Marc Mohan

It’s a harrowing and impressive accomplishment (especially considering potential government censorship), and it shows how, in its mad rush toward modernity, China has become a land of haves and have-nots, where income inequality and lack of opportunity have made a mockery of the nation’s purported ideals. Sound familiar?

Telling Northrup’s story, McQueen gives a grand tour of the institutionalized sadism and astonishing inhumanity ubiquitous in the slave economy.

Nothing tops the discussions of mortality between Leary and Ram Dass, during which both of these battered but unbowed explorers of reality come off as nothing less than enlightened.

Inspired by uprisings in the former Soviet bloc as well as, more pointedly, the Arab Spring, Makhmalbaf serves up a surprisingly tense, sometimes poignant parable. It's good to have him back.

Sorrentino’s storytelling sometimes seems deliberately obscure, and his film can be as indulgent as the society it chronicles. But as this existential odyssey draws to a close, it sews itself up with the aplomb that only a confident, controlled filmmaker can marshal.

German director Christian Petzold's new movie is a testament to the way textured performances and a skillfully woven script can entice a remarkable suspension of disbelief.

An inspirational, and mostly entertaining, saga, Joy is a Horatio Alger story for the 21st century — but who reads those anymore?

Here's a movie that's jam-packed with bizarre sci-fi concepts, political allegory, a fascinating international cast and some truly over the top set pieces. But for just about everything maniacally cool in the movie, there's a flaw, sometimes a near-fatal one.

At times the movie feels like two Very Special Episodes of "Law & Order: SVU" stitched together, but on balance it's a smart, well-cast piece of grown-up entertainment.

William Faulkner's oft-cited quote has rarely been more apt: "The past is never dead. It's not even the past."

What's most endearing about "Taxi," as well as Panahi's earlier films made under repression, is the lack of righteous anger.

What makes Miss You Already work (when it does work, which is most of the time) is that it shows imperfect characters dealing imperfectly with situations ranging from the maritally frustrating to the existentially overwhelming.

Boosted by award-caliber performances and a perfectly struck tone, it becomes one of the more moving dramas of the year and an early, dark-horse award-season contender.

The well-chosen supporting cast — Anthony Edwards as a test subject, Jim Gaffigan as one of Milgram's confederates, and especially Winona Ryder as Milgram's wife — help tremendously to keep The Experimenter humming along as entertainment rather than dry docudrama.

Political machinations, emotional revelations, and a few well-choreographed fight scenes ensue, but Hou focuses less on the satisfactions of plot and action than on crafting, if not quite bringing to life, his auteurist vision of the past (both historical and cinematic).

The real star is Attah, a Ghanaian street kid plucked from obscurity, who imbues Agu with just the right mix of terror, brutality and the last remaining vestiges of boyish innocence.

The result is an uneasy mix of social-issue realism and escapist excitement that's ultimately disposable.

There's a Gordon Gekko vibe to Shannon's reptilian, charismatic villain. Like Oliver Stone's "Wall Street," 99 Homes understands that people don't sell their souls because they're inherently evil — they do it because being rich is cool.

Historical resonances aside, Coming Home functions well as an impeccably crafted, compellingly acted tale.

Most of the time, Goodnight Mommy creates its air of supreme unease quietly, even subtly, but even hardened horror fans might be shocked by some of what goes down in the movie's second half.

Only in its final moments does Breathe extend its reach beyond experiences that most, if not all, teens (and ex-teens) can relate to. When it does, it might just leave you breathless.

Like Brad Pitt and Robert Redford, Gere's good looks have made it hard sometimes to recognize his acting ability, but it's on full display here in what is anything but a vanity project.

Sleeping with Other People turns out to be more entertaining than it sounds. The movie, that is.

He's good, but Depp can't quite annihilate the self-consciousness that makes some of his more light-hearted work shine. Too often, it feels like he's channeling other actors: here he's Jack Nicholson with Hunter S. Thompson's nose, there he's an Irish-American Ray Liotta.

Grandma is a movie that, for what it's worth, gets an A+ on the Bechdel test. Writer-director Paul Weitz may still be cashing residual checks for the "American Pie" movies, but this is his most heartfelt, successful effort since 2002's "About a Boy."

There have been plenty of mountaineering documentaries over the last few years, and Everest suffers in comparison to them simply by being a dramatization. As realistic as the effects are (and you can occasionally tell when a shot is green-screened), you're still aware on a gut level that Jason Clarke and Josh Brolin were not actually filmed at 29,000 feet above sea level.

The performances, especially that of Regina Casé in the lead role, inject potent, lived-in humanity to the movie's flat political allegory.

Z for Zachariah has things to say about the tugs-of-war between science and spirituality, thought and action, men and women. It's just not exactly sure what they are.

Sometimes those kinds of movies work (just ask the Duplass brothers) and sometimes they seem like the cast and crew had more fun making them than you do watching them. This one sits somewhere in the middle.

At its more abstract moments, it's a treat for the eye and the soul.

Starring in, directing and writing (in collaboration with Michel Marc Bouchard, on whose play it's based) a movie at Dolan's tender age is certainly a Wellesian accomplishment. All three actors are convincing, especially Cardinal as the cruel, manipulative Francis, and their characters' behavior feels authentic even when it's not logical.

Theron makes Libby a bristling, emotionally crippled live wire, her anger, guilt, and distrust bubbling to the surface with the slightest provocation. She's neither quite as fascinating nor nearly as despicable a character as "Gone Girl"'s Amazing Amy, but director Gilles Paquet-Brenner is no David Fincher.

Shaun the Sheep Movie delivers exactly what it promises: The cutest, most innocuous entertainment this side of Internet panda videos.

This 90-minute exploration of the myriad ways Lego is great suffers from a relentlessly annoying narrator and a punishingly peppy tone. Still, if you're an AFOL—that is, an Adult Fan of Lego — or even a KFOL — you can figure that one out, right?—there's plenty to make it worth your while. If you're not, don't bother.

Most impressively, "Rogue Nation" keeps the body count minimal.

Moving and suspenseful.

In the end, as gay people and other marginalized groups throughout history have shown, the only real solution is to learn not to be agonized or ashamed over differences, but to celebrate them with pride.

There will always be plenty of fictional geniuses solving impossible crimes, but Holmes, it turns out, it where the heart is.

Baker's previous films "Take Out" and "Starlet" have focused on populations generally treated with disdain by mainstream society -- illegal immigrants and porn performers, respectively. With Tangerine he continues to prove that by depicting these characters in all their flaws and majesty, movies can inspire awareness of our shared humanity. And make us laugh.

Trainwreck doesn't try to reinvent the wheel so much as rotate the tires of comedy.

Without passing moral judgments on either group, Cartel Land provides a vivid illustration of the dangers inherent whenever a government fails to meet its citizens' needs to the extent that they take matters into their own hands.

Although it treads water for the final fifteen or so minutes, the movie is brisk and engaging enough that it still doesn't feel overlong.

Inside Out expands the possibilities of animation. It's also a hilarious ride that delights the eye, the mind and the heart.

Despite the solid performances (Roberta Maxwell as Jude's mother is the exception), the one-note intensity wears you down, until a shocking coda wraps things up. It turns out that being trapped in a bathroom together is nothing compared to being trapped in a marriage, or a nearly two-hour movie, with a crazy person.

Despite familiar elements, including the classic family-versus-work conflict faced by almost every movie cop in history and the equally hoary discovery of corruption among Michel's colleagues, The Connection remains tense and believable.

A bit too familiar, and at times gentle to a fault.

Some of the combat scenes work, including a kitchen-set hand-to-hand battle that's one of the movie's highlights, but more often they feel superfluous at best.

Despite convincing work from its cast, the movie remains oddly uninvolving.

As I sat slavishly (and needlessly) through the entire end credit roll, it was hard to muster anything more fervent than "Yeah, it was pretty good." Even a clean, white hate would have somehow been more satisfying.

The movie runs the risk of coming off as misogynistic tripe, especially considering it was written by two men and directed by another. Somehow it avoids that fate, rising to the level of a serviceable YA fantasy about the way mortality gives meaning to life.

To dismiss Ex Machina as just another robot movie would be like calling the Grand Canyon a hole in the ground. It's one of the most original, smart, thought-provoking science fiction movies of recent years.

White God holds some fascination. But as an indictment of the evil that men do, it's all bark and no bite.

With a deft touch that veers from wry, absurd humor to appalled outrage, the Italian journalist and satirist Pierfrancesco Diliberto makes a noteworthy film debut with The Mafia Kills Only in the Summer.

The clichés at its core make Metalhead something less than a full-bore, head-banging triumph. But it does perform the service of reminding us that even Judas Priest is capable of saving souls, and any film that features a cross-generational dance-off to Megadeth's "Symphony of Destruction" can't be all bad.

Today, Randi's stooped, gnomish gait and expansive white beard give him the appearance of a Tolkien wizard, but the man's passion for rationality and for exposing fraud and misbelief are stronger than ever. An Honest Liar is a fitting tribute to a figure whose stamina and wit only appear to be magical.

It's a sad commentary on the independent film business when a proven filmmaker like Hartley has to go hat in hand to the Internet for his budget, but at least he got to make the movie on his terms. It turns out to be the best thing he's done since "Henry Fool."

The octogenarian pianist Seymour Bernstein is the charming, inspirational subject of this appreciative, occasionally fawning documentary.

Merchants of Doubt is an important film. It's a riveting film, a necessary film, one that every American should see.

Without a more coherent perspective, the movie remains a collection of genuinely scary scenes and not much more.

Home is like when someone gets you a birthday present by just clicking on an item from your Amazon wish list. It's well-made, suitable, and appreciated, but there wasn't really any thought put into it.

An unrelenting and important exposé of a system that, as depicted here, has no place in the modern world.

With a titanium body and a child's mind, Chappie is a fascinating figure, vividly rendered, enough so that you wish there was a better movie around him.

If Song of the Sea had had the promotional muscle of Disney or Dreamworks behind it, it may have won this year's Oscar for Best Animated Feature instead of merely being nominated. It certainly would have deserved it.

Once things get going, and especially when Moore takes center stage, "Maps" becomes more involving, sometimes queasily funny, and even, almost despite itself, a tiny bit moving. Hooray for Hollywood, indeed.

As an artist who can craft an ebullient postmodern pastiche but maintains links to an idiosyncratic heritage, Amirpour has instantly become one of the most exciting, globally relevant filmmakers working today. Her film is a testament both to her own creativity and the infinite elasticity of the vampire mythos.

Sissako, whose previous film, 2006's "Bamako," also tackled political issues with aplomb and complexity, doesn't need to craft an overwrought denunciation of ignorant fanaticism. The humanism with which he approaches both the perpetrators and the victims of the violence inherent in this petty, small-minded tyranny makes the strongest argument possible against the Boko Harams of the world.

Although its three-part structure plays out more like sketch comedy than a fully-cooked story, Lavie's debut is an impressive and entertaining one.

The screenplay, which Ceylan and his wife Ebru based on short stories by Anton Chekhov, is wordy but insightful. The widescreen cinematography, capturing the natural wonders that make Cappadocia a popular tourist destination, is crisp in exterior shots and delicately shaded indoors. And the performances are never less than totally convincing.

A film this heartfelt and intelligent about social justice will never be unimportant, but it feels especially relevant today.

The story of Matt VanDyke, as told in the fascinating documentary Point and Shoot, is a vivid illustration of the ups and downs of reinvention.

It's not a bad movie, but Big Eyes might have been better off if it had sold its audience the same bill of goods Walter Keane sold America.

The big star with the most unexpected chops, though, is Chris Pine, who runs with his Prince Charming role and, along with Billy Magnussen as Rapunzel's Prince, contributes the movie's best musical moment with the duet "Agony."

If film's rapturous reception is due in part to the rarity of filmmaking this skillful within the horror genre, it's hard to begrudge this near-masterpiece of unease any of the praise it's gotten.

Life Partners may be a dispensable sitcom of a movie, but it's charming and cannily made.

It's hard to say what's more fascinating: The engaging explication of various paintings by the remarkably articulate docents, the behind-the-scenes looks at the preservation and restoration processes, or the boardroom discussions about the appropriateness of marketing efforts. Actually, that third one probably isn't the most fascinating, but I still wanted more of it.

Despite all the camaraderie, natural beauty and exotic weather, though, you couldn't pay me enough to live there, especially not when there's a movie like this to show me what I'm missing.

The only danger with a movie like this is the inevitably disappointing return to more humdrum reality once it ends.

This movie about a great woman and a great man ends up merely good.

Ignorance is bliss, maybe. If you don't know (and the film doesn't tell you, though the press notes do) that Diplomacy plays fast and loose with the known facts, it's a thrilling, even moving drama. But learning the truth gives an unpleasant aftertaste to a movie that's otherwise a solid piece of work.

It's similar to 2011's "The Loneliest Planet," which examined a similar dynamic between a couple backpacking in the Caucasus Mountains. But Force Majeure (which, as a legal term, refers to unforeseeable events or "acts of God") is sharper and smarter, combining precision-strike storytelling, directorial art, and impressive, often invisible visual effects, including that avalanche scene.

Laggies doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it puts an engaging spin on the old canard about high school being the best years of our lives.

The fascinating tale of master forger Mark Landis is especially bizarre, mostly because it doesn't involve the commission of a crime.

The thrilling cinematic joyride that, among other improbable feats, puts Michael Keaton, as Thomson, smack in the middle of the Oscar race for best actor.

Because Whiplash is two characters in search of a plot, it ramps up the happenstance and improbability as it stumbles toward a final showdown between teacher and student that would be emotionally satisfying if it had the ring of truth.

Binoche is her usual dependable self, bringing passion and fury to a familiar, but still compelling, character.

At over two hours, it might test the patience of some younger viewers (and some impatient older ones as well), but for anyone willing to take the time, it's an utter treat.

The movie wobbles as it approaches the home stretch, but, thanks to its leading man, manages to stick the landing.

David Ayer's film is a gory, muddy, downbeat tale of war's hellishness and the fraternal bond between those stuck in the middle of it. It's also, like "Ryan," full of tense, grippingly staged action scenes that capture moments of pure adrenaline, and it's the tension between those two impulses that makes "Fury" fascinating and ultimately flawed.

Pride should leave audiences smiling and inspired. But it would have been a much more groundbreaking film if it had been released 30 years ago.

Wiig, following the big-screen breakthrough of "Bridesmaids," has dipped her toes into dramatic waters, but for Hader, The Skeleton Twins is a revelation.

The movie is well-crafted and finely acted (including by the non-actors László and András Gyémánt as the creepy, affectless twins), but it never comes up with a new way to communicate its sadly familiar themes.

The actual video footage of some of the incidents recreated in the film, which play with the end credits, makes it clear that sometimes reality can be as hokey as fiction.

The resulting documentary is a fascinating meditation on the different ways nature can be experienced, as well as a fatalistic take on the process of our planet's seemingly inevitable change in climate.

It's not a five star film, but it's no Motel 6 either.

As is, it's a pleasant but unremarkable retelling of a story as old as the Dead Sea itself.

A second helping of a satisfying dish.

Israeli director Ari Forman, whose 2009 "Waltz with Bashir" earned a Best Foreign Film Oscar nomination, is a master at exploiting diverse animated styles, and draws a brave starring performance from a performer who, in her mid-40s, seems to be just hitting her stride.

William Shatner, it must be said, comes off as an insufferable, pompous jerk. Maybe he's jealous. After all, at age 75, Takei is an openly gay Asian American with an overwhelming social media fan base, making him the one who has really gone where no man has gone before.