Marjorie Baumgarten

For the most part, Code Black is a riveting document despite its tendency to jackrabbit around in its themes and personalities.

Until things devolve into a stormy conclusion, Dheepan is a sharply observed drama about identity and separation, strangeness and commonalities, and making do while hoping for something better.

Nelson has gifted us with a thoughtful and rich profile which, like a fading note escaping from Davis’ trumpet, leaves us wanting more.

At times, it looks as though Broken Embraces might be the love child of Douglas Sirk and Alfred Hitchcock, with its dramatic broad strokes, iconic reds, and teasing narrative clues.

The movie demands to be watched and rewards that attention handsomely, though at times Heavy seems a little too introverted for its own good.

A confident return to the kind of teen comedy that's funny without being raunchy, youthful without being juvenile, and reflective without hitting you over the head.

Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb dramatically and unforgettably burst from nowhere onto the screen with their searing portrayals of Sex Pistol Sid Vicious and American groupie Nancy Spungen. Their performances in this embellished docudrama are so intense and definitive that they leave little room for any other memories of these doomed junkie lovers.

Although there are moments that push the story a bit beyond credulity, Shortland has created something remarkable by forcing us to find within ourselves sympathy for this would-be Aryan princess.

These people and the tale of their migration and reintegration into life’s ebb and flow will remain with the viewer long after Johnny's and Sarah’s green cards expire.

This is a film you skip seeing at your own risk.

Across the Universe will have ardent defenders, but in the long run, it will do nothing to infuse life into the current mini-revival of movie musicals and is as soft-headed as the wishful refrain “All You Need Is Love.” Maybe that works in real life but not in the movies, sister.

This film is an example of a Western that ought to appeal to a healthy-sized contemporary audience, and is also a remake of the 1957 film of the same name, which is a hallmark of the type of psychological Western.

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

Their Finest may ultimately be the best words to describe the amalgamated work of all participants in this film.

Syriana is the most challenging and uncompromising movie to come out of Hollywood in a long time.

The Lunchbox offers us a naturalistic glimpse of middle-class life in modern Mumbai.

An effective sound design enhances several of the film's sudden frights, and Sutherland, who appears in almost every scene, is a predictably solid presence.

The kind of movie that gets under your skin and takes root.

There’s more narrative happenstance loaded into the script of Blue Car than its running time should effectively allow, but the real keeper moments in Moncrieff’s movie are the small, quiet ones in which a simple glance speaks volumes.

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.

The movie makes us all want to stand up and cheer, “Shine on, Tina. Shine on.”

There’s a certain spiritualism that inhabits all of Nichols’ films, and I’m not sure that the explanations finally offered to shed light on the specialness of this child are truly sufficient. But in the context of the movie, it all works.

The one thing that is clear from Japón is that a major new visual stylist has hit the screen and that Reygadas’ first film represents the beginning of an auspicious career.

It's interesting and well-performed, but it's no Cain and Abel.

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.

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

Not enough can be said about Willem Dafoe’s amazing performance as van Gogh. It is some of the best work of his career.

When all is said and done, there ain't no mountain high enough that should keep you from getting to this movie. We've heard it through the grapevine for too long.