Joe Neumaier

Gyllenhaal is charming and makes unexpected choices in her performance, but this is Bridges' show, and he's as Best Actor-worthy as he's ever been.

Talk about style over substance: The sheer volume of musical, comic-strip and video-game influences, riffs and licks in "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" can get exhausting, but they also are what lift this romantic coming-of-age tale from this world to someplace totally ... else.

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

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

An extraordinary, must-see examination of what humans do to killer whales so that these amazing creatures can become one more entertainment.

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

Avatar clears the hurdle in terms of being optical candy. Its story, though, is pure cheese.

Drag Me to Hell is an eyeball-gouging lesson in how to make a genre flick and live to tell about it.

It shows that life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. And how, in case we forget, every age can predict the next.

The final result somehow undersells a man whose life and death were watershed moments in the gay rights movement.

Watching Ushio Shinohara and his wife Noriko make their art, we’re reminded of how much life is inside even the most abstract of pieces.

There’s atmosphere here, but nothing else.

Filmmakers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal utilize the footage Kim and Scott Roberts had taken throughout the disaster, showing how residents suffered, survived and came together to help when official assistance let them down.

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.

Once Franco's on his own, everything is played across this terrific actor's deceptively goofy face.

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.

A thoughtful drama about guys who have a moment in the big time before returning home to an odd reflected glory.

The new Star Trek is more than a coat of paint on a space-age wagon train. It's an exciting, stellar-yet-earthy blast that successfully blends the hip and the classic.

Aiming for lightness but landing with a thud, Frances Ha is a well-meaning blunder. Director Noah Baumbach’s ode to Brooklyn twentysomething life is a flibbertigibbet fable that, like a self-absorbed flirt you meet at a party, grates on the nerves despite being easy on the eyes.

An emotionally devastating drama that isn't for the squeamish.

The focus in James Ponsoldt’s affecting, intelligent drama is a pair of teenagers, and in them is so much complexity and heart that this casually paced gem feels rich in scope. They’re two of the most carefully created figures on screen this year, and yet their normalness takes us by surprise.

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.

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.

Film enthusiasts especially will appreciate this wonky but fascinating documentary about the process of making movies.

The result is a dull, high-minded soap opera.

Michael Starrbury’s astute script draws us in slowly, depicting the realities of Mister and Pete’s lives in progressive reveals.

Has moments of honesty, but more often the barren landscape - both outside and inside - drains the emotions out of the film.

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