Joe Williams

In the roll call of visually distinctive ’toons, Epic looms large.

Gerwig makes us want to believe that in a city where anything is possible, Francis Ha has the last laugh.

It's the kind of movie that inspires word-of-mouth recommendations by speaking the international language of culture clash.

The most mesmerizing parts of the movie make up a tutorial about how the Muppets are made and moved.

With elements of a musical, a melodrama and a multicultural romance, Where Do We Go Now? is as hard to define as the crossroads region where it's set. But even without a clear signal, it sometimes seems miraculous.

When the smoke clears, heady Farewell stands tall among the movies that view the Cold War at close range.

It's smart, heartfelt, handsome and just mutated enough to sustain interest in a specialized subject.

Given the stormy milieu, The Yellow Handkerchief could have been a sordid slice of life or a maudlin metaphor. But the unhurried direction of Udayan Prasad and the unafraid choices of the sure-footed cast keep this character-driven drama afloat.

Thin Ice resides just slightly south of "Fargo."

Ondine is dipped in whimsy and might have drifted out to sea, but it's bounded on four sides by love stories -- between a father and a daughter, a man and a mermaid, an actor and his co-star, and a director and his country.

Although it has some memorably disquieting scenes, this story of long-delayed justice is sustained by its melancholy more than its thrills.

Like a train, I Wish is slow to build momentum, then it carries us away in a wondrous rush.

Afghanistan-born Atiq Rahimi has powerfully adapted his own acclaimed novel, but the film is unlikely to play in the Middle Eastern countries to which this plea for sexual equality seems directed.

The multiple cameras that shadow Anker and his novice partner provide unprecedented images. But they also raise unintended questions about the vanishing frontier.

Unexpectedly poignant.

Such a disarming homage to the cinema of the Reagan era that even grouchy gremlins might feel like it's morning in America. But be forewarned that if this movie is exposed to sunlight, you'll notice the puppet strings.

It's guilty of some sleight-of-hand hokum, but in pulling the rug from under the norm, Magic Mike turns a trick.

Although it doesn’t make a lick of sense as a stand-alone story, Mockingjay — Part 1 is the first “Hunger Games” movie with meat on its bones.

The surprisingly rich documentary Best Worst Movie views the phenomenon from a unique perspective.

Too short and undisciplined to be a world-class comedy, but its chutzpah deserves respect.

It may not be original, but Adam could leave a lump in your throat.

Directed by and starring Mathieu Amalric, it’s a deceptively low-key riff on a Hitchcock whodunit. It’s both sexy and inscrutable, a cold-blooded puzzler to the very end.

The kind of working-class, character-driven drama that few American directors would dare to make. It's tough and unsentimental, with a documentary aesthetic that belies the craft of the calibrated tension.

What makes Love Is Strange so special is that the challenges the couple face are more mundane than menacing.

Most biographical docs contain a montage of old footage, but this one is especially haunting. As Campbell watches home movies, he has to ask Kim to identify the people on screen, including his ex-wives, his children and his younger self.

The beauty of October Country, beside its artful images, is how it compresses the windblown fortunes of working-class America into the fallen leaves of one forlorn family.

Europeans have a taste for both the mechanics of trickery and the machinations of power, and the politically astute Spanish film "Even the Rain" belongs in the same conversation with Francois Truffaut's "Day for Night" and Pedro Almodovar's "Bad Education."

While the wilderness vistas are starkly beautiful, there’s no tangible sense of Strayed’s ultimate goal. (Why Oregon?) And the flashbacks, which include scenes of sexual misadventure and heroin use, are too brief to provide answers.

Because VanDyke wasn’t embedded with the American media, Point and Shoot has some priceless front-line footage, including a chilling scene where he must decide if he’s willing to kill for someone else’s cause. But without a rigorous editor, it’s “How I Spent My Summer Vacation.”

Mostly the movie is about process and perspective. Through the documentary lens, Richter's enigmatic paintings speak to us.

In a movie of murky surfaces and deep loneliness, the redemptive surprise of A Single Man is how it becomes a clear endorsement of the Buddy System.

This jam-packed picture is too zippily scripted and edited to get stuck in message mode, yet the stellar cast achieves a rare harmonic convergence.

We are reminded: War is hell. But at their best, war movies can be cool and beautiful.

Although the film has elements of a puzzler by Michelangelo Antonioni and a psychodrama by Ingmar Bergman, it never becomes compellingly intellectual or unnervingly emotional.

The larger-than-life actor is as emblematic of his country as Tom Hanks is of ours, and My Afternoons With Margueritte is his "Forrest Gump." Only better.

Like "Gone, Baby, Gone," the French film Polisse succeeds by shifting the focus from the victims to the vigilant protectors.

Cunningham's answers to pointed questions about romantic love and religious faith are so open-hearted, we understand that he's bigger than just New York.

The real stars here are Scott's behind-the-curtain crew, who fill every frame with tech-savvy details and take the sets to another dimension with immersive 3-D imagery.

Given the turbulent water of world affairs and sea changes in the media, a follow-up a year from now might be titled "Gray Lady Down" if the Times does not chart a new course.

It's faint praise to say that this is the best of the "Planet of the Apes" movies, because the evolution of special effects and makeup was predictable. But the unexpected strength of the film is its heart.

Lacking beef or sufficient spice, it's nonetheless colorful comfort food.

Paul Simon and a Parisian orangutan tell us the same thing: It's all happening at the zoo.

This is rich material that Moretti mines for both superficial absurdity and deep pathos.

The secret in this case is the jokes, which are ferocious. Marrying a monster flick with an adolescent romance has produced a merry mutant.

Because the sociopath at the center of this family portrait never asks for forgiveness, The Iceman is truly chilling.

At nearly three hours long, "An Unexpected Journey" has moments when the caravan seems both overstuffed and out of balance, but it's such a scenic trip that only a stubborn homebody could complain.

Like a Fishbone show or an LA weather forecast, the dark curtain rises, and there's a promise of more sunshine.

The simmering rivalry between Di and Fiamma, inflamed by the kind of glimpsed indiscretion that makes adolescent melodramas tick, explodes in a thriller ending that turns an observant coming-of-age story into something resembling "The Lord of the Flies."

With Whitaker, Daniels and screenwriter Danny Strong pulling the strings, The Butler can take a bow.

It's zippy, and the movie version has both a computerized sheen and handcrafted detailing. Because the details are cribbed from classics, parents can enjoy this 'toon as much as their kids.

The libido and bloodlust flowing from the pint-size Page is the funniest thing in the movie, but elsewhere, the mix of the goofy and ghastly is hard to digest.

This melodrama about spousal abuse and honor killings might be too grim to bear, but Kekilli keeps it centered.

While Looper lacks the heft of a classic, this wayback machine is worth taking for a spin.

Taiwanese director Ang Lee sees the '60s through a rose-colored telephoto lens, but his sympathetic spirit extends the generous message of the hippie era like a passed joint.

Rounded, redemptive and refreshingly free of cynicism.

As Refn is riffing on thriller cliches, he gets solid support from the ensemble. Brooks, a comedic standout since the '70s, makes a sympathetic villain, and Gosling stokes the young-Brando comparisons - instead of settling for Richard Gere.

Im Sang-soo has crafted an erotic thriller whose cool beauty speaks for itself.

Ultimately what makes Gone Girl so watchable is the three-headed monster of Fincher, Pike and Affleck. The director bathes the B-movie scenario in the queasy-green hues of a morgue, while Affleck flashes his million-dollar smile like a dime-store Dracula and the beautifully inscrutable Pike absorbs the light like a wax mannequin. If it’s true that Nick and Amy were made for each other, they were made in a fiendish lab.

Yet so much about The Lovely Bones is so skillfully orchestrated, from the chillingly methodical villainy to the thrillingly paced manhunt, we can accept that we're in the hands of a higher power.

This vision of a violent future makes Elysium well worth seeing, even as the conventional violence of the thriller finale makes it a missed opportunity.

With his actors and crew hewing to the script, the director’s craft is impeccable. His low-light images are suitable for framing, and there’s scarcely a moment of modernity, let alone humor or loose ends, to disrupt the tragic trajectory.

Here’s a toast to the cast and crew: Drinking Buddies is a three-dimensional movie that doesn’t require beer goggles.

To its credit, Celeste and Jesse Forever wants to be more than a formulaic farce. It succeeds to the extent that the neighbors keep up with Jones.

As the wife to a wolf of Wall Street, Blanchett shows us a lost sheep both before and after the slaughter. It’s not a pretty picture, but it’s twitching with life.

Whereas many kung-fu movies are a feast that leaves us weary with sensations, the tastefully bittersweet “Grandmaster” puts us in the mood for more.

There are three sides to most love stories: his, hers and the truth. But on London's Fleet Street, the three sides are his, hers and the tabloids'.

Doggedly indie but unpretentious, Begin Again is one of the best movies I’ve seen about the music industry and the ways it changes people whose paths diverge.

While we await the definitive documentary about the glut of garbage, Waste Land reduces this global catastrophe to touchingly human scale.

It’s an enigmatic and austere film from a region where political, sexual and religious repression are as stifling as the sooty air.

Like its neo-noir kin across the pond, The Guard is violent, profane and funny. But McDonagh is interested in more than mockery.

Apatow still hasn't set the table for a meaty drama, but making us laugh is a piece of cake.

World War Z, based on a novel by Max Brooks and directed by Marc Forster ("Quantum of Solace"), has a relatively plausible perspective on mass catastrophe. It deserves comparisons to Steven Soderbergh’s brainy “Contagion.”

As opposed to the "gentlemen's clubs" in sinful cities like Las Vegas, the Crazy Horse attracts couples.