Joe Neumaier

Sex is plentiful, but the lust is for paydays. This is territory covered far more vibrantly in “Margin Call,” yet director Costa-Gavras (“Z,” “Missing”) still has good, old-fashioned indignation to count on.

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).

An oblique, by-design and frustrating drama, Claire Denis’ film about a man’s mysterious suicide and its repercussions is creepy, but finally too vague.

Ultimately, this dull tour of a thieving, primal underworld is just a lot of high-talking hogwash.

McQueen has made a film comparable to “Schindler’s List” — art that may be hard to watch, but which is an essential look at man’s inhumanity to man. It is wrenching, but 12 Years a Slave earns its tears in a way few films ever do.

Where Sissy Spacek seemed otherworldly and haunted in De Palma’s film, Moretz (“Hugo,” “Kick-Ass”) is sadder. She’s a terrific young actress.

Ultimately, Paradise is a tiny version of a saint’s journey among sinners, an immature conception. Peramb-you-later, Lamb.

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

Machete Kills? “Machete Bores” is more like it.

As a film, the result is static, like Ang Lee’s similarly muddled “Taking Woodstock.”

Though the film’s untested cast struggles with the drama, and the sketched-out story is often banal (there are several amateurish calls-to-mom scenes), the presentation of a specific city subculture is etched from the heart.

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.

This nothing-new-here documentary presents basketball’s onetime celebrity point guard in unguarded moments. But the result is banal and fawning, with Lin coming off as a pious, charmless subject.

A thrill ride with a brain.

This is the kind of movie that, in order to puff itself up, quotes Meyer Lansky, Napoleon and Native American sayings. But according to Hoyle — as poker players would say — the film really just does boilerplate Hollywood drama.

The most gripping based-on-fact film so far this year.

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.

The movie gets too claustrophobic, while its noble attempt to take on suffering remains laudable.

Sometimes, less is more. Case in point: Thanks for Sharing, a film that’s a little too eager to be ID’d as a “sex addiction dramedy.” As a result, solidly grounded performances from almost all the cast members wind up playing second fiddle to navel-gazing.

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.

Best of all, we take a trip back to Depression-era New York and grasp its resonance more than 80 years later. Delicious.

Some parents are mellow, and others have instilled emotional problems in their children. This less-than-illuminating work resembles the spelling-bee doc “Spellbound,” only with a promise of high-end endorsements and far more pampering.

As narrated by Mickey Rourke and with appearances from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno, the movie captures the men who mix “sports, entertainment, art and a way of life” — as the former Governator describes body sculpting. It’s their honesty that looms large.

Howard, whose previous tales of men in professional peril include the topnotch “Apollo 13” as well as “Backdraft” and “Cinderella Man,” works with cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle to create a style in the racing scenes that makes the most of every angle. By the time the final lap of Rush starts, we’re up for the ride.

Enough Said doesn’t have the intimacy of Holofcener’s “Walking and Talking” or “Lovely & Amazing,” but it still cuts close the bone. Often so close we have to smile in self-defense.

Director Andrew Dosunmu’s film is big-hearted and rich, frequently using slow motion to underscore an artful intimacy.

A committed cast and pensive insights into family and self-expression help make this indie drama work.

Though the film plays like late-era Woody Allen — not necessarily a good thing — and Goldberg’s rambunctiousness is more annoying than liberating, there’s a serious depth of feeling here. Bosworth, thankfully, is attuned to that, and makes the most of it.