As a look behind the curtain at one of the contemporary art world's biggest names, 'Painting' succeeds as far providing a snapshot of who he is in the very immediate moment. For anyone looking for anything more about Richter, his craft or his insights, 'Painting' will prove to be a half-finished canvas.

Overall, it's not that Neil's directorial debut is boring or even disappointing, it's that it's just unexceptional – almost exactly the sort of dime-a-dozen growing-up story that's become a Sundance/ independent film world cliché.

Ultimately, Lee's clarity of vision hasn't been this sharp or unique since before "Crooklyn," and it's thrilling with Red Hook Summer to witness a return to the technique – and most of all, emotional wallop – that even today continues to give his films an enduring life as both entertainment, and enlightenment.

Overall, Chandrasekhar's first tentative venture towards something slightly more sincere is undermined by, quite frankly, his irresistible urge to take the piss out of every sequence that might have been played even remotely seriously.

Compliance is as much a meta-textual gauntlet as it is a movie; its subject matter not only deserves, but demands to be discussed and argued about, rather than being simply accepted at face value.

'Never Sorry' feels borderline unfinished, as it never draws that line between Ai Weiwei and the generation of successors to his throne that he has inspired. Perhaps it doesn't have to. Perhaps you're already one of them.

Certainly possesses a lot of energy, but it's never harnessed or focused effectively. As a buddy comedy, all four leads have done better, and you already know what those movies are, and this one doesn't stand among them.

Of course, it's because of the film's casually profane tone and commitment to pushing the boundaries of taste and acceptability that makes Klown a step above "The Hangover," a lack of fear towards the lawlessness with which those films only flirt.

Manages to be both overwrought and strangely lacking in drama, staggering under the deadening weight of an uninvolving central character. It is a shame, because many of the elements were in place for something much more compelling.

Alps has proven Lanthimos to be one of the most fascinating filmmakers anywhere right now.

Handsomely animated and features a story that, while hopelessly familiar, at least seems to be part of a whole. Also, there are pirates. So there's that.

The truth is, while Red Lights isn't terrifically scary, it is thrilling in other ways, constantly playful and often tongue-in-cheek as it works through the hokey conventions of the genre.

The Imposter is a great commentary on the subjectivity of any event, and one that probes deeply into the motivations of its subjects.

Dredd is a video game procedural tied to great visuals, but one without deeper substance to make its experience remotely meaningful.

Swims forward with tenacious shark-like energy and therefore is sleek, efficient and utterly engaging.

It won't change the face of cinema history, and it won't win any awards (it's too downright dirty for that), but it's furiously entertaining, and a very strong piece of drama from a director who hasn't much luck in the last thirty-odd years.

The meat of the film is sadly, a tedious misstep for a director who, even when he's experimented in the past, has generally come up with something more interesting than this. It is, however, still better than "9 Songs"

A cinematic, cultural and personal triumph, The Dark Knight Rises is emotionally inspiring, aesthetically significant and critically important for America itself – as a mirror of both sober reflection and resilient hope.

First Position is a simple, but effective portrait of ambition and determination in an art form where the stakes are high and the rewards are few.

Ruby Sparks hits that sweet emotional spot much in the same way "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" does. While you are at once charmed by the whimsy and romance, there's still a gut punch of emotional rawness just waiting to be delivered.

2073 might sacrifice some eloquence to make its creative points, but the sincerity shines poignantly and powerfully. Let it be a galvanizing call to action.

Herzog’s latest is one of his weakest. Part of the problem, shockingly, is in the filmmaking; there are basic, unfortunate amateur missteps throughout.

You can argue that Mister Organ is a movie about Ferrier’s folly, though that would be most unkind. The better argument is that Mister Organ is a movie about hubris as the Achilles’ heel of all men like Organ, and yes, about the perils of sticking your nose where you oughtn’t.

Sheldon is a coal miner’s daughter, and her brother is a fourth-generation miner. Coal is intrinsic to her family. This is the story of her people, a celebration of their traditions, a condemnation of an economic system that failed them, and an elegy for a waning way of life.

In a vacuum, Langley’s true story is quite remarkable, but sadly, the elements don’t truly come together in this somewhat by-the-numbers film.

Through the eyes of the Mexican filmmaker, the familiar fable is made anew, carefully carved by the hands of an artist eternally enamored with his craft. This loving relationship between creator and creation imbues the film with the type of contagious excitement that brings one back to the joy of the early days of cinemagoing, a thrilling jolt of nostalgia that only emphasizes the miraculous nature of this fresh recreation.

Detailing the thrills and fears of turning 30 down to its mundane but absorbing minutiae, Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier’s fifth feature is a pure delight. Laugh-out-loud funny and heartbreaking in equal measure, it’s perhaps his best film since “Oslo, August 31st.”

Highly ambitious, dark as midnight, and often hilarious, Griffin’s debut film Silent Night doesn’t always work, but her insightful look at the inherent selfishness of humanity and our absurd need to cling to hope no matter what is spot on.

The relationship between “Melody” and “Bilel” (also an assumed name) shows the slippery nature of performed online identities, the leveraging of personal grievances into political/terrorist action, and how the immense scale of social media can essentially collectivize and weaponize alienation and anger from around the world into real world terror.

Inventive and original ... Juggling dark, situational comedy with genuine thrills is awkward, but “Blow the Man Down” manages to walk that tone well.

What keeps Burden captivating are the performances, especially from Riseborough, Whitaker and Wilkinson, consummate pros that give their characters flesh and blood dimension.

For all the artists that populate Hong’s cinematic universe, the director has yet to foreground the creative psyche in as thought-provoking of a manner as he does in Grass.

While the film may not entirely hang together, the stakes are low, and its bright spots point toward a promising future for the behind the camera talent.

Be prepared to be challenged by the glittering, allusive and often bewitching “Transit,” but also to be frustrated on discovering that even if you manage to piece it all together, in this particular crazy world the problems of three little people ultimately don’t amount to a hill of beans.

In the end Piercing seems more interested in aesthetic playfulness than getting the most out of these characters. Playing towards comedy helps some of the more freaky scenes go down, but that’s not a substitute for substance.

This is a film that’s wantonly absurd and even silly, and yet, bubbling underneath it all, Clara’s Ghost never takes its eyes off its protagonist or our empathy for her even when she pushed to the edge of the frame both literally and figuratively. And Niedert Elliott’s performance is haunting, perfectly capturing that ambiguous space between comedy and drama that gives the movie its edge.

Topics such as race, poverty, masculinity and politics are tackled in thought-provoking ways. It all makes for an entertaining, if not slight, ride that proves Kahn has the chops to graduate into feature films and maybe has a genre classic in him just screaming to get out.

The film is easy to admire, but lacks the kinds of scenes necessary to truly make a emotional connection.

It’s a film that you would, of course, expect from the director of such an entity as The Greasy Strangler, but, say what you will about that film, at least it wasn’t boring.

Möller keeps a sense of immediacy and tension throughout, despite never actually showing the cause of Asger’s worry and dread – and our own.

Colangelo’s adaptation continually feels like it’s missing something.... Luckily though, Collangelo has Gyllenhaal, who is exceptional at times here, to carry it through.

It’s well crafted and compelling at times thanks mostly to the casts’ efforts, but there is an emptiness that permeates through the film as if a significant piece of Wilde’s demise is missing.

Jenkins has a vision and something interesting to say in Private Life, but it needs some serious editing to convey it succinctly.

Despite its ambitions, Monsters and Men makes its weighty subject matter feels thin and slight.

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

The first hour is overwhelmingly exciting as Levinson uses split screens and more stylistic techniques to make his story pop. The dialogue is also delivered in impressively natural fashion, with the leading quartet discussing subjects that capture the zeitgeist. However, the ultra-violent finale goes over the top, lacking the pizzaz and inventiveness of the film’s earlier stages.

While [Chloe Sevigny's] work is commanding and a dedicated set of tough, engaged performances from the ensemble add life to the odd legend, awkward structural choices bleed away the film’s emotional punch long before the credits roll.

As always, Dinklage is exquisite in a mostly silent performance that conveys the pain and survivor’s guilt Del has bottled up inside him following the incident.

Through Cage, the film’s straightforward revenge plot becomes a King Crimson album played at half speed and twice normal volume; a bizarre and bloody outing with a strong heart beneath the surface.

It’s an endlessly entertaining, challenging investigation of history that confirms Ruizpalacios’ status as the next big thing in Mexican cinema.

Chaganty and co-writer Sev Ohanian deliver wonders on both the technical and narrative ends of Search, but editors Will Merrick and Nick Johnson do an astounding job as well.

Overall, this is astute, fascinating filmmaking from Hawke who believes the small details are all part of the bigger picture, the deeper experience of knowing who Blaze Foley was.

Sadly, even with the contributions of four screenwriters and the still underrated talents of Byrne...it simply doesn’t work.

As in “The Wolfpack,” Moselle doesn’t just capture the rebellions of her characters, she expresses their triumphs and joys with intimacy and detail.

From a narrative standpoint, Decker and her three writing collaborators have fashioned a reasonably compelling story. What makes the film transcendent is how she uses the art of cinema to convey it and Howard’s phenomenal performance.

Where Akhavan succeeds is whenever she has the kids doing things teenagers would be doing.

Turtletaub does have a hard time finding a way to conclude Agnes’ story, but he ends Puzzle on such a delightful note of simplicity, that this near-perfect movie nevertheless stuns.

In Euthanizer, director Teemu Nikki has successfully created a cinematic metaphor for contemporary world politics, one that is full of unexpected plot developments and a surprisingly thoughtful take on personal morality.

Yes, you’ll likely leave the theater blown away by Casal and Diggs’ considerable talent, but its Estrada’s vision that will haunt you.

Fisher must be given immense credit for making it all work as her performance is pitch-perfect in every respect. Sometimes, it feels like you’re not even watching an actress perform but an actual person. The way Burnham shot some of the scenes makee it feel like non-fiction rather than fiction.

Too many of the jokes fall flat and as the film moves forward you’re so captivated by the bizarre plot twists that recognizing the humor becomes secondary.

Leave No Trace is a universal, unforgettable experience.

It’s still evidently the work of a very talented filmmaker and is certainly never bad, but it also never lives up to its potential. Barnard has a long career ahead of her, but Dark River seems destined to be remembered, years now, as a minor work in her filmography.

The spy genre is a tricky business, because the tempo and flow of the film must adapt to numerous different scenarios and narrative changes. In Lewin’s movie, however, the ever-changing intricacies of Dawidoff’s book are rendered flat, unappealing and messy.

The film’s inherent problems, however, are two fold. First, the third of the picture is an absolute slog. The Zellner’s may have though this was a creative choice to make the comedic scenes funnier when they finally hit, but it simply doesn’t work. Second, the funny bits simply aren’t as funny as they should be.

This is a remarkable, triumphant, and confident picture by Aster, who gives the film an almost meditative-like sensation, as you feel every space you’re in, every emotion, every moment of grief. Hereditary refuses to employ cheap thrills, creating its cinematic scares with atmosphere, and continuously reinventing itself at every turn.

All four actors are perfectly fine here, but the set-up is predictably conventional.

Fox knows firsthand the events that occur to Dern’s character in her feature narrative debut because they happened to her. And beyond its creative success and failures, her willingness to tell her own story in such graphic detail is a startlingly brave act.

A film desperately in need of an electric charge, Mary Shelley is simply another cinematic corpse on the table.

Full of conviction, First Reformed feels like a lifetime of preoccupations and traumas distilled beautifully, accompanied with a haunting sparseness creating a profound deliverance.

On Chesil Beach makes us consider the lives of the Florence and Edward as outside observers, but rarely takes us inside the complicated mix of desire and fear this pair is trying to untangle.

The film looks heavenly, often bathed in light, as if Qu wants nothing more than to assuage these women of their suffering by suggesting paradise. But the brightness is just a veneer. Beneath the surface, “Angels Wear White” is as bleak as they come.

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

Denis and Binoche have made a film that’s both smart and sexy, imbuing new excitement and wonder into the emotional connections that define us all.

The formal control is remarkable, but sometimes almost stultifying, as though Martel had spent every moment of this intervening decade plotting how to pack each scene more densely, to the point it feels like Zama” could maybe stop a bullet. It will certainly deter the less persistent viewer.

Just as many sports movies before have done, and many more will after, Borg/McEnroe shines a light on the sacrifices necessary to achieve greatness. It’s just a shame that the movie itself doesn’t have the same ambition

It’s saved from all-out depressiveness by Haigh’s compassion, which cradles the characters within their often desperate situations.

The Death Of Stalin is a grim reminder that we are never too far away from history turning back on progress. It’s not an easy lesson to reconcile, but Iannucci at least has us laughing for a good while before delivering his devastating blow.

While Bening is incredible playing a fading Hollywood starlet in Paul McGuigan’s Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool, it’s her co-star, Jamie Bell, who might be the film’s real secret weapon.

Bale and Pike are superb. Despite some melodramatic tendencies and strange choices in Cooper’s script they make you have sympathy and compassion for each of their characters.

Despite the darker edges, I, Tonya embraces the surreality of the story and winningly plays it mostly for comedy, with dips into drama, while crucially never mocking the central players.

It’s a film that can swing between absurdist humor and brutal gut-punch sadness in a way that’s rare and, at times, truly profound.

While often hamstrung by genre conventions, particularly in the picture’s first half, Tom of Finland is a passable entry into the LGBT film canon and largely successful in selling the subcultural relevance of the eponymous artist’s beefcake drawings.

It’s Vaughn’s caged-beast charisma (that bounces off the screen long before he is actually caged) and way with a wink or a pithy putdown that keeps us riveted through the substantial sections of the film where heads remain, for the time being, unstomped.

The Villainess confounds its audience on two levels: firstly, how the filmmakers pulled off the elaborate set pieces and secondly, leaving them to wonder what the hell is going on in the plot.

It shows a concern for spatial discrepancies, between characters, between action and intention, between life and death. It’s one of many reasons why The Hurt Locker is one of the most exciting movies you’ll see this year.

Filled with imagery both moving and mordant... 12:08 East Of Bucharest doesn't pretend to have a position on the fallout of the Romanian Revolution. Instead it contends that different questions need to be asked and considered about post-Communist life, about the blame about the current state of the country, and where the future lies for Romania's youth.

Days is the first in a loose trilogy including In the Mood for Love and 2046, but here, amidst all the exquisitely deliberate, drippingly sensual imagery that would become Wong’s trademark, there is still the grit and grain of real life, and it makes this perfectly enigmatic film feel somehow thrilling.

Is it a somewhat middling ’90s dad-core thriller? You bet, but it’s also a totally underrated skeleton key for understanding the careers of its two leads: Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin.

The great, unifying success across all ten shorts is Kieślowski’s representation of Poland, which is political, social, and personal all at once. Each movie is its own experiential encounter.

An acutely defined, starkly realized and profoundly unsettling debut if ever there was one.

Crimes of the Future sounds a whole lot more fascinating than it actually is: it’s a more interesting film to read/write about than to watch, which just goes to show how Cronenberg at this early stage was still closer to a kind of literary, idea-based storytelling, and had not yet mastered the filmmaking side of the equation.

It’s a movie that can feel like several you’ve seen before, yet never distorted in quite this style, beat, or fashion. When the messy trajectory seems as though it might be on its way to the point of reflection, dissension re-ignites, and counter-cultural discord combusts through expressive punctuation, once again.

Elegantly constructed, wittily executed, delightfully ruthless, and scary as hell.

They All Laughed is certainly not a perfect film, but its homespun quality, palpable camaraderie, and playfully loose performances make for a movie that’s easy to harbor deep affection for nonetheless.

Ultimately, Ms. 45 is far more interesting and genuinely enjoyable (versus ironically enjoyable, as many of this vintage grindhouse flicks wind up being) than it has any right to be.

It’s pretty banal, but in the anything-but-banal catalogue of Cronenberg films, that gives it its own weird, sincere charm.

Ted Kotcheff’s film is essentially a workplace comedy, but the employees are braindead and wealthy, and the benefits are glory and groupies in equal amounts.