Youth (the parenthetical subtitle Spring heralds a projected series of films) is consistently engaging, even if it’s not always easy to see what the whole package is trying to say that couldn’t be said with more brevity.

Wim Wenders’ latest documentary Anselm offers a mesmerizing, cinematic catalogue of German painter-sculptor Anselm Kiefer’s deeply tactile, maximalist oeuvre.

Running just 81 minutes, Fallen Leaves is slight compared to many of Kaurismäki’s more complex narratives, but its well of feeling creeps up on you and it delivers a good share of laugh-out-loud lines with droll aplomb. Besides, who are we to quibble about any gift from one of world cinema’s greatest treasures?

Tràn Anh Hùng’s The Pot-au-Feu (La Passion du Dodin-Bouffant) is a movie that captures its mouthwatering dishes like edible tableaux, combining culinary marvels with a moving tale of middle-age love.

While its stylings are purposely retro, its aims are very much of the here and now. This is a film that digs deep into Chile’s colonial past — especially during a closing section that transforms the story into one of historical reckoning.

There’s no escaping the fact that Eric Larue is a downer, but it’s a work of thoughtful intelligence and restraint, elegantly shot and graced by a striking score from Jonathan Mastro full of dissonant strings that often evoke a sense of nerves about to shatter. Most of all, it’s beautifully acted.

The impeccable selection of closing clips allows us to reimagine him as a man not just idolized as a star but accepted for the entirety of who he was.

As a piece of filmmaking, Chasing Chasing Amy is effectively put together.

Despite its seamy nature, Cyclo abounds with touching small moments, acts of kindness and acts of charity. [01 Aug 1996]

One of the captivating paradoxes of Kristen Lovell and Zackary Drucker’s lovingly assembled chapter of queer history is that while it never downplays the marginalization, persecution and physical danger of being a trans woman of color making a living through sex work, it gives equal time to the resilience, the sense of community, the proud sisterhood and shared survival skills.

Foster’s research and storytelling are very satisfying, even if the results aren’t. Many of those involved wound up serving prison time, but of course it was far too short, too gentle and not served in the same cells as the Big Pharma execs who made this horror story possible.

Wolff (Hereditary) impresses, deftly modulating his performance so we can’t land too easily in one emotional camp — excessive sympathy or complete ire.

A moving and complex homage to Barrett, Bogawa’s film also turned out to be his “goodbye to Storm,” who was ill with cancer during its making.

The result is a sly, often playful but ultimately moving study of community, generational anguish and atrocities covered up by the state that blends documentary technique with originality and polished storytelling skill.

The quiet but stirring effect is a dreamscape of eye-opening geography, existential longing and the enduring workaday.

As “Hitchcock” notes, his movies have been analyzed every which way and back again. Cousins’ fresh approach divides the work into six sections, an elegant capsule melding existential questions with the practical challenges and opportunities of big-screen storytelling.

This is an elegiac story, a humanistic metaphor for a vanishing world seen through the prism of a vulnerable couple cruelly written off by their families as worthless encumbrances.

American Fiction is smart and, thanks to its fine cast, has genuine heart.

No One Will Save You proves a singularly intense experience.

Wolfe has made an admiring but nuanced feature that doesn’t aim for biopic completism or cause-and-effect formula.

What’s nice about Migration is how, between the comedic bits and tangential adventures, it never loses sight of the lessons embedded in the Mallards’ story.

As a penetrating study of character and milieu, it’s the work of a mature and enormously talented filmmaker not afraid to take chances.

There will be blood, yes, but mainly there’s a well-written and beautifully performed investigation of yearning and the mysterious realm that apps and algorithms can only profess to quantify.

The Promised Land is a terrific story driven by skillful writing and strong performances. There’s an art to bringing vitality and modernity to historical drama, and Arcel shows a firm grasp of it.

What resonates beyond the brawls and blood is a profound affection for the people onscreen — those grace notes provided by a fine cast, with Jodie Comer and Tom Hardy stirring undercurrents that are particularly affecting precisely because they’re never explicitly examined or explained.

Optimism is indeed at the heart of The Burial, a film that genuinely believes in the ability of the legal system to fight injustice.

While hope is a quality not readily associated with the Mexican auteur’s work, it keeps surfacing here to extend a lifeline, even as we wait for the other shoe to drop. In that regard, Franco’s latest represents a slight departure, without surrendering the director’s signature austerity and intensity. He’s helped considerably by Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard, two riveting leads who hold nothing back.

While the landscapes, especially in the parched Sahara section of the story, are dazzling, Carnera’s camera always keeps the focus on the humans, sometimes specks seen from great distances moving through the sand and sometimes studied in close-ups that fill the widescreen canvas.

Despite its heavy-duty subject matter, the film co-directed by Capobianco and Pierre-Luc Granjon is filled with welcome humor of both the visual and verbal varieties.

Don’t sell Songs of Earth short, mind you, as an exclusively visual experience. Its sound design and score are every bit as immersive, and that may hold the actual key to best experiencing Olin’s film.

Walker and her editors have created an absorbing narrative, so the film never feels as cobbled together as it actually is.

It’s wry, vivid and moving in unexpected ways.

Dear Jassi has the feel of a timeless folktale, made all the more unbearably sad because of its basis in fact.

Gasoline Rainbow pays homage to all the road movies that ever were but is still its own quirky thing, uniquely of its time.

Perhaps there are a couple of unnecessary complications on the way to the denouement, but the storytelling is lively and piquant, demonstrating the director’s sense of humor and sharp observational skills.

Even when Mountains’ narrative, which often feels more like a series of beautifully conjured vignettes, doesn’t hit its full potential, the way Sorelle thinks of gentrification rewards our close attention.

The film is both a food lover’s dream and an aspiring chef’s guidebook, uncovering the sophisticated alchemy that makes such places not only run flawlessly, but serve up groundbreaking dishes that are also locally sourced.

The two superb performances and the tactful hand of a gifted new director ensures that the audience will still be thinking about these people long after the journey ends.

A celebration of art, resilience and the mutability of the human spirit, Matthew Heineman‘s American Symphony never feels like it’s quite the documentary that its director originally intended it to be. Nor does it tell the story that featured star Jon Batiste presumably hoped for it to chronicle. But it’s all the more joyful and emotionally resonant for those deviations.

Writer-director Goran Stolevski’s Housekeeping for Beginners (Domakinstvo za pocetnici) is a fizzy, huggable portrait of a self-made, roughly blended queer family.

The veteran action director fully delivers the goods with Silent Night.

Extensive archive news material is drawn on to explain key moments in the struggle over reproductive rights, but mostly the story emerges organically from the interviewees themselves.

Although the film starts as the gritty crime thriller suggested by its core premise, it pivots, unexpectedly but effectively, into something much more tender.

That so many have to struggle not just with the disease but also the cost of staying alive is a national disgrace that documentaries such as this, however well-intentioned, can only begin to address.

A documentary dork’s delight, Jennifer Tiexiera and Camilla Hall’s Subject is one of those films about which my biggest lament is that it could have been five times as long — with the caveat that while I would be down for a 10-part series on documentary ethics, this 96-minute intro will be a thoroughly effective conversation starter.

Leitch strikes a balance of showmanship and mechanics. He teaches audiences to appreciate the number of people it takes to pull off a car crash or a human torch stunt. The action sequences in The Fall Guy vary, but each one offers a level of gripping precision.

While Anora could stand to lose 10-15 minutes, it’s a very satisfying watch; the director continues firmly staking out his niche as a chronicler of the messy lives of an often invisible American underclass.

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.

Hilariously and movingly tapping into typical childhood anxieties, it’s infused with ample wit of both the visual and verbal variety for adults.

Geared very much to younger audiences, it’s fast-paced to the point of freneticism. But it boasts an arresting visual style, its animation heavily indebted to the satirical drawings of Ronald Searle.

What ensues is a long battle that has all the trappings of a small-town political thriller: corrupt officials, refuted elections, reporters fighting for their rights at the risk of their own livelihoods… It’s a story we’ve seen before, but never in this kind of setting.

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.

The artist’s charm is never more apparent than in the final section of Apolonia, Apolonia, in which we hear Glob and Apolonia’s phone conversations. Apolonia is no longer just a subject but a confidant. She has pulled not only Glob but us, too, into her orbit.

Love Lies Bleeding is a hallucinatory trip down the darkest byways of Americana. It’s too blunt to be as unsettling as Saint Maud but it will leave no one indifferent.

Thanks to the director’s magisterial knack with actors (especially non-professionals such as terrific adolescent discovery Nykiya Adams, who, as the protagonist, is in nearly every frame of the film), the result is quite entrancing.

The story’s twists and turns maintain our interest throughout, with the narrative taking on a cleverly deconstructed play-within-a-film format reminiscent, at times, of Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York.

With Hardy in fine form at the wheel, Havoc knows what its audience wants. It also looks great.

A fantastical tale brimming with adventure and originality.

It’s a documentary about the fight, one that takes the necessity of the fight as a given. That’s amply inspiring

The strong cast and distinctive approach to a widely trafficked subgenre make it a soulful rumination on loss.

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.

Kaphar, who also wrote the screenplay, draws many fine, if familiar, conclusions about the corrosive nature of generational trauma.

The real stars are the magnificent black and white images shot by Dweck and Kershaw. The co-directors’ eye for composition allows them to find visual magic and an arresting sense of drama in every frame.

My Old Ass is a slender film, but it’s so nicely judged and so infused with a generosity of spirit toward all its characters, across the generations, that its sentimentality acquires substance.

All three principal performances are expertly synced and feel entirely lived in. But it’s Collias who gives the minimalist character study its lingering emotional amplitude, conveying the volatile inner life of a woman making discoveries not only about her camping companions but also about herself.

The frenetic editing might leave some viewers dizzy as they try to sort sober realities from sensational storytelling, but Grimonprez makes thrilling connections that should push viewers to pursue their own research.

With its intriguing performances, narrative restraint and unanswered questions, the movie delivers a strong pull of yearning as well as tantalizing currents of suspicion and dread.

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.

It’s an engaging blitz of nostalgia guaranteed to leave core viewers misty-eyed.

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

There is a fair number of gags and wisecracks that will go over the head of many viewers not steeped in the local lore, argot and history. But the film’s infectious energy, use of in-camera effects, animation and all manner of jiggery pokery is as mesmerizing and giddy as it was when Danny Boyle used many of the same tricks for Trainspotting.

Full of affection for big Broadway-style tunes, with a heroine whose dream man is soft-hearted but also not human, it is a sharp, witty confection.

At a time when many question whether art should be separated from the artist — whether it’s the movies of Woody Allen or the songs of Michael Jackson — this revealing documentary shows how, when it comes to hip-hop, prosecutors across America have been conveniently refusing to distinguish one from the other.

Liman flexes his stylish direction, especially during the bloody confrontations.

The feature is a visual poem, an enveloping four-stanza ode to experiences shared by a man and his daughters.

Writer-director Osgood Perkins’ serial killer chiller fully acknowledges a debt to The Silence of the Lambs in its chronicle of a young female rookie agent pulled into the FBI manhunt for a killer wiping out entire families. But the movie is also its own freaky trip, a darkly disturbing experience pulsing with an evil that’s unrelenting in its subcutaneous creepiness.

The Six Triple Eight relates a little-known story that fairly demanded to be told, and does it full justice.

It is Curtis’s first foray into animation and although the characters are digitally rendered, the story taps into the same authentic energies that made his earlier works so beloved.

Even if the film ultimately strays too far into virtuosic theatricality, betraying its origins, La Cocina is a gripping reflection on the dehumanizing grind of labor and the ways that its soul-crushing routines stifle hope. Even if he takes too long wrapping up an overwrought climactic crescendo, this is a compelling vision of the immigrant experience as a hellish limbo in which even the seeming ballast of community, brotherhood and love can be illusory.

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.

Essentially serving as a constant spectator, looking in on both the production and her own tangled life, Seyfriend impressively conveys a myriad of tamped-down, long-repressed emotions with an economy of dialogue at her disposal.

Observed with granular detail and imbued with a pulsing sense of place, this novelistic drama takes time to connect its central triangle but does so with a suppleness and restraint that amplify the emotional rewards of its lovely open-ended conclusion.

By giving the patients considerable time and space to bare themselves before the camera, Philibert grants us access to the the darker sides of the human psyche, portraying mental illness with an innate sense of compassion and understanding.

What matters most is that the movie is fun, pacy and enjoyable, a breath of fresh air sweetened by a deep affection for the material and boosted by a winning trio of leads.

Part of this tender animation’s appeal comes from its committed and absorbing voice performances.

These are problems that exist only around the fringes of a film that is, at its center, a sturdy and focused thing. Like so many of my favorite documentaries in general and sports documentaries specifically, Copa 71 exposes an obscured chapter in history and thrusts its heroes into a well-deserved spotlight.

Despite its high-concept premise and lengthy spells of laboratory work, Britto’s movie is fundamentally an intimately humanistic exploration of death and acceptance.

Together, Leguizamo and Ferreira share a chemistry as warm and lively as the campfire their characters share over one meteor-filled night.

The film gets across the weird weight of lockdown, a time of tension and anxiety but also an opportunity for creative growth none of us saw coming.

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.

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

The Phoenician Scheme tethers the filmmaker’s existential interests (the unfettered power of the billionaire class, unchecked greed and environmentalism) to the kind of poignant humanistic narrative that’s been missing from his latest offerings.

There’s a sense that this gently meandering, sketchbook-like work is aware of its own cinematic precedents. It certainly seems to suffer from an anxiety of influence as it tries to carve out a space for itself somewhere in the region of Eric Rohmer wistful romances, Richard Linklater ensemble stories, and Sixth Generation semi-underground Chinese filmmakers like Jia Zhangke.

The result is a finely observed study of modern manners and mores on a micro-budget that’s nevertheless rich in feeling, especially the cringeiness one might experience from watching other people bicker or hearing people have sex through thin walls.

The Second Act is probably his strongest film yet, and certainly the first that could stir up any controversy. Not only is the script cleverly written, but the cinematography, including four epically long tracking shots, and the editing, which times all the jokes perfectly, are well-mastered.

The documentary ignites a longing to see the movies, whether for the first time or the umpteenth.

If it were possible to send a camera crew back into the past to capture such an event, the result would be something close to what Minervini delivers in this quietly intoxicating and existentially real war movie.

It all could be too much reality to handle if it weren’t for the fact that mercifully, the film ends on a hopeful note, with the most wicked characters punished for their sins and the good given a second chance. It’s undoubtedly something of a fairy-tale ending, but the kind we need these days.