Alissa Wilkinson

It is the sort of film to which you want to apply the word “visionary,” which is to say that it’s clear the filmmaker had a vision and stuck to it admirably. Nothing in the movie is easy or comforting. Little about it even feels like a gesture toward those enamored of other Robin Hood tales.

Murthy’s story as a child of immigrants is not particularly unique. But her film is engrossing because of the rich tapestry of sources she draws on.

Sometimes it’s clear why a bad movie didn’t work: half-baked premise, poorly cast actors, janky editing, insufficient budget. Sometimes it’s less clear what happened. O Horizon is the second kind of bad movie, with a bonus element: Its existence gets more baffling as you realize what it really is.

There is a tender exuberance to “The Little Sister,” which renders Fatima’s development from an uncertain, sullen high school student into a more confident young woman as just one step on a journey.

Carroll is a phenomenally compelling subject, and her magnetic, joyful presence at the center of the film holds it together.

Everybody to Kenmure Street is an exceptional documentary, both in the story it tells and in the way it tells it, about what happened that day.

Time is slipping away for Tangier Island, just like its shoreline. Been Here Stay Here beautifully captures what it is right now, then asks us to consider what will probably be lost soon.

It’s a useful framework for understanding leaders around the world, and Baranov is the ideal cipher, someone who intimately understands how easily people’s minds are swayed and molded.

Not only is The Sheep Detectives delightful, but it’s funny and emotionally complex and, dare I say, unusually deferential toward the noble sheep, frequently cast as brain-dead losers in cinema’s barnyards (Shaun notwithstanding).

Drawing attention to the filming technology, Martel implicitly reminds us that Chocobar’s case only came to trial because it was filmed and uploaded to the internet in the first place.