John Anderson

The plot's a lot lighter than Vera, our engaging pachyderm, and Larger Than Life is basically a buddy/road movie--complete with animal comedy and interspecies bonding. For all the traveling, the movie doesn't go many places we haven't seen before. But Murray is careful not to step on Vera's toes. And she shows him the same courtesy. [01 Nov 1996, p.F14]

The material is often intimate, often heartbreaking.

The results leave one thinking of the film’s subject as too delicate for punk, too vulnerable for the Rat Pack, and happy to be the kind of singular phenomenon worthy of Scorsese-ian scrutiny.

Even when it falters The Forty-Year-Old Version exudes confidence—the director has confidence in her lead actress, and vice versa; both trust the writer, whose more amusing lines are often contained in asides between characters discussing.

A lot of Lucky is philosophical mischief, some of it is tediously ruminative, and some moments achieve a loveliness that belies the film’s craggy desert terrain, the earthiness of its characters and even the landscape of Mr. Stanton’s body.

There is an implicit story within—about the ancients building with marble for eternity and us moderns building with concrete for a virtual moment. But it isn’t just beauty Mr. Kossakovsky is concerned with here. It is how humans view their world and, more importantly, themselves. And their place in the universe. And their disposable landscape.

Ms. Kim strives to remain true to her subject’s sensibilities—her imagistic narrative amounts to energetic homage—and this includes not romanticizing his life.

It’s a delicate and memorable performance by Mr. Jackman. Ms. Janney does the whole Long Island thing as well as anyone ever has. The most resonant character, though, might be Rachel, whom Ms. Viswanathan imbues with the indignation of youth—something the rest of the characters have long outgrown, but which the story was always going to need.

While inseparable from Ukraine and its echoes, the film argues quietly but convincingly that its story is not specific to its time and place, necessarily, but is rather about how traumatized children everywhere might respond, react and/or rebel.

Based on the Le Carré memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel allows Mr. Morris to exercise his extraordinary gift for making the interview format irresistibly cinematic, and feels like a collaboration of kindred spirits.

If you believe that the much-loved, much-banned Judy Blume has corrupted several decades of impressionable youth, Judy Blume Forever is probably not the film for you—it’s a salute, celebration and round of applause all rolled into one.

Ms. Wilson may put a viewer off balance with a lack of concrete detail, but it is a seduction technique that works, to satisfying effect.

The deliriously talented Lake Bell wrote, produced, directed and stars in this peculiar bit of comedy magic, set amid the cutthroat world of Hollywood voiceover artists.

The Innocents features some superb kid-acting, which doesn’t just entertain and convince but embellishes the malevolent intelligence (call it sociopathy) at work in Mr. Vogt’s story.

Mr. Gaines occasionally loses confidence in his audience—the parallels that can be drawn between Gregory’s times and now are pretty obvious and don’t really need the punctuation. Most of the time, though, The One and Only Dick Gregory is a memorable portrait, of someone whose story deserves to be better remembered.

Musically, the film is best viewed and heard as an artifact.

There’s a weariness to West of the Jordan River, both in the storytelling and the face of Amos Gitai.

The pace is nonstop, the humor abundant, the devotion of Mr. Fox’s wife, actress Tracy Pollan, is made plain, and there’s no small amount of nostalgia in store for people who know and love the Fox filmography. But the heart and soul of the film are the face-to-face interviews, which are far less delicate than one might expect. And all the deeper for it.

Yes, there’s a sermon of sorts at the center of “A Different Man.” But the message arrives post-movie, thanks to a narrative that is consistently compelling in its novelty, and twin performances—by Messrs. Stan and Pearson—that really do get under the skin.

In a deliberately raggedy film, we find a raggedy man.

Top Gun: Maverick is not a dislikable movie, by any means: The cast is charming, the military stuff is convincing, the action sequences are, as intended, pretty astounding: In the proper theater (I saw it in IMAX) it will be a physical experience, literally, one that may lead to armrests being shredded by white-knuckling audiences in cinemas all over the world. But it’s also a little depressing, because of where it says movies are going, what it says about the lack of creativity making its way on screen, and what a precarious balance movie theaters are in.

It is the understated, matter-of-fact tone of the story that sucks us in, and the two central performances that help make this effort by Ms. Moss such a singular addition to the monster catalog.

An urban nightmare with a surfeit of soul, Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire is like a diamond -- clear, bright, but oh so hard.

Dorothy Lewis, the subject of director Alex Gibney’s collagist masterpiece Crazy, Not Insane, is out to demolish “the myth of pure evil.” As such, she may be among the most dangerous women in the world. She is certainly a “pioneer,” as one colleague calls her, adding that pioneers are often not treated very well.

While certainly a curiosity, We Met in Virtual Reality—a pandemic-inspired documentary filmed entirely within a social platform called VRChat—is also revelatory, if not entirely ennobling of the human condition.

“Reflection” is a highly playful exercise in its kaleidoscopic approach, though “kaleidoscopic” is about as useful as “surreal” in describing the film’s effect or philosophy.

Playing With Sharks has its visual thrills but also tells one good story after another, not only about making movies and flirting with death but about the nature of the fish and the steely character of the movie’s human subject.

Ms. Brown, who first came to our attention in “Stranger Things,” and for good reason, is surrounded by a cast that may have lost a bet.