Joe Neumaier

To capture the artistic process in this way is extraordinary, and in many ways unprecedented. The scenes are not shot in documentary style, but flow with bits of inspiration, conflict and nuance. We see and listen to some of the era’s greatest songs being made.

Quiet, soulful and wrenching.

Inside these average American lives are futures far too often passed over or, worse, written off. This terrific film gives the teenagers their due.

Explaining humor is usually like boiling water — it evaporates. But the funny folks in actor Kevin Pollak’s well-structured doc can actually break down what they do.

This muscular, red-blooded adventure has a decent heart and the stuff of Saturday afternoon serials running through its veins.

There could have been more side trips on the road to self-discovery, but the plentiful lessons and derring-'do make Tangled a lock for playground pastimes. And maybe even some knotty parent-kid chats about finding your part in life.

If you're not in that demographic, don't dismiss it. You'll miss out on a genuinely sweet, perfectly acted, remarkably brave little movie that should make audiences swoon for something they thought was gone - a smart dramedy for grown-ups.

50/50 pulls no punches in its depiction of living day-to-day with illness. There's pain and fear, no question. But this dramatic comedy is also warm, honest and, most especially, funny.

A romantic comedy that feels like real life.

Though the film's setup trudges and its closing is too pat, that hour or so on the raft is something special, and few would dive into the story's soul as Lee does.

While director Christopher Nolan and star Christian Bale's epic of criminality and all-consuming conviction ultimately falls a bit short - missing, for instance, a villainous face a la Heath Ledger's Joker - their Batman trilogy ends with a suitably thrilling mix of guts and glory.

The result is the first comic-book movie in a while that actually feels like a classic comic book: fast, furious and flip. Forget about superheroes with love problems and tortured souls.

While “Lovelace” falters a bit, it remains a memorable, unflinching indictment.

This brisk but full documentary about students at a Bronx high school taking a class that promotes literacy and poetry slams is, like its subjects, multifaceted, sometimes sad but ultimately inspiring.

In Rob Corddry's hilariously manic turn, it has the most memorable showcase for a goofball co-star since Michael Keaton in 1981's "Night Shift."

What finally sticks in the mind about "ZDT" is its precision. What the film says about getting information from terrorism suspects in an era of high-tech surveillance depends on your point of view. What is unquestionable is how powerful its full scope is.

A singularly full-hearted and moving film.

There’s social commentary in all of this, but it takes a back seat to a surprisingly compelling narrative of the two combating teams.

Gordon-Levitt is flinty, and Willis, on his A-game, is fiery. Together, they take us on a helluva trip.

Fury excels in showing the ground-level, guttural intensity and claustrophobia of battle.

Director Marc Webb's action-adventure is grounded in a recognizable reality, but is also full of thrills. It's dark and mysterious, but doesn't skimp on fun.

By far the most rousing, expertly cast movie this year, David O. Russell's movie takes a roundabout way of telling its true story.

Slow West isn’t a grand epic of that genre. It’s more like “McCabe & Mrs. Miller,” “Dead Man” or the recent “The Homesman,” using familiar signposts to tell a simple, compelling, terrific story.

The wonkiness is at a minimum and Reich delivers it with tales from his own life, since he’s the son of a dress store owner and a mom who helped in the shop. Essential viewing, no matter how you cut it.

Gritty, funny, rich adaptation of a Pete Dexter novel.

Not all of the twists work, but most are self-knowing enough to keep you guessing until its (literally) groundbreaking conclusion.

Watch Mulligan's face as she goes from weary to awakened, and see it all come together.

Director Joe Berlinger mixes archival footage, concert scenes, interviews and present-day reunions to meld a harmonious, fair-minded, energetic and enlightening portrait of one masterpiece's moment in time.

Capturing family on film — the real rhythms of family, with all the annoyances, awkwardness and affection — is tough. Tougher still is wrestling a story around the murky emotional waters of Midwestern relatives. Yet one needn’t be cut from that cloth to see the hilarious beauty, and the beautiful honesty, in Nebraska.

Like so much in this astounding, consistently beautiful and challenging movie, the answer depends on what you bring to it. Think of it as the Ultimate Anti-Summer-Blockbuster.

At its best, this beautiful, off-the-cuff comedy-drama recalls John Cassavetes' shaggiest, most honest work.

Dano, Bello, Howard, Davis and Leo — the last nearly unrecognizable — are equally strong. Villeneuve, whose last film was the Oscar-nominated “Incendies,” uses them all perfectly, and Prisoners works best when it’s not what you thought it was going to be. But even on familiar ground, it’s hard to let go of.

Oduye, especially, is utterly absorbing. Even in those few moments when the movie follows a slightly more straightforward line than it needs, she is always engagingly, beautifully real.

This wildly entertaining Bollywood action-comedy, with Indian superstar Shahrukh Khan in two roles, pays homage to such '90s flicks as "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" and "The Matrix," adding whimsy and loads of heart.

Entertaining, smart and snappy, this terrific doc, a Sundance favorite, digs into the country's use of steroids and how it affects sports, pop culture and the self-image of young men.

Given the evidence compiled here by director Frank Pavich, there’s reason to believe Jodorowsky’s “Dune” was more influential for never actually existing. It wound up being inhaled, like some ethereal alien spice, by a generation of moviemakers.

There are great clips and good insight, and it’s all as loose and cool as an Austin night out.

Terrific and gripping.

What the film doesn’t show enough of is how these people got their positions of power. We get much more of the other side, the legitimate scientists, and too much of a magician who pops up to describe cons and double-talk. But he shows how a bunko artist is a bunko artist, whether on a corner or on CNN.

Like “The Deer Hunter” — from which it swipes its Keystone State milieu, its haunted veterans, and its self-endangerment metaphor — Out of the Furnace gets under your skin.

It is how the film never loses sight of the closeness of the combatants, turning national intimacy into a tragic casualty.

It’s hard to imagine the lives behind the voices that are part of the movies. But In a World ..., the debut feature from actress-turned-writer-director Lake Bell, not only gives the people who do movie voice-overs a closeup, it savvily and wittily uses what we hear as a metaphor for what we are.

Galifianakis, though, is the key here. Able to smash a scene to smithereens with the simplest of lines, the hirsute comic is as unpredictable as ever, yet takes director Todd Phillips’ bait to up the stakes.

Just when we thought Quentin Tarantino had shown us all the cojones he has, in rides Django Unchained.

The film treats kids' inner lives as more than a fantasy, which is a rare and beautiful thing.

Perfect for families and exquisitely shot, this entry from the Disneynature division is even better and fresher than last year's "Earth."

The film is a mystery uncovered like a detective story, wrapped in a love letter.

History has made his midair stroll meaningful, but the film shows how even then, everyone - from Petit to his accomplices to the cops who were waiting for him atop the North Tower - recognized the stunt's crazy poetry.

Short Term 12 wraps up with one of the most touchingly memorable last moments of any film this year. Despite a title that’s hard to recall, this brief but resonant movie sticks with you.

This full, footage-rich documentary shows respect for the social, legal, political, religious and pugilistic battles of the former Cassius Clay.

Rosewater is not about what isolates us, and part of the film’s terrific achievement is its recognition that staying connected is a daily show of strength.

Rare is the drama that plumbs the quirky, unsettling depths of human nature like Foxcatcher. Simultaneously understated and grippingly edgy, this is an arresting examination of naivete, mismatched worlds and old-fashioned American oddness.

There are suggestions to help us sleep more easily, but the point is to wake us up.

Like Gandolfini, the deep Brooklyn of The Drop is formidable, bona fide and memorable.

The history lesson in Steven Spielberg's austere, engrossing Lincoln is less about the revered President himself but his method for justice.

Avengers: Age of Ultron is a kinetic, wicked mix of muscle and magic. Look no further if you want a world of superpowered freaks and geeks. But be aware: It comes at a cost. Vaporized in the parade of action and characters is the wonder and simplicity of its first, superior entry.

She's inexhaustible, seemingly everywhere at once and, throughout director Sara Hirsh Bordo's unblinking, well-directed film, she is absolutely and fearlessly herself. Which is exactly as it should be -- the world needs Lizzie Velasquez.

Like Brown, the movie is dynamic and entertaining as hell.

Drinking Buddies is full of relatable dilemmas, guileless moments of kindness and character-based humor.

A sweet testament to the power of intelligence to win over adversity - even in a Brooklyn middle school where the majority of students live below the poverty level.

As a whole, Sam Mendes' film of Revolutionary Road comes close but falls short of capturing Richard Yates' terrific novel.

A gripping documentary about how unnecesary real estate development can change the soul of New York, brings us inside the lives it touches.

Urgent as a heart attack and as timely as the headlines, 99 Homes is one of those films that make other "topical" dramas look tinny. This astute, intense drama boasts sharp performances and belongs in the same company as films like "Margin Call" and "Michael Clayton" -- contemporary stories whose of-the-moment nature only makes their great parts better.

For all the movement in Drive, the quiet, deathly still moments are the ones that count.

A young Aussie actress who seems as all-American as a Magic 8 ball, successfully walks the tightrope from precocious to exuberant, never once falling into obnoxiousness. That could describe this crackerjack of a kids' movie as well.

The atmosphere surrounding them both is enveloping. While the story falls a bit into melodrama, that can’t chop away at the solid drama the stars and director build beautifully.

Emphasizing the importance of new media, Stelter is ready to bring the paper back to the future, though this terrific tale of an establishment in transition ultimately plays like "All the President's Men," with the intrigue coming from inside the building.

One of the year's most emotionally affecting movies.

Iron Man 2 sets gold standard for sequels thanks to Robert Downey Jr.'s Stark performance.

Watching politics and the people in it can be disheartening and depressing. Here’s an antidote: This energizing, uplifting, sharp documentary from director Kevin Gordon.

It’s one of the most vibrant, sly romantic comedies this year.

A wild and unexpected film.

Most tales come from the inimitable mouth of the man himself, who could make ordering dinner sound like Shakespeare. He had a life to match. Workman covers all of his subject’s years, even if very few of them truly belonged to Welles.

It was a true media circus, and despite Polanski's work before and since, the film shows how it will forever be his first association in the public consciousness. In the U.S., at least.

This great-looking, often spellbinding film also shows Lee’s sometimes pervasive theatricality threatening to chomp into the story. But the swirling strangeness of “Sweet Blood” makes it his most mesmerizing work since the underrated “Bamboozled” (2000) and “25th Hour” (2002).

Moving, intelligent documentary.

Falarde, in adapting a play, has a sweet, humanistic approach reminiscent of Bill Forsyth's '80s dramedies that lets "Lazhar's" protagonist and his class shine.

It sharply fuses the humor and heart of the earlier films with a satisfyingly heavy-metal strength — and a darkness that’s more than earned.

If Woodroof is the movie’s guts, Rayon is its heart, and Leto (TV’s “My So-Called Life,” “Alexander”) is stunningly perfect, even when the story veers ever so slightly into expected territory.

The deliberate pace Mungiu employs in this incredible work is so engrossing and quietly heartbreaking that its philosophical ending may come as a shock.

Murphy also reveals one more gem when she interviews the New York couple who gave their friend Nell Harper Lee a financial gift in the '50s that allowed her to quit her job and finish the book, an act of generosity that is also one more kindness surrounding this most humane of artworks.

A smart, ardent, profound movie.

What he does do finally in this funny, refreshing movie is assert how unrestrained religiosity could guarantee the "end days" many of his subjects admit to looking forward to.

To sing the praises of the movie but not give away the revelations is difficult. Let’s just say this: The less you know about what happens in this funny, tasty twisteroo, the better.

This engrossing documentary winds up being about nothing less than making one of Shakespeare’s greatest works come alive through hard work — and the spark that happens within an acting company.

Even those who never joined the cult of A Tribe Called Quest will find this clear-eyed chronicle of their career irresistible.

We are left, after all the propulsive action, with great turns by Theron and Rapace, and a tightly wound turn by Fassbender, whose eerie, poetically impish mechanical man might have burst from Bradbury's conscience.

Though a notch below "Royale," Skyfall follows that reboot's lead, making a now 50-year-old icon as cool as when he began.

If only this were a media-fueled tall tale and not one poor creature's lifelong nightmare.

When Marilyn Monroe appears, things stop. She is, as portrayed by Michelle Williams, a strange and beautiful alien: Unpredictable, odd, magnetic.

Full of smarts, sly insight and New York personality. As a feather in its jaunty hat, the movie also reinvigorates the art of screwball comedy.

A fast and relentless hostage thriller that never stops.

After a summer of robots, mutants and explosions, the beautifully honest, grownup Love is Strange is a treat.

Payne's observational humor and attention to detail yield something emotionally epic. Everything from beachfront jogs to hospital confessions reveals layers of humanity and absurdity.

The charming, soulful Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a movie that loves movies — which is great, because you’ll love this one.

A fast-moving, rock 'em-sock 'em movie that continues the man-vs.-machines series begun 25 years ago.

The good news is it comes very close, and does it without sacrificing its soul. Despite its sense of been-here-slayed-that, director Francis Lawrence expertly delivers thrills, ideas and spectacle.

Affleck keeps the film as fluid as the "Mystic River," and never forgets that Renner is his ace in the hole. The "Hurt Locker" star charges up every scene he's in with feral power, and is rewarded with one of the most exciting sequences seen in any action movie this decade.