For Christopher Nolan to turn Batman Begins into such a smart, gritty, brooding, visceral experience is astonishing. Truly, Batman does begin again.

A neatly observed take on Manila street life. Pegged to a gay theme, it works best as a character-driven slice of social realism.

Documentaries are a hard sell these days, and despite the timely, pertinent subject, the film simply doesn't have enough entertainment value to draw an audience to the multiplex.

Fascinatingly ambiguous tale and bizarre cast of characters make it one of the more entertaining documentaries in recent memory.

Areces is inventive and scary in main role, though it's impossible to sympathize with his madness. Other performances are gaudy but perfunctory.

The raging stamina, unrelenting violence, rapid-fire editing and truncated narrative all give one no pause for thought or even breath. By the time the central mystery is revealed in a nice twist, it gets swallowed in the messy, anti-climactic end.

[A] claustrophobically discomfiting but quizzically comic study of social unease and embarrassment.

Capturing the spirit of an artist and the quickly-fading moment in media history when his work could have real nationwide impact, Michael Stevens' Herblock: The Black & The White pays homage to the great editorial cartoonist with testimonials from a who's-who of D.C. journalists and opinion-makers.

Fatal Assistance is a chilling indictment of how billions of dollars in aid were squandered or lost, and how aid and politics are inextricably linked.

It’s a tricky proposition that will surely ruffle the feathers of many viewers, but one that also makes a curious, if lasting, impression, thanks in part to strong turns from actors Anais Demoustier and Josh Charles.

[A] likeably modest study of veteran, well-traveled American musicologist Louis Sarno.

German Kral's Our Last Tango balances between a studious fascination with the dance form's history and an embrace of the passions it stokes. Far more engrossing than the usual doc of this sort.

The film handles its admittedly familiar themes in uncommonly sensitive fashion.

Fairrie doesn’t attempt to rewrite history and make a case for Collins as an underappreciated literary genius. But she paints a stirring picture of a gifted storyteller and a brilliant female entrepreneur, who shrugged off the cultural snobbery and the misogynistic backlash sparked by her “scandalous” work and laughed all the way to the bank.

Hathaway draws splendid performances from his cast and maintains a taut, spicy tempo that grips the attention consistently. Miss Monroe turns in her finest acting performance yet, adding to her acting laurels by playing a sexy tart with a provocative abandon that has a powerful impact.

The superbly acted drama yields rewards, making astute observations about mental health, inherited trauma, self-determination and absent or unfixable fathers.

This is the first feature for Gordon and Lieberman and there’s little evidence of a visual sense, even if the rough edges are part of the appeal. But perhaps due to the elements of improvisation, the comic timing is uneven and the material tends to be more often cute than uproarious.

Too narrowly focused.

It's a rare comedy that actually grows funnier on reflection. It benefits enormously from the talents of the two stars.

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.

Saving some of the best for last, director Philippe makes outstanding use of footage of what in the trade is called the money shot, the startling payoff that everything has been building toward — in this case, of course, the scene featuring the “chestburster.”

In the charming comedy-parable Ushpizin, religious orthodoxy inspires not unbending dogma but humble, sometimes baffled spiritual striving by its embraceable, flawed characters.

Harnessing the wizardry of 3-D IMAX to magnify the sheer transporting wonder, the you-are-there thrill of the experience, the film's payoff more than compensates for a lumbering setup, laden with cloying voiceover narration and strained whimsy.

Dior and I is a fashion doc with both a sense of history and a feel for the energy of a work in progress.

As a character study of a man with good reason to wean himself off the very basic human instinct of hope and teach himself, even at some personal cost, to care for no one and nothing, Sundown gains texture from its stark setting in a seaside playground stained with blood. But of all the director’s films to date, this might be the most airless.

The tyro director steps up to the plate beautifully, delivering an ingenious, fast-paced horror-thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat while also featuring generous doses of mordant humor.

While it’s occasionally stuck in very rote biographical details and frequently limited by a race to theaters and TV that doesn’t necessarily align with any real ending to the documentary’s story, Fauci has an actual structural focus that’s smartly considered and interesting, even if it left me with myriad questions.

Whatever script flaws there are in terms of structure, plot momentum and an opaque central character, A Complete Unknown offers rewards in its lived-in performances and in the exhilarating music sequences that propel it forward. For many audiences with an affection for Dylan’s music and the era in general, that will be enough.