Though the film only provides a snapshot of a moment in time, Culkin’s performance is so spectacular that it makes it feel as though we have known Benji forever.

Neugebauer, Lawrence and Henry deliver an unhurried gem that might feel slight but always feels right.

Jordan Peele has made an extraordinary leap in genre here, and he’s also crafted a horror film that has more blistering observations about race than half a dozen well-intentioned Oscar-bait dramas.

It’s a daring mix of genres, but it works, as though Noah Baumbach had been called in to do a rewrite on “How to Steal a Million.” Steven Knight wrote and directed one of the best (“Locke”) and worst (“Serenity”) films of the last decade, but when he is good, he is very, very good, and his skillful handing of relationships and claustrophobia and corporate-speak is matched by Liman’s ability to bring all of this to fruition.

Although fascinatingly hilarious, Hail Satan? is a conventional non-fiction effort on the technical front, but Lane does spike her frames with an offbeat score by Brian McOmber (“Little Woods”) that reaffirms the quirky tone of the piece with circus-like melodies.

You don’t have to love De Palma’s movies to find De Palma a fascinating look at a vital period of American film history, through the eyes of a controversial artist.

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.

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.

Everything about this one is lovely and magical, but it’s also deeply heartfelt.

A riveting combat movie that aims to put viewers alongside American soldiers in the midst of one of the bloodiest battles in the long-running war, “The Outpost” takes the measure of what a few dozen men endured and finds heroism not in enemies killed but in compadres saved.

This cut makes a film that felt like a failure into one of Coppola’s very best pictures. This movie is a feast with all the trimmings, and then some.

An exquisite, hand-drawn marvel and an alternatingly jubilant and heartrending epic pastoral.

That’s Hard Truths, in a nutshell: people. People you won’t forget, courtesy of a handful of remarkable actors and a singular director who at the age of 81 remains a true treasure.

Though Dheepan is another triumph for Audiard, it could have just as easily not worked had its leads not been so affecting

This film marks the emergence of a potentially great dramatic filmmaker, and that makes sense. After all, this is a great film.

The Father is an unsettling film, but it’s also a compassionate one; family members of those suffering with dementia can turn to it for an empathetic portrait of how that disorientation must feel on the inside. It’s one of the most disturbing films in recent memory, but it’s both understanding and unforgettable.

For a film at least partly about music, Deliver Me From Nowhere makes effective use of silence, especially in the moments when Springsteen finds himself adrift rather than inspired.

Mounia Akl’s debut feature film Costa Brava, Lebanon is valiant filmmaking. Using the beauty of cinema to show the destruction of man’s cruelty to the environment is not just effective — it’s heartbreaking.

Unflinching yet unburdened, Miss You Already is like the best kind of hug: warm, reassuring, cathartic, and a fleeting but vital reminder that there’s at least as much good in the world as there is bad.

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.

First-time helmer Peter Sohn and screenwriter Meg LeFauve (“Inside Out”) have created a fantastic and frequently exhilarating feature that showcases Pixar’s greatest strengths: technical brilliance, emotional texture, crossover appeal, and an impish sense of humor that takes the utmost advantage of the animated form.

“Civil War” strikes that admirable balance: serious-minded action that never forgets to indulge in serious fun.

Violent Night is one of the Yuletide season’s most delightful surprises, not just for what it gets right but also for the many ways the whole production could have gone very, very wrong.

Gurrola and Alzati throw themselves into their performances, completely unafraid to explore the full range of physical and emotional characteristics of the people they’re playing.

In Gutierrez’s vivid and moving film, Kahlo is in no less than full, glorious view.

Conroy wrote the book upon which the film is based and serves as the film’s central mouthpiece; full of twitchy, animated energy, he makes a terrific storyteller who’s boosted by Martin’s selection of found footage along with a minimum of jangly re-creations.

The result is one of Hong’s most emotionally generous films. In a career full of small triumphs, it’s a beautiful gesture of family love, of non-specific spiritual awakening, and self-possession meant to create outward waves of goodness.

It is by turns scatological, hilarious, art-referential and, ultimately, moving.