Kenneth Turan

Though “Virus” could have lived without the presence of director Goldberg as an on-camera through-line, it is at its best in presenting strong and vivid examples of anti-Semitic rhetoric and actions.

Filmmaker Herbig and his team prove to be especially adept at contriving situations where anything anyone does causes fear, anxiety, stress and worry, leaving everyone, very much including the audience, existing on the knife’s edge of unremitting tension.

The Hunt lacks the courage of its presumed convictions, displaying no more than a determination to make as much cash as possible by exploiting national divisions less covetous individuals are despairing of rather than monetizing.

Adapted apparently quite loosely from Atkins’ Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland, Spenser Confidential has ended up with a genially amusing script expertly tailored to its actors by Sean O’Keefe and the canny veteran Brian Helgeland. And, as smartly cast by the veteran Sheila Jaffe, Spenser Confidential gets spot on performances from a variety of actors, from household names including Alan Arkin to other less celebrated but undeniably talented folks.

Smart, ambitious and impressive, Run This Town is the best kind of feature directing debut, a film that entertains and makes you look forward to what will come next.

Muscularly directed by Gavin O’Connor, whose facility with emotional dramas with sports connections goes as far back as 2004’s Miracle, The Way Back is elevated and transformed by one of Ben Affleck’s strongest and most convincing performances.

Using all his resources, Hedlund has created Mike Burden whole on screen in all his tormented awkwardness. Confused and conflicted, incapable of doing the right thing without recidivism and backsliding, this is hardly a conventional hero. Siding with the angels can seem like a snap in films, but Burden has the grace to show how difficult and wrenching a choice that can be.

This is a blistering drama, intense, disturbing and inescapably thought-provoking, a film that gets its power from a merging of potent opposites.

“Giraffes” benefits not only from Dagg’s charismatic presence but also from excerpts of letters she wrote during her first trip to Africa (read by Tatiana Maslany) and 16-millimeter color film she shot back in the day.

It is a measure of the singularity of the Band’s story, and the way their music remains such a tonic to experience, that “Brothers” still demands to be seen.

Emma partisans, fortunately, never say die, and a very satisfying new version of Austen’s sprightly novel has been directed in high style by Autumn de Wilde.

Because Manville and Neeson are such potent performers, they are expert at playing out all the implications of what this experience is like.

Downhill is a misfire, unable to show either of its stars to their best advantage. Neither the actors nor the film can decide how to balance humor with drama and that is the heart of the problem.

That all these characters and then some have distinct personalities is all the more remarkable because no one uses actual words, instead making do quite nicely with assorted grunts, groans and indefinable grumbles.

Approaching the world in his own specific visual way, Geyrhalter also gravitates toward exploring big ideas, and here he takes on one of the biggest, an exploration of, as he puts it, “the wounds we are inflicting on the Earth.”

A chilling portrait of how fanaticism can grow and be enabled, this is a matter-of-fact film that moves with an awful inexorability toward its foregone conclusion.

Treating an incendiary issue in an austere, minimalist manner has turned The Assistant into an arresting independent drama.

The most gripping parts of Advocate are the film’s fly-on-the-wall cinéma vérité sequences of Tsemel at work, meeting with clients’ families, navigating the legal system and conferring about cases with fellow attorneys and her staff.

One of the unexpected pleasures of Ip Man 4 is a warm montage of highlights from the previous three films that plays at the close. Star Yen has said there are no more Ip films in his future, but no one would be upset if another one happened to come along.

The film portrays the ferocious resistance of some people to the possibility that this man had nothing to do with the crime. And that’s when Just Mercy is at its best.

The key reason Richard Jewell works as well as it does is the perceptive nature of Hauser’s lead performance. His sense of who this character is, how he thinks about himself at his core, leads to scenes with both Rockwell and Bates that are unexpectedly powerful.

Dealing with a personality this strong could not have been easy, and director Garver, whose background is in short films, does a balanced job, giving space to Kael’s partisans while finding time for the other side.

Cunningham makes good on its stated goal of doing justice to the man’s spirit of inventiveness.

It is as harrowing as it is triumphant in its depiction of the way it all came to pass.

While some individuals are inevitably more compelling than others, as a whole the entire series, and 63 Up in particular, is completely enveloping as it draws us into the latest happenings of these people we’ve followed for so long.

The virtues of The Aeronauts are real but they are almost exclusively visual. Despite the hard work of acclaimed actors in what sounds on paper like a strong story, the drama presented is determinedly earth-bound.

Ly’s considerable skill aside, what makes Les Misérables such an immersive experience is the crackling sense of authenticity that is the film’s birthright.

Among the virtues of The Two Popes, a sparkling confection with a serious side, is that, given its prosaic title, its crowd-pleasing attributes come as pretty much of a surprise.