Gabe Toro

Holy Motors keeps kicking into a different gear, much like an eternally waking dream.

You don’t need to know the resume of Maribel Verdú to know that the “Y Tu Mama Tambien” star is this film’s meal ticket. With an equal division of screentime with her co-star, Verdú’s ferocious sexuality projects that she was meant to become the fairest of them all by sheer force of will.

It’s as if Weitz knows he’s got a corpse of a film on his hands -- never trust a movie when it feels as though you can see the director clasping the defibrillator.

The experience of Leviathan is wholly singular, without context, enveloping and immersive. In some ways, it might very well be the most terrifying picture of the year.

Gimme The Loot involves drug-dealing, constant foul language and vandalism, but Hickson and Washington, both attractive and charismatic enough to be stars, carry the film with an air of lightweight pleasure, keeping it light and bouncy.

'Never Sorry' feels borderline unfinished, as it never draws that line between Ai Weiwei and the generation of successors to his throne that he has inspired. Perhaps it doesn't have to. Perhaps you're already one of them.

Ted Kotcheff’s film is essentially a workplace comedy, but the employees are braindead and wealthy, and the benefits are glory and groupies in equal amounts.

It seems like a statement that Il Futuro presents simple but intriguing conflicts that nonetheless resolve anti-climactically, denying us an organic end.

It’s easily the most suspenseful American film of the year, a thriller that feels like lightning across a quiet night sky; sudden, terrifying, and excitingly singular.

Buzzard is a quiet, introspective film, but it trumps all generic blockbusters in that it very much is a roller coaster ride, one that thrills, upsets, and makes one queasy, all in surprising ways.

Bad Milo! is ultimately a fairly pedestrian film, but in those moments where Milo takes action, if you squint, there’s just a little bit of that old-fashioned movie magic.

Washington’s performance is one of the best of the year, a high-wire act that is careful not to dip into survivalist caricature.

Nancy, Please begins as a deadpan slacker comedy with existentialist undertones, and Will Rogers' Paul is a ball of unsettled twentysomething nerves. It's a subtle shift in Semans' first feature, both in tempo and in Rogers' performance, that we don't realize the film taking on a slightly more diabolical undertone.

Despite a lack of access to Manning and Assange, We Steal Secrets is a vital document of a pivotal moment in world history that we’re still experiencing as we speak.

The Thieves is less interested in the characters than it is the elaborate stunts and gimmicks.

Mezmerizing in fits and starts, Graceland doesn't coalesce into the "important" thriller it seeks to be.

This is easily more exciting and tense than any genre film 2014 has seen thus far.

The cumulative effect is dramatically effective to the point of being soul-crushing.

The endlessly surprising, often riotously funny Computer Chess basks in the details of a group of men who, at a key point in history, are asking themselves not only if they can accomplish something, but why, and what it means to their current generation.

The film is borderline installation-worthy, and would probably work just as well if the scenes were drastically re-arranged.

Director Johanna Hamilton should be credited for getting these faces in front of the camera, to humanize political rebellion of an early era not as some sepia-toned memory, but a story of very human individuals.

Michell’s handling of the relationship between the two is touching in how little judgment he passes.

It's ludicrous genre fun even if you didn't take into account the properly-bewitching Ms. Bang.

The focus is spread too thinly on the various colorful local voices, all of whom openly campaign against Recchia’s intentions with zest and flavor.

With its rock doc trappings, it’s impossible to ignore that Mistaken For Strangers delivers on that front, with thrilling and candid on-stage footage that allows the band’s music to come alive: if you weren’t a fan before, you will be after the film.

The Kill Team doesn't saint Winfield at all, instead, smartly casting responsible, impartial questions as to what his options could have been.

Lenny Cooke isn't a documentary, it's an autopsy, detailing exactly why Cooke vanished off the map and why he struggled to get back into the game, a focus that goes micro where other sports docs go macro.

Despite the affecting drama and performances, Run and Jump just never feels more that perfunctory in this regards.