Mountains May Depart (2015)
★★★★☆
Jia Zhang Ke’s Mountains May Depart is an epic vision of decades of change in China, its people and diaspora, with a compelling central character.
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Menashe (2017)
★★★★☆
Menashe by Joshua Z Weinstein is a very human story set in a uniquely closed community that turns out to have universal appeal.
The Unseen (2017)
★★★☆☆
Gary Sinyor’s The Unseen is a well-made, contemporary British thriller with an original slant.
Bingo: The King of the Mornings (2017)
★★★☆☆
Rampant with brash 1980s Brazilian political incorrectness, Daniel Rezende’s Bingo: The King of the Mornings is based on a true story of an actor’s downfall.
Stronger (2017)
★★★★☆
Stronger, directed by David Gordon Green, stars Jake Gyllenhaal in a gruelling but inspirational portrait of a man rebuilding his life after the Boston Marathon bombing.
Happy End (2017)
★★★★☆
Michael Haneke’s Happy End deconstructs the internal dynamics of a wealthy bourgeois family living a life oblivious to the human beings around them, with chilling results.
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Brakes (2016)
★★★★☆
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Battle of the Sexes (2017)
★★★★☆
Serving well-rounded feminist statements while expertly juggling three intertwining stories, Battle of the Sexes is an outwardly reaching argument encapsulated in a tennis match.
Manifesto (2015)
★★★★☆
Blanchett and Rosefeldt have teamed up to produce a series of manifesto-based vignettes that not only ponder the subject of art, but revel in its being.
Lost in Paris (2016)
★★★★☆
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Strangled (2016)
★★★★☆
A gruesome serial killer thriller based on a disturbing true story, Árpád Sopsits’ Strangled reflects its post-revolution Hungarian setting.
Mudbound (2017)
★★★★☆
Dee Rees, in Netflix’s Mudbound adapted from Hillary Jordan’s novel, evokes a period and place in the Deep South where racial prejudice engulfs rural communities like a muddy swamp.
Heartstone (2016)
★★★★☆
A simmering study of youth and sexuality set against jaw-dropping Icelandic landscapes, Heartstone gets kids right, if not necessarily which kids to focus on.
Ingrid Goes West (2017)
★★★★☆
A sharply cautionary tale about the dangers of social media, Matt Spicer’s Ingrid Goes West is sharp, funny and very, very timely.