The entire film could start to feel like a feature-length justification, but Darius manages to sidestep that path by never letting himself off the hook.

Heineman’s thesis that because leaving has gone so poorly, staying would’ve necessarily been better is incorrect at best, and disingenuous at worst. He wants to think structurally, aware that America can and does flatten other nations beneath our clumsy footfalls. He just can’t — or won’t — see the whole structure out of apparent fear that it’ll be too unflattering for all involved, including him, the army’s useful launderer of their image-sanitizing talking points.

It Felt Like Love, marks the arrival of a new crop of talent to watch, behind the camera and in front.

Outside In is not a story filled with events or even big moments, but, instead, accumulates its momentum through the numerous small decisions that eventually bring our leads to a hard won understanding.

Regardless of its minor flaws, Berger and his crew have crafted a faithful and heart-wrenching adaptation that fully realizes the novel’s trenchant anti-war themes.

An engaging and initially very promising drama about alcoholism, redemption and forgiveness that grows uneven and long-winded as it progresses.

99 Homes is by no means a perfect film, but it can achieve something more precious, and rarer than glossy perfection: it can take you by the shoulders and shake the apathy and complacency away.

While many will draw parallels between scenes involving civil unrest to the events of 2020, the philosophical differences between Hayden and Abbie — cultural versus electoral revolution, respectively — ring closely to the debates raging within progressive politics today, and actually prove more interesting.

Far from being copraganda, A Cop Movie, the new feature from director Alonso Ruizpalacios (“Güeros,” “Museo”), is a formally daring and incisive deep dive into their performance of authority.

If we’re being honest, Carney isn’t breaking new ground here, and I keep waiting for him to make a movie that will finally fully exhaust his Whole Thing. But Flora and Son is not that movie.

Batra's film is ultimately less about love than about the vulnerability relationships place us in emotionally, and courage required to move past pain, and experience life again after we've been hurt.

Ultimately, This Ain't California is a movie powered by nostalgia, a propulsive kind of dreamy reflection to a time and place that may not have existed with events that might not have actually happened, but have all the reality of a life that was truly lived.

Most importantly of all: it’s funny. Really, really funny, consistently and constantly.

Saulnier’s overall mise en scene is impressive. Everything from precision camera work, rigorous composition, framing and blocking, nimble, tight editing, and stress-inducing music, Rebel Ridge kicks ass in the best possible sense, entertaining, thrilling, and always captivating.

Heineman, in placing himself in such danger, has managed to create a remarkable and distinctive film that takes on a difficult issue that cannot be so conveniently remedied or ignored.

El Moudir, at long last, demands a reckoning, that will uncover old wounds, but also provide closure.

What the doc proves is that a talented filmmaker, combined with a thought-provoking subject and intensely fascinating characters can truly make some fun black magick pop off the screen.

This comedic thriller is witty and diverting without selling out on the Romanian reputation of thoughtful, challenging work.

As the moving, sad, riotously humorous documentary The Dog explains, the film only captured traces of Wojtowicz’s personality, and only told bits of his story.

Empowering, saddening, amusing and aggravating in roughly equal measure, with a very small side order of social critique, Bravo’s film marks a huge step up for her and a definitive answer to the question that @_zolarmoon posed to Twitter in October of 2015: yes, y’all do wanna hear the story about why she and this bitch here fell out!!!!!!!!

Despite a lack of access to Manning and Assange, We Steal Secrets is a vital document of a pivotal moment in world history that we’re still experiencing as we speak.

On the surface, Talk to Me is a blast of demonic horror that will make your skin crawl. Underneath, it offers a new twist on the teen horror film that explores the complexities of grief and the transition from childhood to adulthood.

Fascinating, atmospheric, and utterly strange in ways both good and bad, Ghostbox Cowboy pulls back the curtain on those trying to export the American dream and reaping the whirlwind.

Structured as a low-key chase movie, unfolding with the dark urgency of a conspiracy thriller, living mostly not in your heart or even your mind but in the hairs on the back of your neck, "Midnight Special" actually emerges most resonantly as an almost mournful ode, or maybe a psalm, to the primal instincts of fatherhood.

We’re implored to never forget through a format that makes particulars prohibitively hard to remember.

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

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.

The ensemble is perfectly cast (a rarity for this genre) which helps to make the first half a delightful slow burn instead of a check-your-watch-until-the-carnage-starts.