A companion piece of sorts to First Reformed, this is another bruising character study of a solitary, burdened man who processes his most intimate thoughts in a journal, living with his guilt until he’s handed an unexpected opportunity for redemption.

Bursting with the vibrancy of youth, both behind and in front of the camera, Days of the Whale feels comfortably familiar in its themes but daringly bold in its milieu.

It’s consistently sharp-edged and even suspenseful.

Benefitting from an unassuming but dead-on performance by lead Molly Windsor, the picture may frustrate those expecting a true horror film, but earns Oakley a place alongside other young women (like Amy Seimetz and Sophia Takal) currently exploring the usefulness of genre conventions in feminist storytelling.

All In offers compelling visual history and civics lessons that will still serve an educational purpose long after the next presidential inauguration.

It brings into focus not just the painful losses of loved ones and homes, but the sheer daunting scale of logistical planning, fundraising and negotiation with bureaucracies needed to rebuild the community.

The slow-burn film features superbly understated acting and astute visuals. This is Mariani's first fiction film after having made two documentaries and shorts, but its ambition and accomplishment are fully formed.

In a role that calls for much of her turbulence to be internalized, Savard, who is nearing the end of her own professional swimming career, is magnetic. You feel her unease, and both the weight and the release of her decision, at every turn.

This is an exciting new direction for Runarsson, who proves that making a film about Iceland today doesn’t necessarily require a three-act narrative structure and characters with carefully calibrated needs and desires and neatly constructed backstories.

The film is an essential character-driven document of a moment in the history of a country facing some challenges that are disturbingly familiar and others, thank goodness, that Americans will find very foreign.

Robin's Wish proves both emotionally harrowing and cathartic.

Alone proves a highly effective genre exercise.

In another filmmaker's hands, this might have become a message-heavy morass, but Sauper and his co-editor, veteran Yves Deschamps (Bruno Dumont's The Life of Jesus, the 2018 restoration of Orson Welles' The Other Side of the Wind) work the material with a remarkable fluidity and gracefulness that's consistently engaging and surprising.

The true pleasure of The Outside Story doesn’t come from its heartwarming message about community or its nostalgic rendering of a mask-less, pre-pandemic New York City, but from Brian Tyree Henry’s exceptional performance in his first big-screen lead role.

Creating a highly unusual and welcome look at schizophrenia that neither demonizes those with the condition nor patronizes them as suffering martyrs, the British drama Eternal Beauty pulls off a tricky feat.

Making his feature directorial debut (he's written such screenplays as Insurgent and Underwater), writer/director Duffield expertly handles the complex tonal shifts, keeping us on edge even as we're laughing. We're also thoroughly engrossed in the main characters' fates, thanks to the witty, perceptive dialogue and the two leads, who bring an unforced, charming naturalism to their performances.

It’s not canonical Pixar, but it’s as sweet and satisfying as artisanal gelato on a summer afternoon.

A refreshing, beautifully made documentary set in a nursing home under suspicion of elder neglect, Maite Alberdi's The Mole Agent begins with its tongue in cheek but grows quite moving by its end.

It's an unassuming and delicate work which demands but ultimately repays close attention.

Though grippingly shot and paced, its realism makes it not an easy watch. However, one never questions the horrific circumstances in which the protag finds himself and the ending provides a bitter sort of closure and enough salve on the wounds to make the story palatable.

What unfolds is a match of artistic intellects, thrilling to behold not just for its dynamic array of topics — religion, the Oedipal complex, revolution and, above all, what it means to be a filmmaker — but also for its public unveiling after half a century gathering cobwebs in Welles' celluloid archives.

Although at first sight this dramatization of a 1962 strike at a factory in the U.S.S.R. may seem a long way from the interests of contemporary audiences, it is surprising how much resonance the film has with the political struggles of our own time.

The technical and logistical details of the project are constantly fascinating, but it’s these emotional moments that pack most of the film’s power.

If the film's title is an ironic use of Trumpian bluster, it also accurately represents the movie itself, which is about as far as you can get from Michael Moore-style agitprop while still having a red-blooded interest in this country's continued existence: The filmmakers avoid insulting a politician who deserves anything they might wish to sling at him, opting instead to let facts speak for themselves.

To some extent, One Night in Miami remains high-quality filmed theater. But the conviction and stirring feeling brought to it elevate the material, making this an auspicious feature debut. Here's hoping that King, one of our most consistently excellent screen actors, continues to spread her wings in this direction.

Elliptical and teasingly (but beautifully) photographed, it can give the impression of an experimental work but ultimately has a direct story to tell, one whose specificity doesn't in the least diminish its broader relevance.

The Dark and the Wicked offers supremely atmospheric thrills that will hauntingly resonate with anyone who's ever been faced with a similar situation.

Audiences might conceivably be divided on the vicious gut punch of Franco's approach, but as a call for more equitable distribution of wealth and power, it's terrifyingly riveting.