It keeps the viewer at arm’s length from both the joys and aches of tweenhood, when all you crave is to get just a step closer.

Red Army is a thoughtful and cheer-worthy examination of how sports can shape cultures, redraw borders and change history.

The Post passes the trickiest tests of a historical drama: It makes us understand that decisions that have been validated by the lens of history were difficult ones to make in the moment, and it generates suspense over how all the pieces fell into place to make those decisions come to fruition.

Cunningham is valuable as an introduction to the work of this major artist, who is sometimes seen dancing himself in archival footage, unfurling his long legs and arms and exploring the most eccentric movements without fear or physical roadblocks of any kind.

Téchiné intuitively favors movement over chatter, and he directs his young actors toward intimate, yearning performances.

Ultimately, Luther: Never Too Much will have fans dancing in their seats, playing karaoke to some of his best slow songs, or in the mood for love, which is how his friends, family, and Porter want him to be remembered most.

Ergüven and her similarly green cast prove to be preternatural talents in delivering a story that’s simultaneously alarming and loads of tart-tongued fun.

The setup is durable, as “Russian Doll” has most recently proven, but Barbakow, Samberg, Milioti and writer Andy Siara find a freshness in the way they play with it and the way they mess with the romantic comedy tropes that are all but inevitable when you stick a couple together like this movie does.

Overall, The Kingdom is a rivetingly credible and vivid portrait of organized crime in an area with a long tradition of banditry.

Abbott (“A Most Violent Year,” HBO’s “Girls”) is a revelation, creating a multidimensional character whose battling, sometimes uncontrollable emotions are clear in his warm and expressive eyes.

It’s an undeniable triumph of mood — perfect for anyone who wants to practice clenching their fists for nearly 100 straight minutes — as well as an ambitious effort at reinventing horror by eschewing the genre’s common tricks.

The sense of loss post-1978 is pronounced, but there is also a sense of celebration and discovery in Is That Black Enough for You?!? that lets us see a whole world of lesser-known films just waiting to be viewed, re-viewed and appreciated in new ways.

What a delightful discovery this movie is, and what an incredible collection of impeccable performances. Ahn’s film finds the drama in the intentionally quiet life of introverts and lulls his audience into peaceful, wise, contented security.

Don’t Think Twice is an impressive feat on all accounts. For a performer whose greatest virtue is his layered, detailed storytelling, Birbiglia has made a surprisingly impassioned love letter to improv comedy. Like the “yes, and…” art form itself, the movie shoots from the hip, ducks and dives unexpectedly, and excitingly.

It’s a film that stands as a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and our ability to rebuild even after experiencing the worst.

Hardy might be past needing a star-making performance, but this is the kind of work that raises him to highest echelon of actors working in film today. He and Knight remind us that artists can astonish with the simplest of methods.

Diaz has made an epic-length small film about the powerless, one full of moral urgency that he chooses to elongate and slow down to a crawl. It’s a quiet consideration of grief and mercy, of control taken and freely given up.

For all of the film’s ideological richness, what Neptune Frost discusses is far from impenetrably abstract. The directors not only hack cinema, a medium historically dominated by white storytellers, to make a statement, but they also reposition its lens to center a fresh crop of artistic voices in a mesmerizing battle cry of a film set to the inextinguishable beat of the drums.

In a sense, Dos Estaciones creates its own gripping shot-chaser cycle of moods, the accumulative effect of landscape beauty, grim news, observed process (the machinery of making tequila), and abiding solemnity from Sánchez’s commanding turn, giving us plenty to digest when the incident-heavy final stretch occurs.

Instead of playing like the first of a series of Adonis Creed movies, Creed never rises above being one more by-the-numbers “Rocky” retread.

At its best, Bad Axe is a family portrait, dynamic and curious and funny. It’s to Siev’s benefit that he belongs to one of the most charismatic families of all time, whose unending curiosity in each other and their respective wellbeing keeps the engine chugging along.

The film’s empathy for the unwanted, its frustration at the system, and its uncompromising depiction of people trying to do the right thing when fate clearly has other plans, registers with real power.

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.

For fans of exquisitely conjured nostalgia, dosed liberally with a modern attitude, The Love Witch is a velvety melodramatic treat, and a real calling card for Biller’s playfully immersive gifts. Bring your gaze, whatever your gender.

Though Toni Morrison: The Pieces that I Am comes from a white storyteller, it distinctly and profoundly reflects the point of view of the subject herself. What we see is a woman who has always been in charge of her own narrative, no matter who wants to share it.

Swift and Wrench have done something truly special with the “Eras” film and that is making a colorful celebration of music and, unintentionally, cinema.

Lacking anything resembling a remotely conventional narrative, it just lets the conversation flow naturally and thus, Peter Hujar’s Day lives and dies based on its performances. Luckily, both Whishaw and Hall are outstanding, disappearing completely into their conversing characters.

What makes Provaznik’s film most effective, beyond just the care it shows to its young characters and the way it keeps their humanity at the forefront, is the fact that its story, no matter how disquieting it gets, is also frighteningly ordinary.

A peak-performance engine running wholly on charisma, Richard Linklater’s Hit Man revives and revitalizes a genre in awfully short supply.

Few movies this year will be as quietly sizzling as German filmmaker Christian Petzold’s “Afire,” a novelistic and sophisticated character study that kindles inside a chamber piece, as languid as a relaxed summer day and as heartbreaking as the end of a short-lived summer love.

In bold contrast to the flashier, more emotionally-charged documentaries of late, Riotsville, USA takes an approach more reminiscent of the PBS of old, or even C-SPAN, in the trust it places in the footage to tell the story.

Though they never call much attention to themselves, the expertly illuminated frames of cinematographer Leonardo Feliciano (“Araby”) paint the ensemble cast with purposeful and aesthetically pleasing lighting.

End of the Tour refrains from depicting the process of writing, but what it has to say about the act of creation, not to mention the act of talking about it to an interviewer, is rich and fascinating.

A thrilling, sprawling sensory overload that simultaneously enchants and overwhelms.

With its uncommonly human touch and restless, unflinching visual aesthetic, Vortex might well be Noe’s finest and most thoughtful work.

Holmes does an incredible job writing and directing this already action-packed narrative into an impressive documentary. He carefully weaves the crew’s interviews tightly together so that it seems like they’re almost talking among themselves, instead of in separate one-on-one interviews.

It’s not just the CG that’s visually impressive here; “War” boasts some extraordinary set pieces.

You Won’t Be Alone may not be a dumb or unimaginative exercise in style, but it also rarely encourages viewers to engage meaningfully with whatever’s on-screen.

It is a wholly uncompromising experience that dances with mirth and melancholy. Proving to be evocative in one moment and unrelentingly exhausting in the next, it’s as gorgeous to behold visually as it is hard to completely embrace thematically. And yet, if you abandon yourself to it by the end as one character says, you can catch glimpses of something spectacularly sublime in the vast journey that it takes on.

Even as it concludes on those notes of sadness and grace, “Street Gang” remains appropriately celebratory and thoroughly entertaining. Let’s face it, blooper reels in which Muppets blow their lines and curse will always be priceless.

If there is one disappointing element of this moving, amusing, sad and memorable film it’s that it isn’t five hours long.

If Lanthimos’ gloom-vision is decidedly more blunt, it’s no less accurate an assessment of every heartless thing human beings already inflict on one another. His is a wild, sad, mordantly funny dystopia, but one that gives sexual desperation the bad name it deserves.

Life and Nothing More wants to be a window where no part is unsmudged or unnecessarily ornamented, and the view is remarkable for showing what you rarely see in two movie hours: a respect for the naturally compelling immediacy of the everyday struggle.

Threaded throughout the peril is a simple but effective message about familial love, communication, and sacrifice, and there are just enough small moments — for the cast to convey with their faces between major frights — that serve to deepen things ever so slightly.

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

It’s not an easy story to stomach, but in this staggering documentary playing in competition at Sundance, the journalist-turned-filmmaker crafts a stunning, effective tale of reclaiming victimhood and the fight for justice.

Small Things Like Things is a modest gem.

Writer-director Rian Johnson assembles the makings of a great whodunnit for Knives Out and winds up making a good one. It’s a perfectly entertaining film, but its attributes and apparent ambitions make the results just a bit disappointing.

Thankfully, Hold Me Tight, with Amalric’s alert, empathetic stewardship and Krieps’ gripping portrayal, sets aside the banality of grief’s burden for something more alive and elusive, but no less affecting.

Nuts! is a brisk, engrossing, tongue-in-cheek film that unfolds at just the right pace — and it’s a piece of American history that couldn’t feel more relevant to modern times.

Faist, O’Connor and Zendaya have the ability to rise to the…challenge….but the script hampers them at every turn.

A hefty order of longing served with a side of crime thrills, Pig is flavorful, fascinating and fancy, crafted by someone who knows how to create a dish that’s accessible yet undeniably gourmet in its complexity.

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

It is not a subtle film, and its bluntness is occasionally potent but just as often wearying.

A movie that feels like a series of beautifully and meticulously crafted tiles in a half-finished mosaic; you can admire the pieces but still come away feeling like you’ve been deprived of the whole.

Although it might promptly be added to your holiday movie rotation as a new staple, The Holdovers doesn’t exactly feel like a new classic—it feels too familiar for that. Still, it does something tried-and-true so well and affectionally.

The writing leaves some unanswered questions, which viewers may interpret either as frustrating or as a reflection of the protagonist, who finds himself rudderless when he loses his hearing. Either way, Ahmed’s performance goes a long way in holding the film together.

Kaphar brings something special, narratively raw, but thematically refined to his first feature.

The in-country trek at the heart of the film is pretty routine by Lee’s standards; it’s the way he tells that story, the asides and the history lessons and the cutaways and the tricks that have become the director’s singular cinematic vocabulary, that make it a must-see in these stormy times.

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.

It’s a mostly enjoyably overstuffed model kit of adventure ingredients: talking dog heroes, an intrepid boy aviator, an outspoken girl reporter, garbage playgrounds, mechanical worlds, robot peril and mischievous humor. It’s even, for this director, tantalizingly political, venturing into dark territory about such utopia-bursting ills as bigotry and authoritarianism.

Certain Women gives us female characters who are smart and complicated and funny and imperfect, and it never hand-delivers a message regarding what we’re supposed to think about them.

Love is Strange boasts an abundance of patience and kindness — but not much of a pulse.

Hou’s brand of reserve might not be for all audiences, but arthouse admirers of cinematic stillness will find themselves enraptured by this hypnotic tale.

One of the most audacious American debuts of the year, writer-director Beth de Araújo’s Soft & Quiet shocks one’s system from its opening moments and doesn’t ever slow down to let you fully process it as it happens.

Shot with precision, written with elegance and unfolding at a thriller-like pace, A Hero should perform very well around the world after this bow.

The Northman is gory, muddy, hallucinatory — and intensely entertaining. An examination of the way that violence begets violence, and a study of how a life devoted to single-minded hatred and vengeance can lead to uncomfortable truths, this is a movie that lives up to every saga comic books and metal bands ever spun about the brutal conquerors of yore.

Neruda raises thought-provoking questions, offers no easy answers, and does it in with top-notch performances and a cinematic style that is intellectually, artistically and thematically compelling.

One of Ozon’s richest and most satisfying works in years — that rarest of literary adaptations, one that honors a foundational text precisely by finding something new to say.

Sicario calls to mind the films of the 1970s — not necessarily the ones we think of as capital-I Important, but the seamy, sweaty thrillers that subtly slipped in anti-establishmentarian messages amid the violence. It mixes arthouse and grindhouse into a most satisfying cocktail.

It’s disturbing and messy, a fever dream for a disturbing and messy time in Brazil. And occasionally, it’s a lot of fun, too.

Blade Runner 2049 isn’t about what happens; it’s about what this terrifying and beautiful world — how could it not be, with Roger Deakins behind the camera — tells us about life and perception and reality.

The competition in Step isn’t just to hit a stage and win a talent prize, but to beat the odds in life. Start figuring out now how to clap and dab away tears at the same time; it’s that kind of experience.

Experimenter is a largely engrossing sit, even during an unfortunate moment when Sarsgaard sings and the film threatens to become a musical. But as interesting as the developments are, they’re too inscrutable to stay with you for very long.

Actor-turned-filmmaker Fran Kranz’s choice of subject matter for his feature debut is certainly timely and provocative, but the emotions are too big and too messily human to fit into the tight box he has constructed to contain them.

It’s a film that hits hard, but it also nails its targets with precision.

Though an extension of the same tone that was experienced in his HBO series, this feature is more than just one very long episode of his show. Instead, it’s like Wilson has fully become a funnier, more frenetic version of Frederick Wiseman.

It’s not impossible to give audiences both a puzzle-box narrative and an exploration of life choices and what it means to be human, but the balance just doesn’t play here.

What [Cregger]'s getting at seems a lot less frightening, and a lot more contrived, than it would have had he not invited us to ponder more powerful possibilities for over an hour before tipping his hand.

The Daniels are unusually present ringmasters here, eschewing the flippancy that marred their splashy quirk-quake “Swiss Army Man” for a more big-feeling anarchic escapism. In their nifty code-switching, we-all-contain-multitudes metaphor, they’ve concocted something that feels genuinely attuned to our modern anxieties, but also embracing of our coping mechanisms.

Dhont tracks it with the elegant (if hardly new) symbolism of the changing of the seasons. Carefree summer gives way to the fall harvest, which soon leads to a winter of shared discontent. But he is a generous and patient director of his unknown and more established performers, giving all moments to shine.

Top Five is that movie precisely so good and yet still so flawed that you can watch greatness slip out of its ambitious but awkward reach right in front of your eyes.

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.

If an animated movie is going to offer children a way to process death, it’s hard to envision a more spirited, touching and breezily entertaining example than Coco.

If you can overlook the three or four endings of Bridge of Spies, each more overdone than the last, there’s a lot to like here.

In a movie culture with near-inescapable CGI, old-fashioned animation like Shaun the Sheep is always a treat — and a romp this ambitiously aimless is an all-too-rare marvel.

Aïnouz’s Invisible Life reflects the kind of love story we rarely see on-screen, and it’s a gem worth discovering for yourself.

Huerta comes across as warm, wise and indefatigable in Bratt’s provocative and inspirational film, but he doesn’t engage in hagiography.

MLK/FBI demonstrates documentary film’s ability to assemble and contextualize historical facts in a provocative and insightful way, and it’s a perfect launching pad for further exploration of the government’s assault on dissent and civil rights, not to mention the news and entertainment media’s acquiescence in being used as a propaganda arm.

He offers glimmers of what lies beneath the near-mythic, elegant exterior, but Larrain’s take is more impressionistic than revelatory, more presumptuous than knowing.

With bleak serenity of a man who has peered into the abyss and responded with a smile, the filmmaker offers no answer or easy way out to the intractable, and perhaps foundational, human capacity for hate than with his own virtuosic talent.

It's a lengthy burlesque on paranoia, on conspiracies both real and imagined, so dazed in its color schemes that Anderson clearly wants you to get stoned watching it. But the sense of being blissfully out-of-it, which can have its pleasures, soon drifts into another aspect of drug use: detachment.

Wardle spent five years making Three Identical Strangers after several other filmmakers had given up on this subject because they were always hitting a dead end, and so he deserves credit for journalistic doggedness and also for making a documentary that plays like a nerve-jangling thriller.

In other hands, this film could go kitsch, could all be a big joke, but Fargeat directs Lutz like no other Rambo-style action hero before her.

Midnight Family is both a compassionate portrait of a working-class family and a frightening ride through a broken healthcare system that risks the lives of both patients and providers like the Ochoa family.

A doc that always feels a little removed from its subject, as if Turner wasn’t fully committed to going through it all again.

There’s no real tonal conflict between the lightness of the comedy and the import of the issues it is addressing; American Fiction runs on serious conversations that are never bogged down by being treated too seriously.

It’s a film about hubris, selfishness, failed bureaucracies, and a stubborn inability to learn from past mistakes.