93Queen is rough-hewn technically and, although it includes brief interviews with several other members of the female EMT corps, it would have benefited from a wider focus. But it's excusable that the filmmaker would concentrate so much on her central figure, whose fierce intelligence and indomitable spirit render her truly inspirational.

The film is aware of the weight of its subject but loath to behave like an "important" film — focusing instead on the specificity of one sick young man and the family that loves and fears him in almost equal measure.

Relying on interviews with Schrager and other insiders instead of cramming in every celeb who graced the dancefloor, Tyrnauer delivers a meaty and transporting portrait.

Snapshots presents a moving portrait of its central relationship doomed by societal constrictions. The female characters are well-drawn and vibrant, while the men are depicted sympathetically.

Moving to Charlottesville, Lough puts viewers in the action. We don't talk to journalists or politicians about what happened the weekend Heather D. Heyer was killed; we stand in crowds and watch the events unfold.

This kind of film wouldn’t stand a chance if the actors weren’t believable but Garcia (who starred in El Amparo, which Cordova edited) and non-professional Reyes are both understated but utterly authentic.

Lensed with great sensitivity and style and superbly acted, it has one drawback for Western audiences in its perplexing plot points based on the local culture and customs.

Everything the film has to offer is obvious and on the surface, its pleasures simple and sincere under the attentive guidance of director Jon S. Baird.

This is in many ways an abrasive, wildly uneven film — raw and deliberately unvarnished in style, shot by Benoit Delhomme with a nervous handheld camera and lots of wide-angle lenses that mirror the darting restlessness and the uneasy perspective of a troubled mind.

The film succeeds at being both exciting and character-driven, but only after a confused first half that will leave international viewers frustrated over who’s who and what’s going on.

A film that’s pleasurable to engage with, even if the latter stretch doesn’t come close to realizing some of the early promise.

The film benefits from the fine cast and from many sharp and poignant moments. It's an impressive achievement technically as well.

There's a scattershot quality to the proceedings, presumably caused by the Canadian writer-director not living long enough to complete the doc. But the individual segments register powerfully and the underwater sequences are beautifully shot, providing ample compensation for the narrative choppiness.

Distinctive and amusing turns by Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali make Peter Farrelly’s first solo feature outing a lively and likable diversion.

The film has its resonant moments, notably a wedding and a funeral. But it is by no means the jewel in the crown of a series that most recently has included electrifying docs like At Berkeley, In Jackson Heights and Ex Libris: The New York Public Library.

A Whale of a Tale delivers a thoughtful riposte to The Cove even while providing plenty of opportunity for those opposed to the practice of killing or capturing whales and dolphins to make their case.

Kusama: Infinity presents a creative life that is worth exploring, even by those who've been scared away by the crowds.

The main virtue of the film lies in the thoughtful interviews given by the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, both the accompanying voiceover commentaries and their later on-camera appearances.

There's nothing terribly new under the sun about any of what transpires. But writer-director Gleason has crafted a film that manages to be simultaneously funny, touching and sensitive.

Part sincere and part smarmy, part amusing and part windy nonsense, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs plays like an old Western-themed vaudeville show featuring six unrelated sketches of drastically differing quality.

As anachronistic as A Paris Education may seem (a running time of 136 minutes doesn’t always help matters, either), there’s a conviction to the storytelling that can’t be denied, and no matter what your tastes are, it’s hard not to be moved by Etienne’s struggle to find his voice amid so much doubt and disillusion.

At its strongest, the film feels like kin to Kirsten Johnson’s great Cameraperson (2016), a free-associative nonfiction memoir comprised mostly of B-roll and personal footage. Though the subject here isn’t Ross himself (despite a few offscreen aural appearances) but an entire community that, in both micro- and macrocosmic senses, has remained historically unacknowledged and unseen.

Laurent walks between pulpy suspense and a more serious grimness as she presents the action.

What does emerge is a vivid portrait of a brilliant and multi-faceted man of ideas who charmed his enemies as well as his friends.

Despite its dreary outlook, the film does offer a semblance of hope in the generosity, good humor and tenacious sangfroid of the people it portrays.

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.

The Food Network crowd will go nuts for the doc, but beyond the shots of luscious dishes, there's a pretty interesting character study here as well.

Nelly delivers a deliberately fragmentary, time-shifting portrait that is as provocative as it is sometimes frustrating. What anchors the proceedings is the lead performance of Mylene Mackay, whose star will definitely be on the rise after this sexy, galvanizing turn.

While the film commits errors of taste and tact, and is generally all over the place from start to finish, those issues come off here as byproducts of a certain generosity — a sense that Anders wants to convey a full range of experience, including the messy stuff in between the usual formulaic notes and beats.

The sorrowful situations are frequently laced with chuckles,

Captivating and deeply felt coming-of-age fable.

American Dharma is meant to leave its audience shaken, whatever side they’re on.

As a portrait of bogus revolutionary rhetoric used to undermine and control women, it’s thoughtful and provocative.

The film would not have the same impact without the commanding lead performance. Thanks to Ramos’s affecting work, Fistful of Dirt sticks in the memory.

The filmmaker's expressively cockeyed impulses soon take over (he's ably assisted by the terrific cinematographer Seamus McGarvey), and the resulting craziness is quite delightful to behold in the moment and to reflect on after.

What is gratifying about the film is Volf's obvious love for and devotion to Callas, as well as his completist's urge to track down and include every scrap of footage at all relevant to telling her story and documenting her greatness.

Although in the early going the convoluted plot sometimes struggles to maintain interest, Stein and Lipovsky have such a clear vision that they keep developments confidently on track until subsequent revelations engage in full-throttle action mode, leading to a climax suggesting they likely have future plans for these characters.

[A] solid, straightforward history of abortion rights in America.

Running a farm is a tough life of never-ending work, and once the film drops its initial idealization of back-to-the-land fantasies in favor of a more realistic assessment of the challenges involved, it becomes genuinely involving and heartening.

The splatter violence is fairly tame by modern gore standards, and the episodic narrative sags in places, but the ecological subtext and feminist folk-horror elements make this almost entirely female-driven road movie an agreeably fresh addition to the zombie canon.

Rodents of Unusual Size proves enjoyably quirky and informative.

A lean 91 minutes long, Cult of Chucky is part self-spoofing slasher, part lowbrow bloodbath and all guilty pleasure. There are plot holes here bigger than Trump Tower, and almost as ridiculous, but only the most joylessly wrong-headed film critic would waste mental energy unpicking them.

Even with the interesting historical and individual stories, the doc would have benefited from a more expansive focus. It feels limited at times, both in its small number of personal profiles and the sketchiness with which it delivers the necessary context. There's no denying, however, its passion and conviction.

Downton 2.0 is literally bigger, broader, more gem-encrusted, punctuated with more drone shots and monarchist pomp, and has all the major cast members back in place.

Beyond its eye-opening archival material, the flawed but rich mix of personal history and showbiz annals is an illuminating reminder of how quickly the first (or best-promoted) story becomes the official story, and how easily biographers' career-boosting conjectures are calcified into "fact."

Stands on its own as a small-scale enterprise which makes some telling points about much bigger issues relating to American society, sports and community ties.

Like the structures it is named after, the movie hinges on a rudimentary narrative that builds in momentum as the plot progresses, leading to a single act of defiance in the final reel.

As a depiction of the very public emergence of a marginal movement, Lords of Chaos provokes both awe and repulsion, but not necessarily admiration for a musical form and subculture unwaveringly devoted to literalism, no matter how extreme.

The film is smart with a cool New York irony that is easy to get into, but it owes its principal fascination to the enigmatic Condola Rashad, the stage actress seen in Showtime’s Billions and Joshua Marston’s recent Come Sunday, and her multi-layered performance as a charismatic but mentally disturbed Iraq war vet.

More conversational than journalistic in spirit, it avoids hard statistics (and the reasons those stats can be hard to come by) in favor of well-informed impressions and anecdotes. Though not the first doc to note the insanity surrounding this subject, it is easily accessible to non-insiders and holds interest even for those who follow art closely.

There is plenty to relish here in the first-hand accounts offered up by the couple of dozen witnesses called upon by Ferguson.

Pimp is an engrossing melodrama that could easily have played to enthusiastic grindhouse audiences in the 1970s.

Presenting an evocative portrait of a now-bygone era in the city's past, The Last Resort delivers plenty of nostalgia as is spotlights the work of two photographers who captured the period with vivid immediacy.

For all its effective camerawork and editing, the film can't fully convey the experience of seeing its subject in person. But it certainly provides more than enough motivation for making every effort to do so.

It gives the feature doc treatment to a topic TV journalists (and news-comedy hero John Oliver) have looked at over the decades — showing the slimy ways that reforms prompted by public outrage have been neutered by politicians on both sides of the aisle.

What viewers take away from Kids is the sense that even after 80 years of hard living, it’s still possible to live a meaningful, happy and influential existence — an authentically feel-good message for these feel-bad times.

A cutthroat little thriller that's surely more fun than most of the riddle-solving lock-ins currently springing up around the country.

Gleefully gory and darkly funny, Monster Party is the sort of extreme genre exercise that separates real fans from mere dilettantes.

Having invested a bit of time early on to the dawn of the internet, Trust Machine has shown us how beautiful inventions can be twisted by entrenched powers. The film's hope is that, if more people are paying attention this time around, blockchain might remain a tool for popular empowerment.

Good luck trying to make heads or tails of it, but as an eye-popping exercise in cinematic strangeness, 9 Fingers is a rare breed.

Though some of its insights might sound like common sense from the outside, the doc sees many places where they go against the grain; it's likely to provoke some "aha" moments even for viewers who couldn't care less about Super Bowls and World Cups.

This is derivative if well-executed product, except when it comes to the relationship at the film’s center.

A step up in terms of complexity, with more subplots and a larger cast of protagonists to juggle and less instantly sympathetic characters or an evident cause to rally behind, this drama again offers many quiet, often character-driven rewards but struggles to become larger than the sum of its parts.

The Quake offers visceral thrills.

A solid ensemble, including many acting veterans, manages to make the film, on which Bobby Farrelly served as one of the executive producers, a diverting holiday comedy.

Like in A Silent Voice, Yamada has a very keen eye for depicting adolescent malaise in visually evocative terms, and Liz and the Blue Bird could have benefited from even more flights of fancy than she allows for here.

Alexis Bloom's damning documentary is a competent but conventional affair, highly watchable but low on fresh angles or bombshell revelations.

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.

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

Amazing Grace will not enter the pantheon of concert films — it's somewhat shapeless as a movie, and gives little sense of emotional insight into the performer. But it does contain moments of bliss: As astonishing as the sound of Franklin's singing in 1972 remains, watching her do it is even better.

Cam is a suspenseful mind-bender with plenty of timely feminist subtext. It takes viewers down some unexpected rabbit holes and commendably avoids pandering to male-gaze sex-thriller tropes, even if it ultimately fails to deliver on its grippingly weird early promise.

Molina is captivating as Rothko pontificates, questions and explains, covering everything from Rembrandt and Nietzsche to Jackson Pollock and the convertible car that (as Rothko sees it) represented his descent into the tainted world of celebrity.

Despite its structural problems and mostly foreseeable storyline, the small, very human moments such as these ensure that Mario feels authentic and is, finally, moving.

Family in Transition stands out both for the particularities inherent in its setting and the deeply sympathetic individuals at its center.

What the film does best is bear witness to what happened on the day of the arrest and place it in the context of Bland's political life.

As a teaching and consciousness-raising tool, it will be an indispensable resource.

Eighty-eight minutes is not nearly enough time to give full attention to every thread of critique here, but The Cleaners does a respectable job of fitting its unruly anecdotes into a coherent stream of thought.

Boasting excellent performances by screen veterans Peter Mullan and Gerard Butler, the latter delivering one of his best turns in years, The Vanishing feels familiar in most ways, including its title (the same as George Sluizer's classic Dutch thriller and its mediocre American remake). Nonetheless, the film proves highly effective with its slowly ratcheted up tension and eerie atmospherics.

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.

Although it's enjoyable to make the acquaintance of the well-played, crowd-pleasing Strangers, the encounter is quickly forgotten.

A refreshing reminder of the usability-above-all principles that once held more sway — look at nearly any contemporary website to see how far we've fallen — it benefits from both the work and the personality of subject Dieter Rams.

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.

Pike creates an admirable if flawed Marie whose graceful womanhood battles with her fears of being exploited or bypassed for her gender.

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.

Wise’s filmmaking style remains consistently engaging throughout the series as he demonstrates a characteristic ability to elicit particularly salient comments from interviewees, many of them already well-accustomed to media attention.

It offers some bits of fact and argument that may have gone underexposed, and it is more stylish than some earlier journalistic outings. But its potential to make change is hindered, as the film itself notes near its conclusion, by the fact that the already-stoked fear and rage of American citizens is neutered by those we've elected to make laws — many of whom have been taking checks from this deep-pocketed industry for years.

The screenplay boasts a psychological complexity rare for thrillers of this type, manifested most strikingly in the form of Bernard, who is far from a cardboard cutout villain.

Virtually nothing of real interest happens in the first half, with the excitement only kicking in around the 45-minute mark. Fortunately, what follows is scary and involving enough to make the lengthy build-up seem worth the wait.

Hodge’s performance is what keeps Brian Banks on track. He is powerful in scenes of anger, but he may be even better in purely silent moments where his unspoken reactions are eloquent.

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.

What really works about Little easily surpasses what doesn’t.

Having made a number of well-regarded, female-focused short films, the Icelandic director graduates to features with a sure grasp of naturalistic performance and an eye for character-shaping landscape.

Less relentlessly bleak than Winter's Bone, which along with Frozen River is an obvious inspiration here, the life-on-the-margins drama makes a fine, tense vehicle for Tessa Thompson, who in the last few years has stood out in a variety of genres.

Despite some narrative cliches, the painstaking way that the movie documents a very dark period in Cambodian history is a noteworthy achievement.

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

Though its structure doesn't always work to maximum effect, the grim picture gets more involving as it goes and benefits from a hell of a cast.

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.

A work of admirable journalistic seriousness.