A movie made for critics, cinephiles and deep-dive film historians.

Directed by Alexander Nanau with an alert eye for character and detail, this alternately illuminating and infuriating portrait of everyday bureaucratic corruption becomes a much larger, and more disturbing, portrayal of structural incompetence, indifference and moral rot.

It’s the film’s exploration of the ethical bartering conducted by van Meegeren — not his expertise as a copyist or his skill as a swindler — that linger after the closing credits.

The Life Ahead might be a familiar story, but as a showcase for Loren’s sensuality, star power and unfailing instincts, it feels both classic and exhilaratingly new. She’s still got it, and as this performance reminds us at every turn, she always did.

Rather than a movie that breaks the mold, it looks like Anning has inspired one we've seen before.

Don’t think about it too hard. Freaky isn’t AP Bio. It’s a shop class project: a couple of mismatched planks cobbled together well enough to get a passing grade.

The movie leaves us, like J.D.’s family, with only a mounting pile of baloney excuses for bad behavior.

There are moments when the fanfic speculations of “Come Away” feel too forced and downright cockamamie; the plot, probably inevitable, becomes schematic and the near-constant state of magical thinking too sticky-sweet for words. But the enterprise is ennobled by Chapman's sense of style and a consistently strong set of performances, especially from Jolie and Oyelowo.

With City Hall, Wiseman brings his quiet observational skills to the day-to-day operations of local government, which is why the film is so well-timed for this particular moment.

Surprisingly gripping and moving modern western.

Despite the subtext of screen addiction, it is still essentially a by-the-book monster movie, despite some better-than-average jump scares and clever rendering of Larry, who for the most part can be seen only through the camera lens of a cellphone or tablet device.

It’s a comedy of outrage and horror that elicits laughter not as a cure for what ails us, or even a temporary balm, but a close cousin of the feeling you get — sharp pain followed by relief — when a Band-Aid has been ripped off an open wound.

If Pelosi’s preoccupation with extremes gives short shrift to the majority of Americans who don’t see everything through a political lens, her wide range and curiosity provide a portrait that is vivid, textured and deeply disheartening.

Bad Hair is a good idea buried within a scattershot, ultimately mediocre movie.

Rebecca is nice to look at, inoffensive, competently executed and utterly unnecessary when once, it was so much more.

In American Utopia, Lee brings the same insight and sensitivity to Byrne’s stage show, which bursts forth with an exuberant mixture of optimistic joy and wistful nostalgia.

A little bit itchy, maybe, and smelling of mothballs, but deeply, inexplicably comforting, in these uncertain times.

Matters of objective science and empirical observation have now become so mired in partisanship, authoritarian narrative and conspiracy blather that even a film this judicious and straightforwardly informative feels doomed to reach no further than its own self-selected constituency.

It’s wholesome but starchy fare: a story of sacrifice and good fortune that feels less like a movie than a marketing vehicle for the power of divine providence.

In lieu of genuine high jinks, a series of escalating slapstick pranks ensues between Peter and Ed, including mishaps with a drone, a snake and a human corpse. None of them is especially amusing.

It's a foregone conclusion that The Forty-Year-Old Version will be compared with films by Woody Allen, Spike Lee and Judd Apatow, the latter of whom is referenced in the title and the steady stream of vulgar humor that courses through Blank’s dialogue. But even with those obvious references, she’s crafted something all her own.

Things happen in On the Rocks, but the caper-flick high jinks viewers expect to ensue never come to full, cockeyed fruition.

Plenty of movies are wish-fulfillment fantasies, but Kirsten Johnson has created a first: a dread-fulfillment fantasy that brims with love, humor and, of all things, life.

The ensemble cast, reunited from the 2018 production, is never less than mesmerizing, even in the context of what is essentially a museum piece.

Briskly paced, bristling with Sorkin’s distinctive verbal fusillades, seamlessly blending conventional courtroom procedural with protest reenactments and documentary footage (including Wexler’s), The Trial of the Chicago 7 offers an absorbing primer in a chapter of American history that was both bizarre and ruefully meaningful.

Funny, poignant and ultimately triumphant, Kajillionaire is a precarious balancing act, one that July pulls off with astute writing, careful staging and trust in her actors to strike precisely the right emotional tones, whether they be tender or breathtakingly tough.

Enola Holmes offers brisk and exuberant escape from the heaviness of modern times, with its leading actress lending her own appealing touches to the journey. When the game is afoot, she's more than capable, not just of keeping up, but winning the day.

Residue is a delicately layered depiction of the dance between alienation and belonging. In this moving portrait, it’s a dance is defined by struggle, grief and undiminished grace.

There’s some very, very funny stuff here. But the laughs gradually give way to a feeling of not just sadness and loss for a quality we no longer seem to see very much of in political life and public discourse, but a sense of creeping despair that we may never see it again.

Even Monáe’s magnetism can't elevate Antebellum above roots that are firmly planted in the blood and soil of pulp exploitation, shaky liberal earnestness and rank opportunism.

Richen makes excellent use of what remains.

The route of the film, like Lucy’s drive home, is preordained — a Google Maps version of a plot, with absolutely no surprises.

Somber and serious-minded, the live-action Mulan is a movie that has grown up alongside its original audience, which is presumably old enough to crave something heavier in its entertainment diet. Little girls might be better off sticking with the cartoon for now; but this opulent, ambitious production and Liu’s focused, intrepid performance at its center, gives them something to grow into.

If ever a match were made in cine-literary heaven it would be Charles Dickens and Armando Iannucci, each a master of probing social criticism, slashing wit and floridly besotted love of language.

As enlightening as Coup 53 is as a secret history, it’s even more satisfying as an aesthetic exercise, treating viewers to one of cleverest workarounds in cinematic problem-solving in recent memory. It’s a nonfiction film that functions precisely as all documentaries should: as a piece of doggedly investigative, personally transparent reporting, and as simply great storytelling, full stop.

This makes for an entertaining, if familiar ride.

When Words on Bathroom Walls is at its sunniest and most blithe, the moral of the story feels a little more like a punchline than is appropriate.

A serviceable, drug-themed crime thriller, made just a skosh more interesting by a handful of ingredients that give it a boost. Chief among them is its unusual premise. Instead of centering on the real-world scourge of heroin, meth, opioids or cocaine, it’s about a new drug — Power.

Boys State is a portrait of the country in microcosm: divided, but not yet irredeemably lost.

A vivid but vaporous portrait of collective unease that feels uncannily of this moment.

With modesty, precision and wry compassion, I Used to Go Here limns human nature at its most contradictory and indefinable, offering a textbook example — at least until the right German word comes along.

Although The Go-Go’s works marvelously as a scrapbook that will surely delight the viewer who wants to remember the catchy songs and saucy attitudes, it’s also the first time that the band’s story has been rendered as a cultural triumph instead of a cautionary tale.

In this engrossing and ultimately inspiring examination of ideals in action, the team behind The Fight wind up illustrating a cardinal rule of nonfiction filmmaking: When it comes to humanizing even the loftiest principles, a documentary lives or dies by its principals.

If The Kissing Booth 2 is watchable, viewers have Elle to thank; King remains the strongest component of a now-franchise that, quite frankly, might be beneath her.

Propelled by a lyrical, pulsing soundtrack of Colombian rock, hip-hop and bolero, Days of the Whale is less a character study, or even a love story than a vibrant study in swirling perpetual motion.

Alternately fascinating and disappointing biopic about French scientist Marie ­Curie.

At nearly three hours long, and told with the book’s peripatetic structure, moving from nightmare to nightmare, The Painted Bird is not for the faint of heart.

When Layne and Theron are together, The Old Guard transcends its pulp provenance to become a soulful, emotionally grounded portrait of female mentorship and mutual respect.

Still, there’s no denying that the wise, funny, loving protagonists of Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets make for unforgettable company, even after the hangover has worn off.

A precursor of The Wild Bunch, it is an expertly directed, personally felt film.

Skillfully directed by Rod Lurie, this engrossing and deeply wrenching thriller dances the same fine line as most latter-day movies that want to honor service and sacrifice, without lapsing into empty triumphalism. For the most part, The Outpost balances those competing impulses, with a canny combination of unadorned bluntness and technical finesse.

The film is at times deeply moving and, for a show that is virtually all song and no dialogue, extraordinarily character-rich.

A political farce that ultimately feels like a letdown, coming from one of the sharpest yet most compassionate satirical minds of today.

At heart, “Eurovison” seems content to be more dumb rom-com than sharp music satire.

Written by Rita Kalnejais, based on her own 2012 play, Babyteeth works precisely because it refuses to accommodate expectation.

7500 is, at heart, a chamber piece. The setting, the number of characters and the setup are all constrained in an elegant yet dramatically effective way that belies the film’s low budget. There’s a taut, piano wire-like quality to its simplicity: None of the drama comes from action-movie cliches, but rather from the actors, along with the disembodied voices of an air traffic controller, a police officer and others.

Da 5 Bloods is most invigorating when Lee is most sharply polemical, whether it’s during that vibrant prologue, or when he stops to drop some knowledge in interstitial flashes of history, wisdom and exuberant wit.

Perhaps the highest compliment one can pay Davidson, Apatow and their collaborators is that The King of Staten Island is probably the first movie in cinematic history to earn every single one of the audience’s tears at the sight of a disastrous back tattoo. May it be the last.

Shirley sometimes feels as unfocused as the stymied protagonist at its core, but its point of view remains crystalline throughout: As Shirley tells Rose early in their friendship, best to be born a boy. “The world is too cruel for girls.”

It’s a movie drenched in catchy pop hooks and aspirational romance. If this iteration doesn't quite achieve the full liftoff of the best of the form, it still manages to hit more than a few pleasure centers as a summery slice of light escapism.

Their individual voices may not be literally captured in On the Record. But in this anguishing and essential film, they are heard — and the implications of being silenced for so long come through loud and shamefully clear.

Coogan and Brydon might scoff at such sentimentality, but over the course of the Trip films, they’ve shown us that world, at its most aspirationally easeful and epicurean. Even more brilliantly — and affectingly — they’ve constructed a world between them, an airy, reality-adjacent universe conjured in billowing clouds of witticisms, idle observations, passive-aggressive feints and silent, solitary reflections. Did they ever really live there? Maybe not. But it’s been a delightful place to visit.

As goofy as it is good-natured, “Good Trip” aims to entertain, not educate, as it presents a star-studded parade of celebrity reminiscences about taking hallucinogenic drugs. Mostly, it succeeds.

The comedy that Feldstein and the filmmakers find in Johanna’s often disastrous attempts to become herself keeps the movie afloat; what keeps it tethered to reality is the universal drama of a young woman finding her voice without losing her soul.

Suffice it to say that, in addition to celebrating the energy, enterprise and idealism of America’s postwar generation, Spaceship Earth provides a sobering primer in how some dreams die, and others are strangled mercilessly in their cribs.

The film (streaming Wednesday, directed by Nadia Hallgren) is a thoughtful scrapbook, briskly perused — an inside look that never gets too inside.

Written and directed with tart intelligence by Alice Wu, and featuring some dazzling breakout performances, this breezy, self-aware and utterly adorable coming-of-age tale keeps one eye on literary and cinematic classics, and the other firmly on a future full of exploration, self-expression and buoyant expectation.

Intriguing, marvelously inventive documentary.

Such stories of quiet malfeasance never get old. No matter how lovely and admired the neighborhood lawns may be, the idea that there’s a snake or two in the grass hasn’t lost its narrative potency — even now, in an era of constant, top-down deceit.

Equal parts celebration and self-congratulation.

To TV-raised minds, Paradise spends more time than it needs to get where it's going. But in its own terms, the movie has flashes of oldtime magic. It's a precious piece of time past -- and time kept.

With its clean staging and coolly mannered style, Selah and the Spades reaches back to Wes Anderson, Whit Stillman and even Stanley Kubrick; this is a film in which nearly every image looks worked over and carefully polished, with no detail left unconsidered.

Does the world need another Bill Cunningham documentary? Yes, it turns out. More than ever.

With empathy and outrage that cut equally deeply, Hittman reminds us: This is a girl’s life in a man’s world.

In this unsparing but deeply compassionate film, viewers get a chance to see the fatigue, stress and bewilderment of modern life for what they are: not the regrettable side effects of market-driven progress, but the results of cynicism and greed, and the unfathomable human cost of wanting what we want, right now.

Fans of the director may be a little mystified by what at first seems like something of a commercial sellout, by a director known for more challenging material. And indeed, The Whistlers has more than enough sex and violence to satisfy the average action movie fan. But dig a bit deeper, and you’ll find a mother lode of meaning just below the surface.

A clever slice of regional noir that carries a gale-force punch beneath its modest, soft-spoken trappings.

For many, the story will pose an insurmountable challenge to even enjoy. But enjoyment it seems, is not Potter’s point. Yes, it is an unvarnished portrait of a mind breaking into fragments. Yet it is more than that, too.

A sort of “Me, God and the Dying Girl,” the movie is well-made (if slow) and features an attractive cast and a lot of amiable (if bland) religious pop-rock.

Bennett claims her own form of autonomy with the movie itself, which could be read as an actress’s decision to stop hoping for good scripts to arrive over the transom and make her own luck.

We might go into a Kelly Reichardt movie thinking we’ll be told a story, but we emerge with our consciousness subtly and radically altered.

A movie straining so hard to be edgily of-the-moment that it can’t help but be utterly irrelevant, strives to impress viewers with sadistic killings, oozing viscera and extravagant gushers of blood. But its most dramatic spectacle might be the sight of a facile, lazy enterprise being hoist on its own cynical petard.

The movie is presented as the story of a man who hasn’t figured out who he is yet. But that’s not quite right. Instead, it’s a movie that doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be when it grows up.

A charming, nuanced story with plenty to say about making just that sort of superficial judgment and about what people are actually going through beneath their carefully crafted appearances.

A mostly smart and sexy crime drama, even if it loses steam by the time the ridiculous ending rolls around.

Overlong and overstuffed with Southern rock and blues numbers, Burden is not exemplary filmmaking. But for viewers who can endure another spin through white-supremacist malice and ignorance, Hedlund and Riseborough make it a compelling ride.

A handsome-looking if occasionally dull affair.

Onward is ultimately a trip worth taking.

What ensues in Corpus Christi, Jan Komasa’s absorbing and spiritually attuned drama, turns out to be a fascinating exercise in fake-it-till-you-make-it, with a hefty dose of fatalism and small-town hypocrisy thrown in for maximum provocation.

A slight, yet inoffensive tale, inspiring little more than a shrug, thereby making it hard to either wholeheartedly endorse or strongly criticize.

The comedian’s wryly clownish antics as the preening, not-especially bright owner of several fast-fashion stores are in service of a story that feels sloppy and overly broad.

That’s the real, and somewhat obvious, lesson here, in a lovely yet flawed confection that might be summed up by two words: beautiful nonsense.

It’s just a giant missed opportunity to be something more.

A delicious slow-burn of a movie, the kind of coming-of-age tale that looks familiar on the surface only to reveal hidden depths of beauty and meaning.

It’s a more than serviceable pleasure, for fans of Austen’s 19th-century comedy of manners and romantic misunderstanding.

Once Were Brothers is enormously valuable, if only as a reminder of what an extraordinary run this extraordinary convergence of talents enjoyed until their final show on Thanksgiving Day in 1976 (meticulously captured by Scorsese in the magnificent documentary “The Last Waltz”).

The Lodge isn’t a perfect treat. But for those who like their movies dark and disturbing, it does the trick.

In Akin’s capable hands, And Then We Danced becomes an affecting testament to heartbreak, resilience and emotional expression at its most liberated and life-affirming.