Joe Neumaier

Based on a true story, the movie's best scenes involve its heroine breaking down barriers by force of will as much as by legal wrangling.

There’s great repartee between its cast of this “based on a true [but forgotten] story” of World War II. Yet the film overall isn’t colorful enough.

Because of his easygoing comedy persona, Rudd is a perfect choice — and another example of Marvel’s savvy casting. He never takes anything too seriously, but he seems invested in the emotional side of the story.

This eerily unsettling indie takes a few pleasantly unexpected turns before winding up in a traditional place. But if you think it isn’t worth the time, you have another think coming.

Jason Schwartzman does the full Bill Murray in 7 Chinese Brothers.

A fascinating and informative, if sometimes stodgy, documentary about the most secret wing of Israel's anti-espionage unit.

A streak of "Cinema Paradiso" runs through this Italian dramedy - and while it lacks that film's overflowing emotion, it's filled with its own artfulness and warmth.

This all feels like an homage to Gilliam’s “Brazil,” though Zero Theorem also has shadows of “12 Monkeys” and other films in the onetime Monty Python animator’s cinematic carnival.

Though it’s more testimonial exhibit than movie, “Unjust” remains a crucial document.

Mostly, though, there’s hopefulness here, and determination to win a fight worth fighting.

Some segments are too long, but Famous Nathan contains a unique flavor that history-loving New Yorkers should relish.

A look into one of the most invisible, and crucial, of cinematic disciplines. Using the seminal casting director Marion Dougherty as a subject, the film walks us through the intricacies of casting, with insight from Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Robert Redford and others.

Sometimes a bit of befuddlement is exactly what you need. That's the driving idea behind writer-director Steven Peros' off-kilter, off-the-beaten path comedy, which owes a lot to 1980s indie cinema.

This crisp, involving South African drama comes at you in waves, changing course and tone expertly.

The fights are strong (though the 49-year-old director’s are slo-mo), and the surface is calm. Say “Whoa!” if you like, but it’s cool.

Rather than go for big ideas, the movie cozies up to small wonders. Instead of an ah-ha moment, we get a sigh of familiarity. Still, in this biopic about Hawking, there’s one explosion that blows your mind: Eddie Redmayne’s performance. Redmayne as Hawking, if the stars align, should be an Oscar lock.

Here's a rough-and-tumble British drama that, despite a strong spine, ought to be more like its title character: quiet and deadly -- and less showy.

Haroun is achingly conscious of day-to-day decisions that seem small when they're made but can suddenly loom large.

Like its subject, the movie is not as calculating as it seems.

This domestic drama from the producers of "Once" could be about the pair from that gentle romance - a decade later.

The problem with Russell Crowe's new take on the legend is that it has one muddy boot in history and the other in fantasy. The middling result is far from a bull's-eye.

It’s rare when a psychological drama gets us into a character’s head without tricks or a voiceover. This drama from Alex Ross Perry burrows so deep that it’s scary.

Interviews with survivors fill us in on the personalities of the lost, but the background of K2, with archival footage from 1954, is equally gripping.

And always there’s Wojtowicz himself, who died in 2006. His patter and persona must be seen to be believed. This guy was a piece of work, and so is The Dog.

While the film becomes slightly redundant, the anger and strife its characters cannot overcome is awful, poetic and, frankly, astonishing.

Unfortunately, the fantasy-thriller they're in eventually falls apart, becoming a much sillier, less substantial movie than its lead actors deserve.

The movie’s spell is solid, even if it doesn’t soar to the heights it could.

Part of the problem with "P&F" is that Tiana and Naveen's connection feels superficial.

A snapshot of several New York eras that coincide with the Internet's growing pains, We Live in Public focuses on entrepreneur, party-thrower and dot.com bubble participant Josh Harris.

The film winds up as a chronicle of uneasy forgiveness.

Like its antiheroes, this slacker tragedy has moments of calm and originality that are sadly obliterated by a tendency toward the extreme. Still, in a kind of reverse apocalypse, the movie's toughest stretch is its first two-thirds, a navel-gazing, semi-romantic nothing-a-thon that falls away in time for the movie to emerge from the ashes.

Any movie with food as a motif runs the risk of pouring on the metaphor, and that happens here, too.

Joe and director David Gordon Green find a middle ground between the old, vulnerable Cage and the one that seemed to eat that other guy. Good to have him back.

Without pushing too heavily, Green makes the parallels between Enrique and Michael's situations genuine.

Spottiswoode relays this tragic story with respect and sadness. But Michael Donovan's script is stuffed with clichés, and Dupuis is unable to convey the depth of Dallaire's emotions.

Here, it's all Bardem, and this great actor's careworn face and sensitive presence counts for a lot. He ultimately can't save the soul of Biutiful, but he makes the journey easier.

Saulnier accomplishes something rare here. He has an ability to convey depth of feeling and ominousness without tricks or even musical cues.

Director Tiller Russell sometimes get sidetracked — a dangerous thing in a story that already has a lot of twists, turns and off-ramps. But it’s a story you have to hear, from the guys who lived it and may never live it down.

Pieced together, these behind-the-scenes moments are a thrill for history buffs. From the moon landing to the resignations, this is raw Nixon.

There's just some great imitations of what remains an acquired taste.

Because it's so rooted in real life, the drama Good Kill is even more terrifying than “The Purge,” Ethan Hawke’s horror film from two years ago.

Scenes of Favreau at the grill bantering with Leguizamo and Cannavale could almost sustain an entire movie.

While Lomborg is an engaging though sometimes smug subject, director Ondi Timoner allows a coterie of scientists to spend too much time puncturing Gore than propping up Lomborg - who comes off as charismatic and engaged but, ultimately, merely a contrarian.

Luckily, the cast is comfortable going with the flow. Ribisi is amusingly corrosive, while Jenkins and Rispoli are sweaty, cigar-chomping movie-journalist archetypes.

Any film as politically specific as Miral needs to be addressed on two levels, as a movie and as, from a certain viewpoint, a polemic. If a viewer can separate one from the other - and some may not - there's an intense, novelistic drama here.

Whether it works is a matter of taste, but the fact that Burton's revisit unearths enough fun while feeling like four films in one is testament to the source's seductive bloodline.

Before it devolves into typical American-style action, there’s an intriguing, European-style complexity to Dead Man Down.

Unfortunately, Elysium devolves. It doesn’t address the ramifications of making everyone healthy for eternity, or what it is on Earth they’re making or digging up that fuels whatever economy is left on the space station. For such a well thought-out premise, there’s not a mention of how capitalism works in this futureworld.

Leave it to Spike Lee to deliver one of the strangest, most off-putting movies for the Thanksgiving holiday.

The movie covers all the bases, but doesn’t advance the story.

In a pleasing contrast to Fey's sharpness, Poehler keeps her performance unpredictable and fuzzy. In this just-add-water comedy, a very funny movie star is born.

The modern, gritty Western Frontera takes a lot of the clichés and delicately upends them to tell a tale about undocumented immigrants.

Nachmanoff fills the movie with a sense of gripping, '70s-style grittiness that helps undercut the web-of-evil tone.

One of the many beautiful things about this affecting, informative doc is the opportunity it gives to see the American college sports world through different eyes.

There is also inspiration in watching her find herself by helping others.

Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa is better known for horror films; this is a movie where the horror is internalized, and hideously truthful.

Abe's day-to-day trials may eventually seem like cheap daytime TV, but Gelber and Solondz know how to nail the uncomfortably funny optimism shadowing American desperation.

Stone, last seen in “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” is served best. Gliding through the film in sailor-girl outfits that evoke film stars of the 1920s, Stone’s big kewpie eyes and long-limbed gamine appeal fit in this era of silent films.

Michael Douglas in Solitary Man, has all the tools of the man who plays him at his disposal. At times in this often engaging, occasionally meandering movie, that's enough to score.

When the grade-school kids are Israelis and Palestinians, the initially reluctant, moving duets they finally perform make you feel like, yes, dancing.

Farahani — seen in “Body of Lies” and “Chicken With Plums” — is equally vibrant in a performance, and a film, that dares us to listen.

Sports biodramas generally take one of two tacks: gauzily sentimental or scrappy tale of struggle. The Express runs the thin line between the two and, to its benefit, more often than not hits the first mark.

The action-comedy Zombieland works because it's played with an emphasis on the living, not the undead.

Sean Penn’s bad side makes for good action-drama in The Gunman. There’s a grubby, redemptive quality that makes this tough-minded flick feel like the son of “Serpico” and “Salvador.”

The poetry in The Place Beyond the Pines can be elusive, but also easy to get lost in.

The movie winds up being a real standup flick, if you know what I mean.

Friends of Shep discuss his often unorthodox business sense, especially in the music biz, as well as his general decency. The guy’s tale is full of funny anecdotes and celeb privilege, but short on pretension.

There’s a lot left unsaid in director Anja Marquardt’s chilly yet intimate and thought-provoking indie drama. But what should be said loud and clear is that actress Brooke Bloom is riveting. Emanating everyday grace and real depth, she plays a sex surrogate handling several needy and emotionally wounded clients.

Despite a pleasantly laid-back demeanor, you wish it would just get focused.

Carla Gugino has yet to find the right movie that clicks with her spunky outsider appeal, but The Mighty Macs, a gauzy, inspiring true-life drama about a girls' basketball team, at least gets her close and provides a lot of assists.

This time the movie really is — as the old theme song promises — sensational, celebrational and Muppetational.

Clayman, who co-directed with filmmaker friends, is fascinating company.

Marie is middle-aged and at a crossroads in All the Light in the Sky, a movie that feels the same way — listless and searching and on its way toward something good.

Some may still be surprised at this fun, well-informed chronicle of what was happening in the U.S. as lighted floors, boogie shoes and Saturday night fevers were the rage.

There’s politics involved, along with personal stories, extraordinary tense standoffs and down-and-dirty drug business.

This sweet, offhanded but lovingly observed remembrance is a real kick. It takes us back to the way things used to be, especially for 13-year-old guys, and specifically in the arcade rooms of 1985, filled with upright video games with glowing screens and big-haired girls in neon.

Director Mateo Gill's autumnal movie has elements of other late-era Westerns in its blood, but it isn't easily pigeonholed. There are shootouts and standoffs, as well as great scenes like one between the grizzled, perfectly cast Shepard and Rea discussing the cost of criminality and the changing morals of old men.

Something of a traffic jam--even with his usual restraint, Lee couldn't recount a key moment of the '60s without a blurry parade of personalities--and also lullingly dull.

There's as much social history of L.A.'s racial divide as there is appreciation for the band's big, genre-crossing sound. It all comes together for a rollicking chronicle of verve and nerve.

For the first time since "The Nutty Professor," Eddie Murphy successfully mixes his adult and kid-film personas -- imagine that.

For all the obviousness on the surface, and despite some forced last-act havoc, Breathe In works like a piece of chamber music. It goes up to the edge of emotion, circles it, then backs away. But the notes not hit seem as powerful as the ones that are.

Director Cathryne Czubek’s well-researched, incredibly lively chronicle of the way guns are marketed to, coveted by, and portrayed with women is a vital glimpse into a cultural phenomenon.

Sturgess is solid and Kingsley predictably sneaky, but the atmosphere -- scurries through the Catholic/Protestant border, tense stand-offs, spontaneous riots -- is what's genuinely gripping.

Most of the young men interviewed by Berg will be seen, and heard, by many audiences for the first time. Their voices are hard to forget.

Laughter may be the best medicine, but in Obvious Child, it’s also a helluva cure for dealing with a serious topic.

Leave it to Al Pacino to find the good in the mediocre.

Writer-director Ruba Nadda's film is ultimately like a summertime flirtation that never quite comes to anything.

As shown in this disarming and intimate documentary named after their band, the oddness of actually being sought-after was something neither was prepared for.

Director Samuel Maoz's gripping you-are-there feel does for tanks what "Das Boot" did for submarines, and that chokehold only gets tighter as this taut drama about the 1982 Israeli-Lebanese war goes on.

Colangelo shows a mature levelheadedness in depicting how close-knit communities fall and rise together.

Andrew Cohn and Davy Rothbart’s doc, exec-produced by Steve Buscemi and Stanley Tucci, is one more sad, serious eulogy for a way of life.

Kristen Wiig is scary. That’s a good thing. It’s part of her appeal as a comedian, and crucial in the funny-weird comedy-drama Welcome to Me, which uses the working-without-a-net aspect of Wiig’s humor to unsettling effect.

It’s hard to fault a movie like The Good Lie for its intentions. But it can be faulted for pandering, both to its subject and to audiences.

Director Mike Newell’s rich take on the story is a fine introduction for new viewers.

The result ends up like an "SNL" skit: knowingly over-the-top but still fun.

Bridges is enjoyable as he gives the older Flynn a Zen hero quality, and even breaks through the effects to make his younger-Clu-self oddly engaging.

Wong’s visual grandeur is, as ever, all-encompassing.

Writer-director Julia Loktev sustains the tension for long, Antonioni-esque passages that portend something momentous. The film delivers in unexpected ways, and then ponders what it means.