Kenneth Turan

Larraín told his producers he wouldn't do Jackie unless Natalie Portman agreed to take on the role, and her superb performance, utterly convincing without being anything like an impersonation, vindicates his determination.

Israeli director Dani Menkin has been especially thorough in telling this classic against-all-odds sports story.

Once Lion's can't-miss conclusion hovers into view, the film's periodic over-dramatization matters less. A story like this is finally impossible to mess up, and pretending otherwise is beside the point.

Rules Don't Apply, as its name implies, is a movie intent on going its own way. It's not without its charms, but there aren't enough of them and they don't readily cohere.

The Red Turtle is a visually stunning poetic fable, but there’s more on its mind than simply beauty.

Powerful, emotional filmmaking that leaves a scar, Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester By the Sea is heartbreaking yet somehow heartening, a film that just wallops you with its honesty, its authenticity and its access to despair.

Arrival is really Adams' film, a showcase for her ability to quietly and effectively meld intelligence, empathy and reserve.

[An] excellent documentary.

Loving is an unpretentious film about unassuming real people, but don't let that mislead you. Just as Richard and Mildred Loving ended up overturning the status quo and making American legal history, so this feature on their lives by writer-director Jeff Nichols turns out to be a film of quiet but quite significant strengths.

As unlikely as it is enchanting, The Eagle Huntress tells its documentary story with such sureness that falling under its sway is all but inevitable.

Its conclusion, and its well-earned message, are more positive and hopeful than even its participants likely ever imagined they would be.

What Fire at Sea appears to be and what it is are not the same thing, and it's that difference that makes it a masterful documentary.

It's not that "Inferno" as it stands doesn't provide hints of better things. The plot has its share of unexpected twists, peripheral characters hold our attention, wide-screen vistas of tourist destinations Florence, Venice and Istanbul are easy to take, and stories involving the end of the world have a certain built-in interest. But as presented on screen, none of this gels as it should.

[An] engrossing, unexpectedly moving documentary.

This Reacher outing has its imperfections and its obstacles to overcome, but the strength of the character and the briskness of the action make it acceptable if you are in the mood.

Moonlight is magic. So intimate you feel like you're trespassing on its characters souls, so transcendent it's made visual and emotional poetry out of intensely painful experience, it's a film that manages to be both achingly familiar and unlike anything we've seen before.

A rambling, mildly entertaining performance film.

It's heartbreaking stuff, and Newtown handles it all with a gentle grace.

The Accountant is a nifty piece of genre entertainment, its wacky edge and genial tone despite that body count coming as something of a pleasant surprise in a year rife with lumbering, over-amped blockbusters.

Miss Hokusai surprises us with its different emotional tones, ranging from the sinister and supernatural to the unapologetically sexual and the sweetly sentimental.

Sand Storm's great gift is that it is human, not didactic, showing not only how difficult this iron web of culture and tradition is to escape from but also how much it poisons the lives of the men who enforce it as much as the women who are victimized by it.

What “black lives matter” means in essence, one of this film’s voices says, “is that all lives matter,” a point “13th” makes with undeniable eloquence as well as persuasive force.

The Birth of a Nation certainly has the power of conviction, but the grace of art escapes it.

Without doubt this strong documentary sheds a powerful light on this particular case while emphasizing the ultimate unknowability of absolute truth.

Lots of documentaries these days will tell you to be afraid, to be very afraid, but few will scare you as coolly and as convincingly as Command and Control.

Long Way North is a complete pleasure, a gorgeous piece of wide-screen animation that is as delightful as it is unexpected.

Denial periodically plays like a standard-issue drama. But because Hare's script grapples with serious themes and singular events whose ramifications are still being felt, it is effective when it counts.