Flow (Gints Zilbalodis, 2024). This independently made, Latvian animated film is quite marvelous. In following a group of animals — most notably an expressively alert dark cat — as they contend with rising waters in a verdant land, director Gints Zilbalodis and his collaborators create a moving tale of creating community to help contend with hardship. The filmmakers’ commitment to their own daring choices, especially the lack of dialogue and choosing to largely refrain from anthropomorphizing the animals, is admirable. These choices further give the film tremendous heft while preventing it from skewing towards didactic hectoring. Flow is also deeply rewarding because it looks amazing. The animation is rich and elegant, effectively shaming major studios that pour obscene amounts of money into kinetic eyesores. For the film to work, the visual narrative storytelling needs to be impeccable, and Zilabalodis is up to the task. The movie is assembled with a keen eye towards conveying action and emotion with equal clarity. Flow really is a feat.

Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, 2024). This characteristically expert observational drama from writer-director Mike Leigh is a tough sit and a bleakly funny entertainment at the same time. Patsy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) is a perpetually aggravated middle-aged woman who rages at everyone in her path, whether her wearily taciturn husband (David Webber), her sullen, withdrawn son (Tuwaine Barrett), her determinedly understanding sister (Michele Austin), or whatever random stranger has the misfortune to cross her path in a supermarket or parking lot. Leigh seems to be interested in putting an immediately unlikable character on screen and pressing the audience to generate empathy for her given the gradually emerging wells of depression that are driving her behaviors. Leigh’s largely effective in this pursuit, but Jean-Baptiste is so exceptionally committed as a typhoon of fevered animosity that the director’s indifference to spelling things out for the audience sometimes works against him. Hard Truths could use a beat or two that makes it a little clearer how Patsy made connections with other people in the first place. Austin goes a long way towards making up the difference with acting that emphasizes empathy while also acknowledging that even the most saintly people can have their patience sorely tested.

September 5 (Tim Fehlbaum, 2024). When the Palestinian militant group Black September took a group of Israeli athletes hostage during the 1972 Olympics in Munich, ABC was right on the scene because they were covering the Games. September 5 imagines the experience in the control room and nearby offices and studios as various producers and network executives contend with tense decisions about how best to provide news coverage of the terrible story unfolding in front of them. As directed by Tim Fehlbaum, the film is a straight-down-the-middle docudrama, intensely homed in on the basic mechanics of crafting live television under high-pressure circumstances a half century ago. Fehlbaum is so committed to tick-tock story of it all that he lets other important aspects of the film slide. Despite generally fine work from the cast, none of the characters comes alive as individual people, and the moral complexity that could have given the film more depth is more or less elided to send the narrative racing to the next decision point. September 5 is solid and little more.