Eric Kohn

The movie isn't political so much as philosophical, trashing the notion of the American dream as anything more than fodder for an endless rat race.

There are moments when Tragos and Palermo run the risk of transforming their subjects into tools exploited for the sake of the movie's artistic vision, but the best part of Rich Hill is that its participants rise above the limitations of the material.

Artistically, however, the movie delivers on a surprisingly effective scale, no matter how Lonergan sees it. Alternately perceptive, subversive, tragic and profound.

Above all else, however, Mortensen gives Captain Fantastic its underlying credibility.

Story comes second to Russell over the rhythms of well-timed bickering, which is a blessing and a curse in American Hustle.

A personal work not because the director chooses to make himself a part of the story, but rather because he implicates all of us in it.

With each new twist, Sorrentino is always one step ahead of his audience, building a narrative that skips along at an enthralling pace.

The resulting adrenaline-packed vehicle delivers a multi-directional sugar rush. It moves so quickly that the bells and whistles blur together.

Helms plays angelic insurance agent Tim Lippe with gentle nobility and hilarious naivete.

McQueen’s gripping true-life drama compensates for some of its more heavy-handed beats thanks to Boyega’s staggering, career-best performance and the fiery tone that surrounds it at every turn. The movie is both a ferocious indictment and a call to action that embodies Logan’s cause, even if it’s doomed from the start.

The Forgiveness of Blood examines the barriers of ritual and the passage from youth to adulthood in Albanian society with the perceptive detail of a grand literary feat. At the same time, it retains the simplicity of a parable.

He's still cultivating his storytelling abilities, but Wheatley has clearly found his sweet spot: a darkly funny place with serious potential.

Elle doesn't always maintain the clever balance of naughtiness and dramatic confrontations that make it such an appealingly unconventional romp.

Brainy and exciting at the same time, Interstellar invalidates the need for mindless Hollywood product. No matter its shortcomings, the movie achieves an impressive balancing act. It turns the mysteries of the universe into a cinematic playground, but for every profound or visually arresting moment, it also encourages you to to think.

Indignation doesn’t break any fresh ground, and at times plays more like a series of engaging moments than a cohesive whole, but its craftsmanship is impeccable.

Commissioned as propaganda, Under the Sun instead documents life inside its grip.

The suspense comes and goes, but A Single Shot always maintains a firm grip on its sad, deteriorating environment.

Bodied is pure zany fun disguised as a pure provocation, and sometimes vice versa, mainly because any attempt to characterize its narrative as problematic proves its point.

The movie has a loose, almost amateurish quality to its production that suggests another rush job from a filmmaker unwilling or unable to slow down. But the movie reveals its deeper layers with time, congealing into a perceptive and often charming bite-sized study of smart women contending with a series of annoying men.

Without breaking a lot of new ground, the result is one of the more positive depictions of millennial community-building in recent cinema. None of the group’s fancy flips or grinds top the degree to which “Skate Kitchen” turns its subjects into a fascinating microcosm of American youth.

Savagely assaulting the desperate state of a blue collar family man, the comedic thriller Cheap Thrills establishes a ridiculous premise early on and takes it to various extremes, again and again, until you just have to accept the crazy venture on its own terms or simply give up.

While Mudbound is rooted in a precise historical moment, it’s also a sobering commentary on timeless struggles.

If Joe marks a new beginning for some of its characters, the same description applies to its director and star.

As relentless, eager-to-please genre filmmaking goes, it marks the rare occasion where too much of a good thing is just good enough.

More blatantly an exercise in style than anything on par with the director's crowning achievements, and suffers to some degree from the predictability of its premise.

City Hall doesn’t just deserve an audience; it deserves a conversation. Even as Wiseman celebrates the sophistication of American ideals in practice, his movie illustrates just how hard they are to grasp.

As the portrait of a relationship meltdown involving two eccentric creative types prone to self-doubt, July's sophomore feature bears a strong resemblance to husband Mike Mills's upcoming "Beginners," although July's version of the story has a more experimental edge.

The Treasure may not be a major work from Porumboiu or his filmmaking tradition, but it proves that even cerebral formalism has its soft side.