Music naturally plays the central role here, but the film usefully lays in historical and political details that lend it more heft and poignancy than most films of its type.

Among the Believers is a step toward understanding how such a man can be entrusted with such a large percentage of a nation's children.

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

Interspersing technical talk with a quick history of nuclear testing and other near-misses, the doc demonstrates how often situations like this arise.

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?

At its playful best, the screenplay by Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer and Emily Spivey sends up crime-movie clichés with a light touch, and Hess shows uncharacteristic restraint in letting those moments play out without reaching for punchlines.

The Best Democracy Money Can Buy certainly makes many valid points, but they tend to be lost amidst the overriding cutesiness.

You don’t have to be an animation buff to appreciate the chances this stirring saga takes.

Sutherland brings some believable warmth to a film whose spiritual "aha" moments are generally packaged too tidily to hit home.

Sky Ladder chronicles his life and career in illuminating fashion, beginning with his troubled childhood.

Utterly absorbing all the way through, this showcase for Bercot’s skill with large casts and intellectually rigorous storytelling may be her best yet.

The director ties themes together at the end with more finesse than usual, letting a couple of meaningful visuals speak for themselves where he might have thrown in a line or two of explanatory dialogue. And as for that final twist, it's a doozy.

Not for the squeamish, Ovredal's chilly slab of body horror ultimately proves less than the sum of its forensically fileted parts.

For a time, an appealing gentleness prevails that's rooted in this unique inter-generational romance, a feeling augmented in particular by Purnell's slow-blooming flower of a performance, and if the film had remained focused more on the improbabilities of this love story, it might have emerged as something rather special.

The film works as a moving anti-war essay and as a gripping thriller.

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

Despite some clever touches, the derivative film doesn't manage to live up to its clever premise.

The Eyes of My Mother is both strange and strangely enthralling.

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.

Instead of exploding into crime-clan war, the picture trickles into a kind of shrugging, "it is what it is" look at life on the wrong side of the law.

New World Order demonstrates a distinct lack of originality.

Wrenching to watch, but told with clarity and guts.

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.

Cooper seizes control of the movie when he’s onscreen, but the two young leads are also enormously appealing.

Filmed in a gorgeous, dreamlike style and Infused with heavy doses of mysticism and allegory, The Vessel is an impressive effort that loses some of its impact, however, for being so derivative.

Co-directors Nicholas Stoller and Doug Sweetland deliver big time with Storks, a fittingly buoyant, delightfully madcap animated romp.

It provides only scant background information and no deep insights about the musicians, other than that they seem like very nice people who apparently perform more for the love of church than money.

Writer-director Rachel Lang and star Salome Richard manage to craft an intriguing feature debut filled with keen observations and slices of dark humor.