The film’s undoubtedly a gorgeous look at the Australian outback, but those looking for deeper nourishment will be left a touch disappointed.

While a bit too opaque near the end, and perhaps not the horror show that one might expect, it’s nevertheless an impressive debut.

Bornstein has fashioned a cinematic anxiety-fueled experience whether you can relate to having children or not.

The subtlety of [Tatiana Huezo‘s] approach interlaces ideas, resonances and emotions in ever-shifting, eternally edifying ways. And it ultimately promotes the film from human interest journalism to a grand work of socio-political critique and a quietly radical remodeling of familiar documentary formats.

Although the narrative is faithful to the book, del Toro rewrites the dialogue almost completely, an exercise whose only chance of success relies on his ingrained understanding of Shelley’s writing and tonal cadence. The result is a stunning piece of text, acutely aware of the labyrinthine nature of our most primitive emotions, and zigzagging through musings on love and loss and want with the careful rhythms of a writer who gets that tackling the grandiose often merits delicacy.

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.

The film is an almost overly thorough look at every single step along the way in the battle to bring Prop 8 down. And while that's admirable, and gay rights is certainly a fight that needs to be documented, the minutely detailed The Case Against 8 has the curious effect of dampening the drama through its approach.

The proximity and intimacy of the technique render Schofield and Blake’s journey more visceral, and more frightening. And as a result, at its conclusion, the catharsis lands with the force of a hammer.

A bold dissection on aging and self-hatred Fargeat’s latest work is an utter visual marvel and features superb performances from its lead actresses; Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley.

We can't help but feel that by comparison with the meaty and compelling issues he takes on so fearlessly, so scabrously in the other entries, Paradise: Hope ends up somewhat toothless.

This is a brilliantly constructed, whip-smart, and laugh-out-loud-funny romp from a filmmaker whose precision and craft is nearly unparalleled. It’s hard to think of a movie this year that has been as singularly delightful, one that, with each passing moment, reveals something charming or odd or real.

Not one to shy away from sincerity, Desplechin brings his beloved Paul Dédalus full circle in a satisfying project about the grandeur of the force that unifies the fictional character with the real man.

This is a movie that barely speaks above a whisper, even when its characters are howling in pain inside.

High Life feels longer than it is, and is occasionally so squirrely that it becomes off-putting. But in spite of the aforementioned traceable connections, it’s a true original — sometimes strange, sometimes scary, sometimes kinky.

Bloodcurdling to the last delicious drop, Nosferatu is extraordinarily compelling, one of the best films of the year, and an unforgettable, phantasmagoric experience for theaters that will astonish.

It's an overwrought, stagey muddle that suggests that Davies, ever a-quiver on the extreme high end of the sensitivity meter anyway, has quivered right off it and plunged into the depths of bathos.

The toughest thing about watching ‘Giants’ is the fear of inevitable, the fear that all of this could easily come crashing down, with Youssef displaying a thorough lack of respect for a government he’s long lost faith in, via a program that will certainly violate the country’s censorship laws.

Rasoulof’s film, while understandably angry, is nothing if not singleminded . It’s a saturnine morality tale that unfolds in shades of rainy gray beneath leaden, overcast skies, gritting up the nation’s cinematic tradition of humanist drama to an almost unrecognizable degree.

Meru is a flawed but deeply riveting account of what happens when men walk right up to the edge of madness.

Unfortunately, Iannucci and Blackwell are so intent on making every quip funny, they lose the story.

Alfre Woodard may have graced us with the performance of her career.

While the third act makes a few wonky choices, and the ending comes together a little too neatly, there’s no denying its impact.

By refusing to illuminate the detainees’ stories or the humanitarian crisis—not widely reported enough for Brady to take the audience’s familiarity as a given—they are trapped inside, The Island of Hungry Ghosts relegates itself to being little more than a pretty but wispy curiosity that fails its beleaguered subjects.

Though Till can not rewrite all of history’s wrong, you never doubt the genuineness of Chukwu’s intentions. This isn’t a salacious film. This isn’t taking advantage of Emmett Till’s memory for cheap prestige. Rather Till is an urgent and reverent, albeit flawed, pursuit of justice.

While ‘Life’s Journey’ might be a deeper meditation on the meaning of life and deeper questions of who we are, The IMAX Experience is a more realized version of similar ideas. Ultimately, The IMAX Experience is a tone poem that not only pays tribute to planet Earth and the life that inhabits it, but marvels at how this miracle was created.

Lombroso delivers close, often uncomfortable intimacy. He catches his subjects in the heat of the alt-right’s coming-out period in 2016 and 2017, when the mainstream press was just starting to turn over some rocks and write about what oozed out.

Abuse of Weakness is a frustrating experience, yet one that feels utterly unique and relentlessly watchable.

The movie's pace feels more like a plod, less deliberate than simply unsure of itself. Christmas, Again is a quiet film, but one that could perhaps use a bit more buzz of the holiday season.

It’s super funny, the performances are natural, and the whole endeavor is beyond charming. It’s a movie clearly meant to fit into the studio comedy mold, so it goes down easy.

His new film Zero Days may ostensibly be an investigation of the 2010 malware worm known as Stuxnet, but over its swift-moving 116-minute runtime, Gibney does a much broader and more important job: relating the rather airless, abstract concepts of cyber-terrorism and internet espionage to their real-world consequences.

Though philosophically unsatisfying in the sum of its parts—it’s a murky mirror—“Nope” remains thoroughly exhilarating as further proof of Peele’s affinity for pushing the increasingly narrow limits of commercial cinema. It’s imperfectly refreshing.

The film has an identity problem. It’s uncertain what it wants to be. This is too damn bad because its first mode, a parody of male self-obsession, is perfectly satisfying; the comedy makes us shift in our seats, but the shifting is pleasurable, complemented by well-timed gags and a mesmerizingly selfish performance from its leading man, Yannis Drakopoulos.

There’s been no shortage of study on Welles, but They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead offers a new understanding of the elusive, cunning filmmaker with a verve the man himself would have admired.

The animated story finds true buoyancy in its social value rather than its creative frontiers. Has the movie reinvented the animation game or Pixar’s standing within it? Far from it, but Finding Dory is a well-told promise that individuality and self acceptance always win.

This is an exquisitely shot suburban tale of trauma, stretching the “show-don’t-tell” golden rule of filmmaking to the furthest reaches.

Longlegs is a film that will crawl under your skin and live there for 100 minutes. It will make you uncomfortable.

The insider look at the industry is appealing, and Seduced And Abandoned is enjoyable but lightweight, and if anything, reaffirms that art doesn't come easy.

Edralin’s Islands is a patient debut that reminds us that while our parents are important, our own happiness cannot be understated or ignored. In this sense, through its final seconds, “Islands” is a life-affirming achievement.

The true star of The Gift is Edgerton as director. His deft, controlled maneuvering of plot, character, style, and tone is damn near perfect for his feature debut — even if it is in service of a very standard genre piece.

This first section is so charming and well-observed, and creates such real chemistry between the two terrific leads, that it's almost a shame that it's there to invest us in them just so the fast-paced genre flick to come has an anchor.

This movie is Ferreira’s moment, and she rules.

Absorbing and heartwarming, it’s easy to forget that this tender drama is about human trafficking.

Perry’s observations of complicated female dynamics are extremely perceptive and the emotional specificity of alienation, disenchantment, and mistrust is wonderfully precise.

Paddington is totally delightful.

Dense isn’t always used as a compliment when describing a movie, but in the case of Women Talking it’s a badge of honor. Polley is tackling numerous social dynamics among the women as well as a number of contemporary themes including women’s roles in society, religious freedom, sexual liberation, and even gender identity.

Fleck and Boden certainly have strong filmmaking smarts. They understand restraint, have terrific observational eyes, and know how to coax honest performances out of actors. So it’s perhaps a shame that Mississippi Grind is ultimately too underwhelming to stake with any confidence.

The most visually arresting drama of 2013, and certainly one of the year’s best films.

Wetlands is more than just a film that shares far more about anal fissures than you ever wanted to know; it’s a surprisingly sweet coming-of-age comedy brimming with punk-rock energy and an impressive performance from Swiss actress Carla Juri.

Transition works as both a personal accounting of Bryon’s journey and a fascinating exploration of how gender is treated within conservative societies. That the film can account for both, drawing out the parallels, schisms, and nuances that exist within a society that strongly believes in a gender binary, is something of a minor miracle.

It’s a quiet film in every sense of the word. One that relies on the expressions of its actors over the words that they are saying, but it’s also one of the more compelling debuts in some time and a film that’s well worth seeking out.

It's crisply and cleanly shot throughout, and the filmmaker shows a rare feel for how to not only make comedy land, but also to make it actually feel cinematic too.

The beauty of Lina Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice is the sound of other voices.

Something is missing from making it a knockout.

Cousins is insightful, thorough in his technical comparisons, and well-read in the library of cinema, yet never quite connects his work to a larger tapestry that extends the form.

Best of Enemies succeeds on utilitarian terms: it does what it’s supposed to.

Buzzard is a quiet, introspective film, but it trumps all generic blockbusters in that it very much is a roller coaster ride, one that thrills, upsets, and makes one queasy, all in surprising ways.

24 Frames snaps still-life photography out of its stasis, giving its images a brief history and miniature stories, even if it’s just the movement of cows in and out of a shot.

Deserted by a workplace and landscape whose wintry indignation is reciprocated in kind, Newton carries the film with intrepid resolve, turning in an amenable performance that’s inflamed in its downcast nature, while earning wholly justified sympathy.

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.

Dipping his toe into the not-so different motifs of Hollywood Westerns and telenovelas with a wink or two to some queer cinema classics, Céspedes has bold artistic aspirations.

Personal Shopper is a mess — not an uninteresting one, and better that than a staid, unadventurous bore, but a mess nonetheless.

Given the subject matter, it’s difficult not to stray into mawkishness of some kind. But even with mistakes, the power of the main narrative is hard to erode.

The strikingly realistic scenery is dappled with color, light and shadow to create dramatic stages for masterful character animations— if only the story played out on this impeccably-realized fantasy had the same persuasive command.

While a truly original comedy, While We're Young is the rare one that also laces rich thematic elements with wonderfully drawn characters to create a picture that's as genuinely hilarious as it is thoughtful about how hopes, ambitions, dreams and ideals of personal and creative accomplishments that ebb and flow across decades.

Urchin puts forward a sensitive, promising director. And an even more promising writer.

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.

This contemporary Japanese drama centers on the relationships between two vaguely thirtysomething women and two middle school-age boys. Two pairings that find a common connection in the most unexpected of circumstances. It’s the context of their attractions and the contradictions Fukada delicately presents that eventually beguile the viewer, even if his restrained aesthetic may test your patience getting there.

For the most part an assured film, confident in both the drama and the truth of the scenario it observes, this ground-level view of the immigrant experience feels both pinpoint specific and all too representative of the obstacles and attitudes that face so many illegals, in so many parts of the world.

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 film’s lived-in craftsmanship provides structure in an unstable world. Collins’ superb performance gives it soul.

‘Sly Lives!’: should we file it under good doc? Sure, it’s very watchable. But does it really unpack the burden of black genius? Well, that is a thing, to be honest. The culture moves on fast and the standards to which black artists are held are always way more ruthless and higher. I’m just not entirely convinced it lands this thesis as well as it hopes it does.

Despite the fine performances from McConaughey and Leto, tightly coiled editing that keeps the story moving and a nicely measured balance between drama and comedy (McConaughey is often a hoot), Dallas Buyers Club still sometimes feels like it's missing one more grace note.

While the musical elements often take the movie to impressive artistic heights, it’s not just the storyline that ends up hindering Better Man.

Prophet’s Prey is a skin-crawling chronicle of one of America’s biggest criminals and the community that allowed him to flourish.

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

The spontaneity with which the majority of the events seem to occur renders Left-Handed Girl all the more impressive.

Gueros is as close as we’ll get to a parody of art house films while being a proud member of them.

The film doesn’t feel like a fiction. Instead, it plays like one of those great stories you hear late night over beers, and marvel, thinking, “That’s so wild it can’t be true… But I hope it its.”

A handsome historical drama featuring plenty of gorgeous gowns, powdered wigs, and bored aristocrats, the film is, however, an unusually earthy proposition where nature, in its most unmanicured and unwieldy form, plays a major role.

Lecoustre and Marre have the good sense to avoid ending the film on too positive a note — their protagonist has carried her grief for a long time, and she will not let it go overnight — but in delicate, truthful touches, they suggest for her the possibility of a future

Hong these days acts as his own D.P., editor, and composer, as well as being a writer-director, and there’s a stark elegance to Introduction, a sense of an artist honing his craft down to its simplest, most telling gestures.

With all this evocative material available it’s unfortunate that Kent lavishes so much of the overgenerous runtime on repetitive and redundant plotting.

The last quarter of Child's Pose is so remarkably strong that it makes a sometimes grim journey worth sticking with to its destination.

On the surface, Grandma is a simple story, but the script imbues it with deep reserves of emotional depth and meaning that are slowly, organically revealed over the course of the plot.

As the film progresses, the decoding moves beyond just camera positioning and movement. Soderbergh understands that the real value in following a strict set of rules is breaking them to startling effect.

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.

Running a tight 80-odd minutes, Williams' documentary is as concise as it is affecting and powerful, but he leaves just enough room for some indirect hits at some of the more loathsome subjects of the documentary.

Cloaked in a mystifying atmosphere and possessed by a transfixing, amorphous mood, Lucile Hadzihalilovic's Evolution is a beautifully strange hybrid of innocence and disturbance.

Through the increasingly ghastly parade of grotesqueries, Barker sharply comments on poisonous relationships.

The film is undeniably moving at times, and there are moments of metatextual elegance that feel as though they tremble on the brink of genuine insight.

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.

Not only is the film’s portrayal of Felicia tainted by ethnically inappropriate casting, but her character itself is often reductive—she is but the modern wife of a modern man, coming forth with a loose agreement on fidelity that inched Leonard across the finish line of a lengthy road towards marriage.

Project Hail Mary cycles through many phases, including a survival thriller, a buddy comedy, and a sci-fi adventure. Lord and Miller build appropriately toward this more serious pivot, even if there’s some herky-jerky motion amidst the transition. But that scrappy spirit of perseverance through imperfection feels in line with their hero’s own default operating mode.

James often frames her characters in close-ups with still backgrounds and lingers there for far too long, creating a transfixing atmosphere of discomfort. Through all her aesthetic craft, the house transforms into a physical manifestation of dementia with forgotten rooms, claustrophobic spaces, and walls that slowly close in on each other.

This rock doc rewrites punk history while telling an emotional story about an artist’s spirit and his faithful family.

Alex Wheatle combines the relevant themes that guide the prior “Small Axe” installments: music as an escape from one’s environment, police brutality, and a character adrift from his community — yet the writing struggles to connect the major plot points for big picture interpretations of Alex’s cultural self-education.

While its ambition does show a director still aspiring for great heights, its patchy execution only partly restores the faith.

Margolin’s directorial debut is often super entertaining with just enough style and patience to avoid the trappings of a broad, studio endeavor. It also has a ton to say about senior autonomy, aging, ageism (two very different things), and the bonds between family members, young and old.