Ann Hornaday

If “The Black Panthers” has been designed to leave viewers outraged and energized in equal measure, it succeeds with admirable style. It counts both as essential history and a primer in making sense of how we live now.

If A Most Violent Year has a weakness, it’s in that structural looseness.... Still, A Most Violent Year is an engrossing, often beautiful film, and a breakout opportunity for Isaac.

As a full-on celebration of beauty in all its forms, this gem of a contemporary melodrama invites viewers to plunge into a world of unerring taste and luxury, where even tragedy comes softly when it inevitably arrives.

Gone Girl may get the job done as a dutiful, deliberately paced procedural, but it never quite makes the splash it could have as a thoughtful, timely and thoroughly bracing plunge.

It’s true that satire is the perfect weapon of reason, and Justin Simien deploys it with resourcefulness, cool assurance and eagle-eyed aim.

Jarmusch manages to imbue banality with surprising beauty and humor.

Intimate, moving and superbly underplayed, Loving is every bit as soft-spoken and subtly implacable as its protagonists. It lives up to its title as a noun and a verb, with elegant, undeniable simplicity.

Smart, absorbing movie.

It’s all meticulously conceived and impressively staged, but becomes repetitive and monotonous, devolving for anyone not completely steeped in the “Dune” universe into a hazy orange-and-ocher soup of dust, smoke, flames and sand.

Low-key, sleek and sophisticated, Drive provides the visceral pleasures of pulp without sacrificing art. It's cool and smart. Some critics might even call it European.

If you think "Rocky" and "Raging Bull" define the alpha and omega of boxing movies, think again. David O. Russell's The Fighter proves there's still punch in the genre, especially when a filmmaker tells a familiar story in a brand-new way.

Fukunaga imbues this study of ma­nipu­la­tion and manufactured loyalty with an unsettling degree of visual richness and lush natural detail.

A lyrical, mysterious and provocative meditation on the power of memory and narrative, After Life is a fascinating speculation on life and death -- until its plot takes a turn so melodramatic that the spell is broken. [20 Aug 1999, p.3E]

Gives viewers a perceptive, deeply personal take on the timeless immigrant narrative, in which the most epic journey is finally one of self-discovery.

Like the mix tapes that obsess its main characters, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist builds into something of infectious joy.

It succeeds only fitfully. Toggling between Stark's impish goatee and Iron Man's full-metal body condom, and amid so many generic fireballs, kill shots and earsplitting thumps, bumps and crunches, the film finally collapses under its own weight.

May be most valuable for its depiction of the strength of democratic ideals, even in the most precarious and contradictory of circumstances.

The direction and performances in “How to Have Sex” are so spontaneous and naturalistic that the film often plays like a slice-of-life documentary; it’s not necessarily a fully realized story, but as one chapter, it’s extraordinarily vivid.

In a World . . . is a lot of fun, reflecting Bell’s own obvious love of piquant paradox and the music of the spoken word. But it also has a sharply observant streak that makes it as nourishing as it is endearingly nutty.

There are several reasons to see Selma — for its virtuosity and scale, scope and sheer beauty. But then there are its lessons, which have to do with history, but also today: Selma invites viewers to heed its story, meditate on its implications and allow those images once again to change our hearts and minds.

Kokomo City, D. Smith’s impressive debut documentary about Black trans sex workers, arrives in time to be an audacious, endearing, illuminating, often amusingly ribald primer.

Smarter and more poignant than the average chick flick.

Affliction turns the sound on with sudden, crystalline clarity, and echoes with the haunting power of a suppressed truth that has finally been released.

A funny, naughty, enormously entertaining kick in the pants, promising to be an East Coast “Showgirls,” only to wind up a girls-rule “Goodfellas,” leading viewers into a vicariously thrilling underworld ruled by money, drugs, seduction and a sliding moral scale dictated by ruthless realpolitik.

Let the Sunshine In doesn’t offer a consistently pretty picture. Where some viewers might view Isabelle as a hopelessly stunted victim of self-deception, others will see an avatar of empowerment and autonomy.

Life of Pi is spellbinding while it lasts. Lee's film can be appreciated as many things -- a post-Darwinian meditation on coexistence as the key to survival, a reflection on the spiritual nature of suffering and transcendence, a beguiling bait-and-switch on the vagaries of belief itself.

Ringing with both ancient wisdom and searing relevance, Fences feels as if it’s been crafted for the ages, and for this very minute.

In Puzzle, Macdonald has finally found a movie that she doesn’t need to steal, because it belongs to her completely.

Never lets viewers fully inside Erik and Paul's world, a reticence that isn't helped by the actors' fey, restrained-to-a-fault performances. That and a frustratingly episodic structure make what might have been a raw and inspiring portrait of commitment and boundaries a surprisingly uninvolving, arms-length enterprise. Keep the Lights On lets go just when it should be holding you tighter.

Warm, ingratiating, with a beat you can dance to, Sing Street is a feel-good movie that never demands to be liked. Instead it asks, politely and irresistibly.

At the movie's thoroughly expected conclusion, a visual joke has a bedraggled cat licking at the icing on a wedding cake, but it's really Melanie who gets to have it and eat it, too.

For all its feminist pretense as a parable of empowerment, Priscilla’s still caught in a trap, even when the heroine can — and does — walk out.

A near-masterpiece of a film set in the hothouse world of New York ballet.

The beauty of Indignation can be found in how it builds, growing from a garden-variety coming-of-age story into a poetic, even prayerful, meditation on the pitiless vagaries of character and regret. Thoughtful and reserved, perhaps even to a fault, Indignation winds up packing a wallop far greater than its modest parts might suggest.

Feisty, funny, fizzy and deeply wise, Enough Said sparkles within and without, just like the rare gem that it is.

Chile ’76 turns out to be a paranoid thriller altogether worthy of the era it captures with such cool, self-contained style.

With Les Misérables, Ly delivers a passionate protest on behalf of an entire generation, whose future has largely been foreclosed. His, on the other hand, is astonishingly bright.

Funny, poignant and ultimately triumphant, Kajillionaire is a precarious balancing act, one that July pulls off with astute writing, careful staging and trust in her actors to strike precisely the right emotional tones, whether they be tender or breathtakingly tough.

For an agonizing and ultimately transcendent cinematic portrait of sacrifice, love and saving grace, audiences need look no further than this unpretentious and deeply moving film.

Like the hyper-competent aces at the story’s core, this is a movie that defines its lane early and sticks to it, with finesse, unfussy style and more than a few sneak attacks of emotion.

BlackBerry, a funny, insightful corporate biopic, tells the unlikely story of how a ragtag team of Canadian computer nerds invented the titular device — a combination “pager, cellphone and email machine” that would revolutionize modern communications until it became known as the thing you owned before you got an iPhone.

Has its share of surprises, especially in the performances of its two main players.

The movie isn't only boring; it's troubling:

Qualifies as the most painful, poetic and improbably beautiful film of the year.

Dollenmayer has managed to transform a sad sack into an indie screen goddess.

After Yang again demonstrates Kogonada’s mastery of form, framing and composition. But audiences will be forgiven for wanting to reach through the screen to mess it up a little, if only to inject some recognizable warmth and spontaneity.

The comedy is far more subtle and elusive than laugh-out-loud. It’s a reflective, even occasionally tedious slice of daily life that relies on Moore to sell its dullest interludes — sequences that aren’t made any livelier by Lelio’s parched, washed-out visual design.

Blue Jasmine may not be a comeback in any aesthetic or professional sense, but it nevertheless feels like Allen has come back: to the psychic space and collective anxieties of the country of his birth and a real world that, for a while there, he seemed to have left behind.

As he has done in all his movies, from creature features such as "Mimic" to serious dramas such as "Pan's Labyrinth," del Toro creates unforgettable images, filled with color, texture, lyricism and horror.

Holofcener has accrued a rabid, loyal following for her singular brand of observant wit and aching tenderness. Both pour forth in abundance in Please Give, a wry, wistful portrait of contemporary urban manners.

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande turns out to be a wise, amusing, unexpectedly touching exploration of human psyches, the bodies that house them and radical self-acceptance — by way of a literate two-hander executed by actors at supreme ease with each other and, by extension, their audience.

Binoche is so gifted, she no longer seems to act anymore: She just is, in all her serene confidence and physical charisma, and “The Taste of Things” provides the ideal showcase for those ineffable gifts.

Like The Father last year, The Humans makes the set a character in itself: Karam has concocted a diabolically creaky duplex whose wonky corners and jury-rigged improvements take on an increasingly sinister patina as the meal progresses.

With The Card Counter, Schrader has reverted to form, but he’s remade it anew at the same time. He’s done it again, with crafty, haunting power.

The performances are accomplished, but the real star of Hustle & Flow is Brewer, a playwright who has written and directed a few other movies but who is effectively making a breathtaking national debut here.

I, Daniel Blake is about human value: disposable and abstract in one context; eternal, inviolable and sacred in another. They might underline the point a bit too thickly, but Loach and Laverty count on their audience to discern the difference, and to act accordingly.

Most important, does The Dark Knight Rises achieve the impossible, which is to bring a cherished cinematic chapter to a close, yet manage to leave fans feeling not desolate but cheered? To that all-important question, the answer is an unequivocal yes.

Slow going, but it provides an absorbing glimpse of a rarely seen side of Chinese life.

Hip, lurid and improbably lovable, The Guard is easily the best guy-love comedy of the summer, with Cheadle and Gleeson's riffs and repartee tumbling back and forth as if they've been trading lies over Guinness forever.

With Ex Machina, Garland makes an impressive debut as a director, spinning an unsettling futuristic thriller with the expertise and exquisite taste of a seasoned veteran.

What makes The Tribe unforgettable is the filmmaker’s attention to composition and staging, with camera work by cinematographer Valentyn Vasyanovych that goes from implacable stasis to poetic fluidity with seamless, expressive ease.

This is Audiard’s first English-language film, and he evinces sure instincts with both the visual and spoken vernaculars. The Sisters Brothers looks terrific and, propelled by Desplat’s beautiful music, ambles along with pleasing, if routinely episodic, ease until its unexpectedly touching conclusion.

This is a handsome, hugely enjoyable movie that invites the spectators to reflect on precisely what they value, both on screen and off. “Is it good?” is a question repeatedly asked throughout Non-Fiction. When it comes to the myriad subjects at hand, the debate rages on. As for the movie itself, the answer is a resounding yes.

With Much Ado About Nothing, Whedon has crafted an endearing bagatelle, made with equal parts brio and love, ambition and pared-down modesty.

Argento and Aattou deliver appropriately outsize performances to fit the movie's sense of extravagant escapism, and Claude Sarraute delivers a slyly witty performance as the elderly lady carried away by Ryno's Scheherazade-like tale.

A vivid portrait of a society in the midst of wrenching change, but it transcends its immediate context to become a thoughtful, even unforgettable, chamber piece, performed with exquisite subtlety by two fine actresses.

Does it make it as a movie? Only in fits and starts.

There is undeniable power in Magnolia, in which small moments of truth are given epic gravitas, not just by Anderson's adroit cinematic style (no one's camera is more restless or inquisitive), but by the wisdom and compassion of the characters he creates.

This is a movie of myriad worthy, even urgently necessary, ideas; when it reaches its climax, it goes completely haywire in a preposterous, increasingly scattershot sci-fi pastiche.

If you find yourself at "The Island" I have only three words of advice: Vote yourself off.

1917 is impressive but oddly distancing; ultimately stirring but too often gimmicky.

Afghan Star goes much deeper, eloquently conveying the tensions, small victories and shattering setbacks of a fragile democracy struggling to regain a once-flourishing culture.

As lighthearted, late-summer escapism goes, Logan Lucky is an amusing if convoluted and undisciplined bagatelle. As a hotly anticipated comeback, it feels like a slightly dippy, ultimately disposable warm-up of a director whose brains, chops and judicious taste we need more than ever.

As a portrait of a young woman testing the limits of the shame-based system that has controlled her, The Starling Girl plays like a warmer, more radiant companion piece to last year’s “Women Talking."

Without a note of music or any other extraneous narrative device, Emitai plunges the viewer deep into the lives of the Diola, to the point where the subtitles translating the Diola and French languages are almost superfluous. [02 Feb 1998]

For all its stylishness, verve and moments of visual poetry, the relentlessly punishing slapstick and overall cruel tone left me cold.

If ever a match were made in cine-literary heaven it would be Charles Dickens and Armando Iannucci, each a master of probing social criticism, slashing wit and floridly besotted love of language.

It's a smart, bold genre exercise that's enormous fun to watch, harking back to gritty urban thrillers of the 1970s with an assured sense of tone and style.

The film is ultimately too self-regarding, too smug to be transcendent itself.

Like "After Tiller" a few years ago, Trapped is lucid and illuminating about the issue of abortion as a constitutional right. But in addition to being instructive, it brims with compassion, leaving viewers with haunting images of women we never even got to see in the first place.

Few will emerge from its story of intelligence tradecraft and egregious lapses in oversight without feeling seriously freaked out.

By the film's self-congratulatory final shot, Stevie has become less a portrait of a sorry young man's difficult life than the story of auteurist arrogance and self-deception run amok.

In deciding not to stray far from the first film in plot or tone, it makes for a pleasant, familiar, cheerfully unassuming fish-in-her-water tale.

That such a masterful depiction of American heroism and can-do spirit has been created by a German art film director known for considerably darker visions of obsession is an irony Herzog no doubt finds delicious.

A smart, absorbing, often exhilarating documentary.

Despite its familiar, come-from-behind contours, the story brims with redemptive optimism that it comes by honestly, thanks to its extraordinary main character and the equally remarkable actor who plays him.

With skill and sensitivity, Polley turns an on-the-nose political debate into a bracing declaration of independence.

Mississippi Grind winds up being an improbably satisfying, even heartwarming character study.

It gets under your skin and into your head, and you don't want it to leave.

Block, an experienced documentarian, does an outstanding job walking the knife-edge between personal and self-absorbed.

Graciously accompanied by Washington (who can even make eating mac-and-cheese compelling), Zendaya emerges as the star of this show, delivering a performance that calls on sudden, turn-on-a-dime reversals — emotional figure-eights that she executes with impressive, unstudied finesse.

What ensues in Corpus Christi, Jan Komasa’s absorbing and spiritually attuned drama, turns out to be a fascinating exercise in fake-it-till-you-make-it, with a hefty dose of fatalism and small-town hypocrisy thrown in for maximum provocation.

Given the current heightened tenor of religious rhetoric and paranoia, it may well wind up pushing brand-new buttons today. To quote Michael Palin quoting Jesus, "There's just no pleasing some people."

There's no doubt that Eminem has the talent and presence of a star. It's just a shame that the filmmakers didn't capture his power with mad skillz of their own.