Ann Hornaday

It’s a movie that’s all too happy simply to go through the motions when its star is clearly capable of busting bigger, more interesting moves. Luckily, there are other films in the sea. This is one that Lopez should have left at the altar.

In this absorbing and rigorously disciplined account, Konchalovsky proves that a healthy embrace of nuance doesn't need to result in muddled thinking. Indeed, it can lead to something sharp, bright and dazzlingly precise.

After years of dabbling, lyrically and literally, Taylor Swift has come for American cinema, and we can only wait for her next move.

A shattering vérité portrait of the disintegration of Iraqi society in the period immediately following the withdrawal of U.S. troops from that country, this urgent, of-the-moment film doesn’t explain the ensuing chaos as much as plunge viewers into it firsthand, offering a terrifying, ultimately moving portrait of the effects of war, both physical and psychic.

Luckily, The Mustang overcomes its most predictable story beats thanks to de Clermont-Tonnerre’s intimate, unfussy style and a quietly captivating performance by Schoenaerts.

Richly observed and paced with relaxed, unforced ease, Afire doesn’t ignite as much as smolder. It’s a slow, steady burn.

While its themes of revenge, mutual resentment and grim fatalism offer little hope for a ready solutions, the movie itself testifies to the power of creative collaboration in finding common ground.

Although Ralston's act of desperation is admittedly difficult to watch, viewers who might avoid the film out of squeamishness would be depriving themselves of one of the year's most exhilarating cinematic experiences.

A crafty, swift, subtly stylish thriller.

Improbably, The End of the Tour doesn’t just sustain the audience’s interest in Wallace and Lipsky’s exchanges, arguments and moments of bonding, but invites us to care deeply about the men.

That makes Maiden not just a ripping yarn but a meaningful one. Like “RBG” last year, it’s a story that reminds women — and men — not only how far we’ve come in one generation but how far we’ve yet to go.

Short Term 12 is that rare movie gutsy enough to tell the truth about love: that it’s not a poetic longing or a magical-thinking happy ending, but a skill. And, the film suggests, we all have the capacity to learn it.

Residue is a delicately layered depiction of the dance between alienation and belonging. In this moving portrait, it’s a dance is defined by struggle, grief and undiminished grace.

A film of rare intelligence, beauty and compassion.

At its heart, it's about the communities we forge - real and imagined - to save our own lives.

An exuberant, raucous and thoroughly endearing comedy

This installment has achieved a nearly impossible hat trick. It's a movie that is exegetically correct enough to appease the most hard-core buffs, while opening up the final frontier to a whole new generation of fans who have yet to appreciate Star Trek's ineffable combination of sci-fi action, campy humor and yin-yang philosophical tussle between logic and emotion.

As a celebration of the physical expressiveness and visual storytelling of silent cinema, A Quiet Place speaks volumes without a word being uttered.

The writing is so musical, so attuned to human frailty and aspiration, that I defy anyone to watch the movie without smiling — with amusement one minute, rueful recognition the next, but probably always with some measure of simple, undiluted delight.

Johnny’s tentative dip into family life artfully captures the tedium, terror and confounding ecstasy of parenthood, but it more eloquently conveys the pain and discovery involved in simply trying to do one’s best.

McQueen has taken the raw materials of filmmaking and committed an act of great art.

Have you ever been trapped in the back seat of a car while the old married couple up front bickers and banters for hours? It's either sheer torture or, if the couple happens to be Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, wildly entertaining.

Put delicately, this is one long sit, made all the more so by a turgid story, a dour visual palette and uninspiring action.

This uncommonly intelligent thriller evokes the great films of the 1970s ("All the President's Men," "Klute," "Three Days of the Condor") that managed to elicit gritty urban realism while maintaining a suave sense of style and moral complexity.

The fun here — and there is a lot of it — is to be had simply in allowing an ensemble of game, generous-spirited actors to give their all in service to the fine art of misdirection and mayhem.

Nuts!”is an intriguing, if patronizing, curio from the cabinet of American arcana, a geegaw from the collective attic that, when dusted off, looks grotesquely funny in the light of today. We wonder how anyone could buy it. Just imagine what, one day, they’ll say about us.

As a sly chamber piece, it re­assures and unsettles in equal, exquisitely calibrated measure.

In this unsparing but deeply compassionate film, viewers get a chance to see the fatigue, stress and bewilderment of modern life for what they are: not the regrettable side effects of market-driven progress, but the results of cynicism and greed, and the unfathomable human cost of wanting what we want, right now.