Marjorie Baumgarten

The performances of all the central and secondary characters match the passionate intensity of the film's behind-the-scenes collaborators.

Jim Jarmusch applies his minimalist style to the margins of Memphis as seen through the experiences of three sets of foreigners. Great casting and occasional moments of grace.

Herzog outdoes himself with Rescue Dawn, making his most popularly accessible film yet and proving at the same time that he is among the most daring of all filmmakers and capable -- like his characters -- of almost anything.

The more one knows about Holmes lore, the more the film's foreshadowings of future cases will be evident. Set in a boys boarding school, the film's imaginings about the life of the young detective are quite entertaining.

While grown-ups are sure, at the very least, to respect Into the West's beauty and integrity, it may be a tougher sell amongst the very young where the Irish brogues and the lack of rugged Hollywood heroes and high-tech derring-do may prove impediments. But the aura of magic realism has never felt more tantalizing as it shimmers Into the West.

It comes as little surprise that Errol Morris and Werner Herzog, both masters of sly documentaries in which the subjects nail themselves with their own words, are the executive producers of Oppenheimer’s film.

What Safe does so brilliantly is to plunge us down this frightening rabbit hole with Carol.

The film is a startlingly original and haunting take on our ageless fear of otherness.

Crowe has created a genuine love song for all those who've ever felt their lives to have been saved by rock & roll.

A handsomely constructed and executed movie, the kind of effort that deserves appreciation, on its own terms, for what it both dares and accomplishes.

All the film’s accoutrements are note-perfect from the costuming to the music, performances, and set design. Messy family life and moral ideals perfuse the film’s landscape but the film shows how these things can become the foundational elements of an individual’s life.

Keeping with the spirit of its lead characters, Oscar and Lucinda is a movie best met with a gambler's faith: You may not be certain what it means in the end, but its magnificent payoff is nevertheless a sure thing.

Ryan O’Neal has never been better cast than as the shallow and opportunistic hero of Thackeray’s early 19th-century novel.

Lodge Kerrigan is one of the great, though largely unheralded, filmmakers of our time, and with Keane, his third feature, he finally shows himself to be in full command of his uncompromising talent.

Never devolves into the type of “man's man” adventure story that has become so fashionable again over the last couple of years, but instead trusts the power of its unembellished images and words to tell its tale.

The humanistic approach makes Eastwood's movie a war story for the ages.

Searching for Bobby Fischer is a story that sounds, on paper, like something that shouldn't succeed as a movie but when played out so remarkably by all the parties involved, it becomes an unexpected treat.

The movie is slight but transfixing.

Although the villainous parts of this Tarzan are a bit hazy and the animal attraction between Tarzan and Jane a bit chaste, the film, nevertheless, works both for children and the adults.

The film entertains, puzzles, and strays outside the lines.

Dunst's performance is a thing of calm beauty and mired grit, fully deserving of the Best Actress Award she received for this work at Cannes. The entire supporting cast also proves to be a delight, even in their obstinacy and oddities.

Wonderful performances anchor this biopic of country star Loretta Lynn's rise to fame. In a time before the TV music channels made star biographies into such a formulaic joke, Coal Miner's Daughter was the real deal.

A History of Violence poses the right question: Are those who don't study history doomed to repeat it?

A superlative cast vividly captures the turbulence of this classic drama about the constrictions caused by race in postwar Chicago.

Director Michael Lehmann made a stunning debut with this sharp satire of teen cliques.

How the Dardennes, time and again, turn gritty, mundane subjects into transcendent moments of honesty and truth is one of the great cinematic wonders.

A bust-a-gut film experience that reveals Rodriguez as both a stylist versed in the mechanics of popular storytelling and a maverick whose ingenuity guides him along a singular path.

Drawn from the true adventures of the Washington Post reporters and their illustrious editor Ben Bradlee, the movie heroically recounts the dogged journalistic sleuthing that cracked the story of the Watergate break-in and cover-up.

The horror-movie clichés form the backbone from which the film's humor and creativity emerge. This Cabin may not be the Parthenon, but it's definitely a place to worship the gods of horror.

Perception is key and Control Room should be required viewing for anyone within reach of a TV signal.

The film is hypnotic, which lends it an addictive sensibility that complements the need Adam and Eve have for their bloody fixes.

Fonda (who received an Oscar) and Sutherland are at the top of their game in this mystery/thriller that also provides a fascinating look into the mind and soul of a top NYC call girl.

Remarkably, the film is composed entirely of point-of-view shots. Although she’s in the room, Viviane is not even part of the image during the early minutes of the film.

A movie with style to burn, and, initially, that is this crime drama's most mesmerizing aspect.

As with her other films, when Sarah Polley takes it upon herself to tell us a story, you can bet it’s a tale well-told and one that you’ll want to hear.

Solomon’s skills as a raconteur, the employees’ unabashed love for their work, and the constant stream of rock music playing in the background advance the film into something much more than a talking-heads documentary.

What Desert One does accomplish in shining a light on this epic national failure is to celebrate the American can-do spirit and a noble willingness to go down trying.

Although Nicholas Nickleby occasionally evidences a simplicity that resembles a Junior Scholastic production, the movie's enthusiasm is contagious.

The most stylish and original John Grisham story on film.

It takes a village, I've heard it said. It takes a village not only to raise a child but also, in this case, to aid the delusional and help restore good mental health. Or so Lars and the Real Girl would have us believe.

The most originally funny movie to hit U.S. screens in a while.

Dallas Buyers Club is an indelible story about one man’s unwillingness to go gently into that good night, and the personal growth he experiences along the way.

It’s a celebratory movie designed to rekindle awe and admiration for the accomplishments of the NASA astronauts and ground scientists, as well as a reminder of the endless realms of possibility that can be achievable when a country and its politicians work in unison toward a shared goal.

This Tim Robbins-helmed political satire about demogougery makes for an appropriate election-season re-release.

But for all our Tony Montanas and Pablo Escobars, both imagined and real, I guarantee you have never seen a drug-trafficking movie like Birds of Passage.

If only Cartel Land were as rigorous in its thinking as it is in its filmmaking methods, the film might strike an even deeper blow than it presently does.

Kore-eda is one of the most optimistic and humanist filmmakers working today, and even though Our Little Sister isn’t quite as finely articulated as some of his previous work, his core compassion for humanity comes through clearly.

What's fascinating is the depth of humanity Cruise finds within the character of Jerry and also Cruise's generosity toward the other actors in the story -- a generosity that allows all the other performers to shine and create vivid and memorable characters.

Hell or High Water is a good but not great movie with sensational lead performances that elevate it to enjoyably memorable status.

Without the luminous Danes in the title role, Shopgirl would have the flair of an ordinary sales clerk.

Woody Allen generates films with such rapidity and inconsistency that you can never be certain if this season’s offering will be a hit or a miss. I’m happy to report that Irrational Man is a delight.

An amazing, bracing, funny, audacious, tender, and sobering piece of filmmaking. Few movies have ever dared to be this remorseless in their portraits of addiction.

Perhaps every decade gets the Jane Eyre it deserves: Is the emphasis of conscience over passion emblematic of our times?

Loaded with sass, sex, and sadistic violence, Deadpool is not your youngster’s comic-book origin story. Deadpool earns every bit of its R rating, a quality that’s sure to appeal to fans weary of the macho, apple-pie-eating, altruistic superheroes who buck for attention in the comic-book stables.

Crude's moving testimony and careful documentation make it hard to turn away from this issue. It will certainly remain in your mind the next time you stop for gas.

The most punishing movie of 2015, The Revenant, is almost as brutal an experience for the viewer to watch as it is for its title character Hugh Glass (DiCaprio) to undergo. That’s not meant as a knock, but rather as a warning that the film may leave you as near-speechless and mono-minded as its battered returnee from the dead.

A movie that’s so profoundly ridiculous that it has to be admired, if for no other reason other than its sheer willingness to run with its premise and take it to the end of the line.

Even our First Lady isn’t safe from this documentary. Fed Up contends that Michelle Obama’s fight against childhood obesity and her Let’s Move campaign have been co-opted by the food industry. Ever notice how no one ever talks anymore about her vegetable garden on the White House lawn and its consequent argument for the consumption of freshly prepared foods over the processed varieties?

It is easy to describe what occurs in Le Quattro Volte; less easy, however, to explain it. Calculatedly meditative yet casually metaphysical, Le Quattro Volte (The Four Times in English) is austere, funny, beautiful, and transfixing.

This French import is a worthy entrant into the adrenalized cadre of action films like "Run Lola Run" and "Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior" (which Besson produced). What District B13 lacks in story development it compensates for with stunningly realistic action.

Nolan creates an effective thriller, although he keeps his stylistic pyrotechnics to a minimum.

Director Duke (A Rage in Harlem and countless TV work) rivets our attention with his tightly framed shots and crisp editing that intelligently revives that bygone tradition of jump cuts (though they confusingly disappear completely midway through the movie).

Helping Elvis & Nixon remain in conjectural mode is the fact that neither actor – Michael Shannon as Elvis and Kevin Spacey as Nixon – looks particularly like the character he is playing. Yet both actors make their roles believable through apt choices in body language and vocalization.

Jackson does it all in this movie: writes, directs, stars, produces, and designs the makeup.

With a startlingly climactic finale, Body Snatchers only underscores the ultimate illogic of placing your trust in your kin.

Chronicle may go over the top with its climax, but for such a giddy film, it's remarkably down to earth.

The film is an intelligent study of the will to live. It's so strong that even a suicidal man rises to the occasion.

Just look at the cast and try to resist the testosterone pull of this movie.

If anything, A Few Good Men errs by throwing almost too many elements, themes and moral debates into the mix thus, by default, they sometimes seem shallowly developed and overly simple. Then again, that perhaps allows them to connect with more universal experiences.

Pete’s Dragon has the power to breathe fire into the most tepid of souls.

It's too bad the language prevents this independent film from being rated PG-13 because this is the kind of movie that might be capable of realistically reflecting teens' lives to other teens.

Associated with the modernist architectural movement centered in Southern California during the mid-20th century, Shulman’s still photographs are essential to any study of the style’s vast popularization and commercialism.

Although there are shades of "All About Eve" here, the resonances lean more toward the fluid identities of the actresses in Ingmar Bergman’s work or even Assayas’ own "Irma Vep."

La Promesse is a penetrating coming-of-age story, one that argues that adulthood begins with the emergence of moral convictions.

Searingly potent and suggestively supple, Carax's images are rich with emotion and ideas.

As for the Austin-based Green, the director’s characteristically understated style is well-suited to this material. Joe recalls, in many ways, the filmmaker’s earliest features – "George Washington," "All the Real Girls," and "Undertow" – not to mention his heavily wooded last feature, "Prince Avalanche," films that capture a poetic sense of bewildered young people in the rural South.

The details of what went down are fascinating, but the ultimate focus of Best of Enemies is television and this demonstration that it can be both eminently viewable and illuminating.

Sharp-witted delight.

The worlds of the natural and the artificial are compared and contrasted in this non-narrative visual orgy.

Knockout ensemble performances like these don't come around all that often, though, and when they do they ought to be savored.

The hypocrisy, sexual repression, and backwater snobbery here is enough to make Peyton Place look like Vatican City.

Dry, ironic humor is also one of the primary ingredients of The Other Side of Hope, and one of Kaurismäki’s signature elements.

Neither slave nor mammy, junkie nor maid, these dawn-of-the-twentieth century African-American women are an unstereotypical breed unto themselves.

Though formally astringent, Police, Adjective is dotted with lots of humor.

Although slowly paced, it is always stunning to look at -- decadent and perverse in that certain Eurotrashy way.

A movie about life and death; its underpinnings are soaked in the perfume of artistic expression.

Me, I’ve now seen the movie three times and I’ve laughed and I’ve cried. It comes the closest to any movie experience I’ve had in re-creating the aftermath of unexplained suicide. Sometimes there just aren’t any answers.

In the end, Machete may not be all that original, but it is fresh – fresh as a steel blade to the gut.

Kind of funny and kind of scary, Baghead's central horror motif is merely a structure on which to hang its four-character story about the depth of relationships and the drive to find meaningful work.

Most of all, this rendition of A Star Is Born oozes with romantic chemistry between Cooper and Gaga, as well as the stunning command of rock & roll visual tropes evidenced by Cooper and his director of photography Matthew Libatique (Black Swan).

Cross of Iron is a WWII movie seen through the eyes of German protagonists. Incredible montage sequences and another parable about Peckinpah’s embattled position within the film industry can be found within.

A welcome and appropriate treat is the flurry of Bob Dylan tunes that can be heard playing in the background of this northern Minnesota story.

Moments of great suspense are sometimes invested with intrinsic humor, moments of trauma can yield great compassion. Often, these seemingly conflicting tones exist all at once, while the oblique mystery never clearly identifies the correct emotion.

A smart and delightful romantic comedy, yet in the course of creating his new charmer Alexander Payne has sheared off some of the rambunctious edges that made his previous films, About Schmidt, Election, and Citizen Ruth, such marvelous studies in social parody.

A formulaic family melodrama whose craftsmanship and sensitivity to its characters raises it to the level of sublime group portrait.

The story's parallels with the present are sometimes inescapable, as when Saladin's fireballs catapulted at Balian's castle strike an eerie resemblance to the "shock and awe" of the U.S.-led coalition's initial assault on Iraq.

You never really see any of it coming, which is what makes the film such a marvel – and so difficult to discuss.

It’s a query with no answers, a period piece about the present. It’s idiosyncratic, actively noncommercial, and doesn’t follow the rules – like playing a game of chess on a board with no squares.