Marc Savlov

It's a disturbing film on many, many levels, but beautifully shot (by Seamus McGarvey) and shot through with a horrific sense of false hope. The kid is not all right.

Great fun to watch, thoughtful and timely, Thomas in Love is likely to generate some decidedly interesting post-film conversations as well.

Director Ben Young’s first narrative feature is loosely based on actual events, which makes watching this psychological horror show all the more harrowing.

Easily one of Disney’s more imaginative and detail-oriented CGI offerings in a while, Zootopia uses the classic tropes of anthropomorphized animals and comic references to pop-culture touchstones to slyly puzzle out what it means to be “civilized.”

Plenty of killings abound, nevertheless the film is a masterful -- albeit warped -- love-story-cum-road-movie that revolves around three of the most invigorating performances of the year.

Based on actual events, this claustrophobic epic is as emotional as they come: a Holocaust story shot through with a layer of darkness both literal and figurative

Steeped in bleak, ominous atmosphere and period-perfect costumes and design, this is one of those rare genre films that gets under your skin and stays there.

It's not so much the individual storylines that grab you, but Curtis’ unrelenting optimism. In the end, it's nice to know that love, actually, does conquer all.

Truthfully, it's hard to imagine a better screen adaptation of this queer household. Addams would have been proud.

The less said about The Ring, the better for you, the sooner-to-be-freaked-out.

This is a Farrelly film for adults, if not the entire family, and its a charmer, honest both to the nature of the loves we choose in haste, and the fear that makes us so hasty so often.

Scrappy, powerful, and shocking.

Reality has overtaken the movies here, which, I suppose, makes T3 all the more cathartically appealing. At least onscreen we have Arnold Schwarzenegger in our corner.

With centrifugal force on his side, Spider-Man dips, weaves, and whooshes past, up, and around the camera -- it's a rush, and it plasters a grin on your face even after you've left the theatre.

Hero dips into the world of Capra's Meet John Doe, and comes up with an even more repellant visage of the Media/Citizenry connection than that film.

Smith's film is a celebration of quirkiness, eccentricity, and certain individuals' tendency to let it all hang out, and damn the consequences.

A consistently entertaining parody that never once makes you feel like an idiot for laughing out loud at its idiocy.

A slam-bang, sci-fi actioner, relentlessly paced and edited, with a pounding soundtrack and some ingenious aliens courtesy of Berni Wrightson and KNB Effects.

It's not quite as relentless as Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, but Bride of Chucky is still sick and wrong in all the right ways.

It's all fab, baby, a kicky, wiggy sequel that scores on all levels, from the sexy to the sublime.

Eye in the Sky maintains nerve-racking suspense throughout its running time and explicates some of the unknown nuances of drone warfare. Plus, you know, Alan Rickman is reason enough to see it.

It's a humorous film, to be sure, but there's also a stringent vein of giddy realism to it.

Its adult themes of familial separation and societal betrayal are head and shoulders above much of the director’s previous popcorn work -– more hurt, more heart, more unassailable hope.

What makes The Innkeepers such an unnerving experience isn't the outright horror but rather the lack of it. West mines every single floorboard creek and shadowy corridor for maximum frisson; this film ventures far beyond creepy and into the rarely explored land of genuine, incremental fear.

A pure distillation of the great director's ongoing themes of the frailty of the human psyche and mankind's willful inability to accept the inevitable, whatever that may be.

Mangold, Phoenix, and Witherspoon, all excellent in their roles.

It's childhood done just right: part cotton candy angels, part gurning adult frighteners, and all wide-eyed kidhood bravado.

As atypical a summer film as they come -– no explosions, no car chases, no Arnold -– but immensely more pleasing than films with all three of those summertime staples.

Fans of all that has come before (excluding Roger Corman's premature-ejaculation version of "The Fantastic Four," natch) will weep tears of giddy joy at how crowd-pleasingly cohesive – and ridiculously fun – this film is.

Although the film tends to suffer from a severe case of overt preachiness in the third reel (shades of James Cameron's "The Abyss"), it's still a wonderfully visual, exciting ride.

A riot of colors, Kika is sometimes sick, sometimes playful, but consistently hilarious and entertaining in ways that few films have been lately.

Possessor is queasy-smart near-masterpiece of psychotronic slippage. Like its protagonist’s risky psychogenic recollections, it’ll stick with you whether you’d like it to or not.

Not only the best date movie of the year, it's also a -- dare I say it twice -- delightfully charming -- and totally American, I might add -- slice of comedic bliss.

Works best when it seems like it's not working at all.

The strangest biographical film ever made is also one of the most charming, melancholy and quirkily humorous films of the year.

The Duke of Burgundy doubles down on the genre conventions and ends up being all the better for it. That’s thanks in large part to the score by the UK group Cat’s Eye, the two flawless lead performances, and cinematographer Nicholas D. Knowland’s keen eye for creating a more-than-acceptable simulacrum of Franco and Rolin’s hallucinatory, dreamlike vibes.

As in his previous documentaries, Brügger’s actions and tone are shot through with pitch-black gallows humor and dizzying moments of absurdist farce, equal parts Hunter Thompson, Michael Moore, and the great, self-effacing British journalist Jon Ronson.

Winger is as good here as she’s ever been, and Letts, an actor whose face you know but whose name you can never quite remember, is terrific, communicating his lust for Lucy with dry aplomb.

What's so intensely pleasurable about The Artist, however, is not its predetermined seriocomic trajectory but the endless parade of smartly creative and self-referential gags, which include all manner of sly, silent delights; the inevitable Jack Russell; and even an extended orchestral cue of Bernard Herrmann's, cribbed outright from "Vertigo."

Timecrimes is a tremendously entertaining bit of Kafka that whirlpools down into "The Twilight Zone."

Absolutely one-hundred-percent ridiculous, this is comedy of a higher order, and more maniacally inspired than almost anything released in years.

It's 99 and 44/100% pure Mamet all the way.

There are blood-red visual motifs all over the place, but The Devil’s Candy isn’t particularly bloody in and of itself. It suggests acts of terrible evil far more than it shows, and is all the more intense for it. Highly recommended.

It's also a doozy of a comedy, matching the dark wit of Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer novels to the stylized theatrics of Matt Helm-era Dean Martin.

It has the resonant feel of myth, buoyed by simultaneously vicious and compassionate performances from the men on both sides of the bars.

This is the first Spike Lee Joint that feels more like a mainstream Hollywood cops-in-the-'hood picture and less like one of Lee's recurrent soapboxes.

The concept of loss, and the sorrow that shadows it, is not what you'd call an uncommon theme in films, but rarely is it handled with such uncommon eloquence as it is in Maborosi.

Cyclo is a rich, gritty, and ultimately distressing feast for the eyes. It's a dark and dirty dream that stays with you long after you leave the theatre.

The result is a film that looks like no other in recent memory.

It's a strange and electrifying brew of Hollywood genre tropes recalibrated for a globalized sensibility.

It’s odd and unfortunate, however, that The Return of the King just barely misses the eye-misting emotional wallop of the series’ previous installment, The Two Towers, which had a lyrical subtlety underpinning the vast vistas of growing chaos (and Christopher Lee hardly hurt matters) and hobbits-in-peril.

Only Yesterday is a little-seen gem in the crown of Japanese animation powerhouse Studio Ghibli.

A fearless sort of melodramaticism that might have seemed silly if it weren't for the impeccable EVERYTHING on display here, from the lush, sexy camerawork of director of photography Yorick Le Saux (Swimming Pool) to the throbbing, atavistic score by John Adams. It's not silly or, at least, rarely so, and Swinton's nuanced, aching performance is downright revelatory.

It's a kick, it's a gas, and it gives the Rat Pack itself a run for its money.

Koepp's film examines the interconnections between man and the electronic society, and the terrors that are unleashed once those connections are severed, and does so in a wholly original and unnerving manner.

It's Disney's best traditionally animated outing in ages.

As depressing as it may sound on paper, directors Argott and Fenton have crafted a deeply disturbing but equally moving documentary.

Mad Dog and Glory, thankfully, finds the director in remarkable form, crafting an engrossing new film out of what might have been, in less competent hands, simply another Hollywood formula movie.

It's not perfect - infrequently the comedy and drama rub up against each other too much - but it is the genuine article: a wholly unique family film that can moisten your eyes even while it quickens your pulse.

Awesome.

Tamra Davis' directorial debut is a noir-ish, adrenaline-fueled tale of a love on the border between teen angst and homicide, and it packs a mean, unrelenting punch.

Director Roth has accomplished the near impossible with Hostel: Part II: He's crafted a vastly superior sequel to a film already considered something of a classic by genre aficionados, one that supersedes its predecessor's sadistic entertainment quotient by orders of magnitude while also upstaging its own outrageous gore effects with a script that's smart, vicious, and occasionally, gleefully subversive.

This film will either drive you mad or make you angry, possibly both, if you’re lucky, but it’s rarely boring.

It's not the crowning achievement in Steven Spielberg's oeuvre, but Minority Report stands on its own sturdy sci-fi legs, and there's no sign of that little imp Haley Joel Osment, to boot, thankfully.

Director Espinosa stages the endless action with a tremendous flair that recalls John Woo's grittier moments, and cinematographer Oliver Wood, who shot Woo's finest Hollywood moment, "Face/Off," gives the whole violent show a downright brackish look that borders on the sublime.

Rarely have I seen a film so willing to champion the fallibility of the human heart.

It smarts, and shocks, and just for a moment blows your mind.

Deeply moral, thoughtful, and amiably humorous.

Canny and somewhat overwhelming documentary.

Condensing a massive tome like Les Misérables into a cohesive 129-minute film is a labor of love in any case, and August succeeds with remarkable, powerful results.

It's done with such a wonderfully dry style and wit that you don't mind having to stop to catch up now and again.

It is an inspired, strange, and occasionally choke-on-your-popcorn funny ensemble piece that, frankly, blows just about every other current comedy out of the water.

A drop-dead gorgeous period noir, rife with paranoia, femmes fatales, and good men inexorably sinking into the bloody mire and opaque texture of life (and death) during wartime.

Billed as Li's final martial arts epic (would that Jackie Chan be so thoughtful), Fearless is fittingly peripatetic, finding the Hong Kong superstar ricocheting across the screen.

The House I Live In is depressing stuff, but it sparks the fires of anger, and from that anger, possible action.

The result is a riveting, eco-wise epic that'll do fans of both Ralph Nader and Katsuhiro Otomo proud.

Fiennes assumes the character and recites shocking revelations that Amirami’s obsessive research has disclosed. It sounds like a cheap trick, but the actor pulls it off flawlessly.

Layer Cake is suffused with a stately sense of menace and a sort of doomed existential suave.

The Adjustment Bureau is, above all, a romance of chance and chaos theory of the heart. (In this respect, some viewers will recognize it as kin to the early Gwyneth Paltrow fantasy "Sliding Doors.")

Of course, Slither isn't for everyone, but if you've a yen for gallons of grue and a smart, sassy story to boot, you couldn't do better than Gunn's hellishly fun horror show.

Cronenberg’s nonlinear narrative is trying at times – it keeps you nearly as off-kilter as the characters, and surely that’s intentional – but as a character piece about madness and stymied dreams, it’s remarkably realistic.

Summer Wars is a magnificently manufactured piece of film entertainment that goes beyond the obvious and manages to comment, often obliquely, on everything from Facebook to virtual war and/or terrorism without ever seeming heavy-handed or strident.

You need only see Get Low for absolute proof that, while Hollywood may be in decline even as bad actors' salaries climb ever higher, there remain at least three very exemplary reasons – Duvall, Spacek, and Murray – to switch off your home theatre and get out into a real one.

Five years after Ang Lee attempted a stylistically and narratively daring reimagining of what a comic-book movie could be (an example that tanked disastrously at the box office), the big green gamma-guy returns to the screen in a purer, more unadulterated, vastly more entertaining form.

By the time this harmless but possibly harmed pack of pups is seen approaching the Atlantic Ocean at Coney Island for the very first time – “Look at that, there’s people all over the beach,” one brother nervously mutters – it’s clear that there are second acts, and more, in American lives, even ones so borderline freakish as the ones presented here.

This is one fish tale that’s well nigh guaranteed to linger in the viewers’ midnight memories long after its cinematic nocturnal emissions have unspooled.

There's no denying it's a tragic film from start to finish, but equally undeniable is the endless stoicism displayed by the women, and Panahi's crisp, meandering direction.

A gently parodic tone prevails throughout what is ultimately a pretty sweet take on bloodsuckers, even as Deacon and Nick flap their way through a “bat fight” (exactly what it sounds like) and the vamps face off against a pack of similarly esteem-challenged werewolves led by Conchords manager Rhys Darby.

The filmmakers wisely stay in the background and allow the people of Whitwell to tell their own story, although this simple, honest little film is occasionally marred by an emotionally manipulative music score straight out of Heartstring Tuggers 101.

One of the most eloquent tales in ages of dysfunctional love – between a man and his ideals, between a country and its government, and, in the end, between Evey and V.

It's not perfect -- thank Satan! -- but Hellboy II: The Golden Army is by far the most splendidly imaginative and creatively uncorked piece of fantastic cinema since the director's "Pan's Labyrinth" netted an Oscar trifecta in 2007.

Sorrentino’s film tackles the most important of all life’s questions with wit, wisdom, and no small amount of often-surreal humor.

By turns wry, quirky, joyful, and above all human, this easygoing but never less than fascinating documentary focuses on the surprisingly tolerant township of Eureka, Ark.

Alice Braga owns this film.

Spark, however, is the best of the lot when it comes to attempting to grok the burn and the burners.

There's a genuine, sparky chemistry between the three (and later, a fourth), and Robertson, particularly, is luminous in her role.

Laika's stop-motion animation is every bit as inspired here as it was in their rightfully lauded "Coraline," and the storyline never wavers from its boneyard-deep message: Being different from others is a good – nay, great – thing, no matter how many villagers (or zombies) are after you.

One glance at the cast should be enough of a recommendation for any film lover -- it's Winger's first time on the screen in seven years, and Howard deserves a nod or two if only for getting his wife back in front of the camera where she so clearly belongs.