This round contains three contenders for my year-end top ten and we haven’t even hit the incoming glut of Fall prestige releases yet. As usual, placement is from best to worst.

Maddie’s Secret

Both uproarious and unexpectedly sincere–a tricky balance to fully pull off (only John Water’s original Hairspray arguably does this as well) and it probably would not have worked without Early playing the main character. It helps to know Lifetime Movie and Afterschool Special aesthetics but Early has crafted such a palpable universe (shot on an iPhone, no less!) that it’s not required. A future cult classic.

Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie

The act of discovery has always served a movie well when done convincingly, even when seemingly hand-stitched and taped-together like this, possibly the best series-to-feature-length adaptation I can think of (and I’ve never even seen the series, though I will now.) Go in blind even if you already know what classic movie it references/apes/pays genial tribute to (as I did.)

EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert

Never much of an Elvis fan, it turns out the visual presentation is key to understanding his brilliance. Baz Luhrman’s best film and one of the most visceral and compelling performance documentaries (that editing between rehearsal and concert footage of the same song!) I’ve seen. Too bad I had to dock half a star for Bono.

Case 137

Screened at the Boston French Film Festival, this is simply a strong police brutality procedural made sharper by Lea Drucker’s inquisitive, rarely showy performance. Could conceivably be remade in America but would it retain its subtlety?

Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial vs. That’s the Weight of the World)

What, no mention of the movie Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which they appeared in performing their hit cover of “Got to Get You Into My Life”? All kidding aside, this was fun and maybe more accomplished than Questlove’s Sly Stone doc if only because the filmmaker’s celebratory slant doesn’t fully lend itself to tragic figures. But I’m still waiting on him to make an advance on the rare promise of Summer of Soul.

Two Prosecutors

Alternate title: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished. Moves slowly and deliberately yet I was on the edge of my seat in the last twenty minutes. Also tartly nails the relentless bureaucracy of Communism.

A. Rimbaud

A portrait of the titular poet with one actor and a shifting, black-box stage set is not what I expected from Patrick Wang after A Bread Factory; it’s also not enough to sustain nearly three hours. Many flashes of brilliance mixed with copious, impenetrable monologues. The Derek Jarman influence on this (particularly Wittgenstein) brings to mind an alternate version with Tilda Swinton, which might have been great.

The Drama

Discomforting, which I suppose was the point even if the pleasure extracted from it wasn’t fully worth the pain one had to sift through. However, this might be my favorite Robert Pattinson performance to date and Zendaya’s not far behind.

Time and Water

Weaving together a personal history and a study of Iceland’s disappearing glaciers, it packs in a lot even if it often strains to cohere. I’ve could’ve watched an entire film consisting of the gorgeous nature shots but I guess that’s what IMAX is for.

Mile End Kicks

Some nice moments between Barbie Ferreira and Devon Bostick and a sturdy reminder that yes, twentysomethings do tend to make one bad decision after another. Generic (and excessively messy) compared to director Chandler Levack’s I Like Movies although if I were 7-10 years younger this 2011-set film might’ve hit harder for me.