Tito and the Birds is extraordinary proof that universality comes from specificity. Sometimes there is nothing more globally relevant than a hand-crafted Portuguese-language animated indie.

It’s a magnificently unflinching film from a master director in the making, whose thunderous strength will surely make waves in Bustamante’s Central American homeland and abroad.

A treat for anyone with a taste for rock, for rock imagery and for the glories that can be found in that piece of cardboard wrapped around a record. Anton Corbijn knows those glories well, so his movie’s got a good beat and a good look.

Make no mistake: This is an angry movie, both in form and in content.

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

Though Greenfield is too skilled to overplay her intentions, the picture that emerges gains additional power from its clarifying distance. The Kingmaker is required viewing for anyone concerned about the direction of their own democracy.

This is a triumph for Bernal and for Williams and all his collaborators, a film that takes on very fresh territory and suffuses all of its frames with love for all of the people in it.

If a movie’s going to take us to “Chinatown,” it needs to come up with a new and different path to get there. Instead, the film revels in its genre trappings, only to grab at gravitas in the last ten minutes with the sudden introduction of historical iniquities into the story.

Road to Revenge is everything you could want from a rough-and-tumble, tough-as-nails action movie. 'Sisu' was even more of it, but only by a matter of degrees.

It’s hard to watch September 5 without feeling some serious ambivalence – but in a way, that’s one of the strengths of the film, because it embraces that ambivalence as a necessary part of the story.

Schnabel creates a natural, immersive motion picture that conveys the experience of being, living with, and painting like Vincent Van Gogh.

Its feverishly edited volume of concert footage and first-person interviews occasionally delivers a slightly dizzying chronology of Bernstein’s life and times, but Tirola does an exceptional job of showcasing the irrefutable truth that he contained a few more multitudes than most.

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

The current results don’t necessarily redeem this troubled film, but seeing it again might remind audiences that it’s better than they remember. Certainly, this time out, it’s better than it’s ever been before.

King Richard may be a fairly straightforward biopic, but it’s an enjoyable one, giving viewers the chance to enjoy a heartwarming if not uncomplicated story, talk about parenting and the stresses the many characters faced on their way to the history books

Stolakis is not afraid of complication.

Decker is a superbly imaginative director, which leaves one wishing her creative powers had pushed the film even further away from the constraints of reality. But that’s a downside that comes with working from material written by another artist.

For its combination of ambition and audacity, this is a glorious piece of cinematic insanity.

By taking the mob film back to its basics of land, family and death, Munzi’s film strips away artifice, cliche and gun-in-fist glamor to make a story of family and fury that burns cold and slow.

At a brisk 86 minutes, What We Do in the Shadows never sags or drags, delivering its comic punches with surgical precision and then getting off the stage. Being immortal doesn’t mean you have to lose your sense of timing.

Even if this material might have been better served as a 40-minute short than as a full-length movie, first-time feature director Dan Trachtenberg has cast a trio of actors at the top of their game, and they elevate the material.

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.

The dramatic weight loss Gyllenhaal endured for the role, which transforms his dreamboat looks into a bat-like mask, is startling. But the actor's performance is just as impressive, nimbly selling Gilroy's occasionally overwritten lines while Louis’ punishing optimism finds new gradations of sadism and rage. Nightcrawler is the arrival of a thrilling character actor.

The Woman King possesses broad appeal. It’s an oft-told tale, yes, but here imparted with a fresh angle and a meaningful moral. And it has something in store for those who prefer the action genre, too.

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 first half is a drowsy day at the office, full of complex paperwork minutiae that, too much of the time, doesn’t even pan out by the end of the movie. The second half is more horrifying to think about but less scrupulously presented and, as such, harder to believe.

American Symphony is about the creation of art in the face of pressure, tragedy and heartbreak, and about the tension between the glory of creation and the pain of living. It manages to capture the glory but it never ignores the price.

It looks amazing, of course, but it might well be the least involving movie he’s ever made, with an amazing cast providing little but momentary distraction.