The Story: An Israeli family is devastated by the news that their son has died while performing compulsory military service, only to discover that a terrible mistake has been made. The Lowdown: A brutally conceived and beautifully executed political allegory that deftly balances human tragedy with occasional touches of blackhearted farce.

The Story: An overtaxed mother receives some much-needed help from a mercurial young night nanny. The Lowdown: An interesting take on the burdens and societal pressures of motherhood that goes thoroughly off the rails in its third act.

In Brief: One of only three films directed by Robin Hardy, much of what makes The Wicker Man (1973) so special can likely be attributed to recently deceased writer Anthony Shaffer, who also wrote Hitchcock's Frenzy and both the stage and screen versions of Sleuth. This film is unquestionably a definitive cult classic, due largely to…

In Brief: The third and final of producer Hal Roach's films based on Thorne Smith's novel Topper, this hidden gem has long been overlooked due to the absence of original stars Cary Grant and Constance Bennett — and that's unfortunate because this iteration easily equals the first Topper film and blatantly bests the second. Topper Returns (1941) ditches the screwball model…

The Story: A young boy reeling from the death of his father steals a racehorse and tries to track down his aunt. The Lowdown: A coming-of-age story that eschews the feel-good sensibilities of the genre in favor of a challenging look at the bleak realities of those living on the margins of American society.

The Story: Thanos collects the Infinity Stones in order to cull the universe's population. The Lowdown: Nothing exceeds like excess ...

In Brief: One of the most thematically unsettling and technically accomplished films of Alfred Hitchcock's British era, Secret Agent (1936) is often unduly marginalized because it followed the director's masterful The 39 Steps (1935) and preceded his equally exceptional Sabotage (also 1936). And that's unfortunate, because its twisty plot — adapted from W. Somerset Maugham's "Ashenden" stories — and compelling psychological…

The Story: An unhinged veteran working as a hitman must rescue the young daughter of a politician from a ring of upper-crust sex traffickers. The Lowdown: Writer/director Lynne Ramsay transcends the pulp predictability of her source material by eschewing gratuitous gore in favor of character development and emotional nuance.

The Story: A disgraced band of Vermont cops return to the job in a small Canadian village recently repatriated to the US. The Lowdown: Neither as bad nor as good as it might have been, this trip down memory lane narrowly avoids hitting a complete dead end.

The Story: A widowed mother and her two adult sons struggle to cope with the passing of their patriarch. The Lowdown: A purposeless meditation on grief that is elevated by solid performances but dragged down by its own sense of privilege and self-importance.

In Brief: Let's get this out of the way: I love Akira Kurosawa unequivocally. Having said that, I should point out that late-period Kurosawa is distinctly inferior — at least, in many instances — to his earlier masterpieces. A perfect case in point is Dodes’ka-den (1970), Kurosawa's first color film and one of the few times the…

In Brief: Fellini was the first filmmaker to truly spark my interest in the cinema as an art form, and La Strada (1954) is the first film to truly codify his auteurial voice, the most "Felliniesque" of the director's early work. Is this story of an abused waif (Giulietta Masina, Fellini's wife) turning from her brutish circus strongman husband…

In Brief: G.W. Pabst may not be particularly well-known outside of film nerd circles, but there's no doubt that nearly every filmmaker of any significance that followed in his wake either consciously or unconsciously bears the indelible mark of his influence. And of all Pabst's films, Pandora's Box (1929) may well be the most notable. Both timely and…

The Story: Director William Friedkin presents the only documentary footage ever shot of a genuine exorcism. The Lowdown: Friedkin's unprecedented access to Vatican exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth provides unsettling food for thought in this riveting doc.

The Story: A couple in the midst of a divorce neglect their adolescent son, who has run away days before they notice he's missing. The Lowdown: A coldhearted political allegory masterfully executed by Russian writer/director Andrey Zvyagintsev.

The Story: Giant animals with superpowers converge on Chicago, and only The Rock can stop them from destroying the city. The Lowdown: A movie so profoundly dumb that it feels less like it was written by a sizable team of writers than by particularly slow gorilla having his sign language transcribed.

The Story: A young boy in the not-too-distant future goes on a perilous quest to rescue his dog, who is exiled to Trash Island by a corrupt government regime that prefers cats. The Lowdown: The stop-motion animated Kurosawa homage/political allegory you didn't know you needed in your life.

The Story: A small family struggles to survive the threat of mysterious creatures that stalk humans by sound. The Lowdown: A generally effective low-budget thriller that overplays an ambitious conceit, yet still works more often than it doesn't.