Joe Neumaier

As the cracklingly cool The East shows, they’re the real deal. It’s not easy to make a thriller where brains and guts are so clearly in cahoots.

The actors click into high gear, and Premium Rush delivers.

Gibney puts mystery back into a story we thought we knew.

The late King of Pop delivers.

Arnold generally steers clear of cinematic melodrama, and Jarvis infuses the entire film with the sort of kinetic spirit that heralds a new talent.

Intoxicating, and at times maddening, to watch.

The slick but moving Saving Mr. Banks transcends its corporate pedigree to become a great Disney movie about making a Disney movie.

The movie respects a viewer’s intelligence, which should also serve as a warning; don’t be lulled into a stupor. Keeping sharp will allow all the fun and menace in this terrific thriller to seep into your head.

More than just a one-name star of pop culture’s alternative history, Divine’s story — terrorized by bullies, embraced by the outré, where he finds a home — stands for “all the outsiders,” as Waters says (between hilarious anecdotes).

Warm memories of one school under a groove and a moving ending that no screenwriter could improve upon.

Filled with striking images and the ghosts of lives lived in hardship and war, Incendies is tough but impactful.

This superb, cerebral film about unchecked belief is a fictionalized and cutting drama hinging on the origins of Scientology. Scratch around a bit, though, and its wider indictments become clear.

A measured and thoughtful meditation on a leader who, this terrific movie believes, inadvertently made the world as roiling as his soul.

Murray is always a delight, but his films with kids (“Meatballs,” “Rushmore,” “The Royal Tenenbaums”) give his unencumbered playfulness even more room to roam.

Ferguson doesn't aim to entertain; he wants answers, and talks to many of the enabling weasels.

The man-versus-the-natural world story is in Weir's wheelhouse, and Harris and Farrell get into a scene-stealing duel. Worth the trek.

Kung Fu Panda 2 plunks down squarely in the spot marked for "chop-socky action with heart."

What the movie captures overall looks like a scene from a sci-fi, postapocalyptic nightmare.

Fast-moving, exciting and contains more twists than a tunnel under Checkpoint Charlie.

The cast is strong, and Damon is a dependable center for all this, a classic American good guy wanting to know what's rotten and why.

Norton, too, keeps us guessing, though his pseudo-tough-guy line readings (and cornrowed hair) are initially distracting. But his scenes with De Niro -- who fills every twitch or glance with Jack's long-buried guilt -- are the guts of the movie.

The result is a paper-thin alliance between the old-school Cal and the new-media Della. Crowe, husky and whisky-voiced, is warm amidst all the plot mechanics, and McAdams, perky and efficient, is a smart foil for him.

Directing the film of Doubt, Shanley is able to put an even finer point on his Tony-and Pulitzer-winning play about suspicion and guilt at a Bronx Catholic grade school in 1964.

Too bad its wide net ultimately results in diminishing returns.

The film ends up wrestling itself into a corner, though it's saved by a corrosive central performance from Ryan Gosling and a disconcertingly hypnotic feel.

This often-witty baby-of-"Broadcast News" tries hard to be liked, like the TV fluff it's built around. The news is that, often, it succeeds.

Freeman is so in-tune with the former South African president's persona you can't take your eyes off him.

The Company Men recalls 1946's great post-World War II drama "The Best Years of Our Lives," and the reason isn't simply its trio of protagonists.