Claudia Puig

Just as funny, sweet and engaging as the first film starring the big galoot.

What results is a disarmingly honest tale of affection, both romantic and filial.

It's equally endearing as a sweetly funny romance between two likable oddballs and as a low-tech time-travel thriller, and has something profound to say about making the most of the present.

This installment, the best of the three, is everything a movie should be: hilarious, touching, exciting and clever.

So many movies try to capture human relationships and fail miserably. A few come close. Your Sister's Sister nails it with grace, humor and winning charm.

Director Danny Boyle's riveting and kaleidoscopic tale, based on Vikas Swarup's debut novel "Q and A," is exquisitely adapted to the screen by Simon Beaufoy.

Doremus' elegant filmmaking is key to the appeal of the film, but it would never work as superbly without the wonderfully natural, believable performances and powerful chemistry of the lead actors.

Though there is plenty of gunplay, this is a wondrously contemplative and poetic saga that offers a fresh and bewitching take on a timeworn genre.

A thoroughly compelling political thriller, at once intellectually challenging and profoundly emotional.

A masterwork of suspense, romance and political intrigue.

One of the most extraordinary films in decades, this family drama is also one of the most ambitious in scope, having taken more than a decade to shoot. Yet it comes across as effortless and unassuming. Boyhood is an epic masterpiece that seems wholly unconcerned with trying to be one.

The harrowing 12 Years a Slave is a mesmerizing period drama for the ages.

Murderball brilliantly captures the intensity of the little-known athletic competition, offering more intimacy and drama than most Hollywood sports movies.

A musical detective story, this enthralling documentary focuses on a little-known American musician whose haunting voice and poetic lyrics were essentially unknown in his own country, but had a massive impact across the globe.

It's a precarious balance, but Payne blends wit and poignancy so artfully it feels like an exquisitely choreographed dance.

Easily the summer's, and probably the year's, most enchanting movie, Up is a buoyant delight.

An unflinching, powerfully visceral and haunting portrait of the tragic events aboard one of the terrorist-commandeered flights on the fateful morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

Emerges as an African version of "Schindler's List."

The mesmerizing, heart-tugging concert film Heart of Gold confirms Neil Young's stature as a national treasure.

Timeliness can be tricky to pull off convincingly in movies. It's tough to capture an era while it's still happening, yet Up in the Air does so brilliantly, with wit and humanity.

As good as each individual movie is, the third film vaults the work into the stratosphere of classic movies. Key characters are enhanced, new civilizations visited and battles fought more intensely, while feelings and motivations are plumbed more deeply and movingly.

With this, possibly his most subdued film, Almodo´var reinforces his status as one of the most distinctive and talented filmmakers working today.

Both a nostalgic throwback to the silent-picture era and an ultra-modern animated tale, the slyly humorous Triplets of Belleville is artful, engrossing and oddly touching.

A superbly crafted and darkly funny real-life political thriller, with pitch-perfect performances.

Bruce Dern gives the performance of his career as the headstrong Woody in the brilliant, wisely observed and wryly funny Nebraska. What stands out is the fullness of the character, with mannerisms and expressions that make him wholly dimensional.

Gosling and Williams have the most palpable chemistry of any screen couple this year, never striking a false note in this achingly tender tale of a love that implodes before our eyes.

It's clever, farcical and offers wry social commentary. With its heartfelt performances, intelligent writing and subtle humor, this is easily one of the most perceptive and engaging movies of the year.

Unstintingly explores and exposes excruciating pain, raw grief, ruinous vengeance and life-affirming resilience, creating human portraits that are uncommonly exhilarating in their honesty. This is cinematic art in its highest form.

Only a truly visionary filmmaker could take a story largely set in a cramped canyon and give it a sense of openness and hope.

It's hard to imagine how a film built around one-on-one interviews could be entertaining, but Frost/Nixon could not be more enthralling.

Michael B. Jordan is superbly multi-dimensional as Grant.

One of the best films of the year.

It's a rare film that can challenge our minds and rattle our nerves so profoundly. This is unequivocally a thriller for adults. A deftly written, tautly suspenseful and intellectually demanding morality tale.

Every performance in the film is flawless.

This Pride & Prejudice is a stellar adaptation, bewitching the viewer completely and incandescently with an exquisite blend of emotion and wit.

Who would have thought that one of the most provocative and affecting films made about the fallout from 21st century divorce would have emanated from a 19th century novel?

The exhilarating, inventive and suspenseful story hinges on a pair of commanding performances.

Sophisticated and universal yet deeply intimate, A Separation is an exquisitely conceived family drama that has the coiled power of a top-notch thriller.

An outstanding lead performance by Mads Mikkelsen (who won best actor for the role at Cannes in 2012) anchors this hauntingly layered and nuanced drama of a man falsely accused of a terrible deed.

Cinematic poetry in black and white. It also is a deeply affecting tale of the power of resilience and an unflagging sense of humor through the worst of situations

A rich gem expertly told in a surprisingly scant 95 minutes.

The best action thriller of the year.

Can be taken on many levels, and that's why it works so completely.

A monumentally moving experience, from the powerful acting by Javier Bardem to the evocative music, composed by the director, Alejandro Amenábar.

Let's say it without equivocation: Colin Firth deserves an Oscar for his lead role in The King's Speech as the stammering King George VI.

A shape-shifting film, it resembles a poem. At other moments, it is closer to a symphony. Most often, it approximates a fervent prayer.

That this is Fukunaga's first film is astonishing, given its sharp script, technical proficiency and suspenseful pacing. The ensemble cast is top-notch.

The latest version of Hardy's 1874 classic works on all levels. Foremost, it is brilliantly directed by Thomas Vinterberg,who also made two other masterful dramas, 2012's "The Huntand" 1998's "The Celebration."

In Capote, Philip Seymour Hoffman's brilliant transformation into the mannered writer takes your breath away.

The Queen is the kind of thought-provoking, well-written and savvy film that discerning filmgoers long for but rarely get.

The film owes much of its success to the inspired pairing of Fincher and Sorkin.

With its original performances that can't be reduced to simplistic labels, Juno is charming, honest and terrifically acted.

Director Hayao Miyazaki treats his audience as imaginative and intelligent human beings, rather than catering to kids with rote displays of silliness, stunts and scares.

Drama, comedy, action and romance are intertwined in this gorgeously photographed and brilliantly directed film. Lead performances are thoroughly engaging despite - or perhaps because of - being wordless.

Brilliantly captures the exhilaration that comes from facing death head-on. It's also an ode to joyous rivalry.

To induce a state of dread and mesmerize with beauty is a rare, paradoxical achievement.

It takes a filmmaker possessed of a rare, almost alchemic, blend of maturity, wisdom and artistic finesse to create such an intimate, moving and spare war film as Clint Eastwood has done in Letters From Iwo Jima.

It is one of the year's best films and perhaps the finest modern film about World War II.

The telling of this simple tale of survival required cutting-edge technology, but we don't notice the bells and whistles: They're on hand to immerse us in an unforgettable personal story.

Sugar is that sweetest of films: A sensitive and memorable story that surprises at every turn.

Sarah Polley's memoir is a poignant, funny and engrossing film, challenging our notions of memory and family mythology.

A marvel of well-rounded characters, strong performances and disarming chemistry, this deeply felt film is like a loving elegy to the end of childhood. It's easily one of summer's best films.

At once futuristic, funny and fantastical.

Wonderfully enchanting wintry fare.

Grimly dark humor and spot-on production design buttress the captivating story and heighten the unnerving atmosphere...Gone Girl will leave you breathless and haunted.

When was the last time you saw a blockbuster that was impeccably executed and simultaneously thought-provoking, audacious and unnerving while consistently being fun and entertaining?

Detroit has a vital sense of authenticity, rooted as it is in history, conveyed via Bigelow’s meticulously crafted cinema vérité style that, essentially, thrusts the viewer into the tense events. She is an expert at managing suspense and deftly blending sensitivity with a journalistic sense of details.

Land of Mine is a powerful epic, superbly acted, tense and unsettling, but also poignant and occasionally tender.

The Incredible Jessica James is an enchanting, deftly-written and witty movie for lovers and haters of romantic comedies, as well as for all those in between.

Marjorie Prime is a contemplative, intimate and poetic chamber piece, superbly told and nimbly acted, with equal parts nuance and empathy.

As involving as the story is with its impressive ensemble cast, “Norman” is above all a showcase for Gere’s substantial talents.

A deeply personal film about the crisis in reproductive rights that manages to be even-handed, insightful and deeply moving.

The captivating documentary Chavela, directed by Catherine Gund (“Born to Fly”) and Daresha Kyi, mesmerizes with its impressionistic blend of archival photos, musical performances, concert footage and candid interviews with the legendary singer herself, as well with her ardent friends like Pedro Almodóvar and former lovers.

Combining so many disparate strands — historical, contextual, personal and even gossipy — with the performative could have felt disjointed. But in Armstrong’s capable hands, it all comes together fairly seamlessly, providing a compelling portrait of Kelly’s noteworthy career.

This humanistic tale, helmed by a masterful filmmaker, offers a potent — and yes, inspirational — story of triumph against huge odds.

Fontaine powerfully conveys the religious women’s inner torment, but with restraint, both visually and verbally.

Pan's Labyrinth artfully fuses a war film with a family melodrama and a fairy tale. The result is visually stunning and emotionally shattering.

Thirty pounds lighter, all cheekbones and bulging eyes, Gyllenhaal plays one of the year's most memorable characters in this dark, provocative drama.

Despite the sad denouement, it's still the love story of the year.

Depressing and gut-wrenching, but always powerful and gripping.

The net result is an entertainingly frightening film that keeps the audience in a state of alarmed, but eager, anticipation.

Borat is most gloriously funny moving picture for to make people see their stupidness.

Translating solitary musings, raw despondency and personal enlightenment into arresting visuals is a substantial feat and novelist/screenwriter Nick Hornby was the perfect choice to convert the fascinating book into a lively script.

The good news is that this is not merely a few episodes cobbled together: It's a real movie.

This unconventional psychological drama weaves a fascinating tale, and Collette and Williams give two of the summer's best performances.

Features the season's most tragic heroine along with some of the liveliest dead people ever seen on film.

Funny People nimbly intersperses humor and reflection. It is a rumination on mortality, fame and life choices, punctuated with Apatow's trademark raunchy humor.

A wonderfully odd, bleakly comic and thoroughly engrossing film.

The look of this version may be the finest of the 27 Jane Eyre film and television re-tellings.

A hard-core war film with raw violence, intense action, graphic sexuality and a twisting plot that offers a series of surprises.

One Day is an aching lovely romance, but it's also an insightful look at human potential and the search for a purposeful existence.

Not only is this a deftly crafted and superbly acted film, but Wadjda sheds a powerful light on what women face, starting in childhood, in an oppressive regime.

Miyazaki creates fascinating, fluid and whimsical scenarios.

Emotionally and viscerally compelling and retains a suspenseful, edge-of-the-seat quality.

By eloquently probing the state of uncertainty and its accompanying discomfort and confusion, Doubt compels viewers to examine their own assumptions as they become caught up in this fascinating tale.

Middle-aged romance can be a dicey prospect. And it gets more complicated when children are in the picture. But it gets more complex still if the "child" is actually 21, and creepily meddlesome.

Those drawn to unusual, unflinching feats of filmmaking and rare acting turns as well as sustained suspense will be captivated by Buried.

In this spare, unusual and intimate action thriller, Redford's expressions do nearly all of the communicating. He is the sole human cast member and utters only one word during the entire movie, which covers a span of eight days. The ocean — super-charged and becalmed — gets equal billing. If this sounds bizarre, or like an exercise in tedium, it is neither.