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

Nothing about El Camino makes a case that we are necessarily better off with it than without it, or that some great hole has now been filled. It turns out we were fine with the idea of not knowing exactly what happened to Jesse; that way, we could always hope the best. Now that we know, dare we ask for a little more? Or leave it be?

This lively, intriguing and insistently humanistic flight of fancy — imagined conversations between hard-line conservative Pope Benedict XVI and his more progressive successor, Pope Francis — brims with wit, warmth and some tantalizing what-ifs. Whether the fact that it’s mostly pure speculation will get in the way of the audience’s enjoyment will depend on each viewer’s threshold for artistic license.

Set over the course of a single, very long day, The Assistant derives almost all its quiet power from Garner, on whose face we see confusion congealing into concern.

“Moonlight” is actually not about one thing, but many, and Brodsky threads her themes together nicely. The film also charts Paul Taylor’s incipient dementia, a development that “Moonlight” weaves into its other story lines by noting, poetically, that our mistakes — the metaphorical, and inevitable, false notes we play in life — can become, as Brodsky puts it, “our music.”

It’s a small film made larger by Ahmed’s ability to take something so interior — hearing loss — and make it so visible, so palpable.

The Kingmaker chills the soul by presenting shantytown residents and school kids who extol the Marcos regime and even endorse its eight-year period of martial law.

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

What it lacks in originality it makes up for with a streamlined story, a sharp pace — there isn’t a superfluous moment or a wasted scene — and quips galore.

For its part, Bombshell tells a crucial chapter of that larger tale with coolheaded style and heated indignation. Its aim might be narrow, but it hits the target.

These delightful movies provide just the right blend of humor and adventure and lack of big-bang special effects to make viewing an enjoyable experience. They rank among the best of Disney's live-action comedies. [06 Aug 2000, p.Y05]

Candleshoe isn't immobilized by wholesomeness, as Disney movies go, it's unsually spirited as well as pleasant. [11 Feb 1978, p.E1]

The Journey of Natty Gann shows how skillful filmmaking can take something that's almost unendurably hokey and make it charming. Beautifully photographed and designed, evocatively scored, it's a pleasantly archaic family entertainment in the Disney tradition. [18 Jan 1986, p.G1]

The title of When Lambs Become Lions could refer to any of its subjects: One way or another, everyone involved is endangered and fighting for survival.

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

Brooks-the-performer embodies the movie's spirit with superb modulation. 

The humor includes enough slapstick and gross-out gags to keep the kids entertained, but there are clever callbacks and meta-jokes for older audiences to chuckle at as well.

Surprisingly gripping and moving modern western.

An uncompromising, emotionally draining drama that presents the urbanization of New Zealand's Maori as a cultural disaster, one that is mirrored in the shards of a shattering marriage. This explosive first film by director Lee Tamahori focuses on the transformation of a battered wife, but its story is fueled by the machismo of the disenfranchised Maori male.

Sneakers isn't about growing up, it's about playing games, cracking codes, inventing acronyms. It's a Twinkie for techies, an enormously entertaining time-waster.

An absorbing but rarefied, introspective variation on traditional thriller motifs, it's probably not the synthesis between the personal and traditional that Wenders needs but it's a fascinating compulsively watchable experiment.

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.

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.

Respect is nominally a movie about a woman finding her voice, but more accurately it’s about her taking full possession of it.

Equal parts celebration and self-congratulation.

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.”

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.

Warts and all, The Night House is, in the truest sense of the word, kind of haunting.

Billed as a spoken-word musical, but only occasionally utilizing the visual idioms of song and/or dance — and only rarely harnessing the two together — the film is nevertheless an exuberant hodgepodge of everyday joy and frustration (and the occasional mild trauma).

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.

It’s a good movie, executed with affectionate humor, wistful honesty and tender care.

Jamal Khashoggi was a complex, even contradictory human being, and his death an affront to freedom and decency. Does the world need two documentaries about him, coming in rapid succession? Maybe not. But you wouldn’t go wrong by watching either one.

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.

Viggo Mortensen makes a sensitive and assured directing debut with Falling, a meditation on aging, mortality and slow-drip loss that will resonate deeply with anyone going through the agonies it depicts.

Still, The Courier makes a smart, stylish stand for the kind of old-fashioned period spy thriller that is increasingly being turned into bingeable series for streaming services. Its modesty and carefully managed ambitions define its strong suit at a time when such films are scarcer every day.

A rousing and scenically breathtaking romance about ranch life in the 1880s, the film should recommend itself strongly to families. [24 Dec 1982, p.14]

Back from their respective voids and together for the firs time, Hurt and Weaver romp romantically as janitor and TV news reporter in Eyewitness, a murky mystery produced and directed by Peter Yates and written by Steve Tesich, the guys who uplifted us via Breaking Away. [06 Mar 1981, p.15]

Nine Days is, in the end, meant as a wake-up call: a bracing splash of fake seawater in the face that somehow, against all logic, feels like the real thing.

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.

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.

Written and directed by Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond with superb control and insight, My Little Sister never goes precisely where the audience expects, as the filmmakers dole out crucial information at well-timed intervals, illuminating the pieces of Lisa and Sven’s past that have brought them to this life-or-death point.

Racing With the Moon is the second directorial effort for Richard Benjamin, whose first film was the ribald My Favorite Year. He tries and overwhelmingly succeeds at masterminding a more dramatic style. Slowly paced, it's nonetheless a film on track for patient, compassionate viewers. [23 Mar 1984, p.23]

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.

With a tone that shifts as much as a profile picture, Who You Think I Am is a nail-biting ride through social media anxiety.

What Mayor lacks in terms of wiki-esque biography it more than makes up for in immediacy and exquisite timing.

It’s just this impressive amalgamation of realism and stylization that allows “Across the Spider-Verse” to transcend its narrative shortcomings: Even at its most obscure or muddled, it’s never less than a pleasure to watch.

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.

The debut feature from British studio Locksmith Animation, Ron’s Gone Wrong has plenty of slapstick and potty humor for kids. But adults will also be intrigued by its frequently scathing (albeit somewhat conflicted) critique of consumerism.

Huston's straightforward, sardonic direction reinforces a compact, unusually literate screenplay. [07 May 1980, p.C1]

This Australian film by New Zealand director Jane Campion comes at you, and keeps coming at you, in peculiar, oddly enchanting bursts of detail.

Spike Lee's film is about a group of black men traveling from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., for last year's Million Man March. As in the real-life march one year ago today, this convergence of diverse black manhood is what is compelling about the film.

It's an obscure experience, partly alienating, partly enthralling; it weaves a spell that is frightening, irritating and invigorating all at once.

The filmmakers make just as much magic on the ground as some do in space.

With The Card Counter, Schrader has reverted to form, but he’s remade it anew at the same time. He’s done it again, with crafty, haunting power.

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.

South Central covers some of the same ground as Boyz N the Hood, but certainly there's nothing wrong with reiterating its positive message for black sons and fathers.

There are times when French Exit beggars belief and tries the viewer’s patience. But as long as the camera stays on Pfeiffer, we’re all hers.

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.

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

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.

As a filmed version of a play, One Night in Miami has the same talky, slightly claustrophobic contours one might expect. But that pent-up quality is an advantage for a movie in which the room where it might have happened is a character in itself.

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.

I’m Your Woman isn’t so much off-kilter as it is ballasted by a different, perhaps lower center of gravity. The title sounds exploitative — perhaps even silly — but the tale it spins is one of power and, ultimately, of coming unexpectedly, satisfyingly, into one’s own.

At times, Apples feels superficially slight, even — pardon me — forgettable. But Nikou, in his feature directorial debut after working as an assistant director on sets with such filmmakers as Yorgos Lanthimos (“Dogtooth”) and Richard Linklater (“Before Midnight”), has pulled off a neat little trick: He’s told a story that, for reasons that are more easily felt than explained, is hard to shake off.

Even within the confines of its generic plot and sometimes stilted dialogue, Concrete Cowboy winds up being an engaging and moving family drama. Its sincerity, accomplished cast and proud Philadelphia roots manage to keep it real.

There are early warning signs that “World” isn’t going to end well. But Fastvold, a Brooklyn-based Norwegian actress and filmmaker making only her second effort behind the camera, never gins up the sentiment, the melodrama or even the sensuality.

Like his other films, this one takes an admittedly slender thread of an idea — one that would make a perfectly good premise for a four-minute comic sketch — and stretches it to almost the breaking point, and sometimes beyond, twisting and intertwining it with other nonsense along the way, just for the heck of it.

Lovers of musicals will groove on the shamelessness of its footlights worship.

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.

The Witches is a wickedly funny final bow for Muppeteer Jim Henson.

This is a rare kind of pulp; it's boisterously destructive, funny and, at the same time, almost serene.

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.

Luckily, Morris caught up with Harcourt-Smith before she left for the next stop: She’s the best thing about My Psychedelic Love Story, and a far more sympathetic and compelling character than the man she almost risked her life for.

Zappa gives its subject his well-earned due within the rock firmament. But even more valuable, Winter gives Zappa pride of place among the most important composers of the 20th century, sharing some extraordinary performances of his little-known classical work.

As he demonstrated with the recession-themed “99 Homes,” Bahrani is a cynical observer of the forces underling cultural upheaval; the story of “Tiger,” at times, feels more schematic and archetypal than wholly lived by real people. But its ominous message — watch out for the person whose back you’re stepping on — has never been more timely.

One may feel limitations on the dramatic side, but Bridge is an unqualified pictorial achievement.

The film deepens and grows more thoughtful — and, yes, sad — as its spotlight on the need for human connection — at any age — comes into focus. The stories of the four people at its center show Villagers to be more than statistics.

So many of our problems remain, but 40 Years a Prisoner presents a valuable primer on what mistakes not to repeat.

There are corners of this quiet little film — less a plot-driven narrative than a two-person character study — that feel powerfully true, in ways that surprise.

Rush is a powerhouse movie but not a cheap one. It hits you hard, but never below the belt.

Not content with simply stoking rage and self-righteous superiority, McKay dares to infuse Don’t Look Up with an authentic, unironic sense of grief.

The three main performances are uniformly good. Moore maintains a believable air of normalcy pushed into unusual directions. Headly is marvelously kooky, a victim with sporadic moments of spunk. Willis clearly has a blast playing evil unbound. He's disconcertingly good, a whirl of Method-acting menace and goateed aggression.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye gives viewers an absorbing, amusing and provocative chance to rethink yet another train wreck who turned out to be, of all things, human.

It’s a noir tale for contemporary audiences who have developed an appetite for sensation from comic book movies, not literature. The film doesn’t need all that spectacle, and it is at its best when it is at its simplest, relying on the power of storytelling and vivid language, not gory effects.

The movie (written and directed by Noonan), which took the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, is not as profound as the festival laurels imply. But when all is said and said, the fate of this relationship -- left hanging as the movie ends -- becomes a matter of compelling significance.

Filmmaker Clint Bentley makes a tender, visually poetic feature directorial debut with “Jockey,” a closely observed portrait of a man embarking on the downslope of his career.

Beyond the music itself, The Sparks Brothers offers viewers a bracing example of musical curiosity and extraordinary resilience — not to mention the singular pleasure of working at your craft long enough to be accused of ripping off the acts who have been stealing from you for 50 years. The Maels live. And living Mael is the best revenge.

Except for a few gory flourishes and several jolly special effects, Warlock is a surprisingly old-fashioned horror adventure that benefits from the superbly malevolent presence of Julian Sands as said warlock.

In these days of overproduced overstatement, of totally awesome turtle power and other toxic gimcracks, The Gods Must Be Crazy II feels like a vacation, a sort of enlightened Wild Kingdom.

With its easy pace and genial company, “My Donkey, My Lover & I” is a journey worth taking, even if, at the end of the day, there’s no cozy French inn waiting for you.

If this all sounds too insufferable and in-jokey, fear not: Gormican, with the help of his fabulously game ensemble cast, keeps the balloon afloat with a light touch, crisp pacing and an overarching mood that’s more goofily endearing than smugly self-amused.

At times, The Man Who Sold His Skin plays like a cultural parody, but its aim is dead serious, and more sobering. The pathos and tragedy of the global refugee crisis is its target, not the pretensions of the international art market, and it, from time to time, delivers a sting.

In nearly all the important categories -- story, direction, pacing, acting -- the picture is pretty much negligible. Still, almost by force of sheer winning dopiness, the movie seduces you into dropping your defenses. It's weightlessly, irredeemably enjoyable.

There are plenty of left turns (and the occasional dead end) here, but Riders of Justice is no waste of time. The mayhem is mixed with unexpected thoughtfulness.

As an exercise in sincerity, fellowship and earnest inquiry, it might be the most subversive movie in circulation right now.

Director Caroline Link (Nowhere in Africa) brings handsome period production values and a lyrical, restrained sensibility to a narrative that might not qualify as riveting, but exerts its own unmistakable emotional pull.

A modestly budgeted but richly rewarding look at a Tennessee housewife's search for a better life.