Wilde toils feverishly to create the illusion of momentum and communicates to the audience that they must be feeling such a sensation. But for all the belabored artistry of this choppily cut enterprise, little in “The Invite” actually moves. It’s potential energy, unconvincingly trying to pass itself off as kinetic.

Calvary may not be for all audiences, with its pitch-black heart and sober existentialism not exactly commercial stuff, but its unwavering commitment to the intelligent thorniness of its themes, and the masterful control McDonagh exerts over the shifts in tone are worth cherishing, bringing it soaring close to something divine.

Haru’s journey is more soulful and heartbreaking than you may want it to be. And that somehow makes the magical moments even more endearing.

While it's messily put together, with a sprawling and at times unfocused narrative that often gets in the way of itself, it doesn't deny the power of the facts Jarecki brings to bear on a misguided program that hasn't stopped the demand for drugs, that has disenfranchised the poor and minorities, and created an expensive prison industry.

Despite its dower subject matter, Apples arrives bearing gifts of uplifting encouragement and pensive meditations on the nature of the human experience. Equipped with deadpan humor and numbing silence, Nikou’s philosophically minded dramedy strives to create conversation as much as it actively attempts to entertain.

Negoescu’s charmer plays out as a gentle, ambling, misadventure with three guys who work really hard to make their luck run out. On second thought, maybe this isn’t so different than the rest of the Romanian New Wave after all.

For anyone with even a halfway developed sense of justice The Hunt may prove stressful, frustrating, even enraging, but it’s also an unbelievably effective watch, that, if nothing else signals an undeniable return to form for Vinterberg, and yet another blistering performance from Mikkelsen. See it, if only for the debates it will cause afterward.

The people of Jia’s film are mysterious, their reactions and motivations, outside of that first segment in which we get the best-drawn and therefore most anomalous character, are all but unknowable.

The Beguiled only ever lets its freak flag fly at half mast, and until the end where some very enjoyable archness is allowed to creep in, this Southern Gothic tale of female sexual jealousy feels surprisingly dated.

The initial inspiration was clearly there, but the execution simply falls short.

It's certainly a crowd-pleaser...and something close to a triumph, if not an unqualified one.

While not quite arriving at the delirious cult highs of a classic like “Ichi the Killer,” “First Love” is Miike’s most accessible work in years.

Perversely episodic, strangely empty, and unfolding in a series of beautifully composed but static wide shots (giving us the unusual experience of literally yearning for a close-up), the film is a test of patience.

The Immigrant is contained, restrained, thoughtful filmmaking that satisfies on nearly every level, except for the desire for a little chaos.

The Amusement Park is a concise film (only 52 minutes), but Romero packs it so full of detail and ambition that it contains more to appreciate than most films that run three times as long.

While Detroit may try and cover too much ground, thus occasionally stumbling on its ambition, the sheer visceral power of Bigelow’s direction is worth championing.

Steinfeld’s performance and the script from Kelly Fremon Craig have created a young woman who feels entirely familiar, while never feeling like a retread of the other teenagers who have walked the cinematic high school halls before her.

It subtly makes the connection between the simple equation that investment in our children will give dividends that go far beyond any sort of number on a balance sheet.

A movie with the bleakest vision of Wolverine yet, but also hands down the best treatment the character has received on the big screen in the fifteen plus years Jackman has inhabited the role.

Mamacruz is finely crafted, if not particularly challenging. This film clearly wants to wrestle with taboos, but that revolutionary spirit doesn’t go much further than the basic premise. With such important themes, this film deserves to be a bit more memorable than it ultimately is.

The film’s real revelation is that 14-year-old Alfie Williams. For all of the names in the picture, it’s an ensemble built around him, and Williams proves his mettle and will undoubtedly have a long and prosperous career after this film.

Gerald’s Game is a symphony of suspense and scares, spiked with just the right amount of gruesome gore.

Code Black manages to encapsulate so much of what is wrong with our health care system, but also to point out what’s right, and to posit an attitude shift not just about health care but about how we as a society treat those around us who are in pain or suffering. A heartbreaking but hopeful message within this important film.

After meandering for a while, the story kicks into gear in the third act, with a couple of legitimately shocking and well-executed developments that do pack a punch missing elsewhere in the film.

This really is Audiard operating at the top of his game, mostly dropping the contrivances of "Rust & Bone" for incisive character studies and a deeply humane, almost warm, worldview.

If The Disaster Artist does anything, it will likely inspire folks to seek out The Room. Not only would that make Tommy very happy, but it will make them want to watch Franco’s Tommy and further appreciate what a brilliant job he did in recreating the experience for its fans.

Herzog’s latest proves a masterful inquiry into technological evolution.

The film captures the what of Kneecap but also the why, which makes all the difference.

Brighton 4th might be slower and lack the dramatic stakes of other films that dive into this type of criminal activity, it’s still a compelling and somewhat tangential portrait of the Eastern European community that exists in Brighton and features a great performance by Tediashvili, in his first film role.

The film exists outside of boundaries of “good” or “bad.” It’s just true, which makes it scarier in many ways. The melancholy doesn’t just live inside Jarmusch’s world. It leaps off the screen and demands to be felt.

Washington’s performance is one of the best of the year, a high-wire act that is careful not to dip into survivalist caricature.

Its multiple charms are so sly, the performances so perfectly unflashy, you’ll likely be surprised at how affecting it becomes in its final stages.

Witty, observational, and hilarious, Maggie’s Plan is the kind of richly complex dramedy that proves to be the rare picture that serves both halves of that genre description fully, equally, and satisfyingly.

Never, for one second, is Vikander anything less than entirely truthful.

There is a fine line between meeting an audience halfway and witholding enough without falling into self-indulgence, but Kiarostami can't make that balance here. Enigmatic and dull to a maddening degree, Like Someone In Love finds Kiarostami spinning his wheels.

Underneath the dark humor and holistic mise en scène, there remains the nagging suspicion that what is onscreen is — in spite of the film’s best intentions — another patriarchal interpretation of Lady Macbeth.

It’s a weird movie, to be sure, but never an off-putting one. It’s also one that sometimes feels like a chimera itself, pushing various genres and ideas together without fully synthesizing them. But it’s consistently beautiful, watchable, and a truly memorable debut for Oren.

There’s so much to like about the film, and it’s a mark of Assayas’ skill that it's a hugely engaging watch despite the blankness of the characters.

In playing a man who was so clearly among his comic ancestors and influences, we see, for the first time in a long time, Murphy’s sheer joy of performance, the thing that made his early work in films like “48 HRS.” and “Beverly Hills Cop” so electrifying.

Gunn’s careful to keep the focus on the central five, but certainly proves himself capable of the bigger canvas. The film really pops visually, with an admirably bright color palette (DP Ben Davis doing excellent work), and though there are occasionally some geography issues, the action is mostly satisfying.

Nancy, Please begins as a deadpan slacker comedy with existentialist undertones, and Will Rogers' Paul is a ball of unsettled twentysomething nerves. It's a subtle shift in Semans' first feature, both in tempo and in Rogers' performance, that we don't realize the film taking on a slightly more diabolical undertone.

While a film of great craft, strongly performed by the cast across the board, and particulary by the lead, newcomer Saskia Rosendahl, Lore never lets the audience in close enough for it to be a truly embraceable picture.

We Are Little Zombies is much more about style than story. Nagahisa delivers a visual tour-de-force, careening wildly through an unimaginable array of arresting shots.

Ewing makes a creative decision in the final act of the picture which simply sucks all the air out of the room.

Corsage succeeds precisely by ditching the myth of objectivity in favor of portraying a woman eternalized by the glory and dolor of her imperfections.

Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story serves as an introduction to the entertainment legend or a reminder of all that happened to cement her status as more than a mere performer, this film deserves to take a bow.

Of course, you can also just enjoy Red Rocket for Baker and cinematographer Drew Daniels’ gorgeous twilight landscapes or Rex’s irresistible charismatic performance. Or laugh at Stabler’s exploits (although we admit, the film could genuinely be a bit funnier) or fall under Strawberry’s charm. Or you can see more.

While zooming in and out of Burre’s life, Greene foregoes true insight in favor of a stylistic approach, using the kind of cinematic language that’s often reserved for fiction and feature films, and the result leaves you admiring Actress greatly, but from a distance.

This beautifully structured fable may be focused on the specific pain, of a specific child, during a specific moment in time, but it blows up every fragment of its premise into heart-stirring universal appeal.

The charming, rousing WWII romance Their Finest is a film that openly stumps for two causes: the value of women in the workplace, and the power of cinema to tell stories that people need to hear.

The entire film could start to feel like a feature-length justification, but Darius manages to sidestep that path by never letting himself off the hook.

Heineman’s thesis that because leaving has gone so poorly, staying would’ve necessarily been better is incorrect at best, and disingenuous at worst. He wants to think structurally, aware that America can and does flatten other nations beneath our clumsy footfalls. He just can’t — or won’t — see the whole structure out of apparent fear that it’ll be too unflattering for all involved, including him, the army’s useful launderer of their image-sanitizing talking points.

It Felt Like Love, marks the arrival of a new crop of talent to watch, behind the camera and in front.

Outside In is not a story filled with events or even big moments, but, instead, accumulates its momentum through the numerous small decisions that eventually bring our leads to a hard won understanding.

Regardless of its minor flaws, Berger and his crew have crafted a faithful and heart-wrenching adaptation that fully realizes the novel’s trenchant anti-war themes.

An engaging and initially very promising drama about alcoholism, redemption and forgiveness that grows uneven and long-winded as it progresses.

99 Homes is by no means a perfect film, but it can achieve something more precious, and rarer than glossy perfection: it can take you by the shoulders and shake the apathy and complacency away.

While many will draw parallels between scenes involving civil unrest to the events of 2020, the philosophical differences between Hayden and Abbie — cultural versus electoral revolution, respectively — ring closely to the debates raging within progressive politics today, and actually prove more interesting.

Far from being copraganda, A Cop Movie, the new feature from director Alonso Ruizpalacios (“Güeros,” “Museo”), is a formally daring and incisive deep dive into their performance of authority.

If we’re being honest, Carney isn’t breaking new ground here, and I keep waiting for him to make a movie that will finally fully exhaust his Whole Thing. But Flora and Son is not that movie.

Batra's film is ultimately less about love than about the vulnerability relationships place us in emotionally, and courage required to move past pain, and experience life again after we've been hurt.

Ultimately, This Ain't California is a movie powered by nostalgia, a propulsive kind of dreamy reflection to a time and place that may not have existed with events that might not have actually happened, but have all the reality of a life that was truly lived.

Most importantly of all: it’s funny. Really, really funny, consistently and constantly.

Saulnier’s overall mise en scene is impressive. Everything from precision camera work, rigorous composition, framing and blocking, nimble, tight editing, and stress-inducing music, Rebel Ridge kicks ass in the best possible sense, entertaining, thrilling, and always captivating.

Heineman, in placing himself in such danger, has managed to create a remarkable and distinctive film that takes on a difficult issue that cannot be so conveniently remedied or ignored.

El Moudir, at long last, demands a reckoning, that will uncover old wounds, but also provide closure.

What the doc proves is that a talented filmmaker, combined with a thought-provoking subject and intensely fascinating characters can truly make some fun black magick pop off the screen.

This comedic thriller is witty and diverting without selling out on the Romanian reputation of thoughtful, challenging work.

As the moving, sad, riotously humorous documentary The Dog explains, the film only captured traces of Wojtowicz’s personality, and only told bits of his story.

Empowering, saddening, amusing and aggravating in roughly equal measure, with a very small side order of social critique, Bravo’s film marks a huge step up for her and a definitive answer to the question that @_zolarmoon posed to Twitter in October of 2015: yes, y’all do wanna hear the story about why she and this bitch here fell out!!!!!!!!

Despite a lack of access to Manning and Assange, We Steal Secrets is a vital document of a pivotal moment in world history that we’re still experiencing as we speak.

On the surface, Talk to Me is a blast of demonic horror that will make your skin crawl. Underneath, it offers a new twist on the teen horror film that explores the complexities of grief and the transition from childhood to adulthood.

Fascinating, atmospheric, and utterly strange in ways both good and bad, Ghostbox Cowboy pulls back the curtain on those trying to export the American dream and reaping the whirlwind.

Structured as a low-key chase movie, unfolding with the dark urgency of a conspiracy thriller, living mostly not in your heart or even your mind but in the hairs on the back of your neck, "Midnight Special" actually emerges most resonantly as an almost mournful ode, or maybe a psalm, to the primal instincts of fatherhood.

We’re implored to never forget through a format that makes particulars prohibitively hard to remember.

There’s an immense amount of promise on display in Ahn’s film, from the performances and the direction, to the more technical elements.

It’s a fascinating look not only at this particular character and his wide reach, but at the evolution of the Internet, its utopian possibilities for connection, and the dark side of its power to expose and harm individuals within the system.

The ensemble is perfectly cast (a rarity for this genre) which helps to make the first half a delightful slow burn instead of a check-your-watch-until-the-carnage-starts.

Red Penguins is utterly stuffed with memorable stories and unforgettable people. Therefore, the film is unquestionably entertaining for hockey fans. However, it has no more gravitas than, say, any random ESPN Films “30 for 30” entry.

It’s a lovely, charming, vibrant, sad, bildungsroman tale and roman-fleuve that pays small tribute to Maradona. But more importantly, it manages to both memorialize this agonizing turning point in his life and warmly reminisce on the bliss that came before it.

Trenchantly reflecting on the mishandling of success, blind ambition, idolatry, hero worship and the complex and competitive nature of artists in romantic relationships, Listen Up Philip is brilliantly chock-a-block with resonant observations.

Despite this disappointing effort, Diao continues to impress with the clever use of his camera. Now, one just wishes he could find the substance to pull all this style together in a winning fashion.

Gambis, who is both a director and a biologist, has crafted a piece of art that captivates as much as it informs.

Though there's an admirable sense of messiness to the scenes of family life, the screenplay itself is rather neat: one has a fairly solid sense of how things are going to play out from the early stages, and for the most part that's how it goes, ticking off a checklist of rather familiar beats along the way.

Yes, it’s the DCEU’s best film, but as we know, that’s not saying a lot. But, hey, that terrific second act that we should cling to even if it’s a distant memory by the time love defeats aggression. “Wonder Woman” might be molded by the mighty Gods, but as shaped by mere mortals her mettle and beliefs and can be only so wonderfully divine.

Kusijanović storms out of the gate with a confident coming-of-age tale full of relationships as rocky as the craggy Croatian coast in which the story unfolds.

Their latest fusion of science fiction, character drama, dark comedy, and overwhelming paranoia, Something in the Dirt, feels like their most personal film – and not just because they wear so many hats, directing and writing and producing and editing and starring.

Unpretentious and unassuming, but effective, Corbijn creates his own cozy, sleeve for these trailblazers to get their due and creates a must-watch for rockologists everywhere in the process.

For all its faults, whether intentional or otherwise, the ending still manages to stick the landing, in all its strange glory, resulting in something that must be seen; that said, it’s not to be believed, but rather to appreciate, as tricky as that may be.

A film that, while not especially pronounced in its structure or technical achievements, is nonetheless timely and devastating.

All the right people are going to hate Spencer. That’s just how good it is.

Though it may feel threadbare for some, Iñárritu’s near exhausting movie is still unforgettably visceral and there’s so much to be dazzled and experientially shaken by.

Maybe Marcos imagined this documentary would humanize her. Greenfield did. But not in the way that her subject would have preferred.

Dupieux, a director who has always been attuned to the absurd humor and casual beauty of the every day, effortlessly aligns us with Alain’s perspective.

Cassandro isn’t here to cover every moment of Armendáriz’s life. And there are storylines, especially with his father, that neither Williams or his co-screenwriter, David Teague, can bring to a satisfying conclusion. But as a portrait of a man finding himself in his profession? Of celebrating his true self? It’s extraordinary.

The complexity of the plotting overwhelms the picture a bit, which gets a little fuzzy in the middle – but it eventually forcefully snaps into focus, mostly by finding its spine in the simple notion that this is a movie about people under pressure.

Stutz in the end isn’t revelatory per se, but it is deeply heartfelt, intimate, nakedly honest, and engaging.

Stronger feels genuine and certainly has the right intentions, but never converts to something truly enlivening.