Very well-made, very sweet-natured and very, very familiar: how strange that Philippe Falardeau‘s The Bleeder, a based-in-truth film about pretty much the definition of a confrontational sport —boxing— should feel cosy as a down comforter from beginning to end.

Outside of the Berg’s incredible depiction of the Deepwater’s destruction and the escape of a majority of its crew, the picture also benefits from two fantastic performances by Wahlberg and Rodriguez.

There’s something widely relatable about the way Barry tries to find somewhere to fit in, and preferably in a place where he can be himself and not somebody else’s symbol.

All of “Pastoral’s” problems could have been slightly forgiven if McGregor showed a hint of inspiration behind the camera.

The Age of Shadows has no pretensions to being a particularly deep or politically resonant piece of filmmaking. Its more that Kim Jee-woon has found in this era and this milieu the perfect inspiration for a blisteringly entertaining and exquisite genre exercise, one that may not be recognised as such only because we we have never expected genre films to be this good.

Take away Forster’s hard-working visual style, and what All I See Is You essentially presents is a standard relationship drama, with two generic, privileged people at its heart who don’t become any more striking even as the tensions between the two gradually reach a breaking point.

Walter Hill’s legacy of pushing the edges of genre conventions made the prospect of (Re)Assignment, at least on paper, potentially dangerous. But the filmmaker’s touch is completely lost here, and the only danger the film winds up posing is to the time spent by those who choose to watch it.

When the big show finally happens at the end of the picture? You can’t help but smile.

Tipping’s bold and meditative drama with its reflective moods and streetwise grime has delivered one of the best feature-length debuts of 2016 and one of the best films of the year, period.

As a piece of filmed entertainment Snowden is certainly a watchable endeavor, but Stone and screenwriter Kieran Fitzgerald’s script is often an odd mix of hero worship, conspiratorial thriller and cringe worthy dialogue.

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.

Author: The JT Leroy Story, a documentary from Jeff Feuerzeig,is as truthful as it gets. Yet its content is so wildly absurd, that it plays like a work of fiction.

With “Free Fire,” Wheatley wants to push his own limits of onscreen mayhem, taking things right to the line where most directors would pull back, and pushing everything right over. And what the director winds up doing is making a big, magnificent noise, one that will certainly see more than his core fanbase sitting up and paying attention.

It would be too easy to say The Magnificent Seven isn’t magnificent. It’s definitely not, but the film has an even more egregious quality: it’s uninspired. There’s no risk, no real attempts to subvert expectations, and no desire to truly give the audience something, if not entirely new, then at least surprising.

Stone and his crew get the audience hooked on the mystery of this charismatic crank, and then take their time before they answer some of the bigger questions.

Floyd Norman: An Animated Life is as joyful as its subject, and is heartily recommended to every artist who might have lost their way and are looking for some inspiration.

It’s a ponderous work in every meaning of the term.

Poorly written and haphazardly shot, not even Sarandon is enough to convince that Ace the Case was a mystery ever worth writing, much less solving.

Too often the mechanisms of plot can be felt, the beats of the story seen, and the obvious intentions of the story heard in a line of dialogue. So, while at times it’s easy to see the great film that Tunnel could have been, that never stops it from being perfectly watchable thriller that it is.

Wannabe shock comedies toe boundaries of decorum but don’t have the stones to cross them, which in a way is more off-putting than the alternative. For Hvam, Christensen, and Klown Forever, boundaries aren’t a problem, only substance, but if you’re looking for a moral or a message, then you’re looking at the wrong film.

There is an interesting film buried in Zoom, and it’s one to seek out if you’re a fan of more daring visual choices in film. It’s just a shame that the script couldn’t have matched the direction and visuals in its intriguing approach to world building.

The very beauty of the pictures, and the exhausting knowledge of how much effort and care went into each peculiar creature, each liquidly expanding nebula, each belching mud spring, contributes to a kind of wonder fatigue, and soon it feels a little like you’ve slipped into a lukewarm bath of imagery. It’s soothing, comfortable, blood-temperature and it doesn’t quicken your pulse one iota or inspire a single thought in your mind that you haven’t had a hundred times before.

The perils of the broader-canvas follow-up to the sleek and economical indie debut are writ large: this is “Difficult Second Album: The Movie.”

This is a virtuosic piece of filmmaking art that also happens to be almost unbearably moving. Actually, there is no “almost.”

Paz’s story is obviously a feel-good one, which somewhat hamstrings a writer-director who you can feel chafing against the constraints of fidelity to sheer uplift.

Along with screenwriters Robert Schenkkan and Andrew Knight, Gibson, whose lack of directorial subtlety but skill with action both reach an apex here, is not content to tell the true story of Desmond Doss and his unshakeable, courage-giving faith. He wants to convince us that his faith was, in fact, the truth.

For a feature debut, Una is bursting with exceptional confidence and style. The aesthetic is Jonathan Glazer meets Andrea Arnold and it assures that some of the script’s more staged scenes hold your attention.

Like Brokeback Mountain a decade ago, Moonlight is a piece of art that will transform lives long after it leaves theaters.

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.

Ford’s attempt to synthesize the two halves of his film into a coherent whole is what sells it all short.

Arrival, the shimmering apex of Villeneuve’s run of form that started back in 2010 with “Incendies,” calmly, unfussily and with superb craft, thinks its way out of the black hole that tends to open up when ideas like time travel, alien contact and the next phase of human evolution are bandied about.

La La Land is a film you simply never want to stop watching. It has wisdom and joy and sadness and such magic, from the evocative power of music to the transportative power of movies.

A lovely, but uneven moral tale of love, forgiveness and heartrending misdeeds, Derek Cianfrance’s The Light Between Oceans is conceptually sound, and at times, beautifully gut-wrenching. But the plaintive picture often becomes engrossed in conveying at all times just how precious life and love is.

[Chan] brings energy to a film that desperately needs any kind of life, but there is only so much Chan can do.

It’s sillier and more free-wheeling than you’d initially expect, but it never quite finds a sense of drive to give it purpose.

Humanity permeates Cameraperson, thanks to Johnson’s presence, so as experimental as it is, it’s also stirring and poignant, with a tangible sense of empathy intact in every frame.

Imperium, at its best, is a film about the ideological crisis of seeing the principles your worldview is built upon repurposed for hate and bigotry. But once it reaches these highs, the third act mostly squanders them.

There seems like there could have been quite the stylish biopic in Rapkin’s version of events, but the telling is underwhelming, making this film a continuous stream of possibilities that are never opened or explored.

An unsavory, underdeveloped and uninspired bore, it takes too many blows and doesn’t give nearly enough counterpunches. It doesn’t cut. It doesn’t bleed. It doesn’t even hit. Hell, it barely puts up a fight. It comes out the gate frail and disoriented, already down for the count before the picture has started.

In spite of its various imperfections, Ben-Hur always manages to entertain, proving the timelessness of epic structure and scale. And even if nothing about the movie particularly stands out on its own, when all the pieces come together, one cannot help but feel immersed in the world and ideals presented.

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

The People vs Fritz Bauer successfully uses the moral importance of its themes and the strength of its performances in order to build a riveting procedural that efficiently covers for its lack of visual pizzazz.

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

As a whole, the film is enchanting even if certain aspects of it are not.

Kubo and the Two Strings feels like a miracle, evoking joy, surprise and wonder in its audience.

While War Dogs won’t go down as one of the great films about misconduct on a national level, it’s undeniably a decent enough popcorn ride.

It’s thematically rich, and confidently directed with a clear point of view, set against a backdrop of relevant socioeconomic and cultural issues. But it’s also a deeply relatable and affecting depiction of the heedless beauty of a first love.

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.

Even as a late night Netflix viewing for fashion aficionados who enjoy a scandalous bit of melodramatic trash, The Model doesn’t offer anything new, interesting, or engaging.

Alvarez’s visual flair and handle on tone can only mask his paper-thin characters and motivations for so long.

With its sensational production designs, lavish costumes and Grant providing one of his best performances in years (if not one of his best performances ever), Florence Foster Jenkins is appealing if ultimately slight.

The Lost Arcade suffers not because it lacks an egalitarian heart, but because Vincent makes his arguments through a myopic lens.

Here is a film about truly extraordinary events that is mostly autobiographical and true to the lives and experiences of writers and directors Joe Syracuse and Lisa Addario which never manages to feel personal, and instead is reduced to coming off as just another raunchy comedy.

If Ellis and co-screenwriter Anthony Frewin’s attention to historical detail hinders Anthropoid initially, it breathes life into what turns into an action packed and inherently cinematic second half.

Demon is a film that improves the longer it sits with you, as various images seep into your consciousness and reappear without warning.

Operating for much of its running time with an equal balance between guilty pleasure grittiness and decent father/daughter drama, the film’s conclusion tips toward the latter in an unconvincing shift toward sentimentality and Life Lessons that not only is out of place, but betrays John’s own code of stoic endurance.

As a filmmaker, Yeung has a keen eye for the quiet spaces where two people can learn more about each other than if they were holding a wordy conversation. If the director could just find a way to balance against his ho-hum dialogue and plotting, Front Cover would make more of an impression, instead of being the sweet but ultimately forgettable film that it is.

With a weak script and underwhelming performances, there’s nothing about the film to latch onto or celebrate, but there’s just enough craftsmanship on display to walk away not feeling like it’s a complete failure.

Suicide Squad isn’t a terrible movie per se and judged against its forbearer, ‘Batman v Superman,’ it resembles a shining beacon of coherence. But Suicide Squad isn’t a very good movie either, a mediocre effort with commonplace ideas of rebelliousness and salvation.

From a purely objective standpoint, the film’s pacing sags at times, and its energy deflates, as is so often the case in trying to turn a chronological story into a cohesive narrative. But above all, Steve’s spirit soars.

Embers attempts to be a complicated dissection of a possible world not too far ahead of us, but it lacks the imagination to make us soar along with its vision.

There’s no denying Jones’ magnetism, her amazing spirit and her otherworldly talent, and “Miss Sharon Jones!” is a fine tribute to her as an individual. But it leaves you wanting more — more from her history and rich backstory. It’s clear the whole story hasn’t been told — yet.

The trick the director pulls off is that “Lace Crater” weaves a comedic touch throughout the film, keeps the audience compellingly off balance when it pitches toward horror, and puts together a picture that slyly has much more going on beneath its laid back surface.

Though he gets fine performances from many quarters...the film is scuppered by an approach that sees it build on the bones of the novel without ever quite animating its heart.

It flails for the heartstrings, but instead of reaching them, it only tugs at that muscle that makes you roll your eyes at its old-fashioned, melodramatic attempts at emotion.

Bad Moms could easily skate along only on its very funny, often very raunchy jokes, but it also makes a much-needed argument for the difficulties of modern motherhood and how the pressure to be perfect is damaging both mothers and their kids.

It’s a lovely film that resonates all the more so in a summer of louder, more cluttered movies, and knowing that Disney had the confidence to allow Lowery’s vision to flourish is the icing on the cake.

Containing not one single jump scare, but building a disquieting atmosphere of dread that leads us to make some brilliantly gruesome inferences, it’s a classy take on the often trashy pregnancy horror category, with a subtle social critique underlying its neo-gothic texture.

As inviting as it is immersive and convivial, Nerve is bumpy, sloppy and rather unsophisticated, but it’s also ultimately sociable, warm, endearing and, most of all, pretty fun.

For all its problems, Bourne is still thrilling and an undoubtedly engrossing action film thanks to its taut construction.

London Road, on stage and celluloid, is an experiment likely to fall flat outside of the most devoted of cinephiles (and theatergoers), but an exciting one nonetheless, even if only for its boldness.

Despite presenting an environment enriched to weapons-grade plutonium levels with potential for interpersonal drama, Vinterberg can’t seem to find any.

It might not be as risk-taking as previous Shainberg gems, but his knack for expertly crafted drama remains.

As The Gods Will is a minor film from a major talent, but few middle of the road efforts from directors manage to retain the kind of wholly original sensibility seen here, and have as much fun as Miike is while doing it.

Even if it does shy away from harsher truths, Branciforte’s inaugural feature is a joy to watch.

The difference between Lights Out and any other mainstream horror movie is that it actually uses the dark as the center of its plot, organically drawing out the majority of its jump scares in the process.

For all the film’s faults, Saunders and Lumley still bring an addictive energy to the screen that finds you wanting more.

Unsentimentally romantic, there’s enough grace in Summertime to keep you enraptured.

Sometimes silly, outlandish, and sentimental in its fan service-y callbacks, Star Trek Beyond and its sense of entertaining urgency often trumps its insubstantial qualities, as illogical as that may be.

For the Plasma immediately throws its viewer into the deep end. Unique beyond measure, its mumblecore, indie affectation is contradicted by a bold ambition in the form of big, complex ideas which don’t always make sense in reality, but pave the way for some interesting insights.

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.

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

In trying to include as much as it does, ‘Outlaws’ finds itself as more of tonal soup than a cohesive narrative feature.

Haemoo is a picture worth seeing for its thrills, scrupulous tension-building and mischievous genre twists that will have you gasping one second, and laughing the next.

Regardless of how you define your diet, At The Fork is effective and affecting in its offering of a variety of viewpoints.

In Chow’s hands, the lens becomes an elastic guidance tool for comic energy: fixate on a single image, pull back the band, let go, and snap, his story and characters launch forward in a blur of madcap amusement.

There’s no heart in this movie, no urgency.

What makes Phantom Boy unique isn’t the questions it asks, but the way it asks them and the answers it arrives at.

In embracing the disorienting quality present in Frank’s work, 'Don’t Blink' is but an abstract portrait, muddled by a jarring messiness.

The Infiltrator is ultimately a solid, if not exceptional, Scorsese takeoff, one that has just enough spunk and wit to make up for its often-apparent shortcomings.

Hooligan Sparrow is a vital reminder of the importance of artistic and journalistic freedom, and that telling certain stories can be an inherently perilous proposition — especially when those stories reveal something that the government would rather keep under wraps.

Not even the funniest actors on the planet could save what is an occasionally humorous, but largely unremarkable rehash.

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.

I can respect the intent to craft The Legend of Tarzan as a new chapter for the hero, one which is aware of all the shortcomings of many Tarzan stories that have gone before. And yet the film minimizes its own best ideas and falls back on adventure film tropes, old and new, in a way that undermines its attempt to decontextualize Burroughs’ aging swinger.

Everyone here means well and wants to make an epic war film, but it lacks a narrative strong enough to make it essential viewing for those beyond the genre’s fans.

The picture’s strength is in its honesty.

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.

Even when it’s in the shadow of other movies that have traversed this territory to greater effect, the talented young performers at hand bring a rooted sense of reality that still makes it sing with rhapsodic gravitas.