Heaven Knows What is a strange film, at once distancing and transfixing. If it's not as impactful as it might have been considering the experiences portrayed, it has potent atmosphere and an admirable refusal to put any kind of gloss on the bleak reality of its limbo world.

The constant combination of highbrow and lowbrow elements is undeniably French but also very effective.

Touch the Sound is at least as inspiring and in some ways more rewarding, thought-provoking and subtly visceral.

What’s fascinating about Martin Brown’s keenly observed and amusing debut is the twist it offers on the famous Big Apple adage that, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.

The jaw is meant to and does often drop, and not just because of McFarland. Two words: Ja Rule.

It’s intense if somewhat choppy filmmaking, although the passion of the amateur cast and vividness of the Kinshasa locations help make up for the narrative shortcomings.

Neither the establishing dramatic linchpin nor the final conversion of conscience is terribly convincing, leaving this pared-down rendition of the original work diminished in power and meaning as well.

As usual, there are only fragments of thoughts, nothing is developed, and it will be left only to the tiny band of die-hard Godardians to try to make any meaningful sense of the disparate fragments stitched together here.

Ferguson certainly has some strong, even encouraging points to make. And he has brought impressive filmmaking skills to his cinematic essay. Still, one wishes that he had presented his thesis with a little more energy and a little less didacticism.

At its strongest, In Flames teases out how the patriarchy — a large, unruly force — fractures the relationship between mother and daughter.

Bursting at the seams with hand-crafted visual delights and eccentric performances from a stacked ensemble entirely attuned to the writer-director’s signature wavelength, this is the film equivalent of a short story collection.

Suffice to say there are twists, physical perils and moments of self-sacrifice.

Driven by two great performances surrounded by solid supporting acts, Infernal Affairs is the rare testosterone movie that is also mature and thoughtful.

More than the film that surrounds him, Jack Black is worth the price of admission in Bernie, an oddball May-December true life crime story that would have profited from being a whole lot darker and full-bodied than it is.

Jinn consistently lets down its premise and performers with a by-the-numbers-at-best screenplay that triple-underlines all of its forward-thinking themes.

A documentary so stuffed with eye-soothing images one prays it can seduce a climate-change skeptic or two.

For longtime Wiig fans, this uneven, overlong, emotionally involving and discreetly ambitious film will represent a welcome and overdue step up from her popular sketch work on "Saturday Night Live" to something sustained and searching, not to mention pretty funny.

We may never know if Benedetta was sincere about her visions in the end, just as it’s impossible to judge how sincere Verhoeven is when he’s indulging in the erotic visions that have made him famous. The beauty of Benedetta is that it never provides a straightforward answer to all of our questions, making it mostly a matter of faith.

A cheerful spirit of open inquiry drives the documentary Queer Japan, in fact, which is tender, impressionistic rather than highly structured, and largely inexplicit — that amusingly candid vox pop notwithstanding.

A career high point for Ralph Fiennes as both an actor and director, this unfussy and emotionally penetrating work also provides lead actress Felicity Jones with the prime role in which she abundantly fulfills the promise suggested in some of her earlier small films.

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

On an intellectual and reporting level, Separated is sturdy and persuasive. Morris is angry, and if you’re watching this movie, chances are good that after 90ish minutes, you’ll be angry, too. What Separated needs, though, is a little touch of the old Errol Morris.

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.

A breezy, keen-to-please attitudes prevails, and director James Bobin (The Flight of the Conchords, Da Ali G Show for TV) moves things along with good cheer.

With Gere’s character so lacking in memory and mental clarity, the film provides very little for an audience to latch on to. Tedium quickly sets in and is only sporadically relieved in this labor of love that simply doesn’t reward even the patient attention of sympathetic viewers.

McCarten’s scene writing is tart and efficient and Wright infuses the drama with unquestioned energy. But this is a film in which every point and meaning is hit directly on the nose.

This eye-catching and sadly topical . . . film features a fearless performance from nonprofessional actress Vicky Knight in the central role.

This is no more than a minor piece of social history, but it wins us over with humor and a pointed touch of melancholy.

The documentary is an act of political activism. Guggenheim and his politically conscious producers, Laurie David, Lawrence Bender and Scott Z. Burns, have no interest in either challenging Gore's viewpoint or giving opposing opinions equal time. The film is simply a conduit for Gore's message.

Beat has a moody, furtive quality that jibes perfectly with the perplexed life of a pianist-gangster.

Mixes comedy and melodrama to a typically baroque degree. Like his "Oldboy" and "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance," the film displays an audacious visual and narrative style, often sacrificing credibility and coherence along the way. But there is no denying its originality.

A sometimes clever, other times grating mix of live action and animation that plays tricks with levels of movie reality as the world of fairy-tale animation invades contemporary New York.

Ultimately stronger on characterization and atmosphere than narrative. But its portrait of a society torn apart by, among other things, religious fundamentalism, is all too currently resonant.

Mixing all the liberal blood-letting with equal amounts of inspired comedy, Kitano puts a fresh face on the classic material without messing with its heart.

Reunites one of the best voice casts ever for an animated film to create a shrewd entertainment that again successfully aims its jokes at various age groups.

Although it lacks the historical aura of classic Chinese wuxia backdrops, James Chiu's post-"Avatar" production design is memorably imaginative.

Director Brett Haley’s second feature has a disarming lightness of touch that keeps the proceedings buoyant, even when they inevitably brush up against mortality.

It feels ineffably slight even if it’s a consistent pleasure to spend time in the company of these three likeable women.

With artistic flourishes, N.C. Heikin’s documentary portrait fits the exceptional life story into a biographical boilerplate that covers the general trajectory and turning points.

Mapplethorpe comes across as remarkably candid and unassuming, though his ambition was always clear.

Much of the feature’s quietly accumulated emotional power derives from the fact that viewers have to connect some of the dots themselves. Indeed, just like in the subject’s own work, the imagination of the audience is as important an ingredient for the final result as what is actually written or suggested.

Dyrholm is at her multifaceted best here in the glammed-down, uglified role of an older rock ‘n' roll star on the skids.

While its mystical subject defies logic, Sara Dosa’s verite film is cogent and appealing thanks to a savvy strategy. Dosa respects Ragga’s beliefs without endorsing them, and positions her activism as a metaphor for saving the environment.

As Santosh closes in on the suspect, who has absconded for another town, Suri’s film embraces the nail-biting aesthetics — dark and shadowy locales, heart-racing music — of a classic procedural. This assured sense of direction coupled with controlled performances make Santosh a compelling drama. But it’s Suri’s screenplay that renders the film immersive.

In Nothing Is Lost, Stiller uses the public image and private artifacts of the parents he and the world knew quite well, pondering the gap between public and private, along with his own difficulties following in his parents’ footsteps as an artist, a spouse and a father.

Laugh-stuffed and making excellent use of its marquee-grade supporting cast, it promises to be a home run in its early summer release.

The result is something quite fresh and delightful.

Wrapping up his stories is never Carpignano’s strong point and at two full hours, this one could have used greater economy. But the slow-burn power of the drama is formidable and there are moments of separation that pack searing poignancy.

Editors Alexis Provost and Beth Gallagher cut back and forth between the talking heads so deftly that you have the illusion that Nader is answering his critics in real time in a very lively debate.

The only thing might have added variety and richness to the film would be the inclusion of more dialogues or interactions with more than one person.

After a terrific first hour that crescendos in an extended sequence of quiet yet potent white-knuckle suspense, the film loses some traction in the more challengingly paced second half. But it remains an engrossing reflection on radical violence and its fallout.

Sunada has managed the incredible task of editing all these anecdotes into a flowing whole, an unfettered celebration of cinema as a concoction of vision, persistence, collective faith and, of course, some canniness about how the world operates. Rather than diminishing the seventh art's magic, Sunada's documentary enhances it.

Leap of Faith is an easy, entertaining watch, but it feels like a smaller film than its two predecessors, chiefly because it features just a single long interview with Friedkin rather than a rich chorus of insider insights.

V. Scott Balcerek's documentary Satan & Adam makes for fascinating viewing. And even as the film captivates, it sparks instant theorizing as to who will play the lead roles in the inevitable Hollywood feel-good dramatization. I'm thinking Ryan Gosling and Samuel L. Jackson.

Minor flaws and all, Crude represents a crucial document as much as any evidence put forward in the courtroom itself.

Told with captivating simplicity and yet richly cinematic, it combines ethnographic and spiritual elements in a haunting love story with classic undertones, affording a glimpse into a little-known culture.

Once again, Reeves does not disappoint, fully inhabiting Wick by channeling his rage over life’s injustices into an intensely focused performance.

Working in an improvisatory vein, in actual locations rather than constructed sets, writer-director Dominic Savage gives this story of a married woman's despair and awakening a powerful, lived-in immediacy. It's also the story of a man's struggle to understand his wife's pain, and the tortured, tender chemistry between leads Arterton and Dominic Cooper is profoundly affecting, at times shattering.

Sam Raimi’s darkly comic horror-thriller starring Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien boasts an audacious concept that is superbly realized by Raimi’s filmmaking, which milks every bizarre situation for all it’s worth.

Branagh’s most personal film is imperfect, but the emotion that it builds in the final section, as the family plays out a wrenching universal drama of emigration, is searing.

A 3D movie that will intrigue kids and adults alike but might play raggedly in both camps.

Origin Story maintains an upbeat vibe as its heroes push forth into the larger world; here's hoping they show lots of people a good time before their world-domination strategy sucks the life out of them.

While the drama never exactly ignites, Schäublin keeps us constantly fascinated with his detailed historical recreations and keen observations on science, manufacturing and technology, and how they weighed upon the souls of workers and owners alike.

Destination Unknown represents a worthy addition to the canon if only for its historical importance.

Garland has always been a director of big ideas, and Civil War is no exception when it comes to that ambitiousness. But he’s also reaching for an intimacy here that his screenplay doesn’t quite deliver on.

In trying to merge this alarmist theme with an old-fashioned murder mystery, the filmmakers throw at least one plot-twist sucker-punch too many, leaving the viewer with an “Oh, come on” reaction to the entire film.

The Battered Bastards of Baseball is not just about baseball. It transcends the game and is a charming anti-establishment yarn.

Narratively, Titanic is a masterwork of big-canvas storytelling, broad enough to entrance and entertain yet precise and delicate enough to educate and illuminate.

What "Winged Migration" did for birds, Oceans does for all sorts of strange sea creatures in an ambitious, impressively filmed documentary.

A moving if too-leisurely paced effort that benefits immeasurably from the superb performance by its 84-year-old star.

Carlos Lopez Estrada’s debut feature brandishes brash exuberance and stilted storytelling tropes in roughly equal measure, yielding a result that stimulates just as it cheapens itself dramatically.

Immediate Family is an affectionate and insightful group portrait and a sweet jolt of nostalgia for boomers — but more than that, it’s time well spent with delightful subjects who played crucial roles in shaping the popular music of a ground-shifting era.

Kirby Dick's shocking investigation into widespread sexual assault in the U.S. military is an urgent call to action.

A smartly scoped story of great personal growth and transformation. It's not hard to see the personality/political basis for Che's later revolutionary actions.

Honoring the journalist's sense of mission but never shying away from the hard living and psychological damage that went with it, A Private War relies on the believability of star Rosamund Pike, who commits to this take on the character even when Heineman risks pushing off-the-battlefield drama too far.

Benefitting from likeable, good-natured subjects and the peculiar pastimes with which they fill their cooped-up hours, the doc certainly gets us interested in and rooting for the Angulo boys.

It's to the script's credit that it doesn't tie up the story in cute little bows and instead leaves a number of questions unanswered by the end.

Infinite Football has moments of nicely deadpan humor and some deft little touches of insight along the way courtesy of Porumboiu's offbeat protagonist — but major league it certainly is not.

Providing richness of detail and metaphor, elegantly blueprinted themes and impressive mastery of a constantly shifting tone, Little Children does just that. It is a deeply satisfying film.

Delivering plenty of suspense in its taut 81 minutes, this is the sort of pretension-free film that in earlier days would have been directed by the likes of Edgar J. Ulmer or Joseph H. Lewis. Like those B-movies, Hammer lacks a big-name star. But it more than makes up for it by providing a rare leading-man opportunity for veteran character actor Will Patton, who delivers a superb, riveting turn.

Mostly lighthearted and, especially in its closing reels, rather clichéd, the character-driven film nonetheless manages to gently resist the temptation to turn into a full-throttle and heart-warming crowdpleaser.

The film improves upon reflection, raising, as it does, some knotty questions about originality in art and in life, as well as provocatively positing that even a copy of a copy of a copy has the potential to move hearts and minds.

The State Against Mandela and the Others adds little essential to the vast library of documentaries about Mandela and the anti-apartheid struggle. All the same, this is a heartfelt, humane and visually inventive tribute to a fading generation of giants whose principled sacrifices ended up changing history.

Big on atmosphere but low on drama, DAU. Natasha is fascinating conceptually but weak cinematically.

A work of powerful humanism.

It’s refreshing to see a horror movie that relies less on shock tactics than good old-fashioned dread and revulsion.

This is a social justice film made with purposeful conviction and a quiet, never strident, sense of indignation.

Often heartbreaking, Rich Hill presents real life as few filmgoers know it. In certain respects it’s almost as if cultural anthropologists descended on a foreign land, but, unfortunately, it’s a withered part of this nation that is rarely visited.

Marcello never quite manages to shoehorn in both more than a century’s worth of European struggles and sociopolitical thinking and the full story of Eden’s downfall after he’s finally become successful. Indeed, these weighty concerns capsize the entire enterprise in the final stretch, where the story runs aground on an iceberg of undigested ideas, barely developed themes and bad hair choices.

Posing serious questions about violence and vigilantism while reveling in both, Captain America: Civil War is overlong but surprisingly light on its feet. It builds upon the plotlines of previous Avengers outings, bringing together known marquee quantities and introducing the Black Panther and a new Spidey in winning fashion.

At once a satire of artistic pretensions and a tantalizing character study, Late Fame isn’t focused on big cathartic moments, and its third-act cataclysms are almost anticlimactic. But there’s a satisfying depth to it, and the movie abounds in exquisite grace notes

The rivalrous power dynamic between Jones and frontman Jagger is captured in brilliant subtlety in the glances between them during an impromptu interview. But the deeper throughline of The Stones and Brian Jones involves the primal wound of a prodigal son.

Although it’s an inspired gamble to introduce familiar genre elements into what’s essentially a high-strung relationship drama, Nina Forever’s repeatedly shifting tone ultimately proves more of a drawback than an asset.

[An] exquisite and gripping documentary.

Duplass and Strassner’s script traces the one-step-forward, two-steps-back progress of the main characters’ connection over the course of the night with delicacy, never stretching the boundaries of credibility.

[A] sleekly assembled and intriguing if clearly very commercial proposition.

At the end of Gutiérrez’s fine film, you likely will feel the spell of a remarkable person’s company.

Strikingly shot, edited and scored, with convincing and vivid performances from a youthful cast, the picture loses its footing in the final stretch but should still take high rank among U.S. debuts of its ilk this year