Farran Smith Nehme

The movie sneers at the journalists covering the trial, but for those of us who followed it at the time, the newspaper accounts were a lot more engrossing than this film.

Beat by beat, it’s exactly what you’d expect, right down to the camera’s prurient interest in the dewy flesh of Stefanie Scott as the 17-year-old daughter.

Archival footage is combined with somewhat affected-looking re-enactments, but the film achieves its purpose: to remind us that we still have thousands of bombs, and neither they — nor we — have gotten that much smarter.

The result — directed by Rufus Norris and setting words collected by Alecky Blythe against music by Adam Cork — is mesmerizing.

The film can be rough going for those who know little of Berger’s work. That’s especially true of the second part, a stupefying collage about Berger’s home in rural Quincy, France.

While clearly on the side of the protesters, the filmmakers are still determined to explain every legal detail, and at times matters become bogged down in endless televised journalists and snappish legislators.

The movie’s strength is, surprisingly, the narration, spoken with gentle gravity by Moni Moshonov.

The first half has erratic pacing, but past the midpoint the film roars into action. Dornan is monotonous, but Murphy is intense enough for them both; side romances for the men feel phony but apparently are based in fact.

Making elegant use of the austere landscape and the rugged features of star Jérémie Renier, the film shows how these doggedly practical and nonspiritual men cope with the eerie events, the cause of which is hinted at but never fully explained.

Much time is spent on inter-museum wrangling, and the personalities aren’t vivid enough (as they were in “The New Rijksmuseum”) to build tension. The interest lies in the close look at the strange vision of this great artist.

It’s an ambitious, often arresting film, but it lacks cohesion, and the seesawing plot and motivations seem more indecisive than mysterious.

Frank’s work is phenomenal, but his longtime editor and collaborator Laura Israel seems determined during the course of her documentary never to give you a moment long enough to contemplate it.

Hollywood has been yukking it up over North Korea and its comical-looking leader for some years now. There’s nothing funny about either, and Mansky shows why.

The actors bring emotional authenticity to the aftermath of trauma, but despite that and the handsome cinematography, there is also a persistent phoniness.

You may or may not connect Brinkley to a certain presidential candidate, but, either way, this is one of the most entertaining documentaries to come along in some time.

This loopy absurdist comedy is the final work of Andrzej Zulawski, the famed Polish filmmaker who died in February.

Pace and mood are equally glum, and so much information is withheld that the twisty relationship can’t build much tension.

Solomon and Genovese remind us that all witnesses can be unreliable, in one way or another. The emotional impact comes from the gentle way the film reveals Kitty Genovese as a loving, vibrant person, and not as a symbol.

The film is impeccably shot and paced, but the radical real-world implications of Wise’s agenda are never fully explored.

Kaili Blues has the kitchen-sink feel of a new director eager to try every art-film technique in the book, but the film’s beauty and inventiveness are riveting.

It is engrossing, even funny at times, but it is a bit too jagged in execution to properly build to its tragic climax.

The sharpest, least sentimental and possibly the best version of Austen yet.

The remarkable performances from the central trio are what carries the film.

Blair has a colorless, weirdly teenage delivery that doesn’t convey Hesse’s vivid, brilliant personality. It is odd to watch a documentary where the subject becomes more interesting when she is discussed by other people.

The movie was always going to be a record of another unique New York institution, making way for another glass box.

French director Stéphane Brizé films in lingering takes, with Lindon in almost every shot, and the actor is wonderful, able to convey Thierry’s conflict even when his back is to the camera.

The film works to rescue Arendt and her phrase “the banality of evil” from years of cliché, and largely succeeds.

Most of the film, while handsome to look at, doesn’t rise above this level of obviousness.