Da 5 Bloods

NYT Critic’s Pick | R | Drama, War | Directed by Spike Lee

Spike Lee’s new joint is an anguished, funny, violent argument with and about American history, with an unforgettable performance from Delroy Lindo at its heart.
By A.O. SCOTT

Gulabo Sitabo

NYT Critic’s Pick | Comedy, Drama | Directed by Shoojit Sircar

Amitabh Bachchan and Ayushmann Khurrana star in this charmingly low-key Hindi comedy.
By RACHEL SALTZ

Hill of Freedom

NYT Critic’s Pick | Drama | Directed by Sang-soo Hong

Hong Sang-soo’s film, structured as a letter with the pages out of order, is one of his most daring gambits.
By GLENN KENNY

In My Blood It Runs

NYT Critic’s Pick | Documentary, Biography, History | Directed by Maya Newell

In plain vérité style, the documentary follows an Arrernte Aboriginal family in Alice Springs, Australia.
By TEO BUGBEE

Marona’s Fantastic Tale

NYT Critic’s Pick | Animation, Drama, Family | Directed by Anca Damian

At the end of her life, a dog reflects on happiness and heartbreak. But the film stays buoyant through its unique and lively animation.
By TEO BUGBEE

— Of Possible Interest —

For They Know Not What They Do

Documentary | Directed by Daniel G. Karslake

Daniel Karslake’s documentary follows four families navigating issues of faith in relation to the sexual orientations and gender identities of their children.
By LOVIA GYARKYE

Aviva

Drama, Music, Romance | Directed by Boaz Yakin

Boaz Yakin’s movie is fresh in two ways: in its questioning of gender, and in its use of dance as a primary mode of expression.
By BRIAN SEIBERT

The Surrogate

Drama | Directed by Jeremy Hersh

In Jeremy Hersh’s film, a woman agrees to carry a child for a gay couple, and unexpected conflicts arise.
By GLENN KENNY

Tommaso
NYT Critic’s Pick | Drama | Directed by Abel Ferrara
Abel Ferrara’s new semi-autobiographical drama, starring Willem Dafoe, crackles with ideas and empathy.
By GLENN KENNY

Dreamland
NYT Critic’s Pick | Comedy, Crime, Fantasy, Horror | Directed by Bruce McDonald
A double dose of Stephen McHattie helps this freaky noir find its footing.
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

Searching Eva
NYT Critic’s Pick | Documentary | Directed by Pia Hellenthal
This portrait of a professed sex worker, writer, anarchist, feminist, musician and recovering addict is a tough film to pin down.
By BEN KENIGSBERG

Circumstantial Pleasures

NYT Critic’s Pick | Directed by Lewis Klahr

A new movie by Lewis Klahr, who makes striking, personal assemblages out of cultural detritus.
By MANOHLA DARGIS

Papicha

NYT Critic’s Pick | Drama | Directed by Mounia Meddour

A young Algerian woman rebels against religious extremism in Mounia Meddour’s vibrant film.
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

— Of Possible Interest —

The Vast of Night

PG-13 | Fantasy, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller| Directed by Andrew Patterson

In a small New Mexico town in the 1950s, an eerie throbbing sound and a lot of questions send two friends in search of answers.
By MANOHLA DARGIS

Joan of Arc
NYT Critic’s Pick | Drama | Directed by Bruno Dumont

Bruno Dumont’s movie features a young actress as the saint in her later years — along with the French pop singer Christophe.
By GLENN KENNY

Villain
NYT Critic’s Pick | R | Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller | Directed by Philip Barantini

An aging ex-con is forced into old ways in this superior crime thriller.
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

— Of Possible Interest —

Diana Kennedy: Nothing Fancy
Documentary | Directed by Elizabeth Carroll

This documentary is an admiring visit with Diana Kennedy, who has devoted her life to researching and cooking traditional Mexican food.
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

Graves Without a Name

NYT Critic’s Pick | Documentary | Directed by Rithy Panh

The filmmaker Rithy Panh attempts to find where his parents, victims of the Khmer Rouge, are buried.
By GLENN KENNY

The Wolf House

NYT Critic’s Pick | Not Rated | Animation, Drama, Horror | Directed by Joaquín Cociña, Cristóbal León

A predator is at the door in a stunning new animated film from Chile.
By GLENN KENNY

How to Build a Girl

NYT Critic’s Pick | R | Comedy | Directed by Coky Giedroyc

Beanie Feldstein rocks as a nerdy high schooler who transforms into a music critic in this clever comedy.
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

Driveways

NYT Critic’s Pick | Drama | Directed by Andrew Ahn

A young boy and his mother find kindness and friendship from an aging veteran, played by Brian Dennehy in one of his final roles.
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

South Mountain

NYT Critic’s Pick | Drama | Directed by Hilary Brougher

Talia Balsam gets a rare chance to shine in a lead role in this sharp domestic drama, playing a woman who learns of her partner’s second family.
By GLENN KENNY

Murder to Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story

NYT Critic’s Pick Documentary Directed by Daniel H. Birman

Daniel H. Birman’s documentary about Cyntoia Brown is a moving reflection of what criminal justice reform means in personal terms.
By BILAL QURESHI

Until the Birds Return

NYT Critic’s Pick Drama Directed by Karim Moussaoui

This tender, ruminative drama about contemporary life traces the singular moments that form the nodes of a shared national history.
By DEVIKA GIRISH

The Half of It

NYT Critic’s Pick PG-13 Comedy, Romance Directed by Alice Wu

In this comedy from Alice Wu, love letters reveal everything about a person, except their identity.
By KYLE TURNER

— Of Possible Interest —

Blood Quantum

Horror Directed by Jeff Barnaby

This Canadian zombie movie is more notable for its cultural backdrop and moody vibe than for its gore.
By ELISABETH VINCENTELLI

A Secret Love

Documentary Directed by Chris Bolan

This tender film explores the partnership between two women who lived, in public and to kin, as dear friends for six decades.
By NATALIA WINKELMAN

15 Years

Drama Directed by Yuval Hadadi

A gay Israeli architect in a committed relationship is undone when the specter of parenthood is raised.
By KRISTEN YOONSOO KIM

Bad Education
NYT Critic’s Pick TV-MA Comedy, Drama Directed by Cory Finley

Hugh Jackman is darkly charismatic as the real-life schools superintendent who admitted to stealing $2 million from his Long Island district.
By BEN KENIGSBERG

Beastie Boys Story
NYT Critic’s Pick TV-MA Documentary Directed by Spike Jonze

Ad-Rock and Mike D share stories and grief in a live documentary directed by Spike Jonze.
By A.O. SCOTT

— Of Possible Interest —

Robert the Bruce
Action, History Directed by Richard Gray

Angus Macfadyen, who first played the medieval Scottish king in “Braveheart,” reprises his role in this introspective historical drama.
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

Eating Up Easter
Documentary Directed by Sergio Mata’u Rapu

A filmmaker shows the daily environmental struggles of his native home.
By KRISTEN YOONSOO KIM

Circus of Books
Documentary Directed by Rachel Mason

A woman’s documentary on the gay pornography and adult goods shop her parents ran for three decades brims with warm remembrances by those who frequented it.
By TEO BUGBEE

Beyond The Visible – Hilma af Klint

NYT Critic’s Pick | Documentary, Biography | Directed by Halina Dyrschka
How the rediscovery of a Swedish abstract painter changed the course of art history.
By A.O. SCOTT

Selah and The Spades

NYT Critic’s Pick | R | Drama | Directed by Tayarisha Poe
New talent behind and in front of the camera elevates a familiar tale of high-school strife.
By TEO BUGBEE

A White, White Day

NYT Critic’s Pick | Drama | Directed by Hlynur Palmason
A man finds coping with his wife’s death hard enough — and then learns she’d been having an affair.
By GLENN KENNY

Butt Boy

NYT Critic’s Pick | Comedy, Sci-Fi, Thriller | Directed by Tyler Cornack
A search for missing children leads to a man with a strange impulse in this wildly polarizing film.
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

Crip Camp

NYT Critic’s Pick R Documentary Directed by James Lebrecht, Nicole Newnham
This feel-good documentary recounts the ties of a Catskills summer camp to American disability rights activism in the 1970s.
By BEN KENIGSBERG

Never Rarely Sometimes Always

NYT Critic’s Pick PG-13 Drama Directed by Eliza Hittman
In this stirring drama, the director Eliza Hittman tells an intimate story that is also a potent argument about self-determination.
By MANOHLA DARGIS

Human Nature

NYT Critic’s Pick Documentary Directed by Adam Bolt
Adam Bolt’s new documentary focuses on Crispr technology, which can edit genes, thus giving people the ability to change human, animal and plant life.
By KEN JAWOROWSKI

Bacurau

NYT Critic’s Pick Action, Adventure, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller, Western Directed by Juliano Dornelles, Kleber Mendonça Filho
In this sensational genre whatsit, a town finds itself fighting for its very existence. (Good thing Sônia Braga lives there.)
By MANOHLA DARGIS

The Wild Goose Lake

NYT Critic’s Pick Crime, Drama Directed by Yi’nan Diao
This film is dark and moody like the old classics, but the director Diao Yinan has created a very contemporary crime drama.
By GLENN KENNY

Sorry We Missed You

NYT Critic’s Pick Drama Directed by Ken Loach
In this Ken Loach film, a British family that’s barely getting by faces the peril that is the gig economy.
By WESLEY MORRIS

First Cow

NYT Critic’s Pick PG-13 Drama Directed by Kelly Reichardt
Set in the mid-19th-century Oregon Territory, Kelly Reichardt’s latest film is a fable, a western, a buddy picture and a masterpiece.
By A.O. SCOTT

The Invisible Man

NYT Critic’s Pick R Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller Directed by Leigh Whannell
Elisabeth Moss stars in a scary update on the H.G. Wells classic that trades science-fiction shivers for #MeToo horror.
By MANOHLA DARGIS

My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising

NYT Critic’s Pick PG-13Animation, Action, Adventure, Comedy, Family, Sci-Fi Directed by Kenji Nagasaki
This animated film distinguishes itself in the era of superhero supersaturation with bright, bold and surprisingly emotional filmmaking.
By TEO BUGBEE

Vitalina Varela

NYT Critic’s Pick Drama Directed by Pedro Costa
In the new drama from Pedro Costa, daylight, and hope, are hard to find.
By GLENN KENNY

Premature

NYT Critic’s Pick Unrated Drama, Romance Directed by Rashaad Ernesto Green
A romance threatens to derail a gifted teenager’s college plans in this sassy-sexy drama.
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

The State Against Mandela and the Others

NYT Critic’s Pick Documentary Directed by Nicolas Champeaux, Gilles Porte
Nelson Mandela’s trial nearly 60 years ago was not filmed, but the words spoken still echo loudly.
By GLENN KENNY

You go to my head

NYT Critic’s Pick Drama, Fantasy, Mystery, Romance, Thriller Directed by Dimitri de Clercq
A mysterious architect persuades an amnesiac that she’s his wife in this elusive romance set in the Sahara.
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

Buffaloed

NYT Critic’s Pick Comedy, Drama Directed by Tanya Wexler
Zoey Deutch’s pell-mell performance gives this debt-collection comedy the energy it needs.
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

The Cordillera of Dreams

NYT Critic’s Pick Documentary Directed by Patricio Guzmán
An exiled filmmaker returns to Chile, contemplating fascism and eternity.
By GLENN KENNY

Cane River

NYT Critic’s Pick Drama, Romance Directed by Horace Jenkins
Horace B. Jenkins’s tale of forbidden romance in Louisiana, completed in 1982, opens at last.
By A.O. SCOTT

Taylor Swift: Miss Americana

NYT Critic’s Pick TV-MA Documentary Directed by Lana Wilson
In the Netflix documentary, we see a star that is self-critical, grown up and ready, perhaps, to deliver a message beyond the music.
By WESLEY MORRIS

The Assistant

NYT Critic’s Pick R Drama Directed by Kitty Green
Julia Garner is magnificent as a conflicted staffer to a serial sexual predator in this powerfully muted drama.
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

Incitement

NYT Critic’s Pick Thriller Directed by Yaron Zilberman
Yaron Zilberman’s film presents a discomfortingly close-range depiction of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin in the period leading up to the killing.
By BEN KENIGSBERG

The Traitor

NYT Critic’s Pick R Biography, Crime, Drama Directed by Marco Bellocchio
Marco Bellocchio’s film tells the story of Tommaso Buscetta, a Sicilian Mafioso who became Italy’s most notorious informer in the 1980s.
By A.O. SCOTT

Beanpole

NYT Critic’s Pick Drama, War Directed by Kantemir Balagov
Set in the aftermath of World War II, this dazzling movie centers on two friends who are each casualties of a historical trauma.
By MANOHLA DARGIS