It’s a potent film that explores the roots of the brilliant but troubled Irish singer ... but it also turns her recent years into an afterthought, bypassing many of the highs and lows that led her here over the last two decades.

What makes "Lucy and Desi" so compelling is that we can feel, all the way through, that Poehler enjoys telling their story just as much as we enjoy watching it.

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.

Writer-director Mariama Diallo’s debut feature Master doesn’t just blur the lines between the horror genre and institutionalized racism; it convincingly argues that there’s no meaningful difference.

A strong ensemble cast, led by Sterling K. Brown and Regina Hall, does a lot of emotional heavy lifting in the otherwise lightweight mockumentary Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.

Much about God’s Country is provocative, raising critical questions about boundaries, environmental stewardship, community, inclusion, grief and more. It is, however, a slow burn, requiring patience and attention.

A warmhearted crowdpleaser undercut by moments of hesitation, Am I OK? has all the makings of an unqualified delight.

Ver Linden never goes the commercial route here with her high-concept idea. Like Palmer, she stays true to her goal but does give the audience several satisfying moments that call for applause.

It’s an intimately scaled film that still demands to be seen on the big screen; never once does it leave the impression that it would be best suited for a streaming platform. Hyde’s refined and attentive direction, Bryan Manson’s crystal clear cinematography, and Stephen Rennicks’ sparkling score have done wonders cultivating the sensual tone and texture.

At its richest and most riveting, when it’s seizing your breath or making you laugh or opening your eyes, Call Jane is about what it takes to come to that realization about true liberation, and what it means to see it through.

It feels like Dunham hasn’t progressed much after all this time.

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.

It’s a film that hits some narrative bumps along the way without diminishing its tougher observations about race, the police, and the treatment of veterans.

The control and confidence of its form, paired with an emotionality that is at once effortless and irresistibly powerful, makes the film feel to the audience the way those pointed and yet somehow ephemeral clips in Yang’s memory feel to Jake. In preying on a sensation that’s only indirectly remembered, the impact it makes becomes unforgettable.

Mimi Cave knows how to captivate and how to repulse, usually at the same time. She knows how to make us laugh and hate ourselves for laughing. “Fresh” is a breakneck emotional roller coaster, and like many roller coasters, it’ll also make your stomach churn.

Eisenberg emerges as a restrained filmmaker who has a clear idea of what he wants to communicate, and a clear, unfussy way of delivering it.

Walker-Silverman exhibits the sensibilities of a master storyteller, capable of making his splendid writing seem effortless in its construction and then molding it into warm magic via the cast’s remarkable talent. He’s an absolute revelation among emerging voices.

All in all, this electrifying and thought-provoking ride works as it chooses the searing over the subtle, a tough call when approaching a subject that warrants in-your-face urgency.

The press notes for Stop-Zemlia call Kateryna Gornostai’s coming-of-age story “radical, authentic, and sensitive.” The latter two descriptors are accurate. The movie’s power, however, comes not from any radicalism but from how authentically ordinary it feels.

The new New York Ninja often feels like a pre-fab midnight movie that was made with apparent love and care but without much urgency or creativity.

An aesthetically imaginative and affectingly breathtaking fairytale for our modern world, Belle envelops you first with its clever mechanics and youthful preoccupations. But as the reflective subtext comes to light, it extends an invitation to reconnect with others offline and to beware the comfort of these surrogate identities.

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.

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.

Gerbase shows talent here, but viewing The Pink Cloud requires nerves of steel that might not be available to even the strongest among us at this particular point in time.

While many of the jokes in Hotel Transylvania: Transformania probably won’t linger in your mind, they are still fairly well-executed.

The 355 is the kind of star-packed, glossy adventure that wants to be the launching pad for a franchise; instead, it’s going to be one of the films most mentioned in future discussions regarding January as a studio dumping-ground for misbegotten movies.

This is more than just a career-best for Collins — it’s a career-redefining performance. His talent for profundity was always there but previously untapped to this extent. Now the hope is that this won’t be a zenith for him, but instead a revitalizing rebirth.

If we absolutely must have another “Matrix” movie, if we can’t just let it be, then let it be this weird one. Let it be a film with an existential crisis. Let it be a film that’s half a nostalgia cash-in and half a biopic about a filmmaker who’s forced to make a nostalgia cash-in.