James Whale has done a great job in his direction. This is not an easy thing to direct — just how far to go in playing upon an audience's credulity, it's sympathy, it's nerves. Whale seems to have gone far enough, but not too far.

The documentary's talking heads include Rubin's aunt and cousin as well as artists, friends and critics — notably Amy Taubin, whose personal recollections are particularly incisive. Even with this mix of voices, Smith doesn't try to fill in the many gaps in Rubin's story but to honor them, along with her creative and spiritual impulses.

A relaxed, warmly sensual coming-of-age drama so steeped in ripe South of France flavor — sun, sea, lots of skin and a bit of bling — that you practically want to eat it by the spoonful.

Ben Foster goes through more than one striking transformation here, changing body and soul while neither shying away from nor overdramatizing the uglier aspects of the man’s life.

A mournful but clear-eyed look at one of the many governments on the planet currently either going to or simmering in Hell, Petra Costa's The Edge of Democracy is as much essay film as a primer on Brazil's recent history.

As the story grows increasingly bleak, it feels not only increasingly depressing but also more miserably authentic.

A winning combination of thoughtfulness and exuberance.

Though the subject is a largely familiar one, this is a work of considerable tonal complexity, as it stirs moments of pitch-black humor and short and violent reveries into an otherwise austerely told tale of spousal strife that wants to smash the patriarchy with feats of cinematic derring-do.

Examining the idea of paranoia as an engineered reaction, a tool of control that inhibits potential activism and self-expression, it's more than a lesson in living history. It's a powerful argument for how necessary it is to watch the watchers.

Smart, good-looking and buzzing with edginess, Sama's fourth feature has been made with a love and care that's palpable in every frame, allowing us to forgive its occasional, inevitable brushes with cliche.

This is at once an accessible art house drama about Lola’s emotionally frayed sisterly and amorous ties and a clinically observed portrait of a 21st-century woman trying to stay afloat in a ruthlessly profit-oriented economy where feelings are the enemy of efficiency.

I Do Not Care if We Go Down in History as Barbarians is a mature, ambitious work from a spirited auteur who has mastered the cinematic rules well enough to break them with confidence.

Though it takes a little while for the film to find its footing, this is an ambitious and, finally, also touching new work from Pinoy Sunday director Ho Wi Ding.

The film is an empathy generator, an antidote to compassion fatigue.

An effective exercise in stylistic pastiche that has more to offer than its eerie retro mood, Tilman Singer's Luz presents a refreshing take on demonic possession in which the usual fright-flick cliches are nowhere to be found.

Laurents' screenplay has a shocking sense of character truth, and The Way We Were says things that no one else has dared to say in a major Hollywood movie.

Part workplace dramedy, part revenge fantasy, the film weaves together a series of satisfying, organic-feeling turns.

A rich reminiscence of a gifted actor who died far too young.

Director Marie Losier ... chronicles the wrestler’s twilight years with affection, humor and gravitas.

Whether the narrative is in amped-up overdrive or idling, the director and her magnetic cast keep us fully invested in their cautious reconnection and their ability to survive a series of life-threatening encounters.

Aquarela takes a deep dive into watery realms around the world, offering up an experience that can truly be described as immersive.

End of the Century is at its best whenever Castro keeps things thematically and temperamentally woozy.

As quiet and thoughtfully composed as a Dutch master's painting, Ordinary Love uses clean lines and well observed tiny details to build up a deeply moving, nuanced portrait of a marriage under strain after a cancer diagnosis.

It’s perhaps less flamboyantly enjoyable than Finley’s first feature, but it also digs deeper into the souls of its characters, asking how a few people meant to ensure the pedagogy of hundreds of children could flunk out so badly.

As fun as a night in the mosh pit with your best mate ... Directed by Coky Giedroyc with a fizzy vibrancy and supercharged by Feldstein's intense charisma, this crowd-pleasing comedy has smart things to say about class, sex and female identity.

Malgorzata’s command of her medium makes the film a pleasure to watch.

As in the book, the shock effect of coldly detailed incest, bestiality and sexual abuse, beatings, killings and mutilation is furiously nonstop in a film of nearly three hours. Rather than numbing the viewer, however, the parade of evil is presented in a dismaying crescendo of horror that offers no escape.

The documentary makes a persuasive case as to why this show — grounded very specifically in the lives of a persecuted Jewish shtetl community in 1905 Imperial Russia — continues to connect deeply with audiences across vast divides of religion, race, generation, personal experience and sexuality. Its layers of meaning to anyone who has ever felt ostracized alone have cemented its eternal relevance.