Bitingly funny and tragic to the core, Our Hero, Balthazar walks a knife’s edge of absurdist social critique and dead serious pathos as the year’s ballsiest, most original movie. From co-writers Oscar Boyson, who also directed, and producer Ricky Camilleri, it’s a bleak provocation about a brief best friendship between two diametrically opposed young men—one ...

The new Faces of Death, a clever, creepy riff on the notorious 1978 shock doc video nasty, is a “meta” consideration of exploitation and clicks, from the mondo VHS legend to the lurid labyrinths of the dark web. But it’s also a smart serial-killer thriller on its own terms and, unlike its grisly inspiration, has bona fide scares. While horror films in America...