Marc Savlov

By the end of this tight and timely documentary – once again, we’re a nation in chaos, breeding some ridiculously fine rock & roll while the world burns.

Teacher’s Pet feels more like Ren & Stimpy's John Kricfalusi on a mild dose of Prozac, and I mean that in the very best way.

Remarkable debut feature by New Yorker Ben Younger.

The Gift, a psychological roller coaster on a doomed track, is one of the best directorial debuts in ages, hands down.

Eastwood keeps his direction lean and mean. There’s not an ounce of wasted screen time in Sully’s 96 minutes, but the story, an example of “truth is stranger than fiction,” has all the thrust it needs, and then some.

It starts off slow and somewhat clunky, but by the time the mind-blowing third act arrives, it’s all a fan can do not to stand up and cheer.

Deliciously bleak, black political satire from British director Armando Iannucci.

Gleefully, goofily over-the-top.

Where to Invade Next is a return to form, albeit a humorously kinder, gentler, and frankly more inquisitive outing than anything Moore has done since his Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or-winning "Fahrenheit 9/11."

No matter where your political gullibilities lie, Green Zone is a riveting piece of actioneering.

A Perfect World is a gorgeous, sprawling road movie, full of unique characters (more or less -- Laura Dern's criminologist seems like some sort of PC afterthought, and Eastwood's grizzled Ranger borders on cliché) and arresting cinematography that reminds us why we live here in the first place.

Is it a perfect movie? Not quite. The middle section drags a bit through no fault of the excellent performances, but ultimately it’s all of a piece, and the mid-mark pacing turns out to be a relatively minor quibble.

What’s great about this “documentary” – Cave gets a script credit alongside the directors, which kind of invalidates the whole notion of hands-off documentary filmmaking – is that it delves deeply into Cave’s notoriously fussy creative process without ever becoming stodgy or dull.

Slash is an endearing, sweet, and altogether badass ode to being young, weird, and subversively creative.

Let’s be honest: With a cast like this, it doesn't matter too much what the characters are doing onscreen, or if it makes about as much sense as a monochrome rainbow.

It's a hilarious, scathing look at one man's attempt to get a film made, whatever it takes, and it may be the most realistic depiction of that struggle so far.

Leary, Demme, and screenwriter Mike Armstrong have come up with a brilliant, harrowing portrait of misplaced loyalties and savage valor that may be one of the best character-driven ensemble pieces to come around in some time.

Both apocalyptic and suitably vague, The Signal's only serious weakness comes from some borderline histrionic performances; then again, it's tough to call hysteria anything other than a sane response to a world gone mad. Crazy, man.

The performances have remained continuously excellent throughout The Hobbit trilogy, and they remain so here; likewise Howard Shore’s score, which is particularly righteous – bloodthirsty when it needs to be, keening when a particularly major character is cut down.

Absolutely, 100% kickass. Now would someone please get busy on the "Tank Girl" do-over, please?

The dead have more fun than the living, again, in Tim Burton’s new stop-motion animated feature, a gift to gothlings everywhere and as exquisitely crafted as one of Federico’s post-mortem still lifes on "Six Feet Under," and just as melodramatically melancholic.

Above all, it's a satisfying, almost restful work, as welcome in this less-than-thrilling cinematic summer as a cool soak on a hot summer's day.

It’s Fukumoto’s wonderfully weathered countenance that makes Ochiai’s film such an elegiac delight. On it, you can see the entire history of samurai cinema, or at least that essential part of it that died often, and beautifully so.

The cast is uniformly excellent in their roles, and Eyre's persistent use of long, trailing shots reinforces the story's elegiac tone.

Ponyo is another conceptually and thrilingly original masterstroke from an animator who long ago left Walt Disney in the dust.

Fathers and families and the impossibility of ever fully understanding either are at the heart of My Architect, and like Nathaniel Kahn, we come away from the film with a renewed appreciation of both.

Remarkable, melancholy, and ultimately hopeful documentary.

Ford's Indy, who doesn't quite hang up his fedora at film's end, is still the only cinematic smartass-cum-bullwhipping scholar of antiquities I'd want by my side when push comes to shove comes to Nazis ("I hate these guys"), Russkies, or, for that matter, Al Quaeda. Go get 'em, Indy, and cue the John Williams while you''e at it.

Certainly one of the most lovingly crafted, end-of-the-world, cinematic feasts ever made, a spectacle of destruction and survival not even C.B DeMille could have envisioned.

This is Martin Scorsese, and in the end, it's his town, and his show.

Damon, particularly, stands revealed as a comic ace.

In the end, it's a love story after all, but a peculiarly Gallocentric one -- cheap, nasty, but salvageable nonetheless.

The most remarkable aspect of Lemon Tree, however, and the one that's most likely to land this film on many year-end Best Foreign Film lists, is Abbass' devastating and marvelously restrained performance.

Starving the Beast does an admirable job of making even the most arcane of arguments and abstruse alliances plain and clear.

This is a wonderful, disarming film, sort of like Ghost, but with all the Hollywood drained from it, leaving nothing on screen but the truth of the matter. Which is the way it should be, of course.

Innocence is possessed of a highly literate, almost classical story.

It's a riveting, nail-biting, two-buckets-of-popcorn return to form for Howard.

Although a few bits (the film is done in blackout sketch style) fall flat and a good ten minutes could be shaved off the running time with no visible damage, it's an impressive and irascible debut that rings true even when you're laughing too hard to hear it.

Inspired lunacy.

The shock ending isn't all that shocking if you're a fan of genre films, but it's nonetheless effective despite the fact that it sidesteps several key questions. Never mind: It's hellishly fun.

Craven is obviously having a ball here, and it's impossible not to sit back and go grinning into this dark, gory ride.

Sticking it to the man, German-style.

It's a straight-ahead caper flick, very cool, and very, very Seventies (although it takes place in 1995), from production and costume design on down to the soundtrack.

Yes, Boy Erased is a horror movie, but it bears pointing out that the emotion is by definition intertwined with both empathy and a certain sense of compassion. Terror elicits a shriek. Horror hits you in the heart, and the next thing you know you’re sobbing. Bring some tissues.

Timely metaphors abound in The Order of the Phoenix, but the story (of which there is much) stands on its own magical merits, dark and darker still though they may be.

A film for the young at heart and those who still appreciate honor, valor, love, and the earth.

Benjamin Walker, as Lincoln, may not have the gangly gravitas of Raymond Massey's "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" – he looks like a young Liam Neeson doing a younger Bruce Campbell, frankly – but he does have a sly, self-effacing sense of humor that feels ever so Lincoln-esque

Minus much of the rose-tinted nostalgia his films have occasionally engendered. There is a nostalgic tone to the film, but it's a quiet, subtle one.

Interestingly, Coppola has eschewed state-of-the-art special effects in favor of a panoply of archaic film-school tricks -- reversing the film, multiple exposures, playing with the shutter speed -- that give his Dracula a stylized, almost hyper-real clarity and a wonderfully singular weirdness.

While very much a “hard R” movie, Rise of an Empire is, nevertheless, the perfect sort of film for rainy weekend afternoons. It’s a spectacle right down to its shattered ships and duplicitous warcraft, and this time out the story’s been leavened and enlivened with plenty of old-school girl power.

Creed isn’t a complete TKO, but it goes all 12 rounds with vitality and flourish.

It’s fun, gore-drenched, and even touching at times. All that’s missing from the toothy chaos and broad comedy on display here is Dame Judi Dench and the kickass title that could have been: "The Best Necrotic Mandible Hotel."

To paraphrase Nathan McCall, this film makes you wanna holler.

It's chilling what Fiennes can do with so very little; he looks like a wounded puppy half the time and sounds like one to boot.

The Fall lives and dies on the strength of Pace and Untaru's remarkable performances. It's there that the pulsing heart of this magical-real film beats most true.

Lemarquis, as Noi, has a stoic and silent tenderness to him, and Hansdottir's Iris is the picture of pensive sluggishness. But then all that cold, cold snow slows you down, both inside and out, until the only thing moving is your heart.

It's a finely calibrated, spiraling lesson in what NOT to do when engaging in adultery, blackmail, arson, and general antisocial behaviors, and in its best moments it recalls the everyday darkness of James M. Cain: average people doing awful things in an amoral and uncaring universe.

Ultimately Hill of Freedom is surprisingly satisfying in its sheer — albeit abjectly disjointed – fish-out-of-water ordinariness.

Perhaps one of the cutest children's films ever made.

Infinitely subdued, sexy, and melancholy, Nadja is one of the most stylish and quietly exhilarating genre movies to arrive in a long time. Recommended, and not just if you wear black all the time.

An informative and nonpolemic look at the birth of the modern environmental movement and its various offshoots and key players.

Of course, if you loathed the first film, this one probably won't do much to change your mind. But fans, and I count myself among them, of the Weitz brothers' unexpectedly enjoyable original will find themselves in a familiar and perhaps comforting place … filthy language, risqué situations, die-hard friendships, and all.

Sergio Leone and John Ford would likely both recognize Nowar’s film as an echo of their own Monument Valley adventures.

This time out, Nakashima plays it fast, loose, and seriously fucked-up with a father-daughter tale of Tokyo woe that makes Paul Schrader’s "Hardcore" look like a picnic.

True love is never having to say goodbye … because when you look in the mirror, there s/he is.

A wellspring of lowbrow comedy that leaves you giggling in spite of yourself. Truly, it does not suck.

There are few wins and more than enough sorrow to go around here.

Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween knows what its target demographic wants but also resonates with adult audiences, thanks to the zippy plot and across-the-board excellent performances from the totally game cast.

Despite a third-act tendency to gather a few spare genre clichés as it rolls along (Guns! Drugs! Angry siblings!), Robinson's film is a cut above the rest.

A genuinely moving portrait of the artist as a young(ish) scullery maid.

It's thanks to Akhtar's standout performance that The War Within is as electrifying as it is.

The Lost World (unlike Spielberg's original film) leaps head first into the action, rushing, it seems, to get the film's real stars -- the dinosaurs -- to the screen as quickly as possible, and it does so with considerable verve.

A countrified, monolithic thing of beauty -- gorgeous to behold despite the fact that its overlong two-hour-and-45-minute running time plays off Redford's weather-beaten golden boy good looks far too often for its own good.

Gets its teeth in you and shakes. Once it’s over, you find yourself replaying it on an endless loop in your head.

It's not nearly as complex and eerily existential as the director's debut, "Moon," but in its own way it's an even more satisfying time slice of identity-scrambled sci-fi.

Fraser, Martin, and the rest of the flesh-and-blood characters look like they’re having a ball, which translates instantly to the audience as well.

It’s bravura, classic Hollywood filmmaking, and you like to think that Hughes himself would have viewed it, if not appreciatively, then at least with a sense of kinship.

Set against the gray backdrop of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, this is old-school melodrama writ big from a director who’s probably better known to mainstream American audiences as the man behind the spectacular Wushu action epics Hero, House of Flying Daggers, and Curse of the Golden Flower.

It's smart; it's silly; it's – kill me now – shear terror.

Hardly a serious caper film, Out of Sight instead takes a lighter approach, effortlessly offering up as many unexpected chuckles as it does bullets.

Doesn't just raise the bar on sci-fi and action films, it rips that sucker off and sends it spiraling into the sun.

I was unfamiliar with X Japan (as they’re known outside of their home country) but after watching this thrilling documentary I’m a rock solid fan, scouring eBay for old concert T-shirts. As Gene Simmons notes, “If X had been born in America, they might have been the biggest band in the world.”

And Favreau? If you'd told me 12 years ago that Swingers' comic linchpin would end up helming one of the best, most visceral, and downright fun foray of all the comic-book franchises waiting in the CGI wings, I'd have told you to amscray, kid. But what the hell? Turns out irony's good for your blood.

This is an emotionally devastating piece of advocacy journalism, as it should be. It should also be mandatory viewing for both college-age teens and their parents.

Charmingly subversive animation like this is a rare thing indeed, and the fact that you don't have to be under 10 years of age to thoroughly enjoy Mr. Shrek's wild ride is an added bonus.

It's a visually stunning film. For every kid everywhere, and for every adult still a kid at heart, the dinosaurs are the thing, and here, finally, Disney does justice to our dreams.

The Israeli comedy Ushpizin begins something like Guy Ritchie's "Snatch" and ends like the Coen brothers' "Raising Arizona" – in between it's a wholly original movie.

It's a knockout, sucker punch of a performance, and although it doesn't completely erase the memory of Rapace (and why should it?), Mara's doomy gaze cuts through the hype and bores straight into your soul.

An unnerving descent into the extreme, anxious corners of a mother’s relationship to and comprehension of her 9-year-old twin sons – and vice versa – gone weirdly haywire, Goodnight Mommy is required viewing for both lovers of neo-gothic paranoia and mommy-haters everywhere.

A disarmingly enjoyable film.

Director Howard, his actors, and indeed the entire salty sweep of the film are all aided tremendously by visual-effects supervisor Jody Johnson and his team’s spectacular combination of live action and flawless, awe-inspiring CGI creations, chief among them the great, white whale.

Like the doomed vessel from which it takes its tale, Cameron's film is a behemoth, svelte, streamlined, and not the least bit ponderous.

Unfamiliar to most these days and it goes without saying that Harris performs a great service in the eyes of history with his film.

The portrait he (Hossain) paints, while visually arresting thanks to cinematographer Sabine Lancelin’s eye for Dhaka’s colorfully saturated and gritty milieu, is a grim one.

Hopper, unsurprisingly, devours scenery like he's already dead and loving it, but for once his penchant for overacting is overshadowed by the real stars of Romero's world: They're dead, they're all messed up, but it's great to finally have them back in town.

With The Guest, Wingard and Barrett have once more upped the ante for the indie horror flick pack.

Helgeland's film positively seethes with bad vibrations; it's kicky, nasty urban sangfroid with pointy little teeth and a serious case of the angries, an existential hand grenade disguised as a heist film.

Open Windows has plenty to say about both the death of privacy and the dominion of the always-connected digiverse we now inhabit, and editor Bernat Vilaplana does a remarkable job of keeping the film’s frenetic pace rushing headlong toward an ending that you’ll never see coming.