Both everything and nothing happens in Filipiñana, the cutting, confident, and ultimately formally captivating feature debut from writer-director Rafael Manuel.

This is a movie that’s rife with characters, with incidents, with ideas, with history, and as such, it will benefit from multiple viewings. But even after the first watch, The Irishman hits hard, and it’s a reminder that nearly 30 years after “GoodFellas,” Martin Scorsese still has fascinating mob tales to tell, and fascinating ways to tell them.

Spotlight is that rare journalistic procedural that deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as “All the President’s Men,” and while the movie never glamorizes or makes saints of its hard-working newsgatherers, it does stand as a reminder of the power and importance of a free press, particularly in ferreting out local corruption and malfeasance.

I’ve been to whole film festivals with less cinema than Steve McQueen packs into just two hours.

Del Toro’s Frankenstein is a remarkable achievement that in a way hijacks the flagship story of the horror genre and turns it into a tale of forgiveness.

Hittman wades into one of the more charged subjects of our time — abortion access — with the kind of sensitivity, focus and detail that will ensure its place as a dramatic standard for how to put a human face on a controversial topic.

Zola feels utterly contemporary but will no doubt be examined for decades to come, as a marker of both this particularly crazy time in history and of the moment that social media became self-aware. Whip-smart, funny, complicated, and just plain wild, Zola is 90 minutes of brilliance.

Birds of Passage weaves a tale that is both familiar yet unique, yet it is so culturally tied to the Wayúu, it would be impossible to move it outside the Guajira. The film fits very comfortably in the genres of a gangster movie and an epic, with supernatural forces forewarning what’s to happen in the earthly realm.

It handles real-life issues from a place of real compassion and understanding without reducing its characters to mere metaphor.

This fourth entry after a nine-year break for Damon and Greengrass should represent, for those ready and able to separate popcorn mayhem from the grim realities of world headlines, a bruising and exhilarating ride.

Their Finest delivers in a way that would please the Ministry of Information: it’s rousing and emotional, there are laughs and tears, and it portrays people trying and, mostly, succeeding at being their best selves in the service of their country.

Once the spell of Tigers Are Not Afraid ends and the credits roll, its story lingers in the air. It’s a story of sadness, loss and survival, a fairy tale tailor-made for our anxious times.

It’s the faces that stand out in Retrograde, a stylistic and thematic motif that offers an empathetic power to the film as well as an aching poignancy.

The character complexities grow out of Mills’ divinely extraordinary writing.

An elegantly stitched romance of vector-crossing emotional neediness, it’s set in an evocative ecosphere of haute couture fashion. But by the time it reaches its appetizingly perverse end, the film primarily reaffirms Anderson’s own skill at hand-crafting exquisitely conflicting interior and external worlds.

A sumptuous travelogue it is not; a visually stunning, soul-clenching examination of the curious push/pull between humans and the environment it most certainly is.

The good news is that this continuation is a similarly rousing and savvy adventure that energetically serves up more of what we love — from the sleek retro-futurist designs to the ticklishly severe Eurasian super-clothier Edna Mode — and yet wisely, wittily, reverses the first film’s accommodating traditionalism to make for an even richer, funnier portrait of its tight and in-tights family.

Unlike the “memberberries” school of nostalgia that can reduce itself to “I had that lunch box!” Linklater gets granular and specific (and thus universal) about his memories and his perceptions of the world at that time.

It’s hard to watch Notturno at times, but to the director’s credit it’s also impossible to look away.

The film feels true in the way it must be exploring Branagh’s memories of a tumultuous and confusing time, and the way it pays tribute to a vibrant community as that community is irrevocably changed.

Fassbender manages to find the psychological throughline that makes Macbeth’s increasing mental deterioration — a development that can feel overly formalistic, not to mention moralistic — wholly convincing.

Like “Crazy Rich Asians,” not everyone is going to feel represented when they watch In the Heights. That’s an impossible task for any movie. Yet In the Heights can represent many things for many different viewers. It can be a story about ambitious, hard-working people chasing their dreams. It can be a reflection on the immigrant experience and the struggle to find where you belong. It can also be a tribute to our parents’ sacrifices.

Booksmart is, by far, one of the most perfect coming-of-age comedies I have ever seen.

The Sisters Brothers gallops on screen with a lot of ambitions, and it fulfills them all. It’s a sprawling Western that’s also an intimate character piece; it has moments of wit but also devastating tragedy; it delves into larger themes like the impact of fathers upon sons, and how greed and industrialization lead to environmental devastation, and yet it offers the hope of redemption.

There’s something here for lovers of all kinds of movies — even silents and musicals — but the director transcends mere pastiche to craft a work that feels like the product of our collective film-going subconscious.

Is the relentlessness too much? At two and a half hours, perhaps, but inventiveness abounds.

Ree’s magnificent documentary takes its audience not only through the tragic elements of Mats’ life—the diagnosis of his illness, his decline, his untimely death—but the good parts, too, through effective testimony and powerful archival images, audio and video.

Pixar could easily retire this series with a clean sweep of films that have been lovely to look at and moving and funny to watch. But if they can maintain this level of wonderful, keep ‘em coming.

We’re here for the kills and, again, every single kill in 'Final Destination Bloodlines' is a winner. Every time a head explodes, which is a lot, you’ll want to stand up and cheer.

Kate Beckinsale and Chloe Sevigny spin intrigues, break hearts and flirt with scandal just as effectively in the 1790s setting of “Love” as they did in “Disco,” which took place in the early 1980s.

Just in time for the holiday season, no matter what you believe spiritually, your soul will soar and be lifted through the words and imagination of Alice Walker. Bring some tissue, you’re going to need more than a few.

It’s a movie that viewers might find difficult to love but slow to forget.

Invoking genre narrative devices, the entrancingly evocative La Llorona (The Weeping Woman) walks between fact and myth to engender a shrewdly frightening piece of political horror.

Toni Erdmann is a thoroughly confident and impeccably executed comedy of oddball family functionality.

Mirren, as ever, is both polite and brusque, her petite va-va-voomness never undermining her credibility as a tough military top-ranker. And Rickman — oh, that dryly sarcastic voice.

Gerwig has an eye for every step of this character’s journey, and in so doing, sets out on her own path toward what promises to be an exciting directorial career.

As crushing as it is stirring, the gritty fable co-written for the screen by Clapin and Laurant (“Amélie,” “A Very Long Engagement”) finds an ideal visual medium in the filmmaker’s evocative animation.

Kinky as hell and also extremely romantic. That’s not a combo a lot of movies go for nowadays, let alone pull off this beautifully, and that makes Pillion something of a miracle.

By centering the real-life experiences of his actors, Costa’s conscientious cinema lives in a fully humane space. Material deprivation and unrelenting night provide a blackened backdrop for quiet intimacy and dignity. Costa rejects voyeurism and condescension in favor of a form of storytelling solidarity with his actors, one where there’s no buffer of irony, no distancing effects.

Where Fury Road stands apart from so much of today’s action cinema is that the human element remains front and center.

Like another breakout independent film this year, “The Tale,” Tan’s documentary attempts to portray her own narrative with objectivity and distance, but she discovers along the way that such a thing may not be possible, that memories will wait years or decades to snag you in their truths.

Prey is a glorious monster flick, a sly revisionist Western and a really cool “Predator” sequel for viewers who don’t mind a little fan service here and there.

Whether Terminator: Dark Fate is the last chapter in this story or the first in an all-new franchise is, for now, irrelevant. The film works either way, bringing the tale of the first two films to a satisfying conclusion while reintroducing the classic storyline, in exciting new ways, to an excited new audience. It’s a breathtaking blockbuster, and a welcome return to form.

The Peanut Butter Falcon is charming, enveloping, and an absolute joy.

It’s a dark, disturbing and glorious film about a dark, disturbing and glorious band, and another sign that Haynes knows how to put music onscreen in a way that few other directors do.

Aside from exploring the housing crisis benefiting developers and startups, “Last Black Man” hones in on male friendship from the standpoint of two young guys whose fraternal bond surpasses any need for the posturing associated with toxic masculinity.

Let the Corpses Tan is high-octane high art. It’s incredibly violent. It’s unexpectedly playful. It’s strikingly sumptuous. And its depths could easily be mistaken for shallow stylistic overtures. But if you examine the surface more closely, you’ll discover it’s impressively smart. It may be one of the most rapturous movies of its kind.

This is wickedly exciting filmmaking. The rare, flashy studio blockbuster that doesn’t read like a laundry list of creative compromises, where the money went to telling a story about fascinating characters and putting them in impossible, gorgeous, and horrifically violent situations.

Pearl isn’t just great; it retroactively makes its predecessor great, too. It’s a handsome and sad horror drama, with scenes and shots and performances that will make you wonder if you’re supposed to laugh, cry or shriek. Until you realize that the best part of this film is that you are absolutely supposed to do all three. And you probably will.

The ugly truth is that society has routinely failed to protect poor women and children, and it’s still failing. Guzzoni uses all his talent to amplify this sad reality and, in turn, solidifies his position as a leader of the New Wave of Latin cinema

This new Scream is a killer. Smartly scary and scary smart, consistent with the history of this series but unafraid to piss off fans if it’s for the good of the story. This satire of requels may very well be the first requel done right. It’s a scream, baby.

Scarlet' might be [Mamoru Hosoda]'s most narratively ambitious work to date, adapting and warping one of the most famous tales ever told, adding new layers of complexity, and centuries of new, invaluable context.

The bracing thing about It Was Just an Accident is that it has married Panahi’s wit and humanism with real anger; if many of his previous films lulled you into realizing his points about oppression and injustice, this one is downright confrontational.

Ronan’s fiery Mary and Robbie’s emotionally complex Elizabeth truly reign divine on screen.

Found is told with such genuine love that it’s frequently hard to hold back tears. Once again Lipitz has focused her lens on the magic of girls and found real treasure.

McQueen and co-writer Alastair Siddons capture that sense that the children of immigrants often have of living with one foot in their adopted country and one in their parents’ homeland.

There’s no extraneous storytelling here, no scene that feels unnecessary, no scary moment that plays like it’s pandering. This is the expertly told, horrifying story of an abusive relationship filtered through the lens of a classic horror movie monster.

What’s perhaps most fascinating about this documentary is how sure-footed Allred has been in picking her battles over the years.

Land of Mine is a powerful epic, superbly acted, tense and unsettling, but also poignant and occasionally tender.

Fast and funny, filled with memorable characters, and able to balance slapstick and violence without spilling too far in either direction, this frenetic R-rated farce is that rare comic gem that lands on all the spaces without ever going to jail.

Zobel’s film grapples directly with the political spectrum and uses everything we love and hate about each other as fodder for humor and horror.

The Incredible Jessica James is an enchanting, deftly-written and witty movie for lovers and haters of romantic comedies, as well as for all those in between.

The Banshees of Inisherin is lovely and disturbing in equal measure, turning its darkest urges and blackest humors into a touching and evocative portrait of a time, a place, a community and a pair of crazy men.

Alfonso Cuarón has created a heartfelt masterpiece of mood and nostalgia, one that reminds us that his gifts as a storyteller and an interpreter of the human experience are not dictated by scale of production.

It’s incredibly thrilling to watch, impressively emotional throughout, and easily the best Spider-Man movie since “Spider-Man 2.”

Inventively, Gilroy utilizes exaggerated horror tropes to take to task our cynical thoughts about artistic creation. His sharp Velvet Buzzsaw is an exquisitely diabolical exposé on the merciless materialistic ambitions that run rampant in cultural fields.

A masterful, cinematic biography that unpacks a man’s life through his work, showing us an uncompromising and difficult man who apparently wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Killers of the Flower Moon is vast and vital in its scale, purpose and emotional scope, a Western-thriller and ensemble piece that is every bit a Scorsese crime picture as one can dare to imagine.

A mesmerizing study anchored by three incredible leads, each working at the height of their craft. The material is rife for exploration, rich with nuance and discoveries. And the ending packs a wallop.

Thanks to Gerwig’s imagination, this Barbie is far from plastic. It’s fantastic.

The film is one of the most meditative of Almodóvar’s career. ... It makes for less energetic and, yes, less exciting filmmaking. But “Pain and Glory” is a beautiful meditation on past and present, a memory piece that will nourish rather than provoke.

It’s powerful, provocative and devastating, blending the incisive power of dramatic emotion with the immediacy of the evening news.

It is subversive, stomach-churning and visionary, a body-horror film that doubles as a fable of femininity gone wrong.

In the end, Lelio earns the powerful close of The Wonder with every temperate turn. His film, a career-best, departs like a birdsong, with an optimistic finale as perfect and revelatory as they come.

Wild Tales represents the work of an exceedingly skillful storyteller.

Marjorie Prime is a contemplative, intimate and poetic chamber piece, superbly told and nimbly acted, with equal parts nuance and empathy.

A sensual, ingenious update of Ibsen’s classic play, honoring the grand theatrical tradition and transforming it into new, ecstatic cinema.

The Go-Go’s tackles the seminal all-female ’80s rock band with such honesty, openness and effervescence that it not only rises above that clichéd, almost telegraphed arc but transcends the ranks of other music documentaries to offer a story you desperately want to keep watching, even when you already know where it’s going.

The team behind this new “Mission: Impossible”—like the makers of all the installments that came before it—seem to know on a deep level why viewers flock to this group of action movies: the indispensable big-screen proficiency and collective soul of the series first and the plot of individual chapters, second.

This second part is lighter, more playful, growing in confidence along with its protagonist, in a terrific performance from Byrne. But it’s also full of gentle, cherished acts of memory . . . that build up powerful reminders of the past.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood finds a gentle state of grace and shows the courage and smarts to stay in that zone, never rushing things or playing for drama.

This isn’t just a great horror story; it’s genuinely scary. You may be able to recognize familiar elements in its DNA, but it’s mutated into something distinct and unsettling. What a showcase of shocks. What a devilish debut.

The film has its twists, turns and resets, simultaneously giving the audience more information while also keeping it off balance. It can be riveting and at times repetitive, but it does what it sets out to do: It drops you in the middle of a crisis and it keeps you there.

The only agenda of this scruffy and urbane comedy, about a young comic contemplating abortion, is to be true and funny.

Like so many memorable yet hard-to-describe movies, Why Don't You Play in Hell? takes a ridiculous concept and commits to it fully. You might laugh with surprise or shriek in horror — both, most likely — but you certainly won't dismiss it.

The characters in The Whistlers turn language into music; Porumboiu does something very similar with criminality and corruption.

This is a polished, straightforward account of harrowing events, told with empathy and relative objectivity. If you’re looking for an entrée into one of the most bizarre, complex chapters of human history, look no further.

Nuremberg benefits not only from a terrifying performance from Crowe in a larger-than-life role like those that defined the early part of his career, but also from the ensemble of actors.

Arriving at a time when conversations once reserved for academics have filtered into popular culture, “Who We Are” never plays like the product of some Hollywood bandwagon effort. Instead, its existence speaks to the power of cinema to reflect the times by sparking conversations and changing minds.

For all its brittle hilarity, Potter has shot her film in black and white. In context, it plays as an avatar of artistic seriousness. Or a warning with implications worth heeding.

Resurrection pushes about as far as it can possibly go, and the incredibly game cast supplies much of the pressure.

Ultimately, of course, it’s Buckley who makes Rose-Lynn soar off the screen. It’s a dazzling, raw, intoxicating performance, and when she sings, it’s simply electric.

Assayas clearly loves actresses — their spontaneity and their self-doubt, and the mercurial way they can switch from one to the other — and Clouds of Sils Maria offers both a compassionate exploration of their lives and a powerful showcase for three of them to do some of their best work to date.

Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom is more than what Ang Lee calls a “breath of fresh air”; it’s an affirmation that all films, however humble their origin, can matter and be counted.

The pacing, the performances (Albert Brooks is a stand-out as Abel's lawyer), and every facet of the production serves the story and the film's larger ideas.

The chasm of the wealth gap and the slow destruction of the middle class should matter to us all, and films like Two Days, One Night remind us of the human faces affected by corporate greed.

In her narrative debut, Diop has found a way to mix her hard-hitting documentary style with fiction to raise a mirror to society. This new arena, with its wider reach, makes Diop an exciting filmmaker to watch.

There are plenty of laughs — and nothing that goes over a kid’s head to an adult funny bone is smutty or smarmy — and the sentiment never feels strained or artificial.