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.

Led by an almost unrecognizable Simon Baker as a jaded cop, Limbo weaves in themes of racial inequity, broken individuals and fractured families to build quiet potency.

Noisy, joyous and as exhausting as the multi-generational bash at the heart of its story, Totem packs a hefty wallop for a film that’s only 95 minutes, and should further solidify Aviles’ reputation as an auteur with a unique vision and remarkable skills with actors, especially non-professionals.

Rather than a pileup of bad behavior, the screenplay offers shifting perspectives as to who’s being sensible and who isn’t, who means well but executes badly, with few characters falling unequivocally into the camp of “right” or “wrong.”

Torres has created a weird and special little film, one that reflects his particular tastes and curiosities.

From its very first minute, this searing drama of rural strife, xenophobia and cultural hostility is filled with almost unbearable tension.

Carried by impressively fluid, determinedly naturalistic filmmaking, with performances that never hit a false note, 20,000 Species of Bees (20.000 especies de abejas) marks an assured debut, slowly but surely hitting an emotional crescendo during its final minutes

The stories in Simon’s doc live in a French context, but the plight of its participants is near universal. In the face of resurgent attacks on bodily autonomy around the world, Our Body is an urgent and political project.

Cavalcade is a fine, splendid document of the folly and resultant decline of civilization through the tragedies of war. It is Noel Coward’s contribution to the cause of peace and, as such, it is effective historic pageantry.

Anatomy of a Fall is, above all, about the essential unknowability of a person, of a relationship, and the perilous impossibility of trying to understand — whether it’s a child puzzling over his parents or a courtroom straining to make sense of an inscrutable suspect. In other words, it’s a film concerned with storytelling — the stories we tell others about ourselves and those we, as individuals and a society, tell ourselves about others.

The threat posed by women who think for themselves to the absolute power of men is a central theme in this starch-free tale of Tudor intrigue, its protofeminist perspective seamlessly woven into the narrative fabric without a hint of the didactic.

Rarely does Ben Hania’s film feel exploitative or manipulative. In fact, more than anything, Four Daughters is radical in its honesty and courage.

Three hours long and divided into two parts, it starts off as a leisurely, shaggy dog crime story, with what’s probably one of the most laid-back bank robberies in film history. But then it digresses, deepens and complexifies, creating new mysteries out of old ones, and love affairs out of the thin air.

Slowly but deliberately paced, the movie builds to a crescendo in a closing act where a movie itself — a real movie shot and projected on celluloid — plays a pivotal role, resuscitating forgotten lives and memories as only the cinema can do.

Rohrwacher makes movies you sink into rather than watch dispassionately, taking time to establish the milieu as her characters and stories reveal themselves in layers.

The director has crafted a film of deceptive simplicity, observing the tiny details of a routine existence with such clarity, soulfulness and empathy that they build a cumulative emotional power almost without you noticing.

Terrestrial Verses is a marvel of potent understatement.

If Asteroid City was a too-rich 20-course tasting menu, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is a deliciously calibrated amuse-bouche.

It elegantly upgrades a key player in the Elvis legend from the sidelines, and anyone attuned to Coppola’s distinctive wavelengths will find it a pleasurably emotional experience.

Emerging from this extraordinary theatrical happening like a weary but still commanding oracle, Mac has shared a vision of America both personal and probing — tender, bruised and yet defiantly, magnificently hopeful. It’s simultaneously delirious and graced by what seems almost like ancient queer wisdom from somewhere way out there in the cosmos.

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.

Gariépy, masterful in her emotional and physical exactness, is a revelation as the enigmatic Kelly-Anne, whose stringent control over herself and her environment masks a sick compulsion whose origins we can only guess at.

Lakota Nation vs. United States is a visually dynamic documentary, and it’s also one that delves into the power of language and how we use it.

The film could be read many ways, but fundamentally, it plays like a heartfelt depiction of resilience in the face of conflict and grief, a gentle call to find friends and trusted allies, to move forward and bring humanity and understanding to the world.

While the investigative midsection slumps just a little, El Conde remains a spellbinding and mischievously spry spin on a deadly serious subject from a director who, in his tenth feature, continues to come up with audacious surprises.

Amplifying its force with thrilling use of the subject’s music, this is a layered examination of a relationship that might be grossly over-simplified today as that of a closeted gay man and his “beard.” But Cooper and co-screenwriter Josh Singer dig deeper to depict a unique union, fraught with conflicts yet unbreakable — even when it’s broken.

What a concert it is — and what an experience it makes, even in the relatively modest confines of a movie theater.

Given the chemistry between the two leads that could restart a dormant nuclear power plant, viewers are likely to come away sated with pleasure after seeing this delightful work.