Chris Nashawaty

A pulse-pounding procedural that pieces together the murder of a left-wing youth leader (Yves Montand). A baroque government cover-up is foiled by a tenacious inspector (Jean-?Louis Trintignant) whose rat-a-tat interrogations are like machine-gun fire. This is an amazing film.

Nicolas Roeg’s art-house adventure is lyrical and intoxicating.

Peele is undeniably a born filmmaker with big ambitions and an even bigger set of balls. He’s made a horror movie whose biggest jolts have nothing to do with blood or bodies, but rather with big ideas.

Eighth Grade is an absolute delight that stings with truth. It’s heartbreaking, heartwarming, and a total charmer.

I’m not quite sure how Rees (2011’s Pariah) has done it, exactly, but the depth of heartbreak and humanity in this — just her second feature film — is remarkable.

There’s Glen Powell as Finn, the endearing loquacious smoothie; there’s Juston Street as Jay, the psycho loose-cannon fireballer; and Wyatt (son of Kurt) Russell as Willoughby, the older, sage-like stoner who quotes Carl Sagan after ripping bong hits.

It’s like a security blanket for our troubled times.

Tough to watch, but essential.

Mitchum looks like a doomed slab of granite and gives a dynamite performance. The tough-guy dialogue and working-class Boston locations are so realistic it almost feels like you’re watching a documentary.

Nicholson’s live-wire performance turns what could have been a standard movie malcontent into a martyr.

Farhadi’s intrigue doesn’t feel like the stuff of a Hollywood thriller. It’s more realistic, more pedestrian than that – which gives it a real ring of low-key emotional truth.

Based on Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s best-seller about cracking the byzantine Watergate cover-up, the movie is a victory lap for American journalism — the triumphant flip side to Network‘s self-loathing take on the media.

What makes this chillingly creepy little black-magic folk tale work so beautifully is its evocative sense of time and place.

Some, no doubt, will find Lowery’s playfully surreal experiment (a ghost story told from the POV of the ghost) haunting, lyrical, and moving. Others (ahem, guilty as charged) will just find it maddening, inscrutable, and alienating. Check it out, then take your side in the debate.

It’s very much its own thing – part harrowing and exhilarating space epic on a grand canvas and part intimate character study in miniature. And while both of those elements are stunning, especially when you consider just how early Chazelle is in his career as a director, the character sections are slightly less successful.

Snowpiercer sucks you into its strange, brave new world so completely, it leaves you with the all-too-rare sensation that you've just witnessed something you've never seen before...and need to see again.

There aren’t enough laughs here to goose it past formulaic. It’s harmless and mild and likable, but it’s also a toothless comedy that should have had some bite.

If this soap opera wasn’t real, you’d never believe it.

As De Palma shows us, whether he’s got two more films left in him or two dozen — Holy Mackerel — what a career!

Timeless and essential.

With this heartbreaking yet hopeful new documentary about his life’s work, Salgado shares the stories behind these split-second black-and-white moments, giving them even more dimension.

The Guilty is an absolute workout that pulls the rug out from under you just when you think you have it figured out. The last ten minutes will keep you rattled long after you’ve left the theater.

It’s a fully immersive experience that begs to be anchored by someone who’s lit from within by blinding neon, but who also, amidst all of the nutty squalls of genre scuzz can still wear his broken heart on his sleeve. And, these days, that list is a short one. In fact, there’s really only one name on it. Thankfully, Cosmatos found him.

It proves that Morgen isn’t interested in hagiography. He wants to show us the real Kurt Cobain, warts and all.

Directed by Dario Argento, a.k.a. the Italian Hitchcock, the remastered giallo Tenebre is crammed with artsy camera work, intricate Rube Goldbergian death scenes, and a gruesome final reel where blood flows like the Tiber.

Both actors still manage to show something we rarely see on screen: the heartache and happiness that come with love late in life.

It’s about perseverance, compassion, and empathy.

It’s easily the director’s best movie since 2002’s "25th Hour."