Jeff Baker

The experience of watching Carol is like being pulled into a different place, real and not real, like the best movies, like being in love.

A movie as bold and deep as a Turner landscape, as sharp as light on water.

A snapshot of what happened at a particular time and place and doesn't try to glamorize its subjects or make any larger points about what it all means. By refusing to do so, by celebrating the process over the outcome and the work over the reward, it becomes a special experience, a movie that matters.

Mad Max: Fury Road sets new standards in old-school stunt work and car chases and does it in service of an idea-driven story with a beating heart and an action star for our troubled times in Charlize Theron.

Two Days, One Night is timely and timeless, a social statement about current economic conditions and a parable about individual and community. Cotillard's performance is revelatory, one to be admired and studied for generations.

A wonderful documentary.

The End of the Tour can feel like a down-home deification at times: Like Einstein riding a bike, only it's Wallace going to the Mall of America. It's not sentimental, though, at least not until the very end, and is moving in beautiful, unexpected ways.

All involved bring a warm eccentricity that lifts what in lesser hands could be a collection of cliches about the contrasts between the Old World and the New.

What it doesn't do -- and this is what makes this "Diary" different -- is let what happens define her or ruin her.

Strickland has the courage of his convictions and maintains a tight focus on the proceedings while allowing the occasional feather of humor to float down on the pillow.

It's a sad story, and Asif Kapadia's documentary tells it without narration or commentary. Instead there's a brilliantly edited succession of interviews and performances and news footage that glides through her charmed, doomed life.

The writer-director has done a lot of opera, onstage and on film, and he sure is fond of the dramatic gesture. His leading man, Poelvoorde, is not at first glance the type of guy who'd captivate two such stunning women, but this is France, and his desire and anguish is real.

A kinda funny, kinda charming movie about finding out what really matters.

The Salt of the Earth presents not just a passing of time through one man's remarkable life but a change of perspective.

What matters in '71 is the action, and the look on O'Connell's face when he emerges from a shed into the Belfast night.

Fetisov is a jovial, imperious guide through an era of Cold War politics, when sports were a battleground between East and West and no sport was more important to the Soviets than hockey.

Creed is no "Raging Bull" -- it's a little too long and throws in an unnecessary disease to gin up the emotional content of the third act -- but it's surprising proof that iconic franchises that started in the 1970s can be revived in all the right ways.

It's exhausting, impressionistic, and ultimately hollow, extraordinarily well-acted but not nearly as relevant as "The Social Network."

The violence is shocking, effective and soaked into the dry brown landscape.

A movie that underplays its many strengths. You don't realize how good it is until it's over.

The problem with Inherent Vice, and what keeps it a step below "The Master" and "There Will Be Blood" and Anderson's best movies, is that all the Pynchon threads and dead ends come apart in the middle and aren't really pulled back together.

A highly entertaining, informative movie about how the subprime mortgage crisis led to a worldwide financial meltdown in 2007-08. The fact that such a movie is so unusual is one big reason why the meltdown occurred and why it easily could happen again.

What makes The Martian work is Damon.

It's a welcome change from a conventional birth-to-now biography, somewhere between the straight narratives of "Ray" and "Get On Up" and the fractured, Cate Blanchett-in-sunglasses, Richard Gere-on-horseback meta-fable "I'm Not There."

At the heart of Iris is love, between Iris and the camera, Maysles and his subject, and Iris and Carl. They nailed it, this crazy life, and they're still getting a kick out of it.

If Abrams didn't take many chances, he didn't make many mistakes, either. First, Do No Harm became Don't Mess With Success, and it worked. Show Me the Money is sure to follow.

Director Douglas Tirola threads his way through a minefield of egos and grudges in his interviews and does some interesting stuff with animation in his presentation of some of the magazine pieces.

The easy chemistry between Binoche and Stewart is reason enough to see Clouds of Sils Maria.