Mainland master Jia Zhangke scales new heights with Mountains May Depart. At once an intimate drama and a decades-spanning epic, Jia’s new film also is an intensely moving study of how China’s economic boom and the resulting materialism have affected the bonds of family, tradition, and love.

The “cumulative impact,” writes Scott Foundas in Variety, is “enormously touching, highlighted by Jia’s rapturous image-making and a luminous central performance by the director’s regular muse (and wife), Zhao Tao.” (Dir.: Jia Zhangke, China/France/Japan, 2015, 131 min., DCP, Cantonese, Mandarin and English with English subtitles)