A mismatched-friends drama whose overall sensitivity is belied by a couple of clumsily contrived plot points, Sean Baker's Starlet pairs story and setting perfectly.

A genuinely moving look at life in a group foster home that avoids most of the usual routes into viewers' hearts.

The force of Darby's personality -- a rich stew of righteousness, arrogance and self-delusion -- gives the doc a psychological appeal independent of politics.

A highly entertaining documentary revealing a serious talent behind the one-note present-day reputation.

A thoroughly engaging film about an inimitable New York painter.

Hersonski enriches this evidence by bringing in survivors of the ghetto, who tell stories of life there while watching the film themselves.

A moving and effective film whose subject may lack the hot-button boxoffice appeal of the director's "An Inconvenient Truth" but is at least a crisis practically everyone agrees actually exists.

Even the more cartoonish performances, like John Malkovich's acid-damaged paranoiac, fit the movie's vision of the vanished, wild-and-woolly heyday of spycraft.

Overall, though, the project brings enough good into this rough corner of the world that viewers can walk out with honest cause to be hopeful for its inhabitants.

As entertaining as any showbiz documentary in recent memory.

A delightful romp whose varied pleasures should please kids all along the age spectrum.

Frederic Jardin's gripping Sleepless Night maintains a consistently high pitch without growing monotonous.

A pure-bliss celebration of Paul Simon's landmark album Graceland coupled with an interesting if not unbiased look at the controversy surrounding its release.

Finding smart ways to bring novelty to the franchise without forsaking what made the original so much fun (and in fact doubling down on some of those qualities), Barry Sonnenfeld's Men in Black 3 easily erases the second installment's vague but unpleasant memory and -- though we might hope producers will quit while they're ahead -- paves the way for future installments.

The result is uniquely powerful, putting faces and human consequences to a political dispute that seemingly will never end.

Aubrey Plaza proves she can carry a film with this multiplex-friendly comedy about time travel.

Rising well above the typical making-of feature, the documentary will fascinate buffs when shown alongside the operas themselves.

A disability-centric documentary that moves viewers without resorting to trite devices, Seung-Jun Yi's Planet of Snail takes a condition most of us would find unbearable and demystifies it while finding room for poetry.

Carol Morley's sadly fascinating Dreams of a Life, which plays like a more artful cousin to TV's true-crime documentaries, slowly assembles a portrait of Vincent, unfolding in a way that should earn fans in its niche theatrical run.

Nothing about the plot is novel, but the film easily maintains a low simmer that picks up in the final act, as Miller has to fight to keep his sinking ship staffed.

Inherently unpreachy but making its point more effectively than many participants in the debate can, the film should find vocal advocates in a niche theatrical run.

A truly moving meditation on identity, family and (as the title of his previous short immodestly put it) the meaning of life, Hertzfeldt's magnum opus is more cosmically satisfying than "The Tree of Life."

The picture is fresh and frightening, a strong arthouse contender certain to leave audiences talking.

Strong, entertaining portrait of a hard-to-pin-down online phenomenon.

The feel-good documentary is engaging enough to draw a respectable audience at arthouses, but distribs should work for exposure within communities like the ones this school serves.

Jaume Balabueró's effective thriller Sleep Tight puts more value on slow-building bad vibes than on pulled-curtain shock, but its treatment of mental illness and voyeurism, lightly salted with pitch-black humor, will feel pleasingly familiar to fans of the older film.

Some of these trekkers are more resilient than others, but all seem to agree there's a high, maybe insurmountable barrier between them and civilians. However sympathetic we are, they say, we can hardly understand what they've been through. High Ground makes that difficult task a little easier.

Thorny, blood-boiling and finely made.