, perfectly embodied by Drakopoulos, Pity deconstructs the artifice of feeling and, most wickedly, movie sentimentality.