Even when it dispenses with realism altogether, Hunt for the Wilderpeople conveys important truths about the will and sheer endurance it takes to make a family.

Through two viewings of Jackie, I was never able to pin down whether it was Portman’s performance or Larrain’s way of framing it that left me emotionally shut out.

Pedro Almodóvar’s new film is based on three stories by Alice Munro….They are not so much linked as interlocked, and Almodóvar—whose penchant for narrative complexity grows ever deeper—latches on to the idea of personal history as a puzzle that refuses to be solved.

An arresting visual experience, Kicks has style to spare, and in fact it probably should have spared a little, as this first-time director sometimes crowds his film with more auteurial flourishes than his rather simple story can support. Nonetheless, this is a debut of undeniable promise, both for its director and its largely unknown cast.

The show fulfills a much-needed gap in storytelling: immigrant family life that delivers laugh-out-loud moments without trying to prove that we’re all one big happy family.