Alberdi makes her directorial hand virtually invisible, observing her subjects from a discreet distance that allows them to be narrators of their own story while never speaking directly to the camera.

Expectations are fully met in Park Chan-wook’s exquisitely filmed The Handmaiden (Agassi), an amusingly kinky erotic thriller and love story that brims with delicious surprises, making its two-and-a-half hours fly by.

As it sheds light on these women’s experiences and the larger issue of homelessness among female vets, the film grows deeply engaging.

Despite a shred of story that’s told episodically, EO, which clocks in at a concise 86 minutes, can be an engrossing experience.

What's perhaps most fascinating about the film is Boyle's relentless focus on the realities of present-day India as a vehicle for his spectacle and laughs.

Artistically, King is less persuasive as a coherent statement than "Lemonade." But Black Is King may live its ideals more successfully than it preaches them.

Putting the viewer into a men’s circle like no other, The Work is a remarkable piece of reportage.

Despite the name recognition of such actors as Catherine Deneuve and Mathieu Amalric, foreign audiences might be deterred by the movie's 143-minute length and the profusion of characters and interwoven story lines.

The intriguingly elliptical narrative and the use of highly aestheticized cinematography and music draw the viewer into a web of genocide and a series of shocking events

Even if this deceptively artful debut feels a little muted and unpolished in places, it is plainly the work of a skilled filmmaker with ample future potential.

Saad has an absolutely sure hand in directing Badhon and guiding her into higher octaves of the role as the drama grows and grows.

In Paranoid Park, Gus Van Sant enters the world of high school kids just as he did in "Elephant," achieving this time a much sharper, more focused portrait of how these rapidly maturing young people act, think, speak and behave.

Giant stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the great ones.

The value of this film, not just to moviegoers today but to future generations, is simply enormous.

The camerawork and editing are extraordinary in their immediacy and their sensitivity to chaos, exhaustion and resilience — often all at once.

It is a responsible and uncomplicated adaptation, one that capitalizes on the story’s lore and legacy. But it’s not withholding, either. The film crucially invites a new generation to join Margaret in the weird, challenging and sometimes wonderful experience of getting older.

Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw (The Last Race) directed, produced and shot this captivating vérité documentary, which finds humor, charm and poignancy in the crusty eccentrics and their adored canine companions who sniff out the aromatic tubers, usually under the secretive cloak of night.

Owen carries the film more in the tradition of a Jimmy Stewart or Henry Fonda than a Clint Eastwood or Harrison Ford. He has to wear flip-flops for part of the time without losing his dignity, and he never reaches for a weapon or guns anyone down. Cuaron and Owen may have created the first believable 21st-century movie hero.

Led by sensational performances from Daniel Kaluuya as Hampton and LaKeith Stanfield as William O'Neal, the FBI informant who infiltrated his inner circle, this is a scalding account of oppression and revolution, coercion and betrayal, rendered more shocking by the undiminished currency of its themes.

Hard luck conspires with bad sex in this unspectacular Austrian tale of crime and punishment.

Carlo Di Palma's intense, smashing, claustrophobic cinematography is terrific: Jarring, moving, and hitting all the hard angles of Upper East Side Manhattan, Di Palma frames a tight picture of woe. As ever, Woody Allen's smear on himself is appropriately smudged with telling musical notes: Cole Porter's "What Is This Thing Called Love" and Mahler's "Symphony No. 9 in D" sound the agony. [26 Aug 1992]

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood is uneven, unwieldy in its structure and not without its flat patches. But it's also a disarming and characteristically subversive love letter to its inspiration.

This bittersweet peek into the human comedy has a more subtle charm than flashier films like the director’s child-swapping fable Like Father, Like Son, but the filmmaking is so exquisite and the acting so calibrated it sticks with you.

This is a Wes Anderson film -- more lightweight than some, possessing a stronger emotional undertow than others -- that will strike the uninitiated as conspicuously arch.

From the pastoral beauty of its opening sequence to the gut punch of its last, Hadi’s film is an exceptional screen debut, as perceptive as it is kinetic and, with one eye on the bombers overhead, brimming with life.

A phantasmagorical vision of psychological purgatory, Horse Money (Cavalo dinheiro) will enrapture some while leaving others dangling in frustrated limbo.

As much arthouse as grindhouse, it’s a blood-drenched mix tape that shouldn’t work. But it does, thanks to Coogler’s muscular direction, a terrific cast, enveloping IMAX visuals, body-quaking sound and music that stirs the soul while setting the pulse racing.

McQueen is a haunting story of extravagant talent and inescapable private sorrow, made with exquisite craftsmanship worthy of its subject. While a narrative biopic has been in development for years, this excellent documentary delivers an eye-popping, emotionally wrenching experience that paints a fully dimensional portrait of a complex artist.

Savanah Leaf’s Earth Mama is a melancholic story transformed into a precious portrait by the director’s generous and nurturing eye. She digs into the familiar landscape of a Black mother facing an oppressive legal system and pulls from it the most unexpected and humanizing details. She observes them with a loving curiosity, and then asks viewers to do the same.

A hilarious, blazingly paced teen comedy.

Directed by Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh, the documentary is best at offering a peek into the lives of Khabar Lahariya’s scrappy, self-made women, who are well aware that they are claiming for themselves a profession largely occupied by upper-class men.

Making a unique police drama in itself is a considerable achievement. Red, White and Blue earns that distinction partly through its skilled avoidance of the standard beats of stories about rookie cops chafing against the establishment. But it's also a direct result of Logan's remarkable qualities as a real-life protagonist that enable it to transcend conventional bio-drama.

Presented with no narrative and limited structure, Ascension is a collection of breathtaking images and revelatory vignettes that position China as a simultaneously alien and completely universal cultural and industrial landscape, never spelling out which direction points toward progress.

Satter shows unfaltering command of the medium for a first-time film director, notably in her penetrating use of the closeup, which makes the steadily exposed raw nerves of Sydney Sweeney’s remarkable performance in the title role all the more disturbing to witness.

Moving historical drama brings a fascinating chapter of art history to life.

Michael Apted's landmark films documenting the lives of a disparate group of Brits in seven-year intervals have always been fascinating from a sociological perspective. But the latest installment proves that they are undeniably brilliant cinematically as well.

A sober and sincere refugee story.

His new film acquires considerable urgency and raw emotional power in the closing stretch. But at just under two-and-a-half talky hours it's almost maddeningly protracted, maintaining a somewhat cold intellectual approach that might have been improved by greater emphasis on the beautiful scenes of intimacy, tenderness, naked fear and helplessness that punctuate the action.

Ironically, Sirat gets muddled near the end. Although the last act is in many ways the liveliest — viewers will be jolted by a series of bleak twists — it’s also where Laxe relinquishes narrative coherence in the service of making his metaphors more literal.

As Rasoulof intercuts real footage and fiction, we realize that what the family is going through is an extension of what the entire country has been facing.

A stirring character study ... To Leslie recalls the grit of 1970s American indie cinema at its most indelible.

Blade Runner is a cold, bold, bizarre and mesmerizing futuristic detective thriller that unites the British-born director of Alien with new box-office dynamo Harrison Ford for results that are as impressive as any film that's exploded through a projector so far this year.

It’s hard not to leave the film shaken.

With One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Forman takes his rightful place as one of our most creative young directors. His casting is inspired, his sense of milieu is assured, and he could probably wring Academy Award performances from a stone.

From a sensory point of view, the film is a pleasure, the images having been manipulated in various ways to evocative effect, Anderson’s voiceovers proving more amusing than not, and the music taking mostly lively turns.

At once comical and poignant, this offbeat, true-life show-biz tale deserves instant cult status.

Frame by Frame is a work of profound immediacy, in sync with the photographers’ commitment and hope.

A useful primer for those who haven't paid enough attention and a synthesis for those who've been overwhelmed by years of upsetting news reports, the film explains cause-and-effect relationships that, while hardly unexplored, merit continued attention.

One has the impression that Goldman realized you can push a good thing just so far, or that audiences will follow reportorial plotting just so long.

Despite all appearances, Personal Problems is indeed moving toward a fairly conventional end. But along the way, it observes much of its era through the corners of its eyes.

Do not be fooled by the playful, irreverent tone. Behind its attractive surface sheen of lusty humor and ravishing visuals, this Trojan Horse drama makes some spiky topical points about the lingering scars of slavery, feudalism, misogyny and racism.

Managing to be neither sentimental nor sensationalistic, the film tells its story from the heart, and from the simple, straightforward viewpoint of young heroine Komona, warmly played by the talented Rachel Mwanza in her screen debut.

It is, as promised, "a majestic visual experience," quite unlike any film we have ever seen...These details are merely a means employed by Kubrick and his distinguished screenplay collaborator Arthur C. Clarke, to provoke the more limitless imaginings of the mind, to assault the viewer with tantalizing enigmas to force exploration of that personal universe in relation to time and space, meaning and potential.

Ultimately, what gives Toy Story 4 genuine heft is that it's a tale of second chances and characters who take advantage of them. Like its predecessors, the film is rambunctious, noisy, genial, unpretentious, action-packed and old-fashioned in a very good way.

An uncompromising portrait of how global capitalism can exploit an area's resources to the point of near annihilation.

Hilarious for those on Maddin's mad wavelength and more varied than his strictly fictional features.

Overall, On the Record is a stunning feat of complexity that’s both contained and expansive.

It's a superb cinematic work and an appropriately serious one, given its subject matter and its intentions.

If some of the jokes can be broad and childish (the film probably plays best for the 10-and-under set), the overall tone is so tender that you can’t help but be moved by Linda’s nonstop adventures.

This is a stirring valentine to a neighborhood and its people that, as the film tells it, stared gentrification in the eye and stood their ground, staying true to their cultural identity.

Accompanied by a dreamy soundtrack and philosophically flowery narration by Miranda July, it’s a doomed love story on every level, a gorgeous collage of a film in which romance, scientific inquiry and death do a 93-minute dance.

In Hamnet . . . the two always go hand in hand: joy and fear, love and loss. One feeds into the other in a cycle as old as life itself, and unavoidable. But just as her William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) turns the pain of being caught between the two into the masterpiece that is Hamlet, Zhao harnesses those elements into something gorgeous and cathartic.

Writer-director Robert Eggers' debut feature impresses on several fronts, notably in the performances, historical feel and visual precision, but the overall effect is relatively subdued and muted, probably too much so for mainstream scare fans.

Their physical disparity notwithstanding, Gordon-Levitt and Willis both come across strongly, while Blunt effectively reveals Sara's tough and vulnerable sides.

Graduation isn’t one of Mungiu’s finest, but even a restrained, emotionally measured work like this is more interesting and provocative than many another director’s best effort.

Representing a dazzling artistic leap forward for LAIKA, the stop-motion animation studio’s fourth feature — and first full-blown fantasy — is an eye-popping delight that deftly blends colorful folklore with gorgeous, origami-informed visuals to immersive effect.

Cameron isn't as concerned with scares or atmosphere, the staples of traditional horror films, as he is with setting up difficult situations for his characters to get out of, leaving audiences deliciously on edge.

While the film depicts a world seldom far removed from grim reality, the sly strain of humor keeps it buoyant, nowhere more so than in Kaurismaki’s deadpan dialogue, delivered with affectless aplomb by his marvelous cast.

By turns intriguingly odd and frustratingly obscure, this is confidently quirky material that nonetheless boasts superior production values with style to spare.

This intoxicatingly stylish work is all over the place, a hot mess at times so ravishing it sends shivers down to the toes. Unfortunately, it’s also at times just plain crass and silly.

Similar in form to the director’s previous nonfiction studies (Our Daily Bread, Over the Years), this wordless assemblage of fixed shots is as much a museum piece as it is a strictly art-house item, inviting viewers to sit back and let the imagery consume them.

The sense of time passing is hypnotic, and the image of the ghost, wounded and watching, unable to communicate or offer comfort, becomes more eerie and beautiful the longer we observe it.

Working with non-pro actors, Hammer pulls authentic performances from the trio that are at times almost too painful to witness.

It's very difficult to mesh fantasy with reality, but with great charm and a light touch, Almodovar shows exactly how it should be done.

A riveting firsthand account of the Egyptian revolution presented with remarkable immediacy and filmmaking skill.

Widows is a solid piece of genre fiction made more resonant by how its creators have bored down into its characters and sociological implications in ways specifically designed to examine some of the rotten underpinnings of business as usual.

Elegant and unsentimental, this is a minor-key, wintry ensemble piece with an emotional hold that sneaks up on you.

An eloquently shot and closely observed documentary about a poor family in modern-day Indonesia.

The women of Motherland emerge as an entirely different class of heroines, demonstrating Diaz’s insight and compassion in documenting their experiences without judgment or condescension and allowing them to convey their own individual perspectives.

Lapid continues to exhibit a singular blend of intensity and absurdity, as well as a distinct attention to cinematic craft.

Boys State inevitably feels more and more like reality TV programming, which is both appropriate for our times and depressing.

Less a portrait of accidental activist Nadia Murad than a sensitive witnessing of the way she has endured life in the public eye, Alexandria Bombach's On Her Shoulders is passionately attentive to the plight of the Yazidis while making broader observations about the call to public service.

Beneath the mild verbal shocks lay an excellent screenplay handled by real talent.

After a five-year wait since "Sideways," Alexander Payne has made his best film yet with The Descendants. Ostensibly a study of loss and coping with a tragic situation, this wonderfully nuanced look at a father and two daughters dealing with the imminent death of his wife and their mother turns the miraculous trick of possibly being even funnier than it is moving.

It’s a credit to the filmmakers and to lead actor Ryan Gosling’s thoughtfully internalized performance as Neil Armstrong that this sober, contemplative picture has emotional involvement, visceral tension, and yes, even suspense, in addition to stunning technical craft.

The havoc makes for a genuine steel metal trap of a movie that may very well be the best picture of its kind since The Road Warrior.

Snowpiercer is an ambitious piece with a universally comprehensible theme and accessible aesthetics.

A timely reminder of the legacy of voting rights in the U.S. and an inspiring testament to the power of community organizing.

Eephus isn’t exactly a baseball movie — it’s something closer to movie-baseball, where characters endlessly jostle back and forth under no real time constraints, watching the day slowly pass them by, simply out of love for the sport.

As surprising as it is delicious with an indelible performance by new star Sally Hawkins.

A heartwarming and moving adventure that does excellent justice to the classic character.

The word "community" has become a cliche, but this party, both backstage and before the crowd, illustrates a specific sense of cultural community and the singular bliss of standing on a city street in late-summer rain for a once-in-a-lifetime concert.

The technical and logistical details of the project are constantly fascinating, but it’s these emotional moments that pack most of the film’s power.

Mainly Park lets her actors interact, their humor deadpan, their pain unfathomable, their hormones surging and their flirtations halting.

It's an invigorating chance to experience from afar an ordeal that, unless your name is Eliot Spitzer, you and I will never have to endure.

Arguably Eastwood's most ambitious film since his multi-Oscar winner, "Unforgiven." But it lacks the power and depth of that film's dynamic script by David Webb Peoples.

David Mamet’s harsh, hard-talking drama about shady, desperate real estate salesmen makes for an actors’ showcase with a surprisingly conventional whodunit backdrop in the movie version of Glengarry Glen Ross.

An absolute charmer, The Tale of Silyan is an affecting look at the human-avian bond, with all its mysteries, warmth and ungainly practicalities.