A useful primer for those who haven't paid enough attention and a synthesis for those who've been overwhelmed by years of upsetting news reports, the film explains cause-and-effect relationships that, while hardly unexplored, merit continued attention.

Dunkirk is an impressionist masterpiece. These are not the first words you expect to see applied to a giant-budgeted summer entertainment made by one of the industry's most dependably commercial big-name directors. But this is a war film like few others, one that may employ a large and expensive canvas but that conveys the whole through isolated, brilliantly realized, often private moments more than via sheer spectacle, although that is here too.

Lemon represents a feature debut of unusual assurance and control with a style all its own.

More convincing in its outrage and inspiring in its show of what the people’s will can do as long as the masses protest and demand to be heard, than as a rigorous historical analysis.

Writer-directors Calori and Testut have selected a significant challenge for their first feature, which succeeds more on its charm and determination than the classic attributes of movie musicals.

Goss, who by any standard is the real star of the film, displays charismatic intensity and impressive physicality.

Lacking objectivity and the necessary contextual information and commentary that would provide a balanced examination of its subject matter, Hare Krishna! mostly preaches to its robe-wearing choir.

Much of the film’s effectiveness can be credited to King, who makes Shannon appealing even when acting selfishly. It’s also refreshing to see a teen character portrayed by an actual teenager as opposed to the usual twentysomething.

The progression from raunchy, raucous laughs into dramatic conflict and then out the other side into the uplifting empowerment of sisterhood and self-worth isn't entirely seamless, but there's too much dizzy pleasure here to get hung up on the flaws.

At no point along the way does the film provide a reason to invest your interest in any of this.

Almost Sunrise makes for powerful viewing.

There’s absolutely nothing memorable about the film.... But it boasts plenty of gritty period atmosphere and earns points for its lack of pretension.

The doc’s personal portraits of the work required to forge an independent life should connect with and inspire parents and educators.

Treating the subject of creative exploitation not with overheated moralism but as a year-in-the-life social chronicle, the picture makes a solid, if very tardy, follow-up to the director's 1999 breakout Jesus' Son.

Mainly of interest for the latest impressive turn from British national treasure Timothy Spall — snorting and blustering his way through the plum role of Protestant uber-firebrand Ian Paisley — deficiencies in script and direction render the vehicle less than road-worthy.

The Incomparable Rose Hartman doesn’t quite make the case for lengthily profiling its irascible and not particularly interesting subject.

Beyond the handful of obligatory escapades, gunfights and images of martyrdom, the film reveals itself as less a drama about extraordinary heroes than an illustration of life in a fallen city.

Dawson City: Frozen Time could have benefited from judicious trimming of its two-hour running time, and there are times when its wandering focus proves irritating. But, at its best, the film represents a captivating time capsule that delivers a poignant paean to a long-gone cinematic era.

Very funny people are running around onscreen doing very unfunny things.

Sticking mostly to one corner of the turf Berry has staked out, this unusual and quite beautiful documentary seeks to connect with him by getting to know the land and those who work it near the author's Kentucky home.

The question of decades-old torture is an important one, of course, but hardly makes this a must-see doc when there are so many present-tense stories of police misconduct to investigate.

Competent on all fronts but never dazzling, it should please genre devotees.

Where Garfield's Peter Parker displayed a believable 21st-century angst, we return largely to the character's wide-eyed roots with Tom Holland, whose performance is thoroughly winning even when the script isn't helping him.

Tedious, visually unsatisfying, poorly acted and narratively disjointed, Area 51 is a textbook example of directorial sophomore slump.

A documentary composed entirely of vintage source material, letting the era speak for itself and the "Great Communicator" show, oddly, both more and less of himself than intended.

Where director Yamada excels is in depicting the interior worlds of the two main characters, paying particular attention to details, whether visual or sonic, that seem to place a constant divide between Shoya and Shoko.

This film, looking so little like its indie contemporaries, nurtures our appreciation of small details, emotional accomplishments most films would breeze right past or bring too sharply into focus.

The fact that a genre entry of this nature, with no intrinsic need of being philosophically nuanced, goes out of its way to endow even its ostensible villains with comprehensible motives rates as a notable achievement.