With its fine mix of dark humor, healthy anger and self-compassion, this portrait of the artist as a young woman is the work of an inspired filmmaker, and it was worth the wait.

A Still Small Voice is about listening for inner truth and bearing witness.

Were Renaissance the movie simply a recording of the show, it’d be a treat in itself. By weaving in behind-the-scenes footage and interviews that reveal where Renaissance came from and how it got to be here, Beyoncé serves up a fully satisfying meal.

It’s the balance of basic psychology with abstract concepts and inspired observational comedy that makes this a uniquely captivating coming-of-age tale.

Berger does a fine job controlling all of these performances, and he also creates a rich atmosphere for the production.

Vibrantly helmed and performed, with co-director and Cannes best actress winner Zar Amir Ebrahimi (Holy Spider) playing one of the leads, the film is a win both behind and in front of the camera.

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.

The documentary operates at a minor and meditative key, but its urgent message still rings loudly.

The Brutalist is a massive film in every sense, closing with a resonant epilogue that illustrates how art and beauty reach out from the past, transcending space and time to reveal a freedom of thought and identity often denied its makers.

As its restless protagonist navigates the road to ultimate personal victory, director Morrison is right there with her, maintaining a propulsive momentum accentuated by editor Harry Yoon’s rhythmic cuts and composer Tamar-Kali’s elegant, percolating score. And so are we.

A glorious paean to the lurid sensuality and gory excess of 1980s sexploitation and horror, MaXXXine completes Ti West’s trilogy of star showcases for his fearless muse Mia Goth on a delectable note.

The zippy pacing, buoyant energy and steady stream of laugh-out-loud moments hint at the joy Burton appears to have found in revisiting this world, and for anyone who loved the first movie, it’s contagious. That applies also to the actors, all of whom warm to the dizzying lunacy.

This is an enormously satisfying watch for haunted house movie fans, favoring sustained anxiety over big scares and practical effects over digital trickery.

Schwartzman has been a lead before, but never quite like this.

Freaky Tales is a genre-defying riot. Come for the crazy mix tape of circuitously connected plotlines, stay for the joyous explosion of vintage breakdancing on the end credits.

At the end of Gutiérrez’s fine film, you likely will feel the spell of a remarkable person’s company.

Dawn Porter crafts a striking profile of a singular musician.

Power exposes the myth of good policing for what it is: one of the most expensive and calculated PR campaigns in history. And by extension, the film dismantles the idea of America as the land of the free, emphasizing that freedom only belongs to those with enough power and social capital to avoid the oppressive boot of law enforcement.

One of the aspects that makes Super/Man so satisfying is that for a biographical film in which tragedy and loss play such a central part, it’s rich in evidence of hope and kindness, gratitude and the resilience of the human spirit.

An assured nonfiction storyteller, Smith works with editor Joey Scoma to weave together a nonstop, inventive collage of ephemera around concert footage, music videos, pre-existing and new interviews and a generous sampling of Mark’s graphic arts contributions, often spinning into animation.

It’s in transporting viewers into the heart of this jungle, where the moths calibrate the ecosystem, that Nocturnes most its most compelling case for protecting these exquisite creatures and our planet.

As a woman who has pushed away a lot of hard truths, Louis-Dreyfus delves into a sphere of emotion that she’s never before explored onscreen. She gives us not just the psychology but the feelings of fear, loss and resilience that infuse Tuesday, a story with the sensibility of an Eastern European fairy tale.

Sugarcane’s sensitivity to the ongoing pain of its subjects is one of the film’s principal achievements. NoiseCat and Kassie offer an affecting portrait of a community that endures in spite of colonial genocide.

Bursting with passion, sly humor, satirical swipes and the inescapable heartbeat of insurgency — most of the film was shot in 1968 San Francisco — it’s the life-loving tale of a wise innocent abroad, and the not exactly warm reception he receives

It’s subtle but resonant, intimate but emotionally expansive and at every step crisply unsentimental.

Diop folds the poetic into the political, without ever becoming didactic.

The film stays close to its subjects and testifies to the resilience of the Masafer Yatta community. It takes courage and conviction to rebuild after every act of destruction.

Out of all the film’s many achievements, perhaps the most impressive is the ability to keep the tone balanced just on this biting point between tragedy and comedy in scene after scene.