The Curse
That The Curse is squirm-inducingly awkward won’t be news to anyone who’s watched a Nathan Fielder show before, but TV’s…
Scrapper
Dir. Charlotte Regan
Be prepared to have the expectations you form after reading Scrapper’s synopsis shattered: though it is about a 12-year-old dealing…
Polite Society
Dir. Nida Manzoor
Kill Bill meets Bend It Like Beckham in this wild ride about a martial arts-obsessed British-Pakistani teenager who views her…
The Unknown Country
Dir. Morrisa Maltz
It’s hard not to watch The Unknown Country and think of Nomadland: along with similarities in their Terrence Malick-inspired visuals,…
Fremont
Dir. Babak Jalali
Aptly for a film partly set in a fortune cookie factory, Fremont deals with luck — specifically, the other side…
The Starling Girl
Dir. Laurel Parmet
The agonizing tug of war between dogma and desire is sharply illustrated in writer-director Laurel Parmet’s feature debut, set inside…
David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived
Dir. Dan Hartley
The Harry Potter movies undoubtedly changed the lives of its young stars forever — but a stuntman whose future the…
Once Upon a Time in Uganda
Dir. Cathryne Czubek
If you were on the Internet around 2015, you might be familiar with the viral phenomenon that is Wakaliwood, a…
Linoleum
Dir. Colin West
Strange things are happening in the sleepy cul-de-sac where Cameron Edwin (comic Jim Gaffigan) lives: cars are falling from the…
Mister Organ
Dir. David Farrier
This documentary from journalist David Farrier, New Zealand’s answer to Louis Theroux, plays more like an out-and-out horror movie. But…
Falcon Lake
Dir. Charlotte Le Bon
The gorgeous grain of Falcon Lake’s lush 16mm cinematography instantly gives it an air of nostalgia, as if the movie…
Theater Camp
Dir. Molly Gordon & Nick Lieberman
You don’t have to be a theater kid to enjoy this feel-good mockumentary set in a summer camp for junior…
Ashkal: The Tunisian Investigation
Dir. Youssef Chebbi
Ashkal takes an audaciously hybrid approach to genre: it’s part-noir, part-supernatural thriller, and full political allegory. The investigation at the…
Earth Mama
Dir. Savanah Leaf
Based on the documentary short she helmed with actor Taylor Russell, Savannah Leaf’s Earth Mama is an intimate, unabashedly political,…
The Velveteen Rabbit
Dir. Jennifer Perrott & Rick Thiele
A beloved children’s story gets its umpteenth adaptation here, this time from the screenwriter of 2018’s Watership Down — who…
The Lesson
Dir. Alice Troughton & Female director
Appropriately for its literary focus, The Lesson feels, in places, like the gripping adaptation of a bestselling psychological thriller. Unfortunately,…
Biosphere
Dir. Mel Eslyn
There’s an elephant lurking in the room from the outset of Biosphere, in which two men are the last survivors…
White Balls on Walls
Dir. Sarah Vos
This sociologically revealing documentary follows the attempts of the largely “snow-white” staff of Amsterdam’s Stedelijk art museum to refresh the…
Other People's Children
Dir. Rebecca Zlotowski
Other People’s Children wrestles with some very tricky life experiences: bonding with a partner’s child in the agonizing knowledge that…
Murina
Dir. Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović
A young woman’s coming-of-age threatens to topple the uneasy hierarchy of her family in this striking debut from Croatian director…
Smoking Causes Coughing
Dir. Quentin Dupieux
At 80 minutes, Smoking Causes Coughing is another slice of perfectly paced absurdist fun from Quentin Dupieux, the zany mind…
A Compassionate Spy
Dir. Steve James
As its title suggests, Steve James’ documentary isn’t shy about its sympathy for its subject. Physicist Ted Hall was just…