For all its flaws it’s a rich, thought-provoking film which, while challenging, is not without humor and visual pleasures, particularly in the restrained but bang-on period production design.

Gleeson plays the role with the kind of full-bore commitment (every supercilious gesture precise and intelligently thought through) that makes you wish the movie better complemented his efforts.

The bottom line: The impact of this forceful indictment of our healthcare system is lessened by the sheer ubiquity of similarly-themed documentaries.

A quite absorbing but never riveting or revelatory overview of Armstrong’s career and testy personality.

It's warm and personal, but sharp enough to know when to show a few bumps in the road of the mutual admiration society.

It may feel like 'Borat,' but Mads Brugger's documentary is a comical look at an unfunny place.

It is tightly in sync with protagonists who find it impossible to move on despite distractions that might be catalytic in other films.

The Idea of You functions best as a carefree treat — a feel-good romantic comedy that delivers some laughs and bursts with the magnetism of its lead. That it manages to wiggle in some lessons about self-discovery is merely a bonus.

While it probably won’t have you triple checking the locks on your door, it’s likely to keep you entertained enough to come back for more.

Superbly conveys its themes of despair and lost opportunities.

Satisfying enough as a horror/slasher flick with a black-comedy aftertaste, it has some commercial appeal but doesn't represent a step forward artistically.

Caught between sophisticated comedy and silly fluff, between Hitchcockian mystery and zany amateur sleuth caper, A Private Life (Vie Privée) is a lot more fun than it probably deserves to be thanks to the disarming chemistry of its seasoned leads, Jodie Foster and Daniel Auteuil.

[A] smart, tart adaptation of Kevin Wilson's best-selling 2011 debut novel, which thumbs its nose at the clichés of the over-trafficked dysfunctional family genre to dissect the sometimes lifelong quest of children to understand their parents in ways that are funny and bittersweet, poignant and often bracingly dark.

Ultimately, The Last Duel is the affecting story of one woman’s quiet heroism that requires you to wade through a lot of blustery accounts of the honor, the pride and the wars of men in order to get to it. Which is kind of like perpetuating the patriarchy.

Rosenwald is not always successful in doing full justice to its rich subject matter, suffering from pacing problems and occasionally feeling drawn-out in its feature-length running time.... But it certainly deserves kudos for bringing long overdue attention to this unsung figure whose life was one big mitzvah.

Lady Buds is the kind of film whose raison d’être isn’t immediately obvious, but whose storytelling is engaging enough that we’re ready for wherever the journey takes us.

Juliet, Naked never truly achieves comic lift-off. Instead, it bumps around from one mild laugh, awkward encounter and bewildering decision to another without ever building up an exhilarating head of steam.

Yet music, the one thing that might have given the film some kick, is de-emphasized, with only two songs sneaking into the picture.

A rewarding piece of filmmaking that has all the makings of a classic weepie.

There’s pleasure to be had from Sandler’s nuanced work and from the ensemble’s ridiculously deep bench of gifted supporting players. But the director’s fourth feature for Netflix is mid-tier Baumbach at best.

The comedy of errors surrounding the 11 years (and counting) efforts to rebuild the devastated Ground Zero site would be funny if it weren't so tragic. Filmmaker Richard Hankin manages to encompass both aspects in 16 Acres, his strikingly coherent documentary chronicling the tortured process.

Although diffuse at times, this documentary delivers a vibrant portrait of a fascinating subculture.

An ordinary look at four extraordinary kids, Scott Hamilton Kennedy's Fame High sticks firmly to convention but will please viewers who can't help but want the doc's sympathetic teens to escape the heartbreak most would-be artists face.

Hubbell lays the groundwork for a nuts-and-bolts examination of changes over the decades in treatment and teaching techniques. In the present tense, however, the first-person aspect of his documentary can veer toward the cutesy.

Strickland and Fenton bring an extra layer of visual invention, smartly expanding on the show's pre-existing video elements and adding their own bespoke cinematic touches.

Unlike the films he’s co-written for Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust and Bone…), which often rely on Audiard’s stunning capacity to foreground grand emotional sweeps, this is a much more constructed narrative that could only be described as a writer’s film, though one with several pleasant — if shocking is your idea of pleasant, that is — surprises up its sleeve.

In his interactions with his band, with Fine, with his family (eldest daughter Carnie Wilson appears in the film but isn’t interviewed), the documentary is a portrait of friendship and love as much as it’s about music. And beneath it all, the essential aloneness of the artist resounds

At well over two hours it’s way too long and heads more or less where you think it will, but it’s fun to watch Byun and Jeon deliver the goods both viscerally and, at times, movingly.

The script makes no attempt to assert its plausibility or realism; it is, instead, refreshingly frank about what it is, a simple, workable framework for the melees and mayhem.

It's the hugely appealing White and Monroe who authoritatively carry the film, mining the material for all its pathos and humor and displaying the sort of chemistry more often aspired to than achieved in romantic films. They make it look easy, as do the talented filmmakers.

Vibrantly felt yet impressively controlled — and blessed with a stone-cold stunner of a central performance — The Little Sister is indeed an instant classic of the genre, as moving in its humanism as it is sexy.

Barak Goodman's straightforward Woodstock: Three Days that Defined a Generation plays to this group of nostalgic Baby Boomers, offering a rosy view of the titular event that for many is synonymous with Peace & Love

The preceding journey might have been smoother, but the doc is a reminder that we still know so little about the oceans and their inhabitants, and an illustration of how much hope we attach to them.

The story of a young hermaphrodite who's not sure if she's emotionally a boy or a girl manages to be both raw-edged and moving.

Regarded as a whole, Fresh is a success — a taste of its creative talents’ abilities that leave the viewer hungry for more.

It’s a handsomely mounted film, full of precise period detail, but is otherwise undistinguished from many solemn, exacting biopics that have come before it.

Kink is quite convincing in presenting this one workplace as a happy, sane environment where people respect each other and aren't manipulated into doing things they don't ultimately enjoy. But it leaves plenty of room to presume that Kink.com is an outlier in the industry.

The relationships feel deeply etched and honest; the visual compositions are sharp and often interestingly angled, without being overly fussy; and the helmer shows impressive skill at working with actors.

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.

The customary warmth and gentleness of Kogonada’s approach and the corresponding delicacy of the three actors makes you keep wishing Zi would build more substance, more lingering poignancy instead of wafting along on its cloud of melancholy with characters that lack dimension. But it only acquires life intermittently.

It’s a meaty role for stage and film actress Mandat, whose very real pain at the thought of animals’ suffering commands sympathy, though eventually a little tedium. A tighter edit could avoid a lot of surplus emotions and possibly clarify a number of obscure plot points.

Several stories, or scraps of stories, are woven together in the making of Jellyfish ("Meduzot"), linked by common themes and a shared sense of humor, poetry and loss.

Carax’s trademark bonkers magic elevates many of these scenes, to be sure. But there’s also a nagging naiveté, even a silliness to the storytelling that kept bumping me out of the sluggish drama.

First-time screenwriters Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan have done their homework in organizing the material but haven’t brought an argument to the table that might have zapped the film to life; everything is methodical, it covers most of the bases, but passion and vitality are crucially missing from director John Curran’s treatment.

The film mines both the relationship issues and the Upper East Side neighborhoods of Woody Allen's best work, but could use an added dose of the Woodster's jokes to spruce up a self-serious scenario that hits the right notes about half the time.

The details are what matters, and thanks to a cast of all-star British elders and a mischievous sense of humor, the filmmakers bring those details to vivid life.

The new film adds slices to our understanding of life in this war but not so much so that it feels essential.

A Faithful Man shows that Garrel has promise as a filmmaker, with a knack for directing actors and a welcome sense of Gallic wit. And as a performer himself, he remains a likeable and sometimes intense screen presence.

Margaret Qualley and Christopher Abbott make an exceptionally good team here, in a film that requires a deep sexual chemistry but keeps sex itself almost entirely out of the picture. Careening from one kind of intensity to another, the encounter excites without prurience and, like the transactions it depicts, is more concerned with psychology than sex in any case.

The result is an animated adventure that's funnier than "Shark Tale" and more charming than "The Polar Express."

The film is thought-provoking but not terribly involving.

Chabrol has been making and remaking this film for six decades now. He seemingly will never tire of explaining how tired he is of the petit bourgeoisie.

In spite of its portentousness, the film does engage one.

Vitthal realizes the virtues of keeping things simple, minimizing the complexity of shots and editing to keep the focus on the characters, which constitute the strongest component of the film.

The personalities and rhetoric are colorful and the film's presentation is lively, though some viewers will wish for a little more rigor.

An enticing, if not extremely insightful, overview of the maverick filmmaker’s work.

"The truth is malleable,” an onscreen title declares at the beginning of the film. It’s also somewhat elusive in this saga, which is less an investigation than a spirited tribute. But the combination of humor and grit is always intriguing.

The sadistic horror comedy Safe Neighborhood is the kind of film that’s tough to categorize but easy to enjoy, especially if you like watching teenagers do some very twisted things for the holiday season.

Some in the area have lost some hope, seeing so many of their neighbors fall for a candidate they knew to be a snake-oil salesman. But Hillbilly is forward-looking, believing there's something special about its region-specific variety of what elsewhere would be called rednecks or bumpkins.

The King of Staten Island is nothing if not conventional in its arc and themes, and has some of the usual Apatow aggravations, but it's winning: relaxed, generous, suffused with warmth and a surprisingly delicate sorrow.

While the film is unlikely to hold much appeal for Netflix subscribers who never cared about The Witcher to begin with, it’s a worthy side quest for anyone with a passing interest in seeing more of the Continent.

This challenging, extremely violent, ravishing-looking, intricately plotted adaptation by Kitano of his novel is of interest for its fresh take on a musty genre. That said, it could feel like a slog to watch for viewers who aren’t fans of sword-wielding, screaming samurai movies.

Also featuring an unfortunately underutilized (but always welcome) Nancy Travis, Sovereign benefits greatly from its empathetic, non-exploitative approach to its controversial subject matter. It’s uncomfortable but necessary viewing.

Classy and professional throughout, the technical work gracefully holds all the threads together.

It’s more like the kind of standard Sundance-bound dramedy we’ve seen lots of times before, albeit with a charming cast and some sharp bits of commentary on race, identity and gender that come courtesy of screenwriter Adrian Tomine, who adapted his 2007 graphic novel of the same title.

The degree to which the Tesla story syncs with Almereyda's abiding fascinations is clear in every frame of this contemplative, questioning, soulfully philosophical film.

After a while, the crudeness and venality of the central characters proves as stifling as the incessant Queens summer heat does to our dubious protagonists.

The Great Hack uses a decent rehash of the Cambridge Analytica scandal as the starting point for an interesting two-pronged character study, an instigation for provocative ideas about data crime and what is ultimately a really, really, really conflicted look at when it's terrifying having corporations learning things about our online habits and when it's cool.

The excellent film combines a wealth of archival material with the reminiscences of an unforgettable group of octogenarian women who were champion swimmers when Hitler annexed Austria in 1938.

Insistent, sometimes conspicuously one-sided, the film's concerns are difficult to dismiss, considering that a water-starved planet isn't ultimately viable.

A heartfelt but rather generic coming-of-age dramedy.

A charming exercise in low-key romantic realism that risks being too subtle for its own good.

Whimsically combining elements of sci-fi, drama and musical comedy, J. Anderson Mitchell and Jeremy Kipp Walker’s debut feature is a unique mashup that succeeds more by sheer originality than any singular reserve of talent.

Less time spent fetishizing his own image and more on building credible character dynamics and psychological complexity might have helped make this film the dramatic equal of its technical craftsmanship.

If it leaves something to be desired at the start of the tale, the procedural details of seeking release and exoneration are well represented.

All of these characters are worth knowing and the acting is excellent all around, but somewhere along the line the narrative arc vanishes and tedium sets in.

With such well-tuned performances and scattered intensity, it's unfortunate that the technical aspects of the film are not always up to par.

Well-meaning and enlightening documentary.

A true-life tale of espionage so brazen and crucial to World War II's outcome one marvels that it isn't better known; but the documentary would likely work better as a feature film.

An exuberant celebration of Aboriginality that fizzes with humor and heart; its soulfulness goes beyond the embrace of a jukebox full of Motown, Stax and Atlantic Records hits.

Writer/director Zach Braff has threaded a powerful and intelligent personal story through a genre all too rare today – romantic comedy.

Though the political background is fascinating, what finally resonates is that Schirman manages to humanize both Yousef and his Israeli handler, Gonen Ben Yitzhak, who would become an unlikely friend and ally.

Mitchell still manages to plant a flag on this well-trodden territory by steering more toward drama than comedy, though he scores points on both fronts. Where he exceeds those films are sensual visuals that recapture summertime adolescence in all its vivacity.

Although a little too open-ended to be wholly satisfying, Water Lilies is still an excellent directorial debut.

Cut Throat City will doubtless grab the attention of RZA’s diverse fanbase, but looks unlikely to make a significant mark among contemporary crime dramas.

Very funny whatever you think of its more old-fashioned notions, the picture will charm many viewers who can set implausibility aside for a while.

Watching a bunch of people take a drug trip is seldom either entertaining or edifying, but Chilean director Sebastian Silva manages to make it at least tolerably amusing.

Although Landon and co-screenwriter Michael Kennedy have latched onto a winning concept, pairing the body-swap conceit with serial killer thrills, they’ve freighted the film with so many trite life-lesson moments that the fun gradually drains from the narrative, like blood from a murder victim.

A fantastical tale brimming with adventure and originality.

A quietly celebratory film about music and human kindness.

A really terrific, intensely focused documentary on a fascinating personality.

Too undernourished dramatically to make much of a splash. While it should earn some respectful reviews, audiences won't come away satisfied.

Girl Asleep might be about an awakening, but it’s not a sexual awakening, and this is one teen comedy in which, at long last, the geek doesn’t get the girl.

A film that (whatever massive efforts were required to work around [Paul Walker's] absence) is as stupendously stupid and stupidly diverting as it could have hoped to be had everything gone as planned.

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.

Patience-taxingly boilerplate.

Infusing its familiar dystopian sci-fi tropes with stylishly gonzo, low-budget filmmaking and inventive narrative flourishes, Upgrade proves far more entertaining than it has a right to be.

This small journey of self-discovery, even at an advanced age, mirrors the larger one Berinstein so fondly addresses here and leaves you with that oh-so-rare but genuine warm and fuzzy feeling.