Chris Nashawaty

It’s a daring, cynical gem.

As brilliantly funny as Chris Rock is, he's never been able to replicate the high-voltage danger and electricity of his stand-up act on the big screen. But in his latest film, the sharply satirical Top Five, he not only makes a case for why he should be a bona fide movie star, he also proves he's a writer-director to be reckoned with.

In 1960 this was a shocking, sexually charged symphony of taboo-smashing terror. And thanks to the artistry of Alfred Hitchcock, it remains one today.

Loach’s film isn’t as stridently political as it probably sounds. These are just proud people who want to be treated with respect. There’s one slightly melodramatic turn near the end that felt off, but by then I was already three tissues deep.

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.

It’s obvious that Kaufman has always seen the world differently from the rest of us. And even if it takes a little time to settle into Anomalisa’s disorienting, herky-jerky groove, Kaufman ends up bewitching us with his fresh take on the oldest and most hackneyed of cinematic themes: boy meets girl…and anxiety ensues.

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.

City of Ghosts shows us what journalism can do in the face of evil. Its message is haunting, humane, and ultimately hopeful.

Birdman is a scalpel-sharp dissection of Hollywood, Broadway, and fame in the 21st century. But more than that, it's a testament to Keaton's enduring charisma and power as an actor. He soars.

Most of all, it's a sobering look at a part of coastal America that will never be the same again.

The Jungle Book is a tender and rollicking fable that manages to touch on some grown-up themes about man’s destructive power and the loss of youthful innocence without losing sight that it’s first and foremost a gee-whiz kids adventure.

Deliciously twisty and twisted.

If there’s a flaw with the film (and it’s a minor one), it’s Peck’s impulse to cram it with clips from lily-white Doris Day movies and John Wayne Westerns that are a bit too on the nose.

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.

Every one in the film, down to the smallest characters on the fringes, is keeping secrets and spinning lies. And those lies beget more lies and more until the truth is a distant memory. It’s what can happen when life feels too overwhelming and unbearable to face.

Directed by Holbrooke’s son, David, the film balances poignant political insight with a heartfelt narrative about a man trying to reckon with his absent father’s legacy.

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

Despite its stars-and-stripes title, Marvel’s latest billion-dollar-blockbuster-to-be, Captain America: Civil War, is essentially a third Avengers movie – it’s also the best one yet.

The best part is getting to hear both men talk about their art in exhaustive, almost fetishistic detail. If you’re a classic movie buff, this is a must-see.

The film's a giddily subversive space opera that runs on self-aware smart-assery.

It’s a cliché to say that they don’t make movies like this anymore — nasty, nihilistic, nicotine-stained ‘70s death trips. But thank goodness that Zahler’s doing everything in his power to prove that cliché wrong.

Eric Rohmer’s sun-kissed love quadrangle remains as fresh and romantically profound as it was 18 years ago.

Whether he’s washing the feet of prisoners in America, visiting sick children in Africa, or praying with hurricane victims in Asia, Pope Francis doesn’t merely preach empathy, responsibility, and accountability, he lives it.

In the end it’s a movie about legacy, and it more than preserves the Rocky franchise’s. It reminds you why it was great in the first place.

Wonder Woman is smart, slick, and satisfying in all of the ways superhero films ought to be. How deliciously ironic that in a genre where the boys seem to have all the fun, a female hero and a female director are the ones to show the fellas how it’s done.

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

If there’s one nit to pick with Everybody Knows, it’s that Farhadi’s films, as excellent as they are, are starting to feel a bit same-y. He’s plying the same family-in-crisis formula he’s worked before. That formula still works like gangbusters, but it’s becoming a formula nonetheless: Happiness and community curdle into paranoia and suspicion.

It’s heartbreaking, raw, and true. But it never veers into exploitation or becomes oppressively maudlin.