John Anderson

An eager, earnest, broadly constructed pageant of ideas and characters whose greatest asset may be the service it pays to literature. [01 May 1998, p.F1]

In addition to its terrifically bratty performance by the epically bratty Posey, House of Yes contains some of the smarter (and smarter-assed) writing of the year.

It’s unclear what if anything Mr. McQueen or his co-writer, Alastair Siddons, lifted from judicial transcripts, but the inherent boundaries of a courtroom help give more shape and momentum to the storytelling. The setting also allows the characters to stop telling each other things they’d never say.

Director Mark Monroe’s nearly two-hour Titan: The OceanGate Disaster is the most exhaustive exploration thus far.

Likely to create considerable nervous tension among viewers who think they've seen this all before. They haven't.

Directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini show the same appreciation for eccentrics and humanity they brought to "American Splendor" and Mr. Dano's Louis is a delicately wrought wonder.

The film grows increasingly mirthful as the characters come into focus, and the casting is the key: Ms. Garner, who also helped produce the film, has a gift for catty roles, and Ms. Wilde is so funny she should play hookers all the time.

Naturally, Mr. Murray is a joy to watch. And he has brought so much joy to so many grumpy people he deserves whatever accolades he can accrue, even for a career-assessment comedy like St. Vincent.

An effective and even affecting pop thriller.

He may not be the most charismatic news anchor in the history of TV but Mr. Kumar has nerve, arguing with bellicose callers, singing to them while they rant (and promise to kill him) and sometimes getting them to sing along. As captured by Mr. Shukla, he also works tirelessly on behalf of something that you suspect wouldn’t be quite so despised if it weren’t also the truth.

Writer-director Alejandra Márquez Abella never makes the slightest suggestion that José isn’t going to get where he’s going, but neither does she make A Million Miles Away into any kind of ethnic agitprop.

Some parts of the film are drily academic, but much of it is quite beautiful and artfully put together by the director.

Mr. Damon brings both a weary optimism and convincing physicality to Max, who is no revolutionary. He just wants to live, and is willing to don an exoskeletal combat suit and fight robots to do it.

White Bird in a Blizzard is an alibi for Mr. Araki to flex his considerable muscle as a visual artist, using a palette that ranges from the blissful to the grotesque, and an atmospheric score by those eminences of the ambient, Harold Budd and Robin Guthrie.

It’s a nail-biter, a solid thriller, an immigration-themed takeoff on that old chestnut “The Most Dangerous Game,” in which humans are both predator and prey. It’s not particularly nuanced. In fact, its lack of nuance is its most distinguishing characteristic.

Ms. Newton is the kind of performer who seizes one’s attention immediately; Mr. Allen is, by nature of the story, relegated to more of a supporting role as the narrative progresses, but he’s an amiable presence.

Ms. McKenzie is terrific and carries much of the film, and director Taylor (“Sex Education”) seizes every opportunity to adorn it with period flavor, portraying Manchester and a Manchester hospital as they were 50 years ago.

We are set up to dislike her, but we do not. We like her very much, despite, or thanks to, the potent sense of diva that lingers in the air.

Ms. Rice (“Mare of Easttown”) is the main attraction, and a revelation; her direct address of the camera grows less frequent as present-tense time catches up with her schemes, but she remains magnetic throughout.

What Mr. Farrow does in his very concise, urgent documentary is track how governments and worse are using, abusing and will continue to employ technology by which they can pickpocket your personal data.

It’s easy to smile at The Thursday Murder Club, with its veteran performers chewing the scenery and still having the teeth to do it. Does that sound ageist? It might, if the charms of this lighthearted, star-studded confection weren’t all about its main characters being advanced in years and still as sharp as an insulin injection.

With enough suspense, action and violence for crime-thriller fans and enough Idris Elba for Idris Elba fans, Luther: The Fallen Sun needn’t have a message as well. But here it is: Tell Alexa to get out of your house. And take Siri with her.

Odd, funny film.

While the movie's star -- and ruler, and ship's captain, and grand poobah -- is Haneke himself, his actors are sublime.

Smartly directed, deftly edited, with a cast of performers who all get a chance to show what they can do.

World War II is often called the “last good war,” which has also meant that it was the last global conflict out of which the studios could make an unabashedly heroic movie. Fury is not that movie. And because it is not, it provides a few psychic disturbances beyond its shocking gore, burning soldiers blowing their brains out, children hanged from trees by the SS and imminent rape.

An extremely good-natured, upbeat recounting of the infamous Bobby Riggs-Billie Jean King “man vs. woman” match of 1973.

For a movie with such a nose for nuttiness, its human element is genuine and warm.