Lou Lumenick

Bridge of Spies, Steven Spielberg’s best film since “Saving Private Ryan,” stars a flawless Tom Hanks in the smart, old-school thriller as James Donovan.

Short, sweet, charming and often very funny, Shaun the Sheep Movie has essentially no intelligible dialogue and doesn’t need any.

Paved with such good intentions and talent that it's sad to report this lavishly mounted gangster epic - the most serious-minded Hollywood film of the season - doesn't come close to living up to expectations.

This superbly acted and ultimately disarming dual coming-out comedy-drama -- which turns out to be semi-autobiographical -- certainly grows on you, despite all of the twee touches.

Morgan Freeman and Diane Keaton have unexpectedly great chemistry in this warm and funny comedy.

Catnip for the art-house crowd.

The last half hour devoted to the Big Game, staged by a crew from NFL films, is genuinely rousing and inspiring. That's where Friday Night Lights finally shines.

Even a great British cast and obscenity-laden gangland dialogue aren't enough to make what amounts to an extended acting exercise into much of a movie.

An utterly beguiling tale.

There’s no shortage of brains, brawn, eye candy, wit and even some poetry in this epic battle between massive lizard-like monsters and 25-story-high robots operated by humans.

Soggy, strictly by-the-numbers crime thriller.

More "it stinks" than *NSYNC.

This time out, Broomfield comes up with maybe enough halfway decent material for a 10-minute segment on a second-rate tabloid TV show.

Nutty Danish provocateur Lars von Trier -- long one of the most annoying filmmakers on the planet -- turns out one of the year's most emotionally resonant art movies.

I can't claim to have followed the story line of Paprika any better than I did "Pirates of the Caribbean," but this mind-blowing, adult animated adventure from Japan is half the length and maybe five times as much fun.

The best and most entertaining movie adaptation of a stage musical so far this century - and yes, I’m including the Oscar-winning "Chicago."

Break out the popcorn and prepare to be blown away. King Kong is the most pulse- pounding and heart-stirring romantic adventure since "Titanic."

A maudlin and unintentionally hilarious romantic weepie.

Owen Wilson turns out to be the best Woody Allen surrogate by far.

Harden and Pantoliano (especially) can be two of the most over-the-top performers in the business, but they don't strike a false note in Canvas - and neither does this heartbreaking movie.

A rare film offering from Mongolia, is an unusual, captivating and crowd-pleasing semi-documentary about an extended family of camel herders -- and two of their flock.

That 20-minute white-knuckle sequence - which includes Washington's character, Whip Whitaker, flipping the plane upside down to pull out of a tailspin - is by far the most effective part of director Robert Zemeckis' first live-action film since the underrated "Cast Away" 12 years ago.

Jennifer Lawrence's smart, funny and altogether masterful performance as a troubled widow in David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook simply blows away the competition in this year's race for the Best Actress Oscar.

The filmmakers follow this compassionate and articulate man as he returns to Rwanda a decade later to revisit his demons.

The Martian is a straightforward and thrilling survival-and-rescue adventure, without the metaphysical and emotional trappings of, say, “Interstellar.’’ It’s pure fun.

Reichardt doesn't so much tell a story as paint a finely detailed portrait of human suffering in this miniature marvel.

Offers well-chosen selections from Aleichem's darkly humorous work.

Will no doubt figure prominently in the awards season. But be warned, you can cut the gloom with a knife.

A guaranteed crowd-pleaser for the whole family.

A feast for the eyes that will engage the entire family.

The apolitical and well-meaning Home of the Brave is predictable and maudlin.

Never decides whether it wants to be a black comedy, drama, melodrama or some combination of the three. The acting and direction are all over the map in this consistently depressing, if occasionally interesting, slice of life.

Even an engaging performance by Margot Robbie as the proverbial last woman on Earth isn’t enough to save Z for Zachariah from becoming yet another ploddingly pretentious Sundance dud.

The Siegels make the Kardashians and Donald Trump look like tasteful pikers when it comes to egregiously conspicuous consumption, sheer hubris and utter refusal to take responsibility for their actions.

It would be a crime in itself to reveal the surprises of Nine Queens, which provides two solid hours of corking entertainment.

Shamelessly derivative, contrived and predictable, The Proposal is nonetheless a crowd-pleasing romantic comedy.

A highly entertaining first-person documentary .

Worth seeing just for the dramatization of the making of “Good Vibrations” alone. But there’s much more to savor in this biopic — a rare high note in the drone of so much summer dreck.

While Bell makes the point that pros account for about 85 percent of total usage, he is more interested in why others - including a guy with the world's biggest biceps, who admits they repulse women - are so driven to be Bigger, Stronger, Faster*.

Slight but consistently entertaining.

Noyce paces this amazing story well, and even if his young actors don't seem to have physically suffered as much as they would during such a long journey, he makes extremely good use of the bleak Outback scenery.

Many of the kids seem to be social outcasts of one kind or another, but Spellbound, which will show on cable later this year, doesn't dig deep enough to disturb the movie's relentless feel-good tone.

Dryly funny, adult-oriented animation -- hand-drawn on computers in a simple but captivating style by the husband-and-wife team.

An excellent way to teach children that movies don't begin and end with Hollywood blockbusters.

A heart-pounding experience that makes you think and contains a gallery of characters that will haunt your nightmares for years to come.

Tells its story so effectively through pictures it's barely necessary to read the subtitles.

Vividly re- creates TV news icon Edward R. Murrow's historic face-off with Sen. Joseph McCarthy in devastatingly low-key detail -- is the right movie at the right time.

Offers highly effective performances by a cast of real-life employees without previous acting experience, who also collaborated on the intriguing screenplay.

This is perhaps the most effective 3-D movie I have ever seen, with a sophisticated, involving story that will appeal to many adults. The only reservation I have is with the PG rating, which seems too lenient for a story that may give very young children - particularly if they are sensitive - nightmares.

A smart, dark road comedy.

Sheen, who is also reprising his stage role and appeared as Tony Blair in the Morgan-written "The Queen," is highly effective as Frost - though the stakes for Frost are nowhere near as interesting as those for Nixon.

A little gem.

Smart, funny and ingeniously detailed with terrific vocal teamwork.

The very sex-positive The Sessions treats intimacy with an explicitness and honesty that's very rare in movies. It may be the first film that doesn't turn premature ejaculation into a punch line.

A remarkable, eye-popping nature documentary.

This is a look at the joy, confusion and heartbreak of adolescence that's both culture- and locale-specific and, at the same time, universal.

Stephen Beresford’s script’s has its cornball fish-out-of-water touches to be sure, but Pride is a bona fide crowd-pleaser — wearing its heart on its sleeve as the film builds to an ending that’s as satisfying as it is surprising.

One of the year's best.

Utterly delightful.

A documentary that exerts a car-wreck fascination as it follows the icon through her 75th year (she's now 77) while looking back over her tumult-filled life and career.

The quirky High Fidelity really deserves being called the first must-see movie of the century.

The sometimes painfully sincere and slow-moving For Greater Glory clearly aspires to be inspirational, but history won't cooperate. The Cristeros triumphed not because of their faith, but because the United States exerted diplomatic pressure to protect its oil interests in Mexico.

A glossy, empty and ultimately unsatisfying — if undeniably entertaining — movie.

Ultimately fails to make its case that five teenagers were sent to jail for a crime they didn't commit solely because of institutional racism.

It's as purely entertaining as it is thought-provoking and timely.

The acting is first-rate, and remarkably there's no sense that the sometimes tough material (which barely skirts an R rating) has been watered down to make it more palatable for a wider audience. I just wish Chbosky had changed that terrible title for the movie.

A chilly, pretentious and talky drama.

A misleadingly bland title for a gripping documentary.

A smart, funny, stylish and very violent British gangster movie.

Scott Thomas' reserve as an actor - which probably helped keep her from top stardom after an Oscar nomination for "The English Patient" (1996) - makes her perfect casting for this French film, the auspicious debut of director Philippe Claudel.

Hard-core Hitchcock fans will not find much in the way of revelations.

Beach ("Windtalkers") gives a tremendously moving, Oscar-caliber performance as Hayes, portrayed by Tony Curtis in an earlier movie and celebrated in a song performed by both Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan.

In a season of hyperven tilating political docu mentaries - witness Michael Moore and his imitators - Ross McElwee shows just how far subtlety can go with his latest charming effort, Bright Leaves.

Very slowly builds to an emotional payoff in a devastating scene where the three main characters simultaneously seek relief in sex.

Look at Me is on the talky side, but like Jaoui's directing debut, "The Taste of Others," it offers uniformly excellent performances and smart observations on social and family interactions.

Parker is watchable chiefly for Statham, who exudes effortless cool and excels in hand-to-hand combat, as well as demonstrating his skill at wielding some very unlikely weapons.

It's fun, but the script, credited to Hossein Amini ("The Wings of the Dove"), is short on characterization and long on plot twists and wisecracks.

A lively score by Danny Elfman and some of the most dramatic sound-effects work since the Three Stooges only add to the appeal of Deep Sea 3-D.

Best movie I've seen so far this year? Hands down, it's Tom McCarthy's superb The Visitor, which turns Richard Jenkins, one of the best character actors in the business, into a full-fledged star.

Patrick Stewart has a blast playing against type as a soft-spoken white supremacist holding a punk rock band as his temporary prisoners in Jeremy Saulnier’s nicely crafted, low-budget comedy-thriller.

With such smarts and outstanding special effects, I eagerly await a second Iron Man movie, which of course is virtually promised in the final scene.

Basically "Jumanji" in outer space -- and even without Robin Williams, this is still a singularly loud, charmless and overbearing family movie that could use a hit or two of Ritalin.

Whatever the unanswered mysteries of Jay’s personal life, just watching this magician’s hands at work with a deck of cards is positively mesmerizing.

James Franco, all is forgiven. His woebegotten “Oz: The Great and Powerful’’ is practically a masterpiece compared to this eyeball-gougingly ugly, charm-free animated musical sequel.

Legendary hipster filmmaker Jim Jarmusch’s wryly funny exercise in genre bending hits so many grace notes it ends up being his most satisfying film in years.

Brilliantly acted and directed, Ava DuVernay’s towering Selma is Hollywood’s definitive depiction of the 1960s American civil rights movement — as well as perhaps the most timely movie you’ll see this year.

Astonishingly sharp and stunningly beautiful images of galaxies as far as 100 billion light-years away.

There have been many documentaries about the Holocaust in recent years, but this one really stands out.

Not a very visually interesting documentary its simply one head talking to the audience, with no film clips, photographs or other diversions. But its awfully hard to turn away.

Even at his best, Sharma doesn't have sufficient acting chops - or enough Hanks-like charisma - to hold the screen alone for more than 70 minutes with the CGI Richard Parker (as well as a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan and a rat who quickly become food for the ravenous tiger).

The scariest, creepiest and most elegantly filmed horror movie I've seen in years - it positively drives a stake through the competition.

Beautifully photographed over the four seasons - including Christmas, for the park's century-old bird census - Birders: The Central Park Effect is full of grace notes.