A great deal of human drama underlies all this, but not all of it makes it to the screen.

It manages to put a friendly, mostly female face to all the technical exploits and celestial theorizing, underlining how much the desire to uncover the secrets of the known universe is something that's all-too human.

An interrogation of Australia's history of racial violence that also takes on gender, identity and domestic abuse against a backdrop right out of an archetypal high country Western, the engrossing thriller is admirably ambitious but choppy, at times eluding the director's grasp.

At only 67 minutes, Bradley&Pablo's doc is aspiring much more to the former. Less brevity and more depth could possibly have yielded a superior movie, but Alone Together may be an example of a documentary better served by leaving fans wanting more than making casually curious viewers want less.

There's a richer documentary to be made, one you might crave even more after 90 minutes of being inspired and impressed by Lily Hevesh.

Mainly Park lets her actors interact, their humor deadpan, their pain unfathomable, their hormones surging and their flirtations halting.

Somewhere You Feel Free is a love letter to Petty, but also to that most mysterious of alchemies, the chemistry of a rock 'n' roll band.

The story itself finally feels lost beneath the levels of artifice rather than heightened by it.

Feliciano's mix of social commentary and old-school melodrama can be sharp, but it can also be distractingly on-the-button.

What's most notable about Todd Stephens' heartfelt salute to a real-life local legend is that the campiness of its outrageous plot becomes secondary to the soulful poignancy.

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.

It has its own peculiar spirit and casts a very witchy spell, thanks particularly to Gregg's adept handling of both experienced and young, less proven performers.

This is a compelling drama with real-world concerns that shouldn't be ignored, and it deserves better than to be the victim of an actor's offscreen sins.

Ultimately, Happily seems to bite off more than it can chew, proving more successful in its insightful exploration of relationship dynamics than its bizarre storyline. That few of its narrative mysteries are resolved is obviously meant to be purposefully ambiguous, but the results are finally more frustrating than intriguing.

A stirring requiem of rage and resistance.

Though the final product isn’t quite a home run, it is nonetheless a very intriguing work that again suggests Ben Hania is a talent to watch.

The movie's soul, such as it is, remains unimproved, and at 242 minutes, very few of them offering much pleasure, it's nearly unendurable as a single-sitting experience. If it were watched in parts — title cards identify six chapters and an epilogue, and some rumors suggested it would be released as a series — those segments would fail to deliver the shapely balance of energies and pacing that one expects these days from even a merely competent TV show.

One of the most effortlessly absorbing and deeply encouraging nonfiction films of recent memory.

Clever enough to not take his plot too seriously while fully indulging in its sentimentality, the filmmaker has crafted an undeniably feel-good romantic comedy. You'll have to try hard not to fall under its spell.

It stands solidly on its own as a dynamic inquiry into revolutionary culture and Black identity, not to mention the challenge of living with roommates.

There is a palpable sense that this was made by someone who knows Mumbai backwards and truly loves its ochre-colored streets, cluttered sidewalks and peeling billboards advertising old movie releases, right down to every frayed shred of paper.

The script’s skillful tension makes it easy to forgive Operation Varsity Blues its occasionally clunky missteps. At least it tells a tale as old as time — of the insatiable rapacity of those who already have more than anyone else — with novel relish.

It's parental wish-fulfillment that isn't at all interested in what being a kid actually feels like.

An amusing, accomplished debut on its own modest terms, Next Door works best as tart meta comedy, becoming increasingly cramped in scope and setting as it spirals into an obsessive revenge thriller.

The finale is telegraphed far in advance, yet when it comes the drama is so down-played it doesn’t register in its full horror.

The camera often seems to capture seemingly quotidian moments, but Koberidze’s painterly eye elevates them to intimate flashes of poetry and delight.

Graf has spent most of his long career as a director of TV series and movies, and much of the staging lacks great originality. But this is made up for, in part, by the striking way the story of Jakob and his friends is told mixing the narrative drama with now old-fashioned “modernist” tech devices borrowed from the past.

Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is full of understated, melancholy poetry.

The directors allow ample space for somber reflections without ever detracting from the fact that Tina, fundamentally, is a celebration, a unique survival story.

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.

Less a sequel than a remake featuring a younger actor going through the same narrative paces as Murphy in the original, Coming 2 America includes so many nods to its predecessor that it feels like a feature-length Easter Egg in search of a movie.

The requiem-like heaviness of the music at times risks pushing Ted K into overwrought territory, but this remains a haunting vision of vengeful obsession carried out by a criminal who makes some provocative points.

Language Lessons, which comes from the Duplass Brothers indie production stable, is a small-scale debut but one graced with charm and genuine heart.

It’s a solid first film, with a firm grasp on its melancholy but romantic tone, which never gets in the way of its propulsive momentum.

The humor is broad, the satirical targets many, the overall effect mixed.

The characters are uninvolving, the emotional stakes never fully take hold and the physical action invariably promises more than it delivers.

Here the burn can be too slow to handle at times, as if the gas had been forever left at medium-low heat. You're ultimately left wanting more from a movie that tries to drift away from the usual policier template, even though shots are fired and bodies drop.

The unconsummated attraction between best friends played by Carice van Houten and Hanna Alström clearly is meant to be its emotional pulse. Yet however sensitive the two leads' performances, The Affair rarely gathers the necessary intensity.

This is all passably satisfying, but would be vastly better if the screenwriters weren't lazily explaining every single detail in voiceover. Grillo generally excels as a man of few words, but here his disembodied voice is a wall-to-wall shag carpet, dampening the fun we'd be having if we could just focus on the mayhem Carnahan delivers.

There's enough good, previously unseen stuff in Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell to make it an easy recommendation, though seeing and hearing stuff you haven't seen before isn't the same as learning a lot of things you didn't know before. It's captivating because Biggie was captivating, without being enlightening.

It's the integrity of the performances by Hovig and Skarsgard that keeps the classy drama so engrossing, with the director making neither character entirely saint or sinner but giving them both infinite shadings in between.

My Octopus Teacher is not the first documentary to plunge us into the otherworldly flora and fauna of Earth's oceans . . . But it is the first to chronicle a single sea creature's story from such a personal, openhearted perspective, revealing not just emotional connections but animal behaviors previously unknown to scientists.

It’s the kind of movie that needs a feather-light touch or plenty of humor to avoid feeling overly parental. Moxie has neither.

The best thing about the movie is the way in which it subverts all the clichés of the star-is-born story.

Raya and the Last Dragon occasionally crawls, but most of the time it’s got urgency and momentum to spare. Just as impressively, it builds to a deeply moving climax whose resolution is unexpected yet consummate. This is a film that knows how to soar.

Three hours long yet anything but leisurely, the doc is charged with energy, anger and disappointment.

The frenetic plot makes about as much sense as it needs to within this world of slapstick insanity, random detours, crazy chases, gambling fever and a talent quest for "the coveted Campy Award." You'll either give in to it, or you won't.

Bolstered by lush imagery and, perhaps more importantly, immensely naturalistic performances from its non-professional child actors, the film conjures up a quietly heartbreaking drama that works on multiple levels. These nuances probably allowed Wang to elude the stringent demands of China's censors.

Tim Story's Tom & Jerry is five to ten minutes of action that might have worked in one of the cartoon duo's shorts, surrounded by an inordinate amount of unimaginative, unfunny human-based conflict.

The film is a staggeringly impressive debut, blending color, sound and story to create an intricate emotional tapestry.

As the documentary vividly illustrates, it's what's motivating that evangelical support that proves problematic.

Walker's story no doubt is grounded in a very real milieu that reflects the grim existence of countless Americans returning from active duty to a country blighted by economic downturn, shrinking opportunity and substance abuse. But the only reality Cherry reflects with numbing insistence is that of co-directors getting high on their own high style.

This well-intentioned if somewhat heavy-handed historical affair is anchored by Coogan’s solid lead turn, with support from Andrea Riseborough as a hard-hitting state prosecutor and promising newcomer Garion Dowds as an executioner who could wind up facing the gallows.

Ultimately, none of the storylines offers a surprise or tells us anything we don't already know, this many years into America's opioid ordeal. And arriving at a moment when Crisis could refer to so many other calamities, its failure to illuminate anything makes it feel like a distraction.

An agonizing tale about the weight society hoists upon too many black gay men’s weary shoulders, it’s the kind of film that lingers in your mind days after you’ve seen it, as much due to the relevant subject matter as to Tunde’s penetrating gaze.

Of course, ravishing Malick-esque visuals cannot quite excuse muddled plotting, portentous dialogue and wobbly performances. But In Full Bloom is still an impressively polished debut feature, admirably ambitious and elegantly crafted.

Day mesmerizes even when Lee Daniels' unwieldy bio-drama careens all over the map with stylistic inconsistency and narrative dysfunction, settling for episodic electricity in the absence of a robust connective thread. It's a mess, albeit an absorbing one, driven by a raw central performance of blistering indignation, both tough and vulnerable.

In its tiresome attempts to send up its star's image and not take itself too seriously, the film becomes exceedingly laborious.

At this point, Cage's movies don't have to be reviewed, but rather stamped with official certificates of weirdness. This effort directed by Kevin Lewis certainly qualifies.

Ultimately, it all feels less like a romance than a curiosity.

A captivating lead performance and a truly massive central metaphor make it a memorable arthouse film.

As much as Pelé inspired love and awe among his fans, this polished and well-intentioned biography doesn’t quite do the same.

There is plenty to admire technically in his drama . . . But its substance is a mashup of ill-fitting parts, indebted to both Romeo and Juliet and Douglas Sirk.

Throughout, Thyberg switchbacks between humor and humiliation with unsettling abruptness, but withholds judgement of the characters' choices to create an ethical Rorschach test, prompting reactions that may be more revealing than the film itself.

Suk Suk is his most accomplished, mature film to date, and Yeung demonstrates a keen eye for the social dynamics that impact us and how we respond to them, and finds space to bask in the simple pleasures, basic generosity and the safety net that is family while simultaneously dealing with homophobia, ageism and faith.

An unapologetically delirious frolic in which lifelong friendship is tested by romance, adventure and the mass-extermination plan of an archvillain, this disarming escape to turquoise waters and a seafood buffet will be just what many folks need right now.

Its freewheeling storytelling often feels slapdash, its hippy-dippy earnestness a touch simplistic and its central allegory is lifted straight out of X-Men. But there's a nonstop fusillade of imagination at work here that commands attention, even when the balance of art-school inventiveness and child-like fantasy threatens to topple into chaos.

Though it can at times feel wanting in dramatic heft or clarity, The Dog Who Wouldn't Be Quiet can also be revelatory, and its drama flowers in delightfully unflashy ways.

The plotting is haphazard and laced with meandering detours that don't always pay off, but there's a distinctive voice in the deadpan humor and poignancy in the story's collision of aspirational self-delusion with blithe resignation.

It’s hard to think of a less dramatic subject to fictionalize, yet in its own quiet way, Hive builds a strong storyline around the self-reliance and determination of an uneducated country woman, played with glammed-down but riveting cool by a granite-faced Yllka Gashi.

While it has a few incidental felicities to admire, by and large Music is a sentimental atrocity so cringe-inducing it should come with an advisory warning for anyone with preexisting shoulder or back injuries.

Breaking News in Yuba County features a pitch-perfect Janney at the center of a game cast of well-knowns. Yet as it fumbles through its unwieldy mix of crime-caper farce, social commentary and black comedy, the genre it most solidly nails is the one that poses the burning question "Why did so many accomplished actors sign on to this?"

To All the Boys: Always and Forever is the most mature, and thus, most entertaining of the three films because it highlights the choices Lara Jean makes for herself instead of the choices she makes about other people.

Kyle Allen and Kathryn Newton balance energies well as the boy who thinks he's found his groundhog girlfriend and the girl whose secrets keep romance at bay. Viewers who haven't soured on the format yet could do much worse than this sweet entry.

It makes a global crisis intensely personal, even romantic.

It transitions from tender romance into penetrating sorrow before taking on notes of mordant humor and unexpected quasi-thriller elements.

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.

Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr.'s feature debut represents indie cinema at its most stark and elemental.

It's pleasant enough, but lacks the vitality to be more than mildly funny as comedy as well as the insight to build emotional heft as drama.

Strawberry Mansion is a movie about the preservation of imagination. There is definitely an undercurrent of anti-corporate messaging that is always relevant in this modern media landscape. But these themes are not presented with a heavy hand. The point that the film is trying to make can be taken as lightly or as seriously as one likes. What Audley and Birney seem to want most is for audiences to allow themselves to be overtaken by their deliberately childlike approach to storytelling.

Misha's actual story is fascinating in its own way, but within the relative levity of Hobkinson's framework, her truth and trauma get lost in a detective yarn. The film lacks the heft to adequately explain the nuance of Misha's truth

While the two young thesps acquit themselves nicely, much around them conspires to prevent their debut from being a memorable one.

Though the movie is never unengaging, ultimately, it doesn't quite deliver.

If 107 minutes is maybe insufficient for something as important and layered as Sesame Street, that likely won't keep viewers from being satisfied.

While The Sparks Brothers may be a bit too exhaustive for those merely seeking an introduction to the band, longtime fans will be thrilled by the deluxe treatment.

Sisto has an arresting visual style, a firm command of tone and an impressive ability to steer his fine cast onto the same rigorous wavelength, all of which makes him a talent to watch.

As with both of his previous works, the filmmaker delivers an undeniably ambitious mind-bender that bites off more than it can narratively chew.

It alternates between too simplistic and incomprehensible, spending much of its time in between those poles in the "I understand, but I don't care" zone.

Whether this is a one-time passion project or the beginnings of an ongoing move from acting into directing in her career focus, Hall has crafted a work that's thoughtful, provocative and emotionally resonant.

Led by sensational performances from Daniel Kaluuya as Hampton and LaKeith Stanfield as William O'Neal, the FBI informant who infiltrated his inner circle, this is a scalding account of oppression and revolution, coercion and betrayal, rendered more shocking by the undiminished currency of its themes.

It's not wholly satisfying as a dramatic work, which is probably a sign of its honest identification with its two troubled protagonists.

It's a harrowing watch, but a cathartic one, with each of the four superb principal actors delivering scenes of wrenching release.

Without a drop of self-congratulatory "enlightenment," Land occupies a wild terrain of ineffable tenderness.

As two long-timers eyeing potential breakthroughs in middle age, Clifton Collins Jr. and Molly Parker deliver beautifully tempered turns, with fine support from Moises Arias in the role of an up-and-comer with a mournful gaze.

Dispiritingly generic in both appearance and tone.

It's more breezy than bittersweet, more about acceptance and forgiveness than a movie made in 2020 has any right to be.

Even when accessing the situation remotely via camera operators and citizen journalists on the ground, Wang deftly balances factoids with first-hand experiences to show the emotional cost, both for people unable to say goodbye to their loved ones and front-line health care workers and funeral home staff, absorbing the trauma of unrelenting losses.

Though it leaves some avenues underexplored and gives a bit too much attention to the sci-fi landmark name-checked in its title, the film makes for engrossing, sometimes unsettling viewing.