While the strong ensemble cast is Their Finest's most valuable asset, the movie also looks quite handsome on what appears to be a modest budget, and includes some delightful glimpses of how screen effects were achieved way back in those handcrafted days.

The smartest touch of Burman's bouncy, unobtrusively informative screenplay is to make Usher such a dominant offscreen presence before he finally shows up in the closing minutes.

Killam, who recently departed SNL after six seasons, shows a great grasp of his character’s escalating bewilderment and frustration.

Tracy Droz Tragos works to get beyond us-versus-them simplicity in Abortion: Stories Women Tell, focusing on personal narrative over politics in a humanistic look at an issue that promises to remain divisive for the foreseeable future.

The fine, spirited work of Taraji P. Henson, Spencer and Janelle Monae as irresistible rooting interests, as well as Kevin Costner’s winningly lived-in turn as the head of Langley’s Space Task Group, deepen a film that’s propelled by sitcommy beats and expository dialogue.

Directors Brad Allgood and Graham Townsley offer a straightforward account of this unlikely story, following as their young subjects (and the adults who made this possible) enjoy the fruits of overnight social-media stardom.

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.

If all of the overemoting can be ignored, Born in China delivers gorgeous visuals in its close-up perspective on some of the world’s rarest wildlife species, as well as the imposing habitats they call home.

Directors Menachem Daum and Oren Rudavsky may not solve Israeli-Palestinian animosities, but they find illuminating angles of exploration for one of the world’s most intractable conflicts.

Though never hard to follow, the discussion can sometimes challenge an unwonky viewer's attention span. But it contains big insights for those who wade in.

Denzel Washington and Viola Davis know their parts here backward and forward, and they, along with the rest of the fine cast, bat a thousand, hitting both the humorous and serious notes. But with this comes a sense that all the conflicts, jokes and meanings are being smacked right on the nose in vivid close-ups, with nothing left to suggestion, implication and interpretation.

A stellar, warmly persuasive starring turn by Sally Hawkins as crippled, self-taught painter Maud Lewis is the raison d'etre of Maudie.

It might be sacrilege to suggest that Herzog could use a more strong-willed collaborator, but this film sometimes turns into a rather misshapen cinematic essay. Nevertheless, you won’t be sorry to witness the apocalyptic images of nature blazing and roaring.

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.

As a portrait of French youth ridden by angst and anger toward the powers that be...Nocturama makes an intriguingly cinematic case for showing over telling. But as a depiction of how, and why, terrorists (or anarchists or whatever they are) can take down a city, it falls apart in the face of what happens in the real world.

Amanda Knox makes for succinct, involving viewing — a true-crime doc that acknowledges the lingering debates over its subject's guilt while prompting one to ask: Why did anyone ever believe this outrageous stuff in the first place, much less cling to it for years?

Several impressive action scenes sustain the tension and electrify this overlong, often hard-to-follow story.

While the broad political commentary is beyond obvious, the satire of ugly entitlement draws blood, thanks to balls-to-the-wall performances from the adversarial leading ladies.

Luckily, Blue Jay boasts a handful of fresh, piercingly poignant scenes that cut through the cloud of déjà vu. It also has a not-so-secret weapon in the formidable Paulson, who deserves much of the credit for whatever emotional punch the film delivers.

It features heartbreaking and horrific images that sear indelibly into your brain.

Directors Keith Fulton and Lou Pepe dive right into the school’s maelstrom of tragedy, dysfunction and boundless optimism, delivering an insightful, affecting film that casts sympathetic light on a neglected educational sector in a manner that acknowledges the dedication of countless career educators and may even help inspire a new generation of teachers and social workers.

Ordinary World becomes raggedly enjoyable thanks to the unexpected charms of its leading man.

It Had to Be You ultimately demonstrates enough cleverness and inventiveness to make it more than a by-the-book entry in a genre that's become more than a little stale.

Davis' film is a disarming underdog story that doubles as an animal-rescue advocacy tool.

Those whose curiosity wasn't sated by Alex Gibney's highbrow Going Clear will appreciate this sometimes funny but not unserious picture.

The mother of all allegorical monsters takes on new meaning in a talky, vaguely nationalistic reboot that slips on like a comfortable sweater, even if it’s a sweater with some holes in it.

An account of captivity and torture unlike most that have emerged from recent conflicts in the Middle East, David Schisgall's Theo Who Lived finds, in freed journalist Theo Padnos, a man with surprising empathy for those who beat and nearly killed him.

Bilal is a grand-scale, fast-paced animated adaptation that is both empowering and inspiring in its call for social justice and equality.

Thor, who partnered with screenwriter Ashlin Halfnight on their debut feature Diving Normal, crafts Astraea as an eerily resonant piece of speculative fiction sustained by a consistently elegiac tone and realistic performances, rather than grandiose narrative devices or intrusive special effects.

Both unassuming and surprisingly affecting in its DIY authenticity.

One of the things The Circle gets right on multiple occasions is that, once one has bought into a technology like this, the problems it creates are invitations not to abandon it but to seek further technological solutions.

This timely film makes for highly compelling viewing and demands to be seen.

There's enough dark sizzle between leads Rachel Weisz and Sam Claflin to keep the audience involved through the underpowered middle stretches before the film regains its footing, delivering a disquieting shiver of a conclusion.

I Am Bolt presents a dynamic, consistently engaging portrait of the mediagenic track star, and even if it’s sometimes too laudatory, there are also many moments of heartfelt sentiment throughout the film.

Strong performances propel a movie that wears its influences (De Palma, Lynch) on its sleeve without feeling like a copycat.

Unassuming but warm and thoroughly involving.

National Bird hardly offers any counterpoint to the arguments presented, nor does it attempt to show how drones could possibly save the lives of U.S. soldiers either on the ground or in the air. But it does reveal a program whose international reach and seemingly limitless surveillance powers are extraordinarily difficult to keep in check.

The film is engrossing, thanks to the director’s skill at delivering sustained tension, and the excellent performances.

Michael Moore in TrumpLand earns points for ultra-timeliness and its admirable attempt to raise the level of discourse in this deeply polarizing election.

Rains, who was given an acting award by the Tribeca jury, brings such a sense of purpose to the part that the movie never goes slack.

An affecting brainteaser with echoes of Lynchian dissociation.

The film serves as a concise biographical portrait and an excellent introduction to the writer's works.

Though its mix of the loopy, the broad and the deadpan is uneven, its story of American business designs on a tiny Polynesian nation still has satirical bite.

As our encounters with him continue, it becomes clear that Stroman — whose early life nearly guaranteed problems ahead — evolved dramatically behind bars, and that his remorse for his crimes is sincere.

The screenplay finds ways to make this more involving than the average flee-the-monster storyline and, by the genre's standards, direction and performances rate reasonably well.

Built for action, like its title character, the movie packs a muscular, bloody punch, but mainly it’s a well-oiled diversion.

[A] minor but enjoyable doc.

Despite its recycled tropes, the comedy-drama manages to be both funny and moving even if its emotional manipulations are fully apparent.

Even though one could argue that Bruni Tedeschi was typecast here, she takes the role and runs with it, beautifully grading the different nuances of her headstrong character, whose outward exuberance clearly hides a lot of hurt and a fear of loneliness.

Jolts of humor and fantasy bring welcome texture to the romance-novel sleekness, as do the leads, who both have an uncommon, idiosyncratic allure.

Compared to other thrillers that treat webcams as a structural gimmick or visualize social media in ways that look corny even by the time credits roll, Videophilia casts a singular spell.

Dillard’s auspicious shift to features reveals an imaginative young filmmaker prepared to take manageable risks in pursuit of his personal vision.

The movie, in which Shenk and Cohen (makers of the standout eco-doc The Island President) take the reins ably from Davis Guggenheim, hardly can hope to create the sensation of its Oscar-winning predecessor. But it finds plenty to add, both in cementing the urgency of Gore's message and in finding cause for hope.

The lineup of fine actors keenly registers minute details about the passage of time with humor, wisdom and a sharp sense of how moments of rash or just misguided behavior can forever dictate a life's path.

Rosefeldt and a very game Blanchett spring one surprising creation on the viewer after the other. But what it all adds up to is of course up for debate.

It’s an if-it-ain’t-broke-then-don’t-fix-it approach that works just fine if you’re simply looking to take another ride on the rollercoaster.

A charming little tragicomedy which flirts with savage social satire but never fully embraces it.

At the helm for the first-time, and working from screenwriter Christina Hodson’s slick balancing act of aspirational romance and dark psychology, longtime producer Di Novi enlivens the generic mix with a tinge of camp and a sure grasp of mean-girl dynamics.

Though the engaging documentary treads through unavoidably familiar territory — the loneliness of the road, the anguish of bombing — its chorus of testifiers often find sharp new angles of approach.

Everybody may lack depth, but it often compensates with raucous humor.

The Sunshine Makers is an entertaining look at the days in which the phrase "Turn on, tune in, drop out" were words to live by.

Marino...is equally at home directing the broader physical comedy and sweeter bonding sequences between Maximo and Hugo, even as the overlong film's two distinct personalities never manage to coalesce into a self-contained whole.

More true to its title than viewers may expect, the doc cares more about underlying principles than the details of any one controversy.

Wonder is a story of connection, not suffering. Dramatizing one boy's effect on the people around him, it invites the viewer into that fold.

Despite its missteps and occasional pretensions, Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent provides a compelling portrait of the chef as tortured artist.

Enjoyably old-fashioned in its narrative but crisply modern in technique, it is engaging enough even for those of us with no soft spot for pets.

Fine performances from a cast of pros generally win out over the story's more formulaic aspects.

It's a certified B-movie without superheroes or interplanetary travel, drawing its power from a whodunit, race-against-the-clock scenario that plays as if The Lady Vanishes and Strangers on a Train were chopped up and tossed into the blender along with a slab of CGI and a full bottle of Dexedrine.

Given the confined nature of the material as well as its period-specific aspects, this is a yarn that does not exactly invite radical reinterpretation. As such, its appeal is confined to the traditional niceties of being a clever tale well told, with colorful characters that are fun to watch being made to squirm by the inimitable Belgian detective.

Though the film, which lapses at times into repetitiousness, could have been trimmer and sleeker, even non-aficionados will be swept up by its dynamic look at the creative process.

Viewers expecting a garden-variety horror flick will likely recoil, but those seeking new voices in Mexican cinema may well hail Minter's effort.

A good-natured cross-cultural romp in which you can barely be expected to take any human interaction seriously, save for those in which humans smack up against each other with force.

Day's debut succeeds in part thanks to its modest scope, viewing the street-art phenomenon through an attempt to rescue one of its highly perishable creations for the public good.

Bringing their real-life story to the screen, director Gabriela Cowperthwaite has made a movie about soldiers that's not, strictly speaking, a war film. She's made a love story, one that's all the more heartstring-tugging for its cogent restraint.

Martin's Dean is more than funny enough to earn its keep, a gentle misfit tale that only gets baldly therapeutic at the very end.

As it is for the two characters for two days, it’s an escape from real life, from anything consequential, a chance to delight in the pleasures that humans can take from what grows in the earth and from an amiable companion’s company.

For all its possible precedents, it’s still relatively uncommon to see a film in which actual sex acts are an integral part of the storytelling. Placed right up front like a kind of litmus test for the audience, the sex scenes here are explicit but also unambiguously non-salacious or intended to arouse.

Writer-director Simon Aboud doesn’t push the quirk factor; even when the narrative is at its most playful, he keeps it rooted to a lived-in reality. Mining familiar territory with an earnest clarity, he shapes a mild yet winning fantasy about hearts opening and friendships blooming.

Intense and physically powerful in the way it conveys its atrocious events, the film nonetheless remains short on complexity, as if it were enough simply to provoke and outrage the audience. It's a grim tale with no catharsis.

Handsomely mounted and well acted, the film breaks no new ground but remains engrossing.

A peppy little joke machine, The Incredible Jessica James exists for the one and only reason of providing a showcase for the evident talents of its leading lady, Jessica Williams.

While Icarus technically doesn't break any news, it certainly scores many points by showing a diabolical wizard so surprisingly laying his secrets on the table.

Luckily, Elliott succeeds in pulling you into Lee's emotional orbit and holding you there even when the movie falters.

Beyond its message, however, and despite some unfortunate omissions in the history it recounts, the film succeeds as one of the most gripping and suspenseful docs of recent years.

Trophy isn't as good at drawing moral conclusions as it is at laying out the difficult issues around hunting, conservationism and the trade in animal parts. But the film will be involving for those on all sides of animal-welfare debates.

An emotionally charged account of the ongoing fight of the African-American community of Ferguson, Missouri, to be treated as equal citizens, the film, like the movement it documents, is stronger on impassioned conviction than organization.

Long Strange Trip is an affectionate and well-crafted documentary, but it would have benefited from a little more of this emotionally raw material and a little less fawning reverence.

Scott packages these concerns and others in a smart way, and includes the occasional bit of eye-opening history.

Kyle Mooney (a longtime McCary collaborator on Saturday Night Live and elsewhere) is winning in the lead role, naive but not cartoonishly so in a film that walks a fine line, credibility-wise.

With her considerable musical talent, it falls to Ash to convince Calloway to emerge from self-imposed retirement. It’s in these few scenes between Johansson and Bono that writer-director Jennings’ script achieves a new level of emotionally driven storytelling for the franchise.

Depicting the struggles of three undocumented Bronx high school students to avoid deportation, From Nowhere resonates with tender compassion for its characters.

A fascinating if uneven portrait.

Marshall is a solid, straightforward courtroom drama with proud liberal credentials, one that could have been made by Norman Jewison around 1967.

More accustomed to horror material than action extravaganzas, Stamboel and Tjahjanto’s nimble approach maintains a compelling perspective on the key set pieces without overstaging scenes or crowding them with too many extras.

Mary Mazzio’s eye-opening documentary reveals that the buying and selling of tweens and teens, long recognized as a plight in some developing nations, is also very much a domestic problem.

Amusing but slight, the small-scale film is elevated by a spirited characterization from Geoffrey Rush as mercurial artist — is there any other kind in movies? — Alberto Giacometti.

Though its cinematography is nothing to write home about, the action Alive and Kicking captures is so transfixing, one marvels that dancers can keep it up for five years, much less five decades.

Though the shifts can be abrupt, the film provides an overview of a huge topic with admirable concision.