Joe Neumaier

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.

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.

Maguire’s portrayal of Fischer’s volatility, disconnect and inner demons is gripping. It’s his best performance since “Wonder Boys” (2000). Schreiber hardly says anything, yet he’s gloweringly good. He acts with his jowls and brow and swept-back hair, making the sort-of rock-’n’-roll Spassky a polar opposite, but strategic equal, to Fischer. Saarsgaard is also terrific, lending a quiet air of solemnity and thoughtfulness.

This dramatic thriller finds a spot somewhere between your brain and your stomach, and drills in.

The movie itself is an intriguing but ultimately unspecial Feds-vs.-hoods drama. But as the sinister, snakelike South Boston criminal Whitey Bulger, Depp delivers.

This beautifully observed drama creates an intimate feel and gently observed moments of connection and angst. Then things move forward with almost too heavy of a heart.

The success here is mostly due to nuanced performances and an appreciation for what these kinds of films require.

Director Khalil Sullins’ movie has its heart and brain in the right place, but its guts are a mess.

The fear, desperation and hope of Time Out of Mind is painfully, hauntingly human.

What this rich film does go into — in a lengthy tangent that’s less punchy but important — is the impropriety Jobs trafficked in when he allowed himself and high-ranking Apple-ers to be granted backdated stock options. They got wealthy as their product was being made, amid some scandal, for a pittance in China.

The Transporter Refueled should be put up on blocks.

Unfortunately, there’s a more potent power present here: dullness.

“Natural” perfectly describes Nolte’s performance, too. With his growly voice and bear-like aura, he might be dismissed as a walking sight gag, but don’t let that fool you. Nolte’s way with a joke is nimble, and his delivery is spot-on.

Terrific and gripping.

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.

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

There’s no fleeing the clunkiness in No Escape.

The cool cast includes casual drop-ins from Sam Rockwell, Melanie Lynskey and Sam Elliott. The actors give off the feeling that we’ve wandered into the middle of a conversation among friends. This being a Swanberg movie, that’s kind of what is happening, complete with tiny epiphanies and people you want to hear keep talking.

Hitman: Agent 47 is a by-the-numbers schlock action sequel that writes its own epitaph when a character mutters the dusty insult, “You’re dead, too. You just don’t know it yet.”

Those who came of age during Knievel’s rise, rise and fall will enjoy the fun moments. But this family-sanctioned film comes up short in terms of objectivity.

Director Juan Feldman trusts his actors to charm us, which they do — up to a point. But there’s only so much that can be wrung out of this spinster-meets-exotic stud, “Summertime”-lite affair.

A terrific, quirky New York-set character piece.

This stoners-meet-government-assassins mashup is as meandering and paranoid as a guy toking up in front of City Hall. Sometimes that’s amusing, but most of the time it’s tiring.

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.

Shocking. Horrific. Stunning. The plot twists in Final Girl? No, the fact that the movie itself was even made — and that Abigail Breslin is in it.

It’s slow, lethargic, utterly lacking in charm and undeserving of the Cold War setting that is its best trait.

One of 2015’s dullest.

Someone forgot to put anything fantastic into Fantastic Four.

The story here, like a lot of bar bands, goes loud to cover up mediocrity. When Streep sings, though, so does the film.

A work of words as lovely as “The Prophet” deserves a better artistic interpretation than this animated venture, which consists mostly of pedestrian, ’70s-quality visuals.

One of the best movies of the year.

This terrific, full-meal chronicle of the men and their mouths lets us hear from them not only during debates, but also in subsequent interviews, memoirs and articles.

After a while, Vacation starts to reek like a car when the kids have their shoes off. Really, though, that stench is a studio digging through its old titles, trying to find something fresh to remake.

If you’re searching for smart, soulful teen entertainment, you can start looking inside Paper Towns.

Every joke is lame, every special effect unspecial.

When boxing cliches work, they can deliver a knockout. When they don’t, as in Southpaw, we get just punch-drunk.

Director Kyle Patrick Alvarez’s film underserves its cast of up-and-comers (Thomas Mann, Ezra Miller, Tye Sheridan), allows the usually solid actor Michael Angarano to go astray with a scenery-chewing role and buries Crudup in fretting and sanctity. Worse, the experiment’s inherent drama is exacted with a tin ear and a cheesy style.

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

Stories about mythic figures at the end of their days are compelling — but they still need some zing. That’s what Mr. Holmes is missing.

Irrational Man plays, like so much of Woody Allen’s work over the past 20 years, like a bad Woody Allen parody.

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.

Laughable/Bad

The brooding and emotional prickliness gets overwhelming. Kidman tries her best to flesh out her character, but writer-director Kim Farrant gives this still-undervalued actress little to do.

“Holiday” is more palatable than similar, American-bred films like “The Family Stone” or This is Where I Leave You. Still, once Connolly’s sad-eyed, hippie-ish cancer sufferer is gone, there’s little reason to keep going.

It may not be one of his finest roles or one of his more memorable films. But in its own way, Boulevard may be one that says the most about him.

Director Benni Diez tries for schlock shocks in this giant-bug flick. Sadly, what’s left out here is the fun.

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

One achievement of James Cameron’s “Terminator” is that it overcame its low-rent, B-movie trappings. The great sin of “Genisys” is that it costs millions and yet isn’t worth a dime.

There are laughs in Magic Mike XXL.... But the real eye-openers are the moments of sex-positive, woman-positive and emotion-positive contemplation.

Corey Stoll is the only reason to sit through this muddled Jersey-set drama.

There are parts of “Escape From New York,” “Air Force One,” “Cliffhanger” and countless Luc Besson movies strewn about. Big Game doesn’t stomp on their memory, but like an overenthusiastic fan, it does smother them with amateurish zeal.

Director Andrea Di Stefano’s filmmaking debut has a spotty sense of urgency, but we get to know neither Nick nor Escobar, so both the innocence and the fiery threat lack impact.

Dullness, as well as hoary preachiness, neuters the family-and-their-war-dog drama Max.

Rory Culkin’s turn in the deeply felt and haunting Gabriel is so powerful you can’t look away.

Saldana has a harder lift, as Maggie is striving for something better yet has to often be reactive. In scenes with the adorable Wolodarsky and Aufderheide, she listens and acts intently. But there are too many times when she’s forced to just look worried. Still, Saldana, like so many things in Forbes’ likable but tricky film, does her best in a tough situation.

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.

Inside Out is the year’s best film so far. After you see it, you’ll say that’s a no-brainer.

High art swings sort of low in this watchable but thematically repetitive drama.

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.

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.

The moments when Spy falls apart are when the film fancies itself the real thing. The times when it works are due to its leading lady.

This mashup of a teenage assassin lark and high school misfit comedy misses the chance to add a supercool heroine to pop culture.

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

Entourage plays like a solid, if slightly too long, episode. But even given the bloat, the cast’s easy camaraderie and a “play it as it lays” atmosphere wins you over.

There’s never a false moment.

San Andreas is a disaster — literally. That’s not to take a piece out of Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson. His charm and family-man-style fearlessness as the movie’s star is the only saving grace in this thuddingly repetitive, badly written crash-a-thon.

Aloha isn’t horrible, but it does have a pitiable odor about it, like a dog that’s sat too long on the beach. Crowe aspires to Golden Age of Hollywood repartee, but something feels off, just as it did in “Elizabethtown” (2005) and “We Bought a Zoo” (2011). Everyone just seems to be trying too hard.

The emotions are florid and the entanglements heated. But the film become preoccupied with, as Flaubert would say, the pettiness and mediocrity of daily life. Arterton, though, is plushly magnetic. She draws us in despite the overly lyrical atmosphere.

Director Hiromasa Yonebayashi did a wonderful job adapting “The Borrowers” into “The Secret World of Arriety.” But this slow-moving film, also from a book, tends to plod rather than float.

This fantasy adventure lacks focus when it should be laser-sharp, and stumbles when it could soar.

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.

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.

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.

Its creepy atmosphere aside, Maggie is a slog of the living dead.

Screenwriters Chris Shafer and Paul Vicknair’s script feels like a first draft that was written in one night as they got pumped up on Red Bull and speed-watched Netflix. Guys: Another few polishes could only have helped.

Strap in, load up and hang on because Mad Max: Fury Road is a freaky, ballsy, phenomenal ride.

Hot Pursuit gets cold quickly. That’s certainly not the fault of stars Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara, who work to keep this blessedly brief action-comedy shaking and cruising to an unthrilling end. The blame lies with a dopey script, director Anne Fletcher and a lazy Hollywood assumption that female buddy flicks should be as half-assed as their male counterparts.

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.

Despite the incongruous romance and abrupt action beats, Crowe gives a likable, sympathetic performance. But it all starts to dry up before our eyes. Emotions feel false or melodramatic, flashbacks are drawn out and coincidences and connections are forced.

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.

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.

Travolta’s face looks immobile, while Plummer and Jennifer Ehle, as Cutter’s estranged, strung-out wife, look out of place. Sheridan (“The Tree of Life”), though, does seems comfortable in a movie where the colors blur sloppily.

The former “Friends” star clearly wanted something special, but sadly the result is ... this.

James' everyman appeal is stretched to the limits here, like that polyester shirt he wears.

The mystery at the heart of the film is a riddle wrapped in an enigma covered in dullness.

If you don’t love monkeys already — and really, we all should — then Monkey Kingdom will swing you in the right direction.

True Story is a prisoner of its own dull storytelling.

This film, though, lacks any spine. Director Jean-Baptiste Leonetti isn’t sure if he’s making a Hemingway-lite faceoff or a hemmed-in horror flick.

This Australian movie reminds you what can happen when directors pretend to be Quentin Tarantino, complete with snark masquerading as style, slippery timelines, blood and guts and guns everywhere.

This exquisitely acted, genuinely creepy minimalist drama does spin its wheels a bit before a cool conclusion. But the movie has a spark of creativity not seen in “Chappie” or “Eva,” two of the recent robots-among-us flicks.

This is the film that fulfills whatever promise Kristen Stewart has shown for more than a decade.

If this is your particular poison, it won’t kill you. But anyone averse to Sparks’ sappy touch may get sick from all the bull.

Just when it seemed Hal Hartley was going to be forgotten, along comes the Long Island-based auteur’s terrific new feature. It’s a follow-up to his opus “Henry Fool.”

What remains rote is how easily the fiend’s victims fall for his tricks. It’s almost as if they’ve seen too many movies like The Barber, and shaved away all common sense.

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.

Noah Baumbach’s sensational satirical drama While We’re Young is, finally, a movie for grownups to run out and see.

Get Hard isn’t edgy enough to be offensive or witty enough to be challenging. It’s just dumb.

Just when you thought it was safe to stand up to a bear in the woods, this jarring indie horror drama will make you scurry back indoors.

The movie is played fast but lacks wit. The script, written by Kristin Gore — daughter of Al, and author of the book on which it’s based — mistakes frantic for funny.

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

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.

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.”

Every scene is entwined in clunkiness.

Crisply directed but inescapably pious and, worse, narratively poky.

Branagh, working from a script by Chris Weitz, gives the film emotional heft. James’ performance — never saccharine, often staunchly independent — makes the story’s more regressive elements float away.

Intimate and intellectual, the film — with a title taken from J.D. Salinger — focuses on the type of person you pass on the street, see in a coffee shop or sit next to on the subway who makes you wonder what life he’s led. One full of melody and muse, it turns out.

Often it’s the fighters themselves who best sum up the appeal of “the sweet science.”

Fatigue is all we get from Run All Night.

Sam Worthington and Jim Sturgess are solid as two of the four kidnappers, but Swedish director Daniel Alfredson pushes the caper button too many times. More sly wit would have helped things come to a head.

Unfinished Business squanders almost every opportunity provided by its potentially funny premise. Instead, it becomes yet another blotch on star Vince Vaughn’s résumé.

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.

Yes, there are good moments from a team of veteran British actors, but overall, this return visit to the 2012 gray-set rom-com is deadly dull.

The stories are horrifying, but essential to hear. Kirby Dick’s important documentary puts a personal face to the staggering numbers.

What on earth is Salma Hayek doing starring in this exploitative, junky piece of torture trash?

Will Smith may have run through every trick in his bag. In Focus, the one-time fresh prince and former box-office champ looks tired, bored and, even worse, uninspired.

Forget the minor, derivative scares in The Lazarus Effect. The real jolt here is seeing a well-known name playing a monstrous evil force.

This version of the time machine is more powerful — it’s made me go back and hate the original.

The actors are in good form, but McFarland, USA can’t find its footing.

All the low-hum, behavioral buffoonery gets a bit tedious. Still, cheers to Cross for the satirical road he covers, even with all the potholes.

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).

This is a terrific time capsule with a resonant message.

Talk about lost in space. The whacked-out outer-space melodrama Jupiter Ascending has embedded in its genes the DNA of “Barbarella” and “Flash Gordon,” some dust from “Dune” and even a bit of Michael Jackson’s Disneyland short “Captain Eo.”

Director Sergei Bodrov’s movie is based on a kids’ book in which Tom was a 12-year-old, and the actors wisely pitch their performances to a young crowd.

All the men's wives are shrews, prigs or doormats; all the conquests doe-eyed blonds with sucked-in cheeks. All the dialogue is as witty as this exchange: "You're a sick f---!" "No, you're a sick f---!" They're all sick f---s, frankly, and the actors are dreadful while playing them.

A racial melodrama that, until it stumbles into obvious and maudlin territory, is a thoughtful work thanks to Octavia Spencer, Anthony Mackie and especially Kevin Costner.

Every generation gets the time travel it deserves. Project Almanac isn’t “Time After Time” (1979) or “Back to the Future” (1985) or “12 Monkeys” (1996), but the new release does turn out to be a surprisingly jaunty trip for jaded Gen-Y kids.

It’s Fatal Attraction 101.

Aniston is fine, and sometimes good even, in director Daniel Barnz’s maudlin and overly obvious drama. She has layered moments of sympathy as a woman afflicted with chronic pain. And unlike in the bad rom-coms she does too often, Aniston absolutely shows some serious chops.

The manic energy of Kevin Hart is, surprisingly, toned down in The Wedding Ringer. Which may account for almost the entire first half of this wannabe-raucous buddy movie being laugh-free.

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

Unfortunately, Mann’s newest film, Blackhat, fails to connect.

Even Liam Neeson seems bored by the imbecilic, repetitive “Taken 3,” an action movie no one was clamoring for and no one will enjoy.

As an exercise in atmosphere, this claustrophobic creeper does a lot with a little, even if the movie winds up providing just superficial shivers.

Predestination may have the trippiest, weirdest take yet on the time-travel concept.

Chandor (“All is Lost”) has made a movie that quietly but ferociously immerses us in a time and place, with atmosphere done in minimal yet evocative strokes.

The battle it documents is both a cornerstone of the past and a reflection of ongoing struggles. DuVernay infuses Selma with that dichotomy, never forgetting how Selma, the place, was a pledge to march ahead.

When you get through it, though, you can’t help but feel uplifted by this tough-skinned movie that can stand with the best muscular wartime dramas in the American movie canon.

There are big special effects, of course, but refreshingly, this third (and final?) movie in the franchise is like a pleasant stroll through familiar halls.

Real-life geopolitical blunders aside, The Interview generally hits its marks. And every time it does skid into juvenile idiocy — with too much scatological humor, for instance, and an overuse of “you-go-bro!” attitude — it follows it with a stride or two toward uproarious meta-satire.

There’s far too many moments of sabre-rattling, and too much confusion about who is aligned with whom, and why. Those who know and love Tolkien’s texts will have a vested interest. Everyone else may grow restless.

Franco himself is ponderous playing Williams, which tends to overwhelm everything. A cool concept, and A for effort.

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

This eye-rollingly bad movie is silly, sluggish and miscast.

Liv Ullmann’s screen version of August Strindberg’s 19th-century drama is an austere, pared-down take that does one thing extremely well: It allows actors Jessica Chastain, Samantha Morton and especially Colin Farrell to shine. But this emotionally brutal work is anything but cinematically engaging.

This is a perfect example of the kind of indie movie J.K. Simmons will hopefully never have to do again if he wins an Oscar for “Whiplash.”

So the big surprise of Horrible Bosses 2 is how far it gets on the hopped-up jabberjaw alliance of Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day. In the 2011 “Bosses,” they were swamped by the conceit: White-collar pals try to kill awful employers. Now, freed up to free-associate, they’re totally winning.

There is a serious lack of action here, which might be overlooked if the script were as smart as in the previous films. What passes for parable here is merely overplotting.

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.

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.

From junky production values to the parade of unfunny supporting characters to its lazy energy, Dumb and Dumber To falls on its face.

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

If you succumb to The Better Angels, the effect is like falling into a gorgeous photograph, but that also means the narrative in this arthouse film is oblique and sketchy.

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.

The movie could have gone several ways, too — and it is heartbreaking to watch this ambitious story choose the wrong one and get lost in space.

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.

Fans of PBS, history and a certain kind of old-fashioned moviemaking may fall in.

This dull thriller wastes the potential of Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth.

Preposterous things are everywhere in this lethargic thriller.

Plot is not the movie’s strong suit. But stylish set pieces are, including one epic blast-a-thon alongside a pool.

Director Jeff Preiss soaks his movie in a brownish retro atmosphere, which helps smooth over the many dull spots, but only briefly. Though his cast is strong even when the movie lags, they often feel like soloists doing their own thing next to each other — always melodic but never truly meshing.

Sadly, this gorgeous-looking adult movie plays out the same theme over and over, never going anywhere surprising. At least we have Binoche to guide us to hell and back.

William H. Macy has pitch-perfect instincts as an actor. As a movie director, he’s bound to do better than his first feature, this big-hearted, nicely paced but ho-hum character study.

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

Director Jake Paltrow’s stark sense of place fades as familiar genre elements are introduced. It winds up like “There Will Be Blood,” but with H2O, not oil. It’s food for thought, nothing more.

Strong acting all ’round helps, but unfortunately this is just a slow ride to nowhere.

Speaking of committed: Duvall, at age 83, nearly steals the show. Always the most inscrutable of the great ’70s actors, Duvall uses his great, unassuming American face to convey pride, confusion, pain and compassion — sometimes all at once.

Just another loud, boy-centric comedy aimed at ’tweens. The movie turns a slight children’s book — in this case, Judith Viorst’s 1972 fave, from which it takes mainly the title — into a charmless mishmash.

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

The movie hits a beautiful, celebratory note.

This one has a screenplay by Stephen King, adapting his own short story. Unfortunately, that can’t save this low-budget thriller.

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.

Cusack and Jane look like they’re improvising much of the time, and while that doesn’t lead to a better movie, the off-the-cuff approach is the best thing in the film.

Ridley and Benjamin have done more than capture Hendrix’s moves and sounds. They’ve captured his spirit.

Fincher is a fearless filmmaker who understands his audience’s intelligence (not to mention their cinematic blood lust). By the end of Gone Girl, we feel like we’ve lived through about four movies, not just one. Good luck letting go of any of them.

Kids who get a kick out of the macabre will enjoy this exquisitely crafted but tedious film.

The movie is tense and coiled for its first hour, then becomes routine in its second half.

With the combo of Neeson’s natural solemnity and his action chops, “Tombstones” treads compellingly amongst lesser thrillers.

Hector wants to connect to our inner child, but it feels more like a long story from a good-hearted but dull grandparent.

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.

No Good Deed is an example of the worst kind of exploitative thriller — and it’s being released during the worst possible week.

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

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

The Identical is one wacky movie, based on a bit of truth.

Kline sinks his old smoothie teeth into the part of Flynn, but is careful not to draw blood too easily. The man’s pathetic nature, after all, doesn’t spring from his movies. (Flynn worked right up to his death, in 1959.) It’s deeper than that, but also more shallow. Walking that knife’s edge is a trick. Kline finds exactly the right path.

Despite the human drama here, we’re kept at a remove by stolid direction and by-the-numbers storytelling.

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

The sequel to one of the most visually striking movies of the last 10 years continues the graphic novel-inspired landscape of its predecessor. But the characters don’t click, and the action feels dull.

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.

The Giver was ahead of its time as a book. But as a movie, it’s too late.

The Expendables 3 lets down its cast with a film that’s about as thrilling as the arrival of a monthly Social Security check.

Quiet moments after big decisions are where the power lies in this absorbing French drama.

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.

The cloddish, confusing action scenes make no sense. Young viewers’ eyes will glaze from the first-person video-game style. Nonaction scenes feature people sniping at each other, or, in Arnett’s case, croaking out the script’s half-assed witticisms, until the Turtles show up.

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

Calvary is like a philosophical Agatha Christie mystery. That’s certainly not the worst thing to be. But it’s also the film’s undoing, because the reliance on specific genre cliches undermines the movie’s more serious intentions.

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

Duchovny tamps down his sardonic style to play a quiet guy, but the result is blandness. Timothy Hutton gives a solid turn as a standup businessman. In all, director Anthony Fabian isn’t sure how to build a nontreacly movie out of an inspiring true-life story.

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

This bold movie may sound like a stunt, but it’s so much more than that. Linklater is an effortless, genial auteur, and his passions are woven through “Dazed and Confused,” “School of Rock” and the “Before Sunrise” trilogy. Here, his mellow groove becomes an everyday rhythm.

Affleck is playing someone split down the middle, but we're stuck seeing only one side of him.

If director Rob Reiner’s AARP-aimed comedy stumbles on several fronts, at least it provides a stage for some seasoned pros to strut their stuff.

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.

One problem with “Wish” is that Braff tries to cram so much into it, no scene ever exists for its own sake, to establish rhythm or help us know these characters outside of the ongoing family crises.

Cahill, who did the equally heady, intriguing drama “Another Earth” (2011), keeps the tone consistent. He makes certain his cast walks a savvy tightrope, keeping things taut.

The modern stuff is undeniably fawning. But given the eye-popping visuals, you understand the enthusiasm. Especially if you left your heart, and thousands of dollars in quarters, in an arcade.

Monument Valley makes an appearance, and there are soulful moments of slow motion. There’s enough heart here to make up for whatever first-timer miscalculations ride along too.

The movie’s ennui feels like so much posing, and the Bret Easton Ellis-lite characters are monotone. It’s rich in effort, but it all comes to diminishing returns.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is awe-inspiring.

The irony is that Ebert famously lost his actual voice. Yet as the extraordinary documentary Life Itself shows, that couldn’t quiet one of America’s most beloved critics and cultural commentators.

The fact that it stars the extremely funny Melissa McCarthy is both its saving grace and incredibly frustrating.

The film features plenty of elements that seem familiar from previous cinematic dystopian visions — class warfare, decrepit living, a feeling of terminal velocity — yet you can’t help but admire director Bong Joon-ho’s high-wire act.

Filled with horrific but colorful anecdotes, director Joe Berlinger’s incisive look at the mobster life of Boston career criminal and FBI informant “Whitey” Bulger is essential viewing for fans of lurid, true underworld tales.

Melancholy, often muddled documentary.

This mellow chronicle of Nat Hentoff is like a tour through New York’s past.

If you're not an 11-year-old boy, or a grown-up in the mood to feel like one, the endless "wow!-that-car-is-now-a-deep-voiced-robot" scenes lack thrill. In fact, the action scenes, as in the previous films, are downright headache-inducing.

The actors make the raucousness feel as easy as the cinematic couples therapy.

Polanski views things so mischievously that the naughtiness is neutered long before sniveling Thomas is tied to a pole. He’s a captive not only to Vanda, but also to all the dull, reductive mind games.

The laughs are what keep the film together, even when the conceit feels been-there-done-that.

Hellion is a glimpse into rural American childhood that’s both tense and melancholy.

This insightful doc from director Andrew Rossi addresses topics that get more polarizing each year: the high cost of college, the factors that dictate who’s educated in this country and the culture that surrounds those decisions.

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

This sometimes-taut little thriller is sullied by its unnecessary masquerade as a documentary presented by HBO’s gonzo news show “Vice.”

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.

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.

The layered, tuned-in adaptation by Michael H. Weber and Scott Neustadter avoids calculated sentiment.

While Lucky Them may not be a classic, the actors at least find a cool groove.

Director Jon S. Baird lets Welsh’s language fill up the room, even when it’s a wee bit hard to fathom.

Angelina Jolie is so wickedly enchanting in the magical, magnificent Maleficent, you may not notice how transporting this female-driven blockbuster really is.

Jodorowsky turns his own youth into an odd, hypnotic mishmash.

Words and Pictures doesn’t get the dunce-cap award, but it does lose points for feeling phony and contrived — especially during the moments when it appears overly proud of what it is.

The movie sometimes has the feel of an Olympic sprinter running in place. There’s so much energy expended to get to one spot. Constant searches beget more searches. It all gets exhausting.

The strength of Gray’s movie lies in showing the connection between people in a place without rules.

Those who only know Chiwetel Ejiofor from his quietly powerful work in the Best Picture-winning “12 Years a Slave” should see him here — to experience his range.

Despite a few fiery breaths, there’s mostly hot air from a lot of serious actors slumming it.

The Double belongs to a very specific club. If you’re on its wavelength, it’s a dive into quirky, murky fun. But even if you are, this oddball offering is vague and slippery, a calmer brother to “Brazil” or Orson Welles’ Kafka tale “The Trial.”

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

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

Neighbors stakes its claim in suburban-property cliches. Given the dull, stale results, maybe the end of the world was a better fit.

Ida is photographed in gorgeous black-and-white cinematography. A deep focus allows every corner of the simple, serene compositions to be seen clearly. The economy of story and dialogue extends to the running time — at barely 90 minutes, the movie feels full, yet free of excess.

There are some nice moments of camaraderie, as Feldman and Imperioli do their laid-back thing and Fisher is feisty and warmhearted. Still, the let’s-all-talk-at-once actorliness wears thin. It’s just not worth the mood swings.

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.

There are two types of superhero movies: the ones that brood and the ones that swing. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is proudly the latter, filled with high-energy action.

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

The film is put together too choppily to appreciate the bounce-off-walls athleticism of parkour. That’s a shame, since “District 13” star Belle is known as a founder of the sport.

For all its shortcomings, “Gigolo” knows when to turn on the charm.

A movie that’s of two minds. It’s well-grounded, but also over the top. It’s a man-vs.-machine epic and also an intimate drama. It’s quirky-smart yet sci-fi silly. And it winds up being half as good as it could be.

This heavy-handed movie is simply a sermon its makers think we all should hear.

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

The great David Strathairn can make any film watchable, but even he can’t save this dry dramatic thriller.

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

This kind of thing requires a velvet touch, though director Stanley M. Brooks hits only hammer-heavy notes.

The result: a dangerously cracked creep flick.

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.

Here we go again. Danish director Lars von Trier has pumped out Nymphomaniac: Vol II just a few weeks after “Vol. I” came out. And the results are the same: zero stars.

It’s all too much. Frankie & Alice has multiple problems it can’t get past.

There’s atmosphere here, but nothing else.

Intoxicating, and at times maddening, to watch.

Parents, take note: For all its heart, this is a tougher, more morally complex movie than its predecessors. Young kids carrying their miniversions of Cap’s famous shield may be in for a jolt.

Noah, Darren Aronofsky’s often ludicrous, occasionally thoughtful epic, puts theology front-and-center, and doubles down on its blockbuster ingredients — like adding huge rock monsters with glowing eyes.

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.

The problem with this hyper-verbal comedy is in the title.

For better or worse, the blood and bone-crunching remains most prominent.

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

Fine actors are let down by a comatose script and wayward direction in this retro crime drama.