La Ola is far from perfect, often losing sight of its broader ideas for less well-executed narrative beats that don’t always cohere, but it still finds a tune where it counts.

Unidentified ranks among a rare class of movies that forces viewers to re-interpret everything they’ve just seen once the full picture locks into place. Whether that makes everything that came before worthless or worth it may be less a reaction to al-Mansour’s filmmaking and more of a reflection of the audience’s own subject position.

There’s a great evisceration of Hollywood in here that gets a bit too buried until sentimental schmaltz.

In Disclosure Day, cosmic truth does not arrive as salvation or doom, but as a question of whether humanity can still hear something beyond its own terror. The film’s answer is fragile, luminous, and deeply moving: maybe awe is what survives when we finally stop shouting.

Backrooms could have easily been disposable internet-horror junk food—a feature-length extension of creepypasta aesthetics with nothing underneath. Instead, Parsons delivers something far more haunting: an affecting horror film about imprisonment, memory distortion, and the private hell of mistaking isolation for refuge.

As enigmatically as “The Meltdown” unfurls, it leaves enough clues above ground for one to patiently decipher the intricate ideas Martelli is working through in her quietly commanding, narratively rich sophomore film.

Minotaur is searingly political yet controlled and understated, maintaining a cold grip on its narrative as the world around it descends into chaos. Urgent and restrained, personal and political, it is one of the more pointed films about the present state of the world in recent memory.

The unassumingly magnetic Okonedo radiates the assertiveness and tranquility of someone secure in her reality.

We’re not sure Lucila is a fighter, but she’s a survivor. And over the course of the film, she learns many life lessons in a very short time. So when Diaz finally lets Lucila’s joy or pain cry out, it strikes you. And sticks with you.

Unlike other period tales of hidden queer love, including one that debuted at this same festival a year ago, Dhont isn’t interested in dripping his canvas in tragedy. He’s going to leave you with a glimmer of hope. Actually, more than a glimmer. A wry smile of anticipation that suggests all isn’t lost and love can find a way.

The Javis have a lot to say not only about Spanish history, but also about how emotions can endure and live on through something tangible. Whether it’s a painting, a recorded piece of music, or even a long-lost play, queer or not. They use the omnipresent theme of snow and the poetic spirits often present in Lorca’s work to tie these threads together. A complex puzzle where almost everything settles into place.

While Sachs’ vision is at the center of it all, this moment is also a stark reminder of Rami Malek’s considerable and we mean considerable talents. A gutsy and vulnerable version of the actor that has not graced anyone’s screens in at least a decade.

Far from defending the behavior of this abusive artist, Sorogoyen exposes him as trapped between his memories and his imagination.

The result is a film that’s both shattering in some moments and superficial in others, making it hard to write off and even harder to fully embrace.

Despite not being top-shelf Almodóvar, it remains the work of a director long settled into form and, as such, offers its fair share of delights.

Against the austere beauty of Beanpole, Butterfly Jam can certainly seem messy as it borrows from the crime thriller, depicts a merciless act of violence, and, at times, borders on magical realism. But Balagov’s newest film also has the biggest heart.

There are many promising pieces here and some great performances, though little in the way of actual meaningful insights.

Despite the mid-runtime ebb and an overlong runtime that works against the film’s firm grasp on the slippery tautness of good action, Hope still proves one hell of a time.

Even a lesser Kore-eda is still at least interesting, even frequently insightful, about the ways that we move through a world of pain and loss. It’s just a shame that, for a film that’s ultimately about the power of imagination and our ability to tell stories as a way of enduring, this one was unable to dream bigger.

Paper Tiger may be built from recognizable Gray pieces, but he keeps finding new variations inside the same mournful blues. The result is familiar in outline, but authentic, poignant, and quietly devastating.

[Kreutzer] might have served Gentle Monster better by narrowing her focus to a pure character study. But one hardly has to squint to find those elements in the film. They’re present every time Kreutzer trains the camera on Seydoux and lets her demonstrate why she’s among cinema’s finest working actresses.

Although Firstman’s brand of modern humor highlights the absurdity and hypocrisy of social interactions, it is in no way cynical. On the contrary, his comedy playfully exposes those primal emotions and impulses that we think we’re hiding better than we actually are. This comedy of honesty carries well into drama, essentially blurring the boundary between the two.

Even as emotions may overcome the viewer, Hamaguchi never pushes All of a Sudden into saccharine terrain for empty positivity or cheap inspirational aims. It all feels earned.

With Magic Hour, Aselton and Duplass have again given us something uniquely special.

This contemporary Japanese drama centers on the relationships between two vaguely thirtysomething women and two middle school-age boys. Two pairings that find a common connection in the most unexpected of circumstances. It’s the context of their attractions and the contradictions Fukada delicately presents that eventually beguile the viewer, even if his restrained aesthetic may test your patience getting there.

Reuniting with a majority of his “Ida” and “Cold War” collaborators, a 1:37 aspect ratio, and cinematographer Lukasz Zal’s masterful black and white compositions, Pawlikowski, whether intentional or not, has crafted a trilogy of films that chronicle the painful reverberations of the Second World War. With “Fatherland,” he’s also holding up a mirror. A reflection on today and, more likely, the near future. How will you treat those complicit in war crimes and humanitarian horrors? How will you grieve a world that is gone? Or will you grieve at all?

It is a film that feels movingly personal while speaking to the ubiquitous tussle between duty and desire, and that does so through the gnarling of fresh and guts and bones to find what is buried deep within one’s being: a throbbing vein of wanting, undeniably alive, and that, once freed, will not stop until its thirst is quenched.

Through the increasingly ghastly parade of grotesqueries, Barker sharply comments on poisonous relationships.