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.

Detail is what makes Official Competition a joy to behold.

Once it becomes clear that this is no mere murder mystery, and the bizarre turns into the ludicrous and into the depraved, Dumont’s analysis of life’s toughest questions (reaching for an understanding of the very essence of evil) as told through the simplest of ways becomes tremendously captivating. And it’s worth noting, again, just how laugh-out-loud funny this is.

It’s a unique profile of Matlin, and by incorporating a wealth of her similarly deaf friends, the film sits in stark contrast to its contemporaries; when any interviewee uses sign language, and the sound drops to near zero, it’s hard not to feel all the more engaged.

Through subtle detail, a degree of convenient biopic irreality, and a pace that encourages viewers to think beyond first impressions, the film shows a relationship with elements of abuse that is much more complex than the label often suggests.

Make no mistake: The Innocents is no young adult novel adaptation, and things get very dark very quickly.

Throughout the documentary, infectious joy leaps off the screen with the same energy the color-guard teams display.

Given his story’s curlicues and lack of overt judgment, Ree does not appear to be interested in a clear morality story about forgiveness or opposites coming together. However, The Painter and the Thief does leave room for a kind of redemption at its conclusion.

It’s hard to recall a movie that leaves you with this feeling of genuine hope.

Unique and unfazed, hilarious yet philosophical, Black Bear is the comedic form reinvented and re-conformed to mad and intoxicating ends.

When the final moment comes and it's revealed how the children died, it's less of a surprise than a shrug. Drama robbed of suspense is just dull.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things is a weird, infinite, messy cacophony of reflections, somehow expansive in its narrowness and confrontational in its honesty to a soul-baring degree.

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.

Lurker is the sort of film that lingers with you for days.

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.

Speak No Evil might not be a thrill-a-minute film, but it’s effective in a way that many horror movies just aren’t anymore. Watching it evokes the feeling of inching closer and closer to the end of a cliff; at any moment, you feel like you might still escape the situation until you eventually reach the point of no return.

This lacks the zest and dynamism of Jude’s more subversive output, though even a minor work from a major filmmaker still manages to thrill and tantalize.

Enough Said is another tremendously well crafted, intelligent dramedy about people, with complicated lives, who make bad decisions trying to do the right thing.

The third act often feels more like a cinematic exercise than a filmmaker who has something to say.

Vacillating between a playful comedy and a brooding melodrama, it’s a wonderful example of how one can work within the confines of homage yet emerge with a unique work in its own right.

It’s a beautiful tribute and a wonderful farewell to a legend, father, and artist.

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.

Ly makes it hard to paint these characters in broad strokes, no matter how we might try.

It’s a film that requires you to indulge its patience-testing pace, monotonous dialogue delivery and frustrating anti-characterization for a very long time before you earn the right to unwrap the borderline transcendent gift of its absolutely beautiful ending.

The primary factor permitting Styx to warrant any sort of recognition is inarguably Susanne Wolff’s dynamically subtle performance.

Sujo may not be a movie with which everyone will connect or find a wealth of relatable aspects, but the quality on display is enough to warrant a view.

As much as “Top Gun: Maverick” whips from a technical, visceral, thrill-making, supersonic-level, the entire endeavor and every little moment of introspection, suffering and determination is all the more accentuated, strengthened and fist-pumpingly good because you care so damn much about the story, the people and their very human concerns.

It is a loving — and highly entertaining — ode to the outcasts who dream of nothing more than a life filled with fixing whirring gadgets and afternoons spent in “Star Trek” matinees.