If you’re open to its unconventional, idiosyncratic flavors, Licorice Pizza is a wonderfully wistful and evocative ode to youth, done by a masterfully poised filmmaker who doesn’t really care if this ain’t your bag. All our welcome and invited, of course, but PTA’s mellow and balmy effort feels like it’s enjoying itself too much to care if you haven’t caught on to its whole-hearted drift.

By providing a voice to the voiceless, The Alabama Solution invites audiences into what they successfully argue is nothing less than a new frontier in the ongoing civil rights movement. Institutions may need more time to change, but any viewer of this film should only need two hours to be galvanized into action.

With Only Yesterday, Takahata not only succeeds in transmitting how years can flash by, but also the way that passage of time makes clearer the moments that define our character, and go on to influence how we choose to live later.

Seeds may be indebted to the elder subjects that Shyne centralizes, but it’s also a film that dares to look forward, suggesting that — despite everything — these farms will continue.

First Cow is faint, deliberately paced filmmaking where you can often hear a pin drop. But in its tiny way, the modest and gentle little film is moving and poetic.

Come for the blistering, full-tilt action, stay for the thought-provoking consideration of the post-apocalypse.

More than anything else the film becomes a celebration of these two lives and the era of music that both created and destroyed them.

We’d be reminiscent to not admit this is the sort of movie that’s hard to shake. We haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. Considering how rare that is, maybe that’s just as gracious a compliment as admitting to bawling while the credits roll.

Reuniting with a majority of his “Ida” and “Cold War” collaborators, a 1:37 aspect ratio, and cinematographer Lukasz Zal’s masterful black and white compositions, Pawlikowski, whether intentional or not, has crafted a trilogy of films that chronicle the painful reverberations of the Second World War. With “Fatherland,” he’s also holding up a mirror. A reflection on today and, more likely, the near future. How will you treat those complicit in war crimes and humanitarian horrors? How will you grieve a world that is gone? Or will you grieve at all?

Blue is the Warmest Color is a masterpiece of human warmth, empathy and generosity, because in a mere three hours, it gives you a whole new life to have lived.

[Anderson's] unobtrusive aesthetic, calibrated to highlight his actors and, of course, the fashion, belies its deceptive luxuriousness. This is a movie you’ll want to live in for the pure joy of reveling in Anderson’s effortless mastery.

Chris Kim’s skittering collage of a documentary Wojnarowicz doesn’t explore his career from the outside but rather works ground up through his art to present an experiential plunge into the raw tumult of the New York art scene just before and following the onset of AIDS.

A masterwork of self-introspection through the canvas of cinema, The Souvenir: Part II is a meta epic of delicate proportions that constantly folds into itself and reveals the murky waters that border fiction and the reality that inspires it, sometimes, like in this case, more directly than others.

For all its sprawling ambition, Schilinski’s sophomore feature is most effective and moving on a human scale. A dissociative film, it recreates the febrile sensation of a mind splintered by too many painful truths, which continue to linger in the body long after they’ve vanished from memory.

This is far more than just a film.

Mangrove is rebellion. Mangrove is liberation. McQueen’s Mangrove, in its every personal minute, is love and devotion, not just to the now, or even the past, but for the progress of Black generations yet to come.

Holland has made a righteous, masterful work, arguably her best since “Europa Europa,” but it’s not for the faint of heart or those inclined to turn a blind eye to suffering. And again, that’s the point.

Oppenheimer lands with nothing short of the mighty impact suggested by its legendary stature. But Nolan is less interested in reifying myths so much as he’s invested in rectifying them.

The minute-to-minute detail is absolutely stunning, from the period costumes to the on-set locations, there’s a searing authenticity to the time period that is undeniably absorbing. However, the almost too tightening restraint he gives his film forces us to quickly witness its events rather than be enveloped or moved by them.

The most remarkable aspect of Victor’s accomplishment with Sorry, Baby isn’t her wry sense of humor and deft observations about the inherent awkwardness of human social interactions (although it consistently pops). Instead, it’s how she emphasizes the seriousness of the events while staying true to Agnes’ unique personality.

Boynton's film is refreshingly complex.

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.

An unfeasibly charming film full of little wisdoms and quiet comforts where we might expect to find provocations, its only deception is that it is so much richer than it seems at first glance.

There's vision here, clearly, and through the use of eye-catching frames and a standout score, "The Fits" works like magic as an experimental performance piece. As an engaging work of well-rounded cinema, however, there are more than a few missteps.

Although movies like “Goodfellas” are indisputable forebears for Russell’s decadent tale of crime and punishment, the filmmaker distinguishes himself by creating a complex and compelling web of manipulation between the characters that eventually supersedes any of their scheming or con artistry.

The Overnighters is starkly bleak and devastatingly humane, and an indelible American documentary.

The quest to be the best is a familiar film story, but if director-writer Chazelle has achieved anything here, it’s a deeply and richly different take on that journey—not only examining the cost of struggle but the reward of it, showing both what it takes to be great and what happens when you don’t have it.

perhaps the greatest achievement is in how brilliantly the film balances the trademark Dardennes social conscience with a conceit that plays out almost like a ticking-clock thriller, as well as being a deeply felt character study.