Queen & Slim is convincingly and unapologetically multidimensional in its portrayal of its characters; as our perception of them shifts from one scene to the next, we realize they’re not ciphers for communities, cultures, arguments or belief systems, but individuals wrestling with who they are and how they present themselves to the world.

Stokes recorded every story she possibly could, from 1977 to 2012. By then, it had become a lot easier to chronicle both the minutiae and the magnitude of life in the 21st century. But has that been an improvement? Wolf leaves it to his audience to decide, after gently pushing us past any instinctual answers.

"Scandalous” is a fast-paced documentary, packed with incident and information, as tantalizing as an old issue of the Enquirer itself.

Disarming and delightful, the sleeper indie comedy Feast of the Seven Fishes proves anew that the most universal storytelling is also the most specific.

If the documentary starts to feel like a blur, that’s exactly how a member of Lil Peep’s entourage describes the experience of living beside someone who rose and fell so quickly.

Precisely because of how ravishingly constructed some of the set pieces turned out, it’s more of shame to see the storytelling’s structural lack of cohesiveness and subplot saturation clutter the view.

There’s no denying that Driver — with film after film cementing his status as a top-tier actor — is excellent at exasperated outrage, but it’s not enough emotion to save The Report from feeling like a handsomely mounted, expertly researched op-ed.

There’s a lot to like here, from a rich palette of autumn colors to a potentially provocative subplot that will teach children that nations need to acknowledge and atone for their historical sins, but in the final tally, this is a sequel that exists not because there was more story to be told but because there was more money to be made.

In Haynes’s psychologically and atmospherically astute compositions and careful nursing of the emotional impact on Bilott and wife Sarah (Anne Hathaway), it’s more a brittle ache of a quest than a righteous melodrama.

The chemistry between Bale and Damon is what makes the movie move the way it does, along with the script. Bale alone in the race car figuring out how to win and survive is where the film really sings.

These women wear what they want, love who they want, find fulfillment in their power, and support each other unconditionally. They’re not undermined by a script that highlights their flaws or insecurities, or a camera that reflexively leers at them. They get to just be, with all the freedoms and potential of any other fictional heroes.

Terruso has put most of her focus into the script and central performances, relying on minimalist production design and an indie rock and hip-hop soundtrack (Kil the Giant, Flipbois) that blend in rather than stand out.

You’ve seen many movies like this before, which isn’t to say it doesn’t have its charms.

The film is bland and predictable, underestimates kids’ abilities to understand story and humor, and relies way too much on sight gags that are clichéd and overdone.

The Good Liar really wants to be either a thriller or a caper. Unfortunately, it has neither the excitement necessary for the former nor the fun required of the latter.

Like many of Emmerich’s movies, even the better ones, Midway loses sight of the humanity inside its vast vistas of devastation. It’s a giant film with a very small impact.

Think of Last Christmas as director Paul Feig’s Christmas album; it won’t be the first comedy anyone thinks about in his accomplished filmography, but viewers might find themselves reaching for it come December all the same.

It doesn’t glitter, it doesn’t explode. It’s just fluffy and sweet. Bean’s film suffers a bit from minor technical issues and, despite a few improvements, it just doesn’t have the same emotional impact as the original, but it still deserves a good home.

It’s far more successful with holiday magic than it is with character-based comedy, but that’s not enough of a flaw to keep young audiences (and their parents) from potentially turning this feature into a cherished annual tradition.

It’s almost a romantic melodrama, but it’s emotionally inert. It’s almost a biting statement about cultural appropriation, but it barely shows its fangs. It’s almost a murder mystery, but it abandons the plot for vast periods of time. It’s almost a good film except, no, that’s really stretching it. At its best it’s an unfocused plod.

Arctic Dogs is a functional, distracting kids flick that’s only remarkable in how unremarkable it is.

As a documentary, The Apollo is an illustrative tour through its hallowed backstage, its history and an exploration into its current mission as a cultural institution. It’s a place whose present will always be tied to its past and to how we preserve that history for future generations.

There are the expected clichés voiced here about how music can transform hearts and minds, but Gay Chorus Deep South is most useful as a way of seeing how intolerance hides behind evasive Southern hospitality and how it might be vanquished with what that hospitality seeks to avoid: direct confrontation.

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.

Gender inequality may be a potentially complicating factor when it comes to sexual trauma (i.e., men can also be abused by women), but that provocative conceit isn’t considered with much care or intelligence.

As Motherless Brooklyn reaches back in time to explore racism and New York City’s history, it also brings us urgently back to right now — how we look at politics and leadership, what offenses we’re willing to accept, what ideals are still worth fighting for.

Like a servant to two masters, “Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep” wants both Stephen King and fans of Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film of his book “The Shining” to be happy. But sadly, it isn’t enough of its own chilling entity to have much impact.

As crushing as it is stirring, the gritty fable co-written for the screen by Clapin and Laurant (“Amélie,” “A Very Long Engagement”) finds an ideal visual medium in the filmmaker’s evocative animation.