Sex can be a rigid rubric of performance for some and a fluid experiment in expression for others. The friction between those two perspectives fascinates Femme, a volatile, sensuous revenge film in which the body and its desires don’t lie.

What makes Alex Garland’s Civil War so diabolically clever is the way that it both revels in and abhors our fascination with the idea of America as a battlefield.

It overflows with intriguing ideas, even if they aren’t all fully explored.

With The Old Oak, Ken Loach goes out with one last, full-throated call for brotherhood and solidarity. It’s the most hopeful the old soldier’s been in years.

Like the best studio horror directors, Stevenson understands that we’re not here for logic. The First Omen is soaked in style and mood with images that are both textured and shocking and that tap into tantalizingly visceral fears.

At times, it feels as though it has emerged — dusty, tattered, and beautiful — from the storied earth of Italy itself.

By the time the movie is over, we feel, perhaps for the first time, like we’ve gotten to know this legendary, almost mythical figure. Despite the tumult of her life and her singularity as both a person and an artist, this Frida seems downright familiar.

Despite the mercenary nature of its existence, Road House is better than it has any right to be — perfectly enjoyable schlock that’s helped along by how unserious it is.

Mohan seduces us with form while the central performance engages us on a more elemental level.

Of the many things that make Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of World exhilarating, from its egalitarian mix of high and low references to its delightful profanity, what stands out is its willingness to acknowledge the general horror of modern existence, and then to suggest the only reasonable response is to laugh.

A spare, lovely work directed by the late musician’s son, Neo Sora, Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus is even more haunting on a big screen, where its shimmering black-and-white photography and elegant camera moves actually heighten the intimacy of the performance.

There are many elements that make The Fall Guy enormous fun, but what makes it genuinely artful is the way that Leitch and his team (including writer Drew Pearce and stunt coordinator Chris O’Hara) have conceived the film’s stunts as extensions of the characters.

More than a fantasy adventure, Damsel is a grisly and at times even touching tale of endurance and survival. It’s sweaty, snarly fun.

Villeneuve’s facility with this stuff doesn’t just come from his talent for spectacle, though there are set pieces in Dune: Part Two that aim to blow the top of your skull off.

We walk away from the film with a dark empathy for these people, and for ourselves.

Perhaps most importantly, The Taste of Things offers a perfect match between Hung’s artistic impulses and his subject matter.

Under the Fig Trees is a big-minded film that grounds its ideas about labor, sexism, faith, and modernity in the zippy rhythms of its characters’ negotiations around friendship, romance, and work. Most of the film’s runtime is people talking, but with evocative dialogue and lived-in performances from mostly first-time actors, it’s an unapologetic slice of life.

If it feels somewhat hazy and unsatisfying as a story, that is perhaps by design. Its fragmented, elliptical style has the quality of a dark, fragile memory.

The anecdotes are mostly on brand for the musicians.

Pictures of Ghosts is so lovely and alive that, if anything, it only reassures you that movies aren’t going anywhere.

The film’s most powerful achievement is perhaps also its most basic: the simple sight of two friends talking, openly and gently, about all the things on their minds.

The picture’s charming modesty is its great virtue; it’s a light movie with a heavy heart.

The marvel of Tótem is that it feels so organic though it’s clearly the result of an enormous amount of preparation and precision, the camera winding its way through crowded spaces to catch the most delicate of interactions. It overflows with love and pain, sometimes both intertwined, and it’s openhearted about death existing alongside life in a way that feels rewardingly mature, even if its protagonist is a child.

Ibelin is an overwhelming film, ugly tears all the way down. It starts off with the most unspeakable of tragedies and then, as it winds its way back through Mats’s life, becomes a bittersweet story of empowerment, acceptance, even joy.

The film is, first and foremost, a visual and sonic experience. We can lose ourselves in it. I think we’re meant to.

Its observations about the disconnect between its elderly protagonist and the society around her are surprisingly relatable.

It’s easy to predict what will happen narratively in Between the Temples, but it’s not nearly as easy to predict what these characters will actually do, what they’ll say and how they’ll act.

The film is at its best when it focuses on Lou and Jackie’s love for each other . . . Their passion fuels a lot of the characters’ impulsive decisions later in the story. But as things descend into further violence, the film can start to feel one note.