Catherine Called Birdy is delightfully witty, irrelevant, and modern-minded while carefully dodging the self-satisfaction and smugness that those descriptors can conjure up.

It’s thrilling to have any semblance of Studio Ghibli back in our theaters and Mary and the Witch’s Flower will momentarily satisfy that hunger, but will leave you wanting more.

Lindon's performance is so perfectly judged, so inspiring of an avalanche of sympathy and empathy without ever seeking it out, that we are on Thierry's side immediately, feeling every slight and every instance of condescension perhaps even more strongly than he does himself.

Ultimately, not only has Park crafted an often hilarious and entertaining coming-of-age movie, but a surprise tearjerker.

While not a complete portrait of Lightfoot, “If You Could Read My Mind” provides enough key insight into the musician to entertain those who are already fans and convert the others who perhaps haven’t heard of him.

The endlessly surprising, often riotously funny Computer Chess basks in the details of a group of men who, at a key point in history, are asking themselves not only if they can accomplish something, but why, and what it means to their current generation.

For all of the blood, guts, and gore, for all of the stomach-cramming gluttony, here’s a story brimming with extraordinary romanticism. What emerges, by the end, is one hell of an ode to giving yourself to the ones you love: your bones and all.

Those who find Villeneuve to be a self-serious, humorless, and pretentious bore likely won’t be changing their minds anytime soon after “Dune,” but that just might be their loss. Whether Warner Bros. accepts the call to make a sequel in a climate of dismal box-office returns remains to be seen. But that’s not our concern at the moment; Dune is undeniably impressive, spellbinding, and evocatively immense, regardless.

While far from perfect, Welcome To Pine Hill works more often than it doesn’t and is an intimate and existential character study of a man out of place with his past, himself, and his surroundings, and the push and pull of former and future worlds beckoning him.

A taut thriller that almost doesn't waste a single step.

At its heart, the film tells an incredibly touching – and altogether unexpected – human story. Entertaining and educational in equal parts, Simó’s animated film is one you don’t want to skip.

Rush is a pretty thrilling piece of pop entertainment. It's excitingly assembled and moves like a bullet, highly engaging and nerve-wracking when it needs to be and light on its feet elsewhere.

Wistfully looking back on the past with a mix of affection for those we have lost, a melancholy yearning for the more tender age of innocence, and anxiety and regret for our trespasses, Gray’s stripped-down drama is a clear-eyed and emotionally intelligent work of great empathy.

Lovesong is carried by the actors’ chemistry and body language.

Trier crafts a drama that is sublimely ambiguous, austere and also deeply sad and heartbreaking.

While Plan B might follow a familiar map, the back roads it takes make for a unique ride.

If only more period pieces these days were as finely tuned and accessibly pleasurable as Westmoreland’s film.

In this movie’s wise deconstruction of its characters, “Mutant Mayhem” does the seemingly impossible and makes the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cool again.

The elegance of Disobedience, which in the wrong hands could be sensational and one-dimensional, cannot be overstated.

Haywood brilliantly subverts her audience’s expectations at every step of the way. She introduces characters as tropes and steers them into the opposite direction.

If “Planet B” is less than a sum of its parts, ending before the Webb is launched, and lacking overall closure, it’s still a wonderfully observational portrait of exploration.

Where “Becoming Cousteau” frustrates at times is its thin treatment of Cousteau’s work. The films and shows are represented with plentiful footage but not truly discussed or differentiated. It’s an odd choice, given Cousteau’s cinematic obsession.

By focusing entirely on Zappa’s outlook on his own work and the way it related to the outside world, Schütte manages to form a tight narrative around this fascinating man.

Kendrick leans more into the dark comedy and general dread of the situation, winding the picture tighter the deeper she goes, and her work here is ambitious and impressive.

A paean to the unsung, Hidden Figures is also a romanticized tribute to everyday problem solvers who, in the movie’s eyes, are their own kind of superheroes.

This affectionate portrait avoids the major pitfall of comparable docs like Asif Kapadia‘s “Amy” or Kevin Macdonald‘s recent “Whitney” in that it steadfastly refuses to make Williams’ death the defining aspect of his life.

Excepting a strangely off-key final scene, A Gray State is a compelling, highly dramatic piece of documentary filmmaking.

Though its verité aesthetics are often more serviceable than inspired, and its vague who-what-where-when-why set-up neuters some of its lingering impact, the film’s depiction of entrenched prejudice remains astutely realized.

While it’s great to see an example of a filmmaker refusing to rest on his laurels or stay inside the nearly defined box of his cultural reputation, a film must be a film – not just a concept. Un Couple never quite manages to transcend its origins as a precious pandemic project.

For decades, cryonics were believed to be the key to immortality, with mind transfer pioneers such as Ray Kurzweil eventually leading the charge in a different direction, but as ChatGPT becomes as commonplace as a text message and the path to computer-based divinity continues to shorten at a shocking rate, films such as this become even more vital.

Above all, I Used to Be Funny is a fine showcase for Sennott’s considerable gifts.

Lowery is the real deal and understands filmmaking, and this is abundantly clear in this searing, romantic crime drama and love story.

A wholly illuminating look at Muhammad Ali in all his complexity, providing a surprisingly fresh and vivid portrait of a man who played rope-a-dope with history, religion and sport and emerged from the ring as an inspiring, and flawed icon.

Hara marries biography to observational and slapstick humor, plus a healthy dose of supernatural rumblings, and in so doing produces something altogether fascinating and endlessly entertaining.

Nash’at may have started the filmmaking process looking for something resembling humanity in the Taliban fighters, but what he found instead was a shocking level of resolve that we, and the US military, underestimated.

After Tiller is not an important film just because of its political and cultural relevance, but because of its humane and compassionate approach to telling the stories of these doctors, their work and the women that they seek to help.

Father, Soldier, Son doesn’t show bias toward the highs or the lows. Rather, it depicts Brian’s life as a mixture of love and loss, pain and recovery, birth, death, and rebirth. What emerges is an unforgettable portrait of a life in flux.

In the end, it doesn't matter if you believe Alexandrovich's story that a $7 billion weapons system was ultimately the cause of the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown; what matters is that Alexandrovich believes it so completely. And through his eyes (which seem to bug out outside of his skull), the entire Russia/Ukraine relationship takes on a vivid, personal immediacy.

In the end it’s really Eastwood who makes sure the film transcends the typical biopic tropes. At a spry 86 it’s unclear how much longer he’ll remain behind the director’s chair, but “Sully” proves that with the proper material and actors he can still stir emotions with the best of them.

Promising outer-space majesty and deep-thought topics like some modern variation on Stanley Kubrick's “2001: A Space Odyssey,” Interstellar instead plays like a confused mix of daringly unique space-travel footage like you’ve never seen and droningly familiar emotional and plot beats that you’ve seen all too many times before.

On both a political and a personal level, the film is pessimistic, yes, but it feels truthful, and never lapses into easy cynicism.

Watching Georgie embrace what’s making her vulnerable and realizing that doesn’t make her powerless is moving, and seeing this father and daughter connect is sweet. She, of course, will never let go of her fast-talking, hustling nature, but she now doesn’t have to do it alone.

The concept of the film could have been played several different ways, from farce to high-drama to Hitchcock-ian thriller. Ozon decides to try it all, but in the end doesn’t pull off any.

Enemies of the State is powered by a sense of momentum – it’s a story filled with unexpected twists and turns, and not just in terms of “plotting.” Kennebeck finds herself wrestling with the prickly proposition of unraveling where, exactly, the truth lies; it’s the job of any good documentary filmmaker, of course, but in this particular case, it’s a journey of discoveries and often disturbing ones.

Over the course of three and a half hours, Bang both refutes and affirms the criticisms over working conditions for these workers, many of whom are migrants, traveling hundreds of miles (or more) to make money for their families back home.

It is simply a great, traditional Western: the language and cultural details may be different, but the sparse elegance and moral conundrums are familiar and as resonant as ever.

Erlingsson has delivered an attractive slice of Icelandic oddness that confirms many of the cliches about that country’s offbeat outlook, but in a good way.

It’s a cast full of the sort of faces that regularly pop up on ones-to-watch lists, and it’s the biggest thing that Been So Long has going for it. “Chewing Gum” fans will know how talented Coel is, but she’s particularly good here with a role that’s more adult and serious than her breakout turn (while still letting her have some fun occasionally).

It may poke fun at Karen and Tina, but it never says that their choices around motherhood aren’t valid and deserving of happiness. Its ultimate sympathy for these women may be at odds with earlier jabs at them, but it creates an empathetic space that is surprisingly emotionally satisfying.

Equal parts choppy and charming, “See You Yesterday” has trouble balancing quirk and melodrama.

The film finds a little verve; Edgerton is put through the imagined ringer in a handful of unnerving dream sequences, and a motif featuring the mountainous crime scene is interesting (until it isn’t). But for all of the interesting twists and turns, as the story comes to its smoky conclusion, one can’t imagine who in the audience will make it to the payoff.

Sometimes, you have to be really smart to be really stupid, and “Joy Ride” threads that needle with aplomb.

To watch Cryptozoo is to open a Disneyland-size kingdom of ideas that never cease to astound.

A true blue dark comedy that isn’t so concerned with its darkness that it forgets to be laugh-out-loud silly at times too, “In Order of Disappearance” is a bitter, bloody treat for the black of heart.

You could dine on nothing but lard for twenty years and still not develop the hardness of heart necessary to avoid being won over by Roger Michell‘s The Duke, a ridiculously charming British comedy that dunks a gamely accented prestige cast into an appealingly milky true story like so many digestives into a warm, well-earned, early evening cuppa.

In Webley’s empathetic rendering of a family’s dire dilemma, no one is absolved or blamed – yet everyone pays.

Similar to RGB, Raise Hell preaches to the small choir that adored Ivins, but this documentary sings a beautiful new psalm that will reach new disciples and renew the follower faith like a tent revival.

Emotionally and psychologically, The Ghost Of Peter Sellers, is an A-grade film. Aesthetically, however, it’s a little flat, and kind of takes too long to truly reveal itself even at a scant 93 minutes. Still, it’s ultimately an emotionally cathartic and absorbing movie about a man who can’t let go, yet wants to be free.

Wild Nights with Emily feels at once revelatory and a total delight, a surprise for both for literature geeks and those who didn’t do their required reading in school.

Whatever flaws it has are ones of over-enthusiasm and over-ambition and are therefore easy to forgive, especially because when it works, it really works.

With her underdeveloped, dismissive, screenplay and myopic direction, Rondòn is as delicate with her theme as Michael Bay is with his American flag shots or Tim Burton with his kitschy quirkiness. That hers is a serious context makes it that much more disappointing.

It’s a compelling, lovely little journey about friends reconnecting and rediscovering each other in a portrait that’s tender, humorous, considerate, and more than deserving of your attention and care.

There are ups and downs and soapish highs and lows, but what stops this from ever becoming a telenovela is the riveting wonder of the performances and the sheer brio of the filmmaking.

It’s no shame that this thriller isn’t even in the top pantheon of Lee joints, as he refers to them. The man has some masterpieces on his resume. It might be in Washington’s, however. He’s so viscerally engaging that you want to see the movie again just to enjoy his performance.

It's a wonderful thing to experience a film unshackled from Hollywood conventionality and unburdened by the necessity for simplistic storytelling.

Starlet is an interesting effort from indie filmmaker Sean Baker (this is his fourth feature), and signals the arrival of Dree Hemingway as one to watch.

As Farah, first-timer Baya Medhaffer is a revelation, managing to combine a zest for life with teenage naiveté.

Even with some perfectly fine comedic gags, Power Ballad can never overcome the emptiness of its characters and the equally flat, overlit visuals that make the entire thing look more like a bad TV episode than an actual film.

This lack of visual energy, combined with the choice to forgo a score, leaves little to buoy the moments needed to propel the film toward its inevitable close. But where Land And Shade shines is in its outrage, and the heartbroken fury at the center of the film.

Not so surprisingly, it’s a movie made by theatre geeks, for theatre geeks, though feasibly to a severe fault. In other words: if you know the songs and faces on screen, you’re bound to enjoy it infinitely more than a casual movie-goer will.

It’s immensely satisfying to follow Kantor and Twohey while they take on that toxic system as two working mothers trying to set a good example for their children, sharing resources and a sense of sisterhood down the line. It’s, in fact, so satisfying that you find yourself wishing there was more of that intimate camaraderie throughout “She Said,” which sometimes gets too repetitive in newsrooms and private interview sessions with lawyers, PR spokespeople, and silenced victims alike.

Creep is a tiny movie whose uniqueness feels positively seismic. If there's one thing Creep has, it's an abundance of personality, and that cannot be understated.

Beast takes a storytelling gamble, presenting itself as a psychological whodunit, before pivoting toward a more genre oriented plot. The risk doesn’t quite pay off, undercutting its thematic potential for thrills that aren’t quite that effective.

Little Woods isn’t always subtle, but the occasional lack of nuance doesn’t lessen the power of its timely themes or impressive performances.

It’s not exactly doing anything new, but it’s a muscular and textured piece of work that shifts assuredly through tones and genre, features a rich and rewarding performance from Cage, and another excellent turn from his young co-star Tye Sheridan.

Admittedly, Utama is a simple story, but one that packs an emotional punch without endless exposition or symbolism.

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is hyperbolic, surreal, and, yes, obscene. Its over-the-top ending meets the moment at its own fever pitch—it’s a true masks-off moment, in more than one sense.

It tells a lot of great stories and illuminates a city-wide tragedy, but given all the heartbreaking and enraging stories within, one wishes Decade Of Fire could emotionally sear and rage just as well as it educates.

Adalsteins demonstrates a mastery of restraint, a rare ability to hold back emotions so that when they come, they pour forth like a broken dam.

It’s one of the most refreshing and satisfying Marvel movies in some time, precisely because its willing to do many things that Marvel hasn’t done before.

Narco Cultura is gripping, gruesome and arresting; a disquieting look a pop (sub)-culture phenomenon that is mushrooming all over the United States and Latin America.

There is so much beauty in Bird, both within the relationships unraveling onscreen and on the screen itself — bright reds and whites and blacks lusciously captured in the film, the edges of the image burnt and remade, almost like yet another bird, the phoenix.

Careful and deliberate character work in the script paints a striking picture of two friends who are outcasts in their little world yet still find a way to integrate into a community.

The storyline is so predictable, in fact, that despite Lafosse’s skills at crafting a scene the narrative simply leaves you wanting. The actors, on the other hand, carry most of your attention because they simply have to.

Mostly compelling but unfocused, Wild Indian dips its narrative feet in a slew of themes, all worthwhile, and doesn’t commit to any of them as its guiding star in the murky sky of its ambition. As the filmmaker tries to bind all of the moving parts, the whole turns scattered-brained and structurally disjointed.

Queen & Slim is an extraordinary Black Odyssey; a film whose tracks reverberate with echoes of the underground railroad.

Wildlike is not a traditional Hollywood feel-good buddy road movie, but a semi-slow burn experience that takes its subject matter and characters seriously while unrolling the central relationship of the story in a refreshingly deliberate pace.

By pointing their camera at the Red Mosque, Trivedi and Naqvi add surprisingly little to the conversation.

Anxious and tightly-wound like “Citizenfour,” with similarly shocking and disturbing content, (T)error is a gripping parallel investigation of illegitimate counter-terrorist stratagems that not only considers the moral consequences of informing, and the wider troubling landscape around it, but does so from a deeply intimate and remarkable perspective.

All This Panic doesn’t offer any revolutionary approaches to this type of intimate documentary, and the subject matter might be too broad for some, but it makes up for its lack of originality with heart and genuine emotion.

Vigas' grip is so tight that even if you do get to the heart of his meaning, there's a chance it will have had the life squeezed out of it.

Imperfections cannot steal away the ambitious underpinnings of Hersh’s intentions for “The Surrogate,” a down-to-earth analysis of the ever-precarious, self-serving human condition; an examination that speaks volumes despite its reserved demeanor.

Never lacking in earnestness or vigor, she nonetheless teeters over the lines separating introspection from navel-gazing and the raw from the simply underdone.

It’s far from a perfect, or even great, film, but 1945 is certainly both commendable and recommendable. It has something to say about complicity of everyday people in the crimes of society, and says so in a fairly quiet, methodical, unassuming (if a bit obvious) way.

On The Rocks is almost like a Trojan Horse of intoxicating libations and magical evenings—Murray’s sporty ‘60s candy red Alfa Romeo convertible being the vehicle of these enjoyments— a capricious trick that belies the true nature of its thoughtful and feminine perspective on the difficulties of love, life, marriage, and complex fathers.

Fearsome and fearless at the same time, Palm Trees and Power Lines practically dares viewers to watch what’s happening on screen without flinching.

If nothing else, Reybaud’s debut flaunts his knack for casting, particularly with the lead performance by Pascal Cervo.

The director’s ingenuity lies in the telling. Hitting all the beats of the police procedural, Moll, with a simple but effective sleight of hand, turns the genre inside out, and points to a much bigger offscreen enemy: Emmanuel Macron.