Farran Smith Nehme

The film is nominated for this year’s Best Foreign Film Oscar, and it doesn’t deserve to snatch the prize from the towering likes of “Ida,” “Timbuktu” or “Leviathan.” Yet in its gaudy, predictable way, Wild Tales is enormous fun, and the consistent wit of the quiet stretches shows there’s more to Szifrón than shock tactics.

As Viviane, Elkabetz is fascinating, wielding an incredible variety of contemptuous looks.

A delightfully immersive look at how a ballet is created, Jody Lee Lipes’ documentary is a stark contrast to the psycho theatrics of something like “Black Swan.”

Each scene is breathtaking, such as a long shot of a river at a key moment, and an unforgettable soccer game played with no ball. Timbuktu deserves every accolade it gets.

Dolan embraces passion and melodrama to a refreshing degree, and Dorval and Clément are terrific. But Mommy can be exhausting; the structure and plot rhythms are all over everywhere. A montage to “Wonderwall” (every last note of it) seems to sum up the movie; too much, but exhilarating all the same.

This film loves its characters, but loves their ideals even more.

The cast is excellent, particularly Timur Magomedgadzhiev as a conscience-stricken co-worker, but it’s Cotillard who’s in nearly every scene. Desperate, downtrodden, but grasping at each shred of hope, Cotillard — who won an Oscar playing Edith Piaf in 2007’s “La Vie en Rose” — carries the whole film.

Director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s film combines allegory, brutal melodrama, black humor and strikingly beautiful compositions, each frame dense with meaning. Leviathan stays absolutely gripping, right up to the O. Henry twist that slams the film shut.

Beautiful to look at, with its burnished interiors and magnificent Turkish steppes, this long film builds to a powerful conclusion. Ceylan’s characters grind each other to a powder while hardly raising their voices.

It’s sprightly, funny and at times piercingly sad.

Seeing this great actress, age 84, draw real feeling and laughs from such mediocre material is worth the watch.

If this documentary is swift and witty, that’s in part because it relies heavily on clips of Orson Welles talking. And oh, how Welles could talk, that beautiful voice wrapping itself around tall tales and wine commercials with equal grace.

Played with enormous charm by Samuel Lange Zambrano, Junior is a handsome kid.

The surreal images, offbeat jokes and pointed human-rights allegory make this an altogether different experience from most American animation. It’s dreamy, poetic and not to be missed.

The Soviet era is more interesting than the NHL years, but still, the film is entertaining even for ardent nonfans.

Less tiring than a three-hour tramp through the halls, and considerably less expensive than a plane ticket, National Gallery gives the feeling of having seen everything there is to see.

The single theme is “Isn’t this cool?” And if your response is, “Well, it’s certainly loud,” then On Any Sunday probably isn’t for you.

In a way, this marvelous movie does show that the Mekons have declined, because they’ve become the one thing punk rockers never ever want to be: lovable.

It’s endearing how this glorified haunted-house movie tries to reclaim all the old tools, and do so with a straight face and a PG-13 level of violence.

Filmed on abstract sets, it’s full of playful touches, such as lines delivered in front of a screen that looks like a comic-strip panel, and glimpses of a mole puppet popping out from a fake lawn.

We know Paris never went anywhere, and the film’s a little too flashy and theatrical, with too-neat ironies. As a duel between acting talents, though, this is first-rate.

Eerie and utterly riveting.

Terry’s talent is so magical that you may wish there were longer snippets of his playing. Still, this is a wonderful portrait of two artists strengthened by friendship.

The cast, so packed with talent that Jean Reno and Cherry Jones barely register, is stuck with stagey dialogue. Juliet Rylance, in the Nina part, has a particularly hard time. But there are good points, including Janney’s obvious pleasure in her part.

The results are remarkably intelligent and entertaining, even for someone who (like this writer) finds Cave’s music rather dirge-like.

The photographs on view are dazzling; the way they are shown here is somewhat less so.

The movie reveals some of the most stunning landscape cinematography imaginable, while everyone on the isolated ship waxes philosophical — as who would not?

Jealousy has a quiet melancholy that’s very pleasing.