Equal parts horror masterclass and internal home-invasion thriller, “Ouija” is as chilling and nerve-racking as they come. It’s a sort of cinematic heart attack — irreparably damaging to the body and mind, with a slow recovery time.

Whiplash redefines the teacher movie (to say nothing of the young-musician movie) with a brutal energy and no easy resolutions. It's a challenging tune that will nonetheless get stuck in your head.

Though it deals with complicated emotions surrounding acceptance and individuality, Holmer’s movie, which she wrote with Saela Davis and Lisa Kjerulff, is a model of control, not unlike its strong, watchful central character.

This humanistic tale, helmed by a masterful filmmaker, offers a potent — and yes, inspirational — story of triumph against huge odds.

Liu points his lens at life and life does the work, guided by a masterful screenplay and tender performances.

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.

Reichardt and her outstanding team ensure that we are fully invested in her striving heroes, and equally anxious for their promising young country, as well.

My Imaginary Country is as much about the causes, participants and outcomes of a collective awakening in search of a more promising future as it is about an artist allowing himself to feel hope for a homeland that has forever been the focus of his artistic preoccupations.

Sauvage/Wild is dependent on Maritaud, who shows no fear or restraint when it comes to giving his entire body over to every one of his scenes, because this is a film partly about using your body as a commodity and how that commodity can decline and break down very early.

Shelton's comedy isn't just smart, but cheerfully wise; not just funny, but cleverly and endlessly so.

Lest you think this is all a bit much for one family to endure, Rasoulof’s storytelling acumen is firmly in the realm of propulsive, detail-driven ethical thriller built on its character’s actions, rather than mere punching-bag melodrama. And it goes somewhere, most importantly, with its ideas, leaving you after its final, devastating image with something to think about instead of simply abandoned with your rage or pity.

Leave the World Behind enters the stage as one of the year’s best and no doubt will spark massive amounts of conversation. It’s cast helps take viewers on a journey that, while they’ll feel the length, they’ll be so compelled by what’s happening it won’t even matter. Just don’t expect to sleep easy after seeing it.

A marvel of cinematic craftsmanship, Shadow acts curiously as both a return to form for Zhang Yimou and a perceptible departure. Not only are his characters more physically grounded, but his writing also seeks more ties to emotional reality even if the stories are still far from commonplace.

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.

Although “Wake Up Dead Man” is the “Knives Out” movie that’s most preoccupied with existential questions surrounding death, writer/director Rian Johnson’s third film in the series is also the one that’s most full of life.

It’s one of the best, most deeply felt and most gorgeously animated features of the year. On this or any other planet.

Deer, a rare filmmaker of Mohawk descent, portrays in Beans the hope and love that help people thrive in the face of such hatred.

As irresistibly romantic as it is awe-inspiringly gorgeous, Weathering With You on the whole satisfies the craving for more of what “Your Name” ignited in viewers, yet with slightly less impact.

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.

This is a movie that notices things and people that we are trained to ignore, and you are not likely to forget it.

Better Go Mad in the Wild is transcendent not because of big speeches or underlined ideas, but because of how it lets us sit back and watch two people, both flawed, funny and deeply human, struggle through another day.

Its terrifying story about death still leaves audiences with much to think about long after the credits roll, and the twists that lead to a new ending are fun to follow. Thirty years after the original movie frightened audiences, its source material has given new life to one of the best Stephen King adaptations in the past decade.

Ryusuke Hamaguchi is an expert at crafting films that subtly enthrall our minds, and this is just more proof.

McQueen and co-writer Courttia Newland, working with a talented cast and crew, bring us in so close that we can smell the smoke and the sweat, and swoon over the sensuality of slow dancing.

Avoiding the sophomore slump, Raiff’s delightfully sigh-worthy Cha Char Real Smooth is the type of sincere enterprise that could easily be spoiled with hackneyed platitudes or simplistically rose-colored plot points, yet here it sings with a wondrous candor and an unforced dramatic rhythm that turns it mightily irresistible.

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.

Paddington 2 is a sure-footed, sweet-natured family comedy which isn’t set at Christmas, but which glows with so much warmth and fun that it might well be a staple of festive television for years to come.

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.