One Million American Dreams makes a valuable contribution to the argument that the city's forgotten people surely deserve better.

Along the way, though, 2U throws enough wrinkles into the first film's action — if you don't remember it well, rewatch it before seeing this — to engage us.

For all its winking jabs, this blend of giddy bits and teachable moments eventually follows the same old playbook.

The film's emotional intelligence gets it past the occasional false note, and the strength of its central performances keeps us engaged even when the characters themselves might not deserve our sympathy.

The doc mostly addresses trauma and healing from afar, referring to combat experience without dwelling on it, never saying much about what difficulties men then faced in peacetime.

Most anthology films give you the comfort of knowing that if you don't like one segment, another one will be following in just a few minutes. Berlin, I Love You perversely does the opposite. It makes you nervous that if you don't like one segment, which you surely won't, another mediocre-to-awful one will follow.

It will entertain many, and deserves credit for its generosity to characters who, for all their bad decisions, are more complex than the stereotypes they may appear to be.

De Clermont-Tonnerre shows admirable restraint, knowing that, in her carefully constructed frames, it can be enough just to get Roman's newly compassionate eyes into a close-up with the expressionless eye of a horse.

In the end, it’s a rather conventional feature that satisfies expectations rather than challenging them. As a result, this adaptation looks unlikely to stir the passionate devotion that could confirm it as first-rate comedy material.

The film ultimately suffers from its overly contrived plot mechanics, but the expert performances by its ensemble make it go down as easy as a smooth glass of Bordeaux.

St. Agatha is less overtly gory and supernatural-oriented than most efforts of its ilk, such as the recent "The Nun," but it provides plenty of chilling, if slow-moving atmospherics and strong performances.

A by-the-book script and stiff direction fail to milk any suspense from this scenario, and in the absence of thrills, the picture's heavy focus on the long-lasting impact of trauma is suffocating.

The film’s cardinal sin isn’t so much that it’s unoriginal as that it’s so uninvolving it almost assures attention deficit will set in early.

With matter-of-fact Jewish wit, it accepts these beliefs as the story's ground rules, understanding that Shmuel won't make peace with his wife's death until he finds some way of reconciling his ideas with physical realities. If only all conflicts between religion and observable facts came to ends as satisfying as this film does.

It’s a comedy and a tragedy, though the people involved aren’t necessarily on rigid opposite sides. Better to say that everyone has some level of fluidity, not just in terms of personal belief, though they’ll speak their dogmatic minds if the occasion demands it.

Densely informative yet always grounded in deep personal investment and clear-eyed compassion, this is a powerful indictment of a traumatic social experiment, made all the more startling by the success of the propaganda machine in making people continue to believe it was necessary.

The filmmaker's grip on the storytelling could be tighter, especially in the second half, which at times seems to lose focus, much like the floundering protagonist. But when it clicks, the film is a provocative combo of emotional fumbling, droll asides and shrewd insights.

That nobody becomes a realized character with an emotional arc is just a place American Factory falls a little flat.

The problem is that despite his considerable skills, Sputore is so caught up with the cool technology he loses his grip on both the suspense and the primal human emotions that should be driving this physically imposing but numbingly cold dystopian vehicle.

[It] will evoke comparisons for many with The Babadook, and while this is more generically conventional than Jennifer Kent's breakout thriller, it still taps potently into parental anxieties and primal fears.

Veteran comic actors make the most of the not very original (though well-timed) one-liners the script gives them. But the movie's last act drags almost as slowly for viewers as for the gang in the cave, and the story's resolution is no better.

Director Michael Tyburski and co-writer Ben Nabors' lyrical character study ... deftly balances the cerebral with the soulful in a story of transfixing originality.

Aided by down-to-earth portrayals and a compelling cinematographic throughline that echoes the both ordinary and complex nature of this kind of violence, Share blurs genre lines between coming-of-age drama and thriller. It’s psycho-drama lite, grounded in a quietly intense portrait of how a girl, her family and a small town grapple with the ugliness of sexual violence.

Voracious genre consumers should get off on trying to decipher the densely textured film's murky ambiguities.

The cast commit gamely to the material, although the script is a bit underwritten, making sudden shifts in character a little odd and a bit random.

Slate and Sharp (a Tony winner for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) can't be blamed for their lack of chemistry, and if sparks aren't flying between them, at least viewers can occasionally drown in gorgeous coastal scenery, shot nicely by Martin Ahlgren.

This is an illuminating (self-)portrait of a young artist as well as a mesmerizing chronicle of a consuming, destructive relationship that steadily inches its way under the viewer's skin.

Audaciously cerebral and unabashedly granular, writer-director Scott Z. Burns' political thriller The Report, a dramatization of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee's 2014 probe into the CIA's use of torture in the wake of 9/11, is practically pornography for policy wonks.

Batra turns a story that sounds tired and goofy into a lovely film with a tone of tender sadness.

Paddleton sneaks up on you, wresting its way into your heart even while you're trying to resist its overly determined quirkiness.

Hood (Eye in the Sky), his co-screenwriters Sara and Gregory Bernstein and a seasoned ensemble of Brit stage and screen pros deliver a straightforward, solidly old-fashioned slice of real-life espionage, journalistic and legal intrigue that gets the job done in engrossing, clear-eyed fashion even if it lacks much in the way of stylistic verve.

Even in this fictional context, the line between portraying and exploiting abused innocence gets uncomfortably, offensively blurred.

Teasing the viewer with ambiguous evidence is one thing, but the film doesn't seem to know what truth is behind the curtain. Luce the man remains unknown, and Luce the movie a missed opportunity.

Modest in scale but rich in sensitivity, this is an unassuming film, made all the more transfixing by its defining delicacy and understatement.

Diverting and for the most part agreeably amusing, Late Night is about as mainstream and conventional a movie as could be made right now about the timely issues of women and minorities finding equal footing in the workplace.

All the dramatic components have not only been well thought out by Talbot and co-writer Rob Richert, but they’re adorned, for the most part, by a sense of reality that keeps pretentiousness at bay. To be sure, this is a highly calculated and worked-out story, but the humor and lively playing of the entire cast keeps the film aloft across its two hours.

Any way you slice it, and even if you're not entirely in agreement with the various subjects' positions on Medicare for all or the Green New Deal, this film is a winner by a landslide.

Honey Boy is not a self-justifying cri de coeur or a prankish exercise in narcissism, but a sensitive, sincere portrait of a child actor's dysfunctional upbringing and its devastating fallout.

While the filmmakers' control of mood, menacing atmosphere and unsettling spatial dynamics remains arresting, their story sense grows shaky in a chiller that starts out strong but becomes meandering and repetitive. ... Still, this is classy, intelligent horror.

Unfortunately, the touches that endear us to Hala during the first half of the film are almost nonexistent in its second half, adding up to a choppy, incoherent finish.

So consistently odious, diabolical and simply anti-humane is Cohn’s lifetime portfolio that you really feel the need of a cold shower afterwards. But this kind of dark brilliance is always fascinating, and the doc is able to trade on this all the way through.

There’s no denying that The Tomorrow Man has a knockout ending. But is it worth sitting through the mundane, relatively uneventful film that precedes it? Few will think so.

Mikhanovsky and Austen train an affectionate gaze on their characters, both as individuals and as part of distinct groups that intersect and overlap with uplifting results.

Although it runs out of creativity well before the end of its 100-minute running time, it still coaxes ample good will out of the remarkable life and boundless energy of its 4-foot-7 heroine.

Remarkably, it never comes across as fawning or hagiographic. Instead, Crosby and his interviewers collaborate to create something that feels honest and insightful.

This Bannon is a snooze, occasionally making a wry aside but nearly never saying anything unusually smart or new. ... It's hard to see what ordinary viewers at any point on the political spectrum will gain from this particular status report.

Wang shows an assured grasp of tone, a pleasing eye for unforced composition and a persuasive understanding of the immigrant cultural experience, with its sometimes difficult balance of tradition and modernity.

It’s quite a story, which Berlinger moves along with unrelenting energy.

Gorgeously shot and produced, impressively acted and with a lot of fascinating things on its mind, this is yet further proof that the 35-year-old Mascaro is one of Brazil’s most audacious and gifted filmmakers of his generation.

It's definitely Brugger's most satisfyingly unsatisfying effort. A conspiracy-fueled murder mystery with some hilarious meta-commentary on the genre, Cold Case Hammarskjold is either a stunning piece of investigative reporting that builds to a revelatory climax or a wily trickster's dark critique of the audience's desperate need for answers.

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.

Little Monsters irreverently builds enough good will and comic energy in the early-going to carry it to its conclusion, so it’s bound to gather a cult of some dimension.

The film seems so determinedly intent on keeping the audience guessing that the plot quickly segues from being intriguing to annoying.

This unearthed cinematic nugget provides further evidence, not that any was necessary, of the legendary performer's magnetism and musical virtuosity.

Braid ultimately offers far more style than substance. But it provides many memorable moments and stunning visuals along the way, making it a cinematic ride worth experiencing for more adventurous viewers.

Although it features strong performances and some affecting moments, Then Came You suffers from the sort of cutesiness endemic to so many teen-oriented films, not to mention an over-reliance on montages accompanied by a pop music soundtrack that helpfully reminds you exactly what you're supposed to be feeling at any given moment.

Although its plethora of painfully awkward comic moments will produce shudders of recognition for anyone who's been in a long-term relationship, its sweetly sentimental ending makes The Unicorn a perfectly acceptable date movie.

The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot is a sprawling, meandering drama that doesn't quite deliver on its ambitious promise (and intriguing title).

Its approach to the source material (a close cousin to the Frankenstein tale) is emotionally and intellectually sincere, enacted seriously, if not always engrossingly, by cast and crew.

While not exactly a misfire, Rodriguez and Cameron's joint effort lacks the zing and originality of their best individual work.

Gareth Dunnet Alcocer's script has a tidy, programmed feel that results in a feel-good version of a grim and sordid modern yarn.

Colaizzo’s dialogue often crackles with modern idioms and good pithy comments, flowing from the distinct characters in easy fashion. As a director, he’s paced the action well. He knows what he’s doing, even when he’s doing the wrong thing.

The book Animals is based on, a well-reviewed literary work originally set in Manchester, has been adapted by the novelist herself, Emma Jane Unsworth. So why does the end result feel so inert and contrived, even if it's exceedingly pretty to look at?

The action never stops being fun, and it eventually does make excellent use of the heavy machinery Nels' job requires. Cold Pursuit just gets a little winded, like a 66-year-old action hero working hard at high altitudes.

Made with the intelligence and good taste one expects from Ejiofor, the involving film cares about much more than the sweeping images of triumph with which it inevitably closes.

Light is just as faithful to formula as Bend It Like Beckham and just as reliant on its lead's likability; here, newcomer Viveik Kalra radiates enough guileless enthusiasm to carry viewers past the film's rough patches.

Pete Davidson is so on-target you might forget all the lines he's flubbed on Saturday Night Live.

I don't think Apollo 11 should be anybody's first or only exposure to the moon landing and its greatest strength is in recognizing that. Its perspective and immediacy are impressive on their own and the documentary takes a worthwhile and distinctive place within the wider storytelling of this important event.

Bart Freundlich's American remake of the Bier film flips the gender of the main characters, yielding predictably strong performances from Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams but otherwise removing the teeth from a melodrama that grows increasingly preposterous as it crawls toward its weepy conclusion.

The pacing slackens a bit in the midsection as Adam shuffles between immersive art happenings, sex parties and karaoke bars in scenes that don't always have as much bite or humor as they could. But the cast is appealing; the visuals are crisp and colorful, with a textured feel for the Brooklyn milieu.

Fighting With My Family reminds us several times that the sport is as much about charismatic storytelling as it is about skill. Judged by that standard, the film is far from belt-worthy.

Polar is pure trash, but the generousness — and, in the final stretch, the poignancy — with which Mikkelsen approaches even the most lurid of the film's conceits at least pushes it toward the top of the garbage heap.

There’s enough fun, writerly glee and actors enjoying their little rampages to make Velvet Buzzsaw a decent distraction for a couple of hours, but also something of a schizophrenic case all its own.

Soderbergh and McCraney have entertainingly stirred the pot and put a perspective on the screen that will stir some reactions in the real world and get the issue of ownership and fairness talked about, at least for a while. It’s a sharp-minded film.

The strength of the film is its appealing characters brought to life by strong actresses.

Mixing archival material and fresh interviews with Edwards and her crewmembers, Holmes creates an engaging, suspenseful story with layers of social resonance. Maiden is gripping and effective even if — maybe especially if — you have absolutely no interest in sailing.

One Cut wears its cheapness as a badge of honor, a tricky endeavor given its actual production polish; make-up effects by Kazuhide Simohata and Jyunko Hirabayashi go a long way to supplying the film-within-the-film its guerilla feel. But the pic's best effect is its ability to ensure the same jokes land just as well in their second contexts.

Replaying many of the visual gags that worked so amusingly before, the latest edition proves every bit as repetitive and uninspired as its glib title, bringing little that’s fresh or funny to the interlocking brick table despite boasting a script penned by originators Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.

Admirably, the director maintains the documentary illusion throughout, opting for a third act that finds exactly the right, understated tone, neither glorifying Rike’s role, nor underplaying the character’s more than obvious compassion.

Like a long fishing day without a bite, Serenity invites impatience rather than excited anticipation, and the eventual payoff provokes a big “huh?”

A Danny Elfman-like score and the dark earnestness of lead voice-actor Matheus Nachtergaele's performance make this world believable enough that the film's big revelation — city pigeons, as humanity's ancient companions, know how we can stop being so paralyzed by fear — doesn't sound quite as ridiculous as it should.

Arnold makes the most of this endlessly wisecracking character, garnering most of the pic's laughs and giving no impression that he thinks this shlocky, low-budget B-movie is in any way a comedown from the likes of "True Lies."

This indie drama simply lacks the necessary cinematic tension. Despite fine performances from its lead performers, the film never fully comes to life.

A work of admirable journalistic seriousness.

It periodically exhibits flabbiness throughout its overlong running time and sometimes has the contrived air of a promotional video. But it nonetheless serves as a powerful portrait of its subjects who overcame severe adversity and continue to make music.

The doc doesn't really delve deeply enough into its important subject, but it does have the advantage of being the first out of the gate.

There's barely a scene in IO that's performed with pulse or verve. It's Sad-Face Emoji Sci-Fi, with po-faced references to Greek mythology, Chopin and T.S. Eliot, among others, and empirical techno-jargon spoken at a Valley Girl level of credibility.

It uses historical artifacts to excellent, devastating effect.

Though the story’s early stretches feel slender and repetitive, Cheung gathers the undertow of atmosphere and emotion for a beautifully realized final half-hour, matching the striking visuals with involving, unpredictable interactions.

Miller Costanzo’s debut is more than promising. It should stand as a wonderfully accomplished launch to a bright career.

A thoroughly mediocre retelling that feels like an unnecessary footnote.

Rapace gives the film her all, delivering an intense, physically demanding performance, but Close doesn't get close enough to transcending its action-movie clichés.

While its protagonist is believably eccentric, the people surrounding her look more like transparent plot devices the more of them we meet.

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

After a creaky start, Egg comes through with terrific performances from Reiner and especially Hendricks, and with some scenes of piercing honesty.

This talky, ham-fisted effort proves particularly disappointing because it should have been much better than it is.

A smart doc that's as earnest and scattered as the viewers likely to seek it out, Astra Taylor's What Is Democracy? looks around at the world and realizes that even those of us on the right sides of things aren't always sure what we're fighting for.

In a genre populated by an unusually high percentage of nearly unwatchable movies — the surprise-paternity comedy — John Asher's I Hate Kids comes as something of a surprise. Not because it's any good (no, no, no), but because of the number of talented people who, presumably having read the witless script, agreed to appear in it.