The movie has its issues. . . The wrestling though? The action in the ring? Durkin’s direction of those classic matches? It often looks more “real” than the WWE or professional wrestling you see on television today.

By the picture's knotty finale, in which Audiard navigates a late-stage twist with ease and emotion, you know you are in the hands of a master who is directing with the confidence and command that few possess.

A lot like many of the noisy artists on display, “Woodstock 99” has a lot to say, says it loudly but fails to connect in any meaningful way.

As awful as the events of 1944 were for her, there’s ultimately hope in her story in how it fueled a movement and continues to inspire and push people today.

While certainly imperfect, there is something to admire about the film’s attempt to present the tangled logistics of a single military operation, where it seems everyone wants success but none of the responsibility of the tough decision making involved.

As underground and DIY as the kiki scene might be, it’s still highly organized, and part of what Kiki expresses is this community organization as a strategy for survival. The struggle is real, and it’s hard to imagine how they keep pushing that boulder up the hill — being fully themselves in the face of so much hardship — but they are tough, and united.

Scott and Poo have seized on one substantive idea in their portraiture of a singular personality reduced to a caricature of himself by posterity and duly reveal the sensitive artiste who always aspired to more than “Top Gun.” If only they did so with less straightforwardness and more authorial license.

The film is more of a curiosity, preaching to the already converted.

Huge fans of the performer will likely shed tears at few parts throughout, but there’s nothing especially unique or particularly thought-provoking about first-time director Tylor Norwood‘s filmmaking approach to make his documentary stand out.

Hirokazu has crafted a warm and lovely film that suggests the easiest thing about raising a child is embracing how complicated it can be.

While Vitali is frank about the nature of his demanding and subservient relationship to the man, his warmhearted, dazzled, Everest-high respect for Kubrick’s talent remains undimmed even now. It is truly inspiring and touching just how little bitterness Vitali has in him, and it stems from his having no regrets over a life dedicated to something he believes in with utterly selfless purity.

Domont’s script just turns into a series of victories, defeats, increasingly distracting narrative leaps, and ultimately silly turns of tone that seem designed to provoke whoops and sneers and cheers.

Authentically pensive and distressingly honest, Colewell remains true to its convictions by prominently exhibiting the uncomfortable truths of growing old. Remarkably, the film’s subject matter is treated with an impressively respectful restraint, opting to stay grounded and not venture down melodramatic sideroads.

With Krige as its anchor, She Will offers moments of true greatness – and a few pointed barbs at ageism and patriarchal history, too. But as the two sides of Ghent are thrust uneasily together, Colbert struggles to sustain the pulsing rhythm at the heart of the film.

The picture is genuinely entertaining and moving, but the fact it even exists in the first place is something you simply cannot dismiss.

There is an eventual reckoning, but one wishes that Tan, at least for these moments, had allowed the film a few more inches of dramatic space.

The film is the most formally experimental, and probably the least approachable, of the director's titles to date. But it's further proof of Wheatley's singular sensibilities as a filmmaker.

Whether a viewer might be a fan of Wham! or not is ultimately irrelevant, as Chris Smith has produced something as incendiary as any of Wham!’s hits.

What’s often most striking about Inside Out 2, however, is how the arguments and conflicts between these emotions often feel as though they are speaking directly to the adults in the audience.

The film is a mostly workmanlike biopic that unfortunately can never match the energy of the subject it’s trying to capture.

What there is, however, is Nasibullina and she makes you root for Velya despite all the character’s faults

It may amount to less than a hill of beans, but Hill of Freedom is an amiable way to spend 66 minutes learning how even cultures that seem closely related to Western eyes, like those of Japan and Korea, can clash. And also how cultures like these, that seem so far from our own, can be trumped, by love, longing, friendship, sex and drunkenness, the same universal experiences we all share.

The Fall Guy is a wonderful movie about love and collaboration mashed up with an aggressively fine summer thriller.

This prodigal son’s reappearance ignites a rivalry a little Biblical and a little Shakespearean, though their macho melodrama hews most closely to the flavor of screenwriterly contrivance.

Chu’s film is a triumph. An all-around delight. A colorful concoction sure to satiate fans, new and old alike. The film delivers both winking nods to the original stage production and finds novel ways of making its iconic numbers sing on screen, all while making the best use of live singing in recent memory.

The Chesters have created something truly stunning and want to share it with the world. I’m sold on the lifestyle but as a film, their approach doesn’t make for the most compelling drama.

Unwieldy and unkempt but both moving and dizzying to experience, Laurence Anyways is Dolan's grandest statement yet.

Sollers Point is an intimate and wise character study, not only of an unformed young man but also of a neighborhood struggling to preserve itself in the face of economic decline.

While the film never reaches the kind of emotional peaks of James’ best work like “Hoop Dreams” or “The Interrupters,” Abacus: Small Enough To Jail is no less compelling. And it serves a very important reminder, particularly at a time when more than ever, it seems banks are putting profit in front of people.

Director Johanna Hamilton should be credited for getting these faces in front of the camera, to humanize political rebellion of an early era not as some sepia-toned memory, but a story of very human individuals.

These are strong performances, committed to the truth of the scenario however grim that might be but Young’s talents extend beyond that. Having also written the script, he clearly designed this film to allow him to show off some impressive, expressive visual storytelling.

The problem isn’t quite that the film is short on thrills (there is a paucity; the first adrenaline racing sequences don’t arrive until about an hour in), it’s that it’s not quite a character piece either.

Spaceship Earth is a highly watchable document from a curious cultural convergence in which avant-garde “Star Trek” utopianism met the glare of the mainstream.

Although arranged around a fulfilling, life-changing connection The World to Come is a deeply lonesome lovesong.

It certainly succeeds in being a joyous, humane look at the role that school, education, and, most importantly, teachers have in the lives of such malleable minds.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer is Lanthimos with the gloves off, and it makes the absurd, amazing “The Lobster” seem like a warm and cuddly experience by comparison.

Sheridan pares his story and characters down to their barest essentials, making a movie that comes off sometimes as slight, but which ultimately delivers the goods for those who like smart takes on life-or-death macho adventure.

Confidently constructed, and aided by an assured focus, Free Angela & All Political Prisoners is a solid tribute a woman who was one of many vital pieces of the civil rights movement, and an insightful study of a time when the American identity -- both politically and socially -- was being drastically reshaped.

As a sports movie, “Air” is competent in all the right ways — good performances, strong dialogue, and a nice focus on 1980s production design and world-building — landing in the upper echelons of the Dad Movie lexicon.

"Billie Eilish: Soft & Hard” is thrilling as a concert film, but its force comes from how carefully it maps the machinery behind the magic—the lighting choices, stage movements, emotional calibration, hidden pathways, and private moments of anticipation. It is vivid, immersive, and unusually personal, a portrait of a performer who understands the scale of her platform and still wants every person in the room to feel seen. For a film this massive, its most impressive trick is how close it comes to witnessing everyone.

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum is a sure-fire hit and continues the momentum set forth by the previous installments only to surpass them with explosive energy.

There are moments of joy and humor throughout, and the film insists on feeling those emotions, just as much as it does grief.

It’s a remarkable picture of inbound focus and outbound ambitions.

With his monumental control of the camera —at times staying with characters during quiet moments of anticipation, at others panning slowly 360 degrees to envelop us in the entirety of the environment— Davies directs the most refined coming-of-age story cinema has seen in recent years.

Directors Ha and Yi’s unflinching portrait of Lee is also admirable, as the movie shows the overall effects of a system indifferent to people who fall through its cracks. By staying with Lee and his story, from his early years in Korea, to his later years in America as an injured ex-convict, the documentary shows how the damage to Lee occurred, both as a death row inmate and a reluctant figurehead for the movement that coalesced around him.

[Fuller's] whimsical new family-action-adventure film is a lovingly crafted paean to a child’s imagination and a throwback to the glorious family films of the ’80s. It is also visually dazzling beyond all reason with staggering production design.

You get a sense of Poehler’s energy in the fast pace and comic timing of film, which moves at a good, precise clip. There’s a lot of material to cover here, some of it overly familiar, but Poehler does it with pizzaz.

The Impossible strikes an insincere tone, one that doesn't let the obviously powerful moments stand on their own, but instead follows the beautiful Hollywood stars to safety, while the real story is left on the ground.

Ultimately, the film is not only about children who refused to surrender, but also about a country that, for a brief moment, managed to put aside divisions in service of something greater. Like the best of Vasarhelyi and Chin’s work, it transforms an extraordinary true story into something more universal: a tale of endurance, release, and the desperate search for light.

Michell’s handling of the relationship between the two is touching in how little judgment he passes.

Amidst all the noise and nonsense, Hoppers makes a winning case for the enduring value of dignity and respect for all creation.

It’s a subtle and poignant performance that makes you eager for Richardson to have an even bigger spotlight in he next endeavor.

It’s an incredibly moving film that encompasses a wide scope of global issues through the intimate remembrance of one life.

It’s the unbreakable friendship between Kunle and Sean, the ways their time together, good or bad in college, will mark how they see the world, and how the world sees them, forever, that makes Williams’ Emergency an elaborate, chaotically hilarious, intensely terrifying journey worth taking.

Adopting a fly-on-the-wall approach that prioritizes Muñoz’s subjectivity — sometimes to a fault — Mija is nevertheless a personal and sincere portrait of Muñoz’s struggles, and her ability to adapt in the face of changing social and professional upheavals.

Eastwood wisely trains the camera on Cooper's face and keeps it there — he knows his actor can carry the story’s emotion when other aspects fail it.

A consistently funny yet narratively undercooked coming-of-age story.

Hanks' insightful tribute to the retailer, and chronicle of their history, is the story of the music industry, who had it all, and believed the good times would last forever, only to see it all slip away.

It's Arquimedes who emerges as the film's most indelible character, aided by Francella's fabulously icy performance. Lacking even the warmth of a Don Vito, Arquimedes comes across not as a man who does everything for his family, but as a man who expects his family to do everything, even damn themselves, for him and his twisted, heartless, self-centered worldview.

Diaz’ call-to-arms to artists speaks to the present just as it depicts a terrible period in the Philippines’ past. Season of the Devil is still a grueling, advanced-level watch, but one that delivers beauty and horror in equal measure.

While More Than Ever spends much of its time concerned with Hélène’s way of dealing with her illness, the film is a love story at heart.

Overall, Manners’ feature debut is perfectly polished. Duggan and Clear are distinct talents who scream future stars (or, at worst, working talents for years to come). But as insightful as it all is as a portrait of those bumpy teenage years for young women, it does all feel a bit too familiar. Maybe even a little too safe and predictable.

Ultimately pleasurable if very disposable, Homecoming offers strong teen dynamics and for once, serves up high school-sized stakes instead of placing the planet in peril.

A wonderfully eccentric examination of unlikely friendships that illuminates the absurd and lovely corners of life, Prince Avalanche is a deeply enjoyable, wondrous delight.

All of Wong's undeniable visual flair can't conceal the haphazard nature of the story.

Honey Boy may center on the impressive portrayals of three talented actors, but it’s the woman behind the camera that makes it soar. You simply can’t wait to see what she does next.

David Fincher is rarely dull, and The Killer cannot take the director’s filmography in that direction, but it won’t push itself toward the top of his work, either. A competently realized crime thriller made by a technical team just as sharply attuned to details as the director at the ship’s helm, the Netflix production is entertaining but a little orthodox.

Boiling Point is a temperature-raising restaurant drama whose heightening series of personal and professional stakes will immediately plunge you into a flop sweat.

Ocean Waves is a deeply charming and resonant look at the tug of longing that so often comes with memory, the utter mess of youth, and the beautiful delirium of love.

This film might not blow you away, but it is unique, and it will make you laugh. And ultimately, that’s all you really need from an indie comedy.

A lot more minor than major.

Splitsville goes off the rails in increasingly entertaining fashion, with every single part offering something new and unpredictable. It’s a film of well-crafted jokes that are based in character and a willingness to more than go for broke when needed.

Results isn’t always a successful film, but its philosophies about the myths of perfection as they apply to love are at least credible, funny and well observed.

Funny, unique, and entirely inappropriate, Appropriate Behavior is a supremely satisfying and irreverent take on the New York rom-com.

Disappointingly, and despite the best intentions, Durham’s overwritten script diminishes some potentially truly moving moments over the course of the picture. There is simply too much clunky exposition.

It's ludicrous genre fun even if you didn't take into account the properly-bewitching Ms. Bang.

By the Time It Gets Dark jumps at first into an examination of Thailand’s repressed history of political violence and dictatorial control. But that initial pencil sketch of a thesis is soon shuffled away in favor of several other less-interesting story threads which add up to much less than the sum of their parts.

If the resulting film, Julieta feels neither wholly Munro nor typically Almodovar in final execution, there is still a very compelling energy given out by the collision.

Like style, one expects an endearing earnestness from a Mann film, and watching emotionally stunted men discuss love or beauty, like Enzo does during the motor discussion with his son, is always delightful. But all this beauty and sincerity gets undermined by strangely unfocused, dispassionate storytelling. And coming from a filmmaker like Mann, that’s a big surprise.

The revelation here is Zengel, who has says little (none of it in English), yet has the presence and gravitas of a silent film actor, putting across her history and trauma primarily in her haunted eyes and loaded expressions.

With enlivening performances and thoughtful filmmaking, Girl has the power to not just change lives but reinvigorate your belief in cinema.

An excoriating razor-burn of a movie that deploys drollery like an instrument of torture.

A bold, blunt, yet clinically intelligent film that provokes as much for its dark humor as for its righteous outrage, it's all at once a gripping thriller, an incendiary social critique and a mordant moral fable.

Journey’s End is about as good an adaptation as you can imagine of the material, and a film with compassion and humanity that goes far beyond its perhaps uncompromisingly prestige-y exterior.

Marie never seems particularly interested in either man except for how they are interested in her and is revealed to be so self-centered in her pursuit of amours both fou and entirely rational, that she is far less likable than Binoche’s disingenuously bright-eyed and forthright performance can account for.

An uncommonly knotty and fiercely intelligent story of assault and blame in the social media age.

Films about this particular divide don’t get any kinder or gentler, but there’s a knowing sweetness to Dancing Arabs that doesn’t come off as particularly naïve or divorced from reality, at least taking some of the false hopes of the period into account.

By turns moving, absorbing and downright rage-inducing.

The conflicts are obviously real, but there is something about the tone that’s just off through most of the picture.

Ghost Protocol is a fun but mostly empty adventure story that operates with the rote predictability of a middling ‘90s James Bond movie rather than a benchmark-setting actioner or even seasonal “event movie.”

Cold In July doesn’t always work and it takes quite a long time to get adjusted to its coiling rhythm, but it’s far better than it has any right to be and perhaps, more significantly, is unusually absorbing and memorable.

Zlotowski has turned in a beguiling film that impresses as much for its oddly specific and well-researched setting (the ragtag community of lower-grade workers at a nuclear power plant), as for the romance, and maintains impressive narrative and tonal control right up until an ending that falters just at the final hurdle.

North of Normal hits occasional false notes, but it finds just the right ones when it really matters.

The Inspection isn’t a bad movie. Rather it’s a disappointing slog because the arduous journey it sets up should have offered greater returns.

Previously, the filmmakers Franz and Fiala brought audiences into “The Lodge,” and 2014’s “Goodnight Mommy” and “The Devil’s Bath” is their finest, possibly most upsetting work yet.

Anchored by its competent trio of protagonists, The Adults would have been a lovely time if not for the overused mishmash of twee gimmicks.

Unfortunately, some fumbled melodrama and the thorny issue of nationalism that hung over Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Wind Rises” compromise the finer impulses in In This Corner of the World.

It’ll be much too easy to bail on what is a very slow-building first 30 minutes for those watching on a streaming service in the near future. If they make it an hour in, they’ll be pleased to know that John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” is prominently featured, as any West Virginia film seems obligated to boast. But outside of that, the lack of respite is rightly suffocating and will be unfortunately repelling for those who approach film as a mindless escape.