Monsters, Inc., one of Pixar’s earliest efforts, retains its status over 20 years later as one of the studio’s finest films.
Abbé Pierre – A Century of Devotion lionizes an important French figure, but never uses its sturdy runtime to properly dramatize his 94 years of life.
Goodbye Julia’s commitment to finding the personal in the political bolsters its plea for peace in the ongoing Sudan-South Sudan conflict.
Vera Dreams of the Sea is Kaltrina Krasniqi’s timely, subdued first feature; an engrossing look at patriarchal malignance and the untold costs of burying the dead.
Jacques Audiard’s plainspoken triptych Paris, 13th District is an easily digestible portrait of the convolutions of modern-day sex, love, and new relationships.
Dear Tenant conceals a straightforward social drama in the trappings of a nonlinear crime film, tackling homophobia and class relations with grace.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s love-letter to classic genre films radically integrates a stark stylistic departure from his inspirations.
The legendary Japanese actor Kōji Yakusho invigorates Miwa Nishikawa’s Under the Open Sky, a sturdy but meandering adaptation of crime writer Ryūzō Saki’s novel “Mibuncho”.
Captains of Zaatari is a sympathetic portrait of Syrian refugees, but it leaves the thorniest details of its subject on the sidelines.
In Athanor – The Alchemical Furnace, czech animator Jan Švankmajer makes for a fascinating subject in an otherwise routine about-the-artist documentary.