Though the emotional pull of this love triangle grows more compelling in the second half, for much of its running time November prefers to beguile us with the strangeness of its setting and characters.

Schrader’s film gets into the nitty-gritty without losing sight of the alchemy.

The film makes its case methodically and persuasively.

Gook rises above message-movie mediocrity, enjoying its characters too much to use them as political mouthpieces.

Creature is exceptional in its depiction of the Byzantine bureaucracy that encases gulags, and how the towns adjacent to Russian prisons tend to be seedy snake pits of crime and venality.

Following the fizzle of his coming-of-ager Goodbye Berlin (Tschick) last year, Fatih Akin bounces back and bounces high with an edge-of-seat thriller inspired by xenophobic murders in Germany by a Neo-Nazi group.

What director Jamie M. Dagg achieves with his slow burn of a second feature is a total immersion in end-of-the-line atmosphere, with four superb central performances bringing archetypal intrigue to life.

Joshua: Teenager vs. Super Power is actually a rousing documentary on a youth movement against, essentially, educational brainwashing.

The often-very-funny picture entertains while affording its characters their share of no-laughing-matter concerns.

Admittedly, the storyline weaves all over the place, but no matter — Chase's performance and a plethora of daft and witty situations carry it past some structural rough spots.

Calling itself a "vision" as opposed to a "film," Icaros attempts to conquer fear — of death, of blindness, of loss — by accepting the potency of a magic it knows it will never understand.

An easygoing hangout film that will ring true for anyone who has worked in the service industry, it continues the filmmaker's streak of making movies that have few obvious common denominators besides empathy for types of characters who rarely get 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.

The use of both dialogue and film language is sophisticated; sometimes Ismael’s Ghosts borders on overripe melodrama, while at other times it relies on genre tropes but then gives them an unexpected twist. [Cannes Version]

What’s perhaps most impressive about Ostlund’s evolving style as a filmmaker and social commentator is his compulsion to enrich every scene he creates with a multitude of tones and nuances across the serio-comic spectrum. He’s like a virtuoso chef driven to try increasingly wild combinations of spices and ingredients; often the result is terrific, once in a while it’s too much.

It may be a specialist’s rarified sort of work now, but Gordon and Abel really know what they’re doing. It’s gentle and admittedly closer to a divertissement than a full-course comic meal. But no one else is doing anything like this at the moment.

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.

The film honors the hard-working, often unacknowledged craftsmen in the film industry and stirs provocative questions about the fine line between legitimate devotion to an artist and dangerous hero worship.

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.

The pic may have an unlikely story (in real-world love affairs, this kind of second chance rarely ends happily), but benefits from unusually authentic performances.

Banks brings Charlie’s Angels into the modern age with flair, all while unapologetically raising a feminist flag, championing female friendships and subtly making a point about the urgency of the ongoing climate crisis.

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

Collins has crafted a mesmerizing modernist memorial to ancient Celtic traditions, even if its determinedly slow pace and diffuse narrative will likely leave some viewers unsatisfied.

Clearly the work of an ambitious writer/director who can see himself inheriting the mantle of Rod Serling ... it offers twists and ironies and false endings galore — along with more laughs than the comedian-turned-auteur dared to include in his debut film. ... It packs a punch.

Using her own experience with the syndrome as a springboard, Brea offers an affecting film.

Bratt certainly illuminates the uncertainty of her quest: the early dawns of heading out to rally strangers and the turmoil of a life fighting against superior, institutional forces.

The experiences and challenges of the rural poor might make it into the national conversation as an abstraction, but rarely with the specificity of this intimate portrait of a black community.

Benefiting greatly from its charismatic, likeable subjects, Night School displays a compassion and empathy that feels more necessary than ever.

Along the way most of what transpires is predictable and manipulative. But besides the formula stuff, there is an abundance of fresh humor, poignant dialogue and some rather credible performances.

The sound of the zipper on Diane’s handbag, for example, becomes extremely ominous in Mermoud’s capable hands, while two distinct musical themes, written by Christian Garcia and Gregoire Hetzel, respectively, further enhance the mood and help establish the film’s bona fides as a classy and classical psychological thriller.

It’s hard not to leave the film shaken.

Tavernier focuses on a dozen or so major and minor auteurs, showcasing their artistry in hundreds of film clips that he comments on with historical insight and aesthetic precision.

An excellent blend of musical behind-the-scenes, open-hearted interviews, and performance.

Nye's openness extends to a clear-eyed examination of his personal life — one which has often taken a back seat to his career pursuits, impacting his ability to sustain meaningful relationships.

In Transit is a pure dose of the humanism that helped establish Albert Maysles as one of nonfiction film's key voices.

While this effort from filmmaker Steven Lewis Simpson (who serves as director, producer, cinematographer, editor and co-screenwriter) is somewhat lacking in technical polish, it boasts an undeniable emotional power and authenticity. Much of that stems from the casting of Dave Bald Eagle in the pivotal role of a Lakota elder.

By avoiding excessive proselytizing and instead simply and effectively relating its moving tale, All Saints proves stirring in a way many of its cinematic brethren do not.

A documentary composed entirely of vintage source material, letting the era speak for itself and the "Great Communicator" show, oddly, both more and less of himself than intended.

Beyond the handful of obligatory escapades, gunfights and images of martyrdom, the film reveals itself as less a drama about extraordinary heroes than an illustration of life in a fallen city.

Sorkin both entertains and makes you lean in to absorb every detail of this wild tale, which boasts a stellar cast to help tell it.

Elegant and unsentimental, this is a minor-key, wintry ensemble piece with an emotional hold that sneaks up on you.

Almost Sunrise makes for powerful viewing.

Beneath the mild verbal shocks lay an excellent screenplay handled by real talent.

Wildly inventive on a micro-budget scale, actor Bill Watterson’s shift to directing is an impressively crafted feature that’s full of frequent surprises.

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.

In unexpected and wonderfully satisfying ways, A Taxi Driver taps into the symbiotic relationship between foreign correspondents and locals, particularly in times of crisis.

Hughes' savvy notwithstanding, the appeal of Planes is due to Martin and Candy's comically controlled, ever-ingratiating performances.

The Nile Hilton Incident represents the type of penetrating filmmaking that only a writer-director intimately familiar with Egyptian culture but possessing an outsider’s perspective could convincingly accomplish.

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.

Jason Zeldes, an editor on Twenty Feet from Stardom, makes an accomplished debut as director here, delivering a film whose polished aesthetic matches its social import and potent emotions.

Showing levels of controlled concentration and unfussy flair far beyond what may be expected from a "student film," Machines powerfully evokes the sights and sounds — and almost even the smells — of a sprawling, stygian textiles plant south of India's eighth-largest (but very seldom filmed) city, Surat.

First-time director Dean does an excellent job of marshalling old source material, setting the scene for an account of Lamarr's life on- and off-screen.

Neatly divided into seven discrete chapters plus prologue and epilogue, it's a necessarily repetitive but engrossing and ultimately optimistic glimpse into a troubled situation entering belated turnaround.

Shot in 23 countries, the film has an amazing breadth and a relentless moral drive that will make it a reference point for this subject, whatever the audience response may be.

Though not as stuffed with rapid-fire laughs as In the Loop...this makes a very fine sophomore outing.

Renner and Imbert spend more time dishing out jokes than they do weaving the kind of meaningful narrative that made Ernest & Celestine so special, yet while Fox is more of a slaphappy romp than a morality play, there’s still a method to the madness.

Both Redford and Fonda are charming, delicate and convincing as Addie Moore and Louis Waters, the couple who find each other at the tail end of their lives. They are directed with sophistication and without a drop of melodrama or sentimentality by Ritesh Batra

The film should prove catnip to music lovers, especially blues fans.

Emerges as a dynamic action drama in its own right. Making sure of that is writer Taylor Sheridan, who's hatched a compelling new yarn that triggers rugged, full-bodied work from returning leading men Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin.

Contemplative and absorbing rather than rip-roaring and exciting, the film will likely play better to Western connoisseurs than to general and younger audiences, but it's an estimable piece of work grounded by a fine-grain sensibility and an expertly judged lead performance.

As it sheds light on these women’s experiences and the larger issue of homelessness among female vets, the film grows deeply engaging.

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.

Eccentric and occasionally hilarious, this is yet another uniquely Bozonian creation, which this time explores the transmission of ideas between teachers and students and the tricky notion that our good side might not necessarily be our best side after all.

Director/screenwriter Jones displays an ability to sustain simmering tension that's impressive for someone directing only his second feature film.

More ominously mysterious than outright terrifying, this is finely attuned, atmospheric filmmaking.

Boasting impressive visuals and special effects, Anti Matter overcomes its familiar narrative aspects with an imaginative style that fully draws us into its complex storyline. The film proves that sophisticated sci-fi can be terrifying without relying on cheap jump scares.

Though the script is pretty good on depicting the broken dreams that strew the path of the wannabe actor, its scope reaches wider, making it a timely portrayal (immigration, Brexit) on the multiple frustrations of being a stranger in a strange land, even when that stranger is as bourgeois as they come.

The women of Motherland emerge as an entirely different class of heroines, demonstrating Diaz’s insight and compassion in documenting their experiences without judgment or condescension and allowing them to convey their own individual perspectives.

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.

British thriller Beast takes a fistful of tired old tropes — like a hunt for a serial killer, and the ‘ol Joe Eszterhas-style is-he-or-isn’t-he-a-baddie tease — and manages to fashion something fresh, fierce and quite striking from them.

If the movie runs long in places, the vibrant performances from Worthy and the rest of the cast help push things ahead to the grand finale, and there are enough dynamo battles from start to finish to keep hungry rap fans satisfied.

Funny, bitter and sometimes bleak, the picture draws much of its appeal from a deadpan performance by star Matti Onnismaa.

A highly political movie that's also a personal story of two men going head-to-head while the women around them are left to pick up the pieces, this gorgeously shot and classily acted feature might be a reel too long but is nonetheless a fascinating piece of work.

Mary Shelley is a luscious-looking spectacle, drenched in the colors and visceral sensations of nature, the sensuality of young lovers, the passionate disappointment of loss and betrayal. But above all it is a film about ideas that breaks out of the well-worn mold of period drama (partly, anyway) by reaching deeply into the mind of the extraordinary woman who wrote the Gothic evergreen Frankenstein.

At a certain point, anyone who reads Bowers’ book or sees this film has to decide whether to believe him or not. At this stage, there is no reason not to; Scotty does not seem remotely like a braggart or someone desperate for a sliver of late-in-life fame.

In terms of its visual command, the movie could hardly be more expressive.

It takes skill to successfully handle heavy issues with a light touch, but that's what German-born, Argentina-based writer-director Nele Wohlatz pulls off with her delightfully original documentary/fiction hybrid.

An epic of choreographed mayhem that expands the Wickiverse in mostly pleasing ways, it is destined to satisfy fans of this surprise-hit franchise: If its ludicrous aspects bug you, what the hell are you doing here?

Sharp dramatization and direct performances suffice to put the story's themes across more urgently than expected.

ever Here wears the outer clothes of a crime thriller to cloak a more haunting, disturbing, open-ended rumination on voyeurism and identity.

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.

It’s the little moments that provide the most fascination.

Director Yonebayashi Hiromasa (When Marnie Was There) returns with a more lighthearted anime feature in Mary and the Witch’s Flower, a stirring adventure most suitable for tweens and teens.

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

Youth is a whirl of grand, dramatic gestures.

Charged never simplifies Eduardo’s nature or the key relationships in his life. We end up appreciating his charisma and marveling at his resilience without ever seeing him as a paragon.

By keeping a tight focus on the subject as she navigates senior year, early motherhood and the crushing stigma of negative expectations, the film assembles a poignant snapshot of black struggle that humanizes a range of social issues through the first-hand experiences of one young woman.

Cleopatra is not a great movie. But it is primarily a vast, popular entertainment that sidesteps total greatness for broader appeal. This is not an adverse criticism, but a notation of achievement.

It plays to the strengths of its performers, from screen novices to the comic vet of the cast, Leslie Mann, who may never have had this good a showcase.

Ghost Stories is a witty and well-crafted love letter to old-school horror tropes.

An original, unexpectedly affecting tribute to two distinctive comic performers.

The sequel will impress any fan of the original. It's fresher than most of the low-budget thrillers gracing theaters lately.

Rather than a plot-driven narrative, it’s a collection of keenly observed scenes, and the lack of hyped-up drama, intrigue or sentimentality is one of the strengths of the low-key but visually expressive movie.

This rip-roaring tribute to a maverick artist trips along like a surreal odyssey, punctuated by lively reminiscences, choice clips and superb photographic material. The whole enterprise seems remarkably true to the spirit of an anarchic life often driven by booze, blow, women and guns.

Although its central issue is sadly familiar (but hopefully won’t be for much longer), No Dress Code Required offers a heartwarming affirmation that decency sometimes prevails.

Key to the strength of Big Sonia is its refusal to give in to easy bromides. Its use of animation to illustrate Sonia’s memories spins off her own artful drawings in a way that amps the sense of unspeakable horror rather than sugarcoating it.

Densely packed with info, incident and philosophy, the film is a guaranteed debate sparker. Its strength lies not just in the filmmaker’s intimate access to his subjects, but in the multiple points of view he engages.

Prayer dwells with almost swooning rapture on the bodies of young men as they mete out brutal violence on one another, and features a cast composed mostly of unknowns, impressively coached in order to deliver arresting turns onscreen.