Redemptively, the cast goes a long way: Jean Desailly is perfect as a jowly literary celeb deep in midlife crisis, while the aloof Françoise Dorléac is magnetic as his airline stewardess and all-too-scrutable love object.

But the focus is way too far over on the side of personalities. There's scant political revelation: it's less behind-the-scenes than the scenes from a different perspective.

Given the months-long hype, what’s most bewildering about Sundance sensation Precious is its overall shrug-worthiness.

The likeable and graceful Chan directs, sings and performs jaw-dropping stunts. Few of his American or Austrian rivals attempt a fraction of that.

There are strong shades of Bo Burnham’s 2018 movie Eighth Grade here. That’s not to call Dídi derivative at all, but to say that it nails that high-school yearning to be cool and complete lack of any idea how to get there, making things worse for yourself with every attempt.

Moore makes it all play like the classic club remix it is.

Kids train for guerrilla fighting in a gorgeously atmospheric film that feels like a transmission from the future.

Il Buco is certainly thoughtful and worthwhile, but perhaps just short of the revelation we were hoping for.

It’s real Streetcar Named Desire territory as the fights pile up, and if you think that doesn’t sound entertaining, know that it is, in a hypnotically catastrophic way.

Poised between childhood and adolescence, arrogance and insecurity, the kids still make for compelling subjects.

It Comes at Night is a film of tense gradations, a chamber piece set at the twilight of humanity.

She has real sympathy--characters that might have been brittle, mockable creations in another writer-director’s hands gain resonance here. But the filmmaker also might have very little to say apart from the way guilt enters into life, and then suddenly recedes.

Excellent writing by Katy Brand leaves plenty of room for both light-hearted humour and deeply personal moments, with Thompson bringing her A-game and newcomer McCormack matching her. They’re a captivating, unlikely duo.

For all its simplicity, this is bold, heartfelt filmmaking. A masterpiece.

A marvelous movie, shot in stunning black-and-white by Freddie Francis.

Porterfield has proved he can do grit and atmosphere. Should the young director ever decide to channel this talent into storytelling with purpose and a point, he might be someone to watch out for.

The casting, needless to say, is perfect, and Bergman keeps the various escalating intrigues clipping along at a brisk pace.

It’s almost churlish to complain that some of the carnage is too basically carnage-y, but at 169 minutes there’s a lot of it to sit through. That running time might test the casual fan, but for Wick devotees this character’s battle through assassin hell will be close to action-movie heaven.

Are its cultish mysteries for everyone? Undoubtedly not. But if there’s a place in your heart for dark, folky mind-benders that plug into the cosmic energy of remote, oceanic terrain (ie your favourite film would be a cross between The Wicker Man and The Lighthouse), you should take a trip across Jenkin’s freaky landscape asap.

New Yorkers and those who've been following the neighborhood's plight know exactly how this ends; at the very least, Paravel and Sniadecki have preserved the memory of what was. Sometimes, that's the most you can do.

Roadrunner was a chance to talk about the role that drugs play in the life of an artist – which is exactly what Bourdain was: an artist dealing in foods and words and travels in ways that few can match.

While there are some atmospheric and absorbing moments, all involving Isaac monologuing or close-ups on his face depicting stormy thoughts brewing underneath, Schrader ultimately abandons his gambling subplots in favour of a two-fold ending that is both anticlimactic and empty.

Western iconography, noir-ish lighting, and visceral horror are fused with an affecting love story in this stylish 'Vampire Western', which (unlike Bigelow's rather static debut feature The Loveless) is driven forward at a scorching pace, a subtle study in the seductiveness of evil and a terrifying ride to the edge of darkness.

This is a pleasant but overgenerous and predictable film, so eager to embrace the good in people that it never fully succeeds as drama.

There has to be room for this kind of plea, especially a work that, obliquely, captures so many largely unreported details: the night raids rounding up children, the torn-up olive trees and kids' soccer games in the battle zone.

A spectacular tribute to the American flyers of World War I, born of Wellman's and John Monk Saunders' own experiences with the Lafayette Flying Corps, it's distinguished by matchless aerial photography, logistically-detailed battle scenes and dogfights, a unique blend of 'European' directorial touches with Hollywood pace, and solid performances holding the straightforward love/duty/camaraderie plotline together.

It’s Poots who carries the story, giving heart and soul to a performance of a woman who cannot help but careen her way through life like a bull in a china shop.

Rudolph's script is both playful and precise, his images fantastic yet real, the music elegiac but ecstatically sung by an impassioned Marianne Faithfull. Part thriller, part comic fantasy, part love story, Trouble in Mind even offers an ambiguous, high-flown ending that suggests this really is the stuff that dreams are made of.