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.

So fascinating is Brother's Keeper that you almost don't quarrel with things like the biased portraits of the prosecuting team and the Deliverance-like banjo-shuffling soundtrack. Brother's Keeper intrigue factor is enormously high and, it could almost be said, that this movie is good enough to be fiction.

Although it is achingly sad, Rabbit Hole is not maudlin or depressing.

Joy Ride slides comfortably into the tradition of hard-R road-trip movies while also demonstrating that American culture still has many areas to open up in terms of representation.

Take Shelter is a deeply unsettling movie. Writer/director Jeff Nichols (an Austin resident and director of the award-winning 2007 feature "Shotgun Stories") doles out information as strategically as a government official.

Like his previous feature, "Eagle vs Shark," Taika Waititi's Boy tells a mere wisp of a story, yet both films are filled with compelling characters, situational color, knowing observations about youthful behavior, and quirky bits of oddball and fantastical humor.

Rises above the usual underdog sports cliches to become something quite affecting and distinctive.

Thunder Road has received oodles of festival awards, including the Grand Jury Award at SXSW. The film is a singular work. Even though it doesn’t always live up to the promise of its opening sequence, Thunder Road is an exhilarating ride.

Sicario is at its best when its borderlines are fluid and indistinct.

Succeeds as a moody, evocative, and pleasing film, one that underscores its indie roots in sentiment as well as style

It's a giddy blend of horror and comedy.

Dunye's film is smart, sexy (the interracial lesbian lovemaking scene prompted an infamous little ruckus over at the NEA a while back), funny, historically aware, and stunningly contemporary.

The movie's tone concurrently embraces melodramatics and wry humor, a twisted suburban Oedipal knot seen through a sardonic, yet deeply involved, eye.

You simply want the story to go on and on. Let's hope that Holofcener's movies do: Her peregrinations through the lives of contemporary women know few screen equals.

Complicity is the offense under investigation in The Assistant, the first fiction film of the #MeToo era that indicts the system along with its colluders, willing and unwilling.

John Wick: Chapter 2 also has a very good humor about itself.

Though the history and the palace intrigue are not at all difficult for Westerners to grasp, a tighter running time would probably help this epic reach more eyes in America, where it has received the biggest release ever for a Bollywood

In many ways, Not One Less resembles the socialist-realist dramas of the early Communist regimes.

This Japanese film by that country’s preeminent surveyor of contemporary familial relationships explores humanity’s ambivalence regarding the matter.

The subtlety and restraint in the way Reichardt links the vignettes is also commendable. It’s as if she’s reminding us that we’re all part of the grander scheme of things but at the same time disconnected from one another.

Mixing faded rock glory with Nazi-hunting and American road-tripping creates an odd hybrid that is completely transfixing, although some viewers are likely to find this film an awkward mishmash. The drama, however, is consistently offset by comic underpinnings, which are well-played by the actors and seamlessly presented by Sorrentino.

If nothing else, the performances of Connery and Hepburn are welcome delights.

The height of drollery, a cheeky ode to the liberating power of popular culture, and a fascinating look at an old dog learning some new tricks.

Endless Poetry is an oblique road map as much as it is a guiding aphorism. It is also a pretty decent summary of what this film has to offer.

There is no surprise or justice or sense to the whole thing. Just sadness. And a sense of all the lonely people and where they all come from.

This comic Disney Western is at its best when Don Knotts and Tim Conway are onscreen as the bumbling bandits who try to steal from a bunch of orphans. Few people remember anything about this movie apart from the hilarity generated by this scene-stealing duo.

Gleeson is triumphant in this portrait of a complex man who is concurrently sensitive, boorish, brilliant, singular, and unforgettable.

Yet, like it or not, the MPAA ratings is a system in which we all participate – which makes this film important to see if anything is ever going to change.

The film is a sharp and keenly etched study of a man who would be the sidekick to kings.

Chi-Raq constantly shifts tones from comedy to drama and back again, while most of its dialogue is delivered in rhyming couplets. The transitions can sometimes be bumpy, but never when Samuel L. Jackson pops up as nattily dressed and off-color one-man Greek chorus.

It's definitely quite the spectacle as directed by the modern-day king of epics, David Lean. The movie is something that should be experienced by everyone at least once in a lifetime.

Smith gives the appearance of wanting to provoke, but along with his smuttiness, he wears his heart on his sleeve.

The film is also comic, mysterious, and structurally ambitious, while offering numerous points of entry and perspective.

Despite its reliance on some overworked symbolism, the screenplay by David Tranter and Steven McGregor is smart. However, the intercut flash-forwards and flashbacks do little to aid our understanding or appreciation of the story, and seem like artistic frippery.

Celebrate Father's Day in grand movie style.

Invades theatres with its fangs bared for action. It's bloody hell and we love every minute.

Look at Me marks the character's shift from being the object of attention to the subject of her own dreams.

You get the sense that this elegant, tough-guy jazz caper is a movie Clint Eastwood might have been proud to make.

More than any other filmmaker making movies about the new “kids” generation, it seems to me that Araki -- with both Doom and Totally F***ked Up -- has his finger tuned most acutely to the human pulse and not just the lens shutter.

All the players deliver performances that kill.

One of Linklater’s greatest filmmaking instincts involves his casting decisions. Newcomer Emma Nelson is a real find as Bernadette’s daughter. Although Blanchett’s performance seems a bit mannered and slightly reminiscent of her Oscar-winning performance in "Blue Jasmine," these are hardly flaws when the outcome is so riveting. Wiig beautifully toes a difficult line between drama and comedy. It’s a line similar to the one etched by this film: an emotional crisis mixed with laughs.

Although Eska’s story is fairly simple (and created prior to "12 Years a Slave"" and "Django Unchained," which made slavery-era films part of our contemporary dialogue), it’s an emotionally rich tale.

Filmed primarily in desaturated colors and oblique shadows, the look of J. Edgar is spot-on. The time frame jumps around, spanning decades in a single leap, but it doesn't strain the structure. Eastwood and DiCaprio have delivered a nuanced story about a man, a mythos, and an institution that relies on the facts rather than the legend.

Instead of entering the jungle to find the heart of darkness, Stiller (the director, co-star, and co-writer of Tropic Thunder) goes in to take aim at the Achilles heel of Hollywood: its utter pomposity and self-importance.

Its doomed portrait of guileless dreamers may be found lacking in plot activity and empathetic characters. But for anyone interested in a movie that wipes clean the grungy patina of self-delusionment, Jackpot hits solid pay dirt.

An emotional triumph.

On the Rocks is light-hearted and, ultimately, more a story about a girl and her father. The good and the bad of that parental legacy and the task of disentangling from it forms the subtext of On the Rocks.

Frame's story is told with an intriguingly naked honesty but one that never drags the viewer into emotional prurience. It creates a fascinating portrait.

The kind of quiet, effective film that burrows under the viewer's skin and takes root before you've had a chance to realize that it's permeated your constitutional makeup.

Pamela Gray's script and the way these actors bring the characters to life are the film's real treasures.

Since so many of De Palma’s films have become part and parcel with the American cultural consciousness of the last 50 years, I can’t imagine this filmmaker’s insights not providing every viewer with some memorable takeaways.

A quietly searing drama about morality, priorities, and absolute truth. It’s told in a matter-of-fact manner that eschews melodrama, yet is loaded with haunting human moments and circumstances.

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.

A compendium of really neat stuff and nifty sequences, and it will just have to do until Vol. 3 or reunification comes along.

The film is wickedly hilarious but more in a droll and knowing kind of sense than a har-de-har-har manner.

The poverty that is at the heart of the situation is in prominent relief, yet there is a happiness about their lives that defies sheer gloss. Here is a brother and sister who truly love each other and are bonded by their complicity.

Silence is Scorsese’s mode of sharing the Holy Communion. To that, every cinephile will say, “Amen.”

Seemingly taking its cue from Belfort’s shenanigans, the film is completely without modulation. It starts with all the knobs cranked up to 11 and remains that way for the next three hours. While what’s onscreen is never uninteresting, its unrelentingness is exhausting.

While Hidden Figures is likable and illuminating, it is, nevertheless, routine and predictable.

With its period-perfect recall of Seventies fashion and cocaine consumption, Chuck’s rise-and-fall story bears greater resemblance to "Goodfellas" than "Rocky" or "Raging Bull."

Mehta and her cameraman Giles Nuttgens capture the area's rich interplay of light and color, land and water, and riches and poverty.

Unlike any coming-of-age movie you've seen before. Equal parts sweet and perverse, this Scottish film is unpredictable in places where it might be twee, and subversively fanciful in others where it might be punishing.

As romantic comedies go, Danish helmer Susanne Bier’s follow-up to her Oscar-winning "In a Better World," percolates more than it froths – but that’s a good thing.

This is the main movie that built the house of Troma, Lloyd Kaufman's production company devoted to low-budget camp. The Toxic Avenger tells the humorous story of a geeky weakling who is turned into a superhero when he is slimed by some toxic waste.

It's a winning formula, and when done right like it is here, it transcends the clichés and moves audiences.

What's most memorable about Wilde is Fry's near-perfect encapsulation of the artist. It's a performance equal to the legend it portrays.

Still, for a film that is so much about the healing power of words expressed and feeling brought into the light of day, Monsieur is strangely reticent.

Before lapsing into the land of the insipid,... John Hughes actually made a few movies that shined some light on the trials of modern adolescence. The Breakfast Club is one of them.

Good performances elevate the material.

Williams' shape-shifting, gag-spouting, celebrity-impersonating Genie is truly a hurricane in a bottle. His manic energy and hip humor are so exhilarating that the rest of the movie risks grinding to a halt whenever he's not onscreen.

DreamWorks has gathered for the movie and for these extracurricular projects an amazing collection of voice talent that complements the film's stunning technical achievements.

August: Osage County is not for the timid or those who prefer family reunions without histrionics. This film is like a long day’s journey into another damn day.

Goodbye to Language is the kind of cinematic essay that Godard has come to specialize in; it’s really a montage of thoughts, aphorisms, and images, and not a story, although there are some consistent characters (often naked – and how better to hold our interest in their philosophical queries?) and one dog.

Favreau keeps the picture throttling forward with a carefree charm.

No background material is going to help the viewer who isn't already aware of why a Fugees reunion is such a cool thing to witness, but it's impossible not to get caught up in this party's good vibe.

Chef is filled to the brim with the kind of heart and vivacity that makes up for the film’s familiar storyline.

The Cove exposes the dark secrets that underpin the world’s dolphin mania, whether it’s our enjoyment of the animals performing circus tricks in aquariums, the swimming-with-dolphins industry, or the government recruitment of the sea mammals’ intelligence, communication, and sonar abilities for military applications.

The film provides a window into the conversations and debates that occurred among soldiers on military bases and while in country, opinions shaped and altered by first-hand experiences and knowledge.

The narrative and its attendant lessons about how one rotten ape and/or human can spoil the bunch are engaging, although I found myself drifting during the battle sequences.

With a concluding chase/shoot-out episode that might even make Hitchcock jealous, Carlito's Way is a dandy piece of entertainment. If the story needs a bit more depth and reason, who really cares? There's hardly time to notice.

A work that shellacs itself into your consciousness.

This beautifully acted and gradually revealed drama is a quiet discovery. Not one to blare its own horn, Middle of Nowhere is the kind of little indie film that gives little indie films a good name.

If Wadjda, this Muslim girl, calls up film memories of adolescent Marjane Satrapi in "Persepolis", whose Western-loving lifestyle is uprooted by Iran’s Islamic Revolution, or the young women in Jafar Panahi’s "Offside," who countermand the rules that forbid them from entering stadiums to watch men’s soccer matches, you wouldn’t be far off the mark.

As much as Bardem is an expressive instrument for parlaying Iñárritu's somber worldview, so too is cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, whose stunning compositions find the poetry amid the sorrow.

Tsai’s drama is something like a mixture of Robert Bresson and R.W. Fassbinder, as God’s bedraggled souls struggle with the desires of the damned, and nobody wants to go into that good night alone.

As usual, Oscar-winner Frances McDormand delivers a rich, physically detailed performance that leaves as much under the surface as above it.

The story is bizarre, unique, and thoroughly unpredictable, while its images resemble some kind of bastard offspring of the linear realism of George Grosz and the fantastic foreboding of Edward Gorey.

The movie will not be for all tastes. Its seedy lifestyles, nonjudgmental attitudes, nonlinear narrative, and central character whose problem is his lack of emotions is definitely nonstandard fare.

Although little is ultimately “solved” or demystified in The Piano Teacher, the movie allows a chaperoned peek into the mind of one of civilization's “discontents.”

God Loves Uganda and recent events make it seem like the time is right for a 21st century raid on Entebbe.

Even when The Tree of Life does not achieve the heights for which it aims, it soars boldly and fearlessly.

If, at times, Shine's luster reveals more elbow grease than internal radiance, the movie is still a moving tribute to the human capacity to overcome all odds.

The film's closing may be less than conclusive, yet The Son's Room must be admired, at least, for its unsentimentality.

Most striking is Macdonald's deft use of music and Marley's lyrics (many of them obscure) to illustrate the film's points. So thoughtful is this counterpoint that it almost makes up for Macdonald never showing any one song in a complete performance.

It would be difficult not to be swept away by the dramatic intensity of Incendies.

Lush, succulent, verdant, aromatic. These are the kind of words that come to mind when describing this new Vietnamese film, a film dominated by textures rather than plot.

The Good Dinosaur may not be as revolutionary as 1914’s “Gertie the Dinosaur,” but as Jurassic World already demonstrated this year, we never tire of these prehistoric critters.

Despite the buildup of these horror expectations, there is no predicting how deliciously enjoyable it is to witness the macabre dance performed by Moretz and Huppert, two of the best actresses working in today’s movies. They play their game of cat and mouse with claws out; by the end of the berserko film, their characters are practically swinging from the rafters. Everyone appears to be having a grand time in Greta, and it would be crass for us as viewers to not respond similarly.

The film's politically correct repudiation of the familiar black-and-white characterizations of the white and red man is ultimately undermined, however, when the pendulum swings too far in the other direction.

Despite its compelling nature, Greenaway’s film is not always an easy one to sit through.

Cheech & Chong's first movie is still their best. The duo wrote the genial script about the never-ending search for great pot, and a good supporting cast co-stars.

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.

It grabs you by the viscera in the opening prologue and for the next two hours rarely lets go.

Even though the storyline of Real Women Have Curves is a somewhat familiar tale, the film's originality lies in the way in which it's told.

Even if it still isn’t the band’s time (as Bowie might say), Fanny: The Right to Rock is essential viewing for every student of rock history, not to mention feminism.

Affleck's greatest talent, however, may lie in his casting instincts: In addition to the above-mentioned turns by Arkin and Goodman, stand-out performances are also delivered by Bryan Cranston as Mendez's boss and Victor Garber as the morally heroic Canadian ambassador to Iran.

The cast is game and Siemen’s trenchant observations are the mark of a filmmaker with something to say – an increasing rarity in this day and age.

You won’t want to miss a word of the deliciously bad dialogue in this Hollywood tale of twisted sisters.

It is Depp, however, who really nails this thing by simply blending in with all the other voice talent and characters and not reverting to the oversized Captain Jack Sparrow swagger. Rango becomes the hero of his own story, and for this he needs no stinkin' badge.

With top-notch performances (especially that of Mortimer) and the gray of the Siberian wilderness providing an apt backdrop for the movie's gray zones of morality, Transsiberian is on a great track.

A challenging concept conveyed here most impressively onscreen.

This is one time Texas can't keep its weird political landscape to itself: What happens in Texas doesn't stay in Texas. When it comes to textbooks, what happens in this state is of national concern. Nothing less than the education of our nation's next generation of citizens is at stake.

Then along comes a movie like Deconstructing Harry, which marks the writer/director/actor's return to top form, once again using the stuff of his life to create the stuff of his fiction.

If this movie does anything to rally crowds against cinema's mass distribution of mediocrity then it has served a noble purse.

Despite this film's narrative lapses, Malick has a unique way of distilling the poetry from the commonplace -- and for that precious gift we should say amen.

What The Newton Boys lacks in dramatic definition, it more than compensates for with its underlying intelligence and visual luster.

Post-JCVD, we'll never again be able to think of Van Damme as just another kickboxer turned actor. Van Damme is an actor, pure and simple, and proves that he is just as deft and accomplished as the movies in which he appears.

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

Love & Air Sex, with its text-message conversations and Facebook connections, is as of-the-moment as air sex.

So much of the credit must be laid at the feet of Ian McKellen, whose portrait of Whale is a study in acting excellence.

Too much is tossed into the ring and the last hour becomes a frantic swell of emotions and ideas, not all of which are exactly on point.

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.

The details are intriguing, but ultimately we learn little more about what's in their heads.

Capturing the nuances of quotidian life may not be everyone's cup of tea.

The battles between the imperious Hepburn and the presumed-mad Taylor are pure theatricality, while sensitive shrink Clift observes it all and emotes.

The information it presents is eye-opening for medical consumers and health professionals of any stripe. And the film incidentally makes a great case for health care reform.

Along the way, you’ll wonder if you’re watching a classic tragedy or a comedy.

Ultimately, Frost/Nixon may be stuck in time – but, oh, what a time it was.

A stroll with these characters is a refreshing break from from the usual film exercises.

The Wedding Banquet wins fans with its sunny disposition as it turns a contemporary story about a marriage of convenience into a deft bedroom farce and humanist drama.

The film is historical yet its characters are fictional. Well-captured is the controlled chaos of some of the political actions.

In an era in which too many of us automatically accept women's right to choose, Vera Drake reminds us that the time for complacency is not now.

A stylistic tour de force, one that wordlessly emotes and wears its emotions on its literal silk sleeves.

The situation is not too far removed from that of Jayson Blair and The New York Times. The corporate oversight in place to catch deceptions is lulled into becoming part of the deception. Mahowny wanders through this film as if waiting to get caught, forced into deeper gambling debt because no one applies any brakes.

As a complete work, Robot Stories is a solid collection.

Birbiglia’s acute perspective will pertain to almost any industry in which a few are chosen to advance and the vast majority are left to wonder, “Why not me?”

Raises fascinating question within a compelling narrative framework, and is also intriguing for the glimpse it provides into the inner workings of Orthodox Judaism.

As all his films have shown, Cuarón is clearly one of the most original filmmakers working today, and Children of Men should solidify his place at the top of those ranks. With a great script, there should be no stopping him.

The rush subsides, however, the minute the movie ends, and leaves the viewer with the faint aftertaste of a processed sugar high.

The Ghost Writer hasn’t the complexity or breadth of such stunners as "Chinatown" or "The Pianist," but it is nevertheless a solidly built little roundelay of intrigue with a veracity that seems torn from newspaper headlines.

With Eight Below, Marshall has created a family film that doesn't pander, preach, or poop out. That alone is a rare thing.

Stops along the way at a cell phone store and with the mother of a buddy killed in Vietnam (Tyson) provide opportunities for humor, poignancy, and reckonings with the useful lies told during wartime.

This French movie uses remarkably expressive stop-motion animation to create an honesty and sense of whimsy that help offset the darkness of the intrinsic story.

While the film provides many invaluable insights into Spielberg’s technical and thematic tropes that can be seen repeated throughout his career, the filmmaker also burnishes aspects of his life story and leaves out chunks of years to create what is inevitably a self-indulgent yet delightful origin story, appropriately called The Fabelmans.

It becomes unmistakably clear that Wuornos’ wretched childhood and young life is representative of a deep failure within American society to adequately protect our young and defenseless. This becomes part of the movie’s argument against capital punishment.

Depending on your perspective, Moonee is either youth incarnate making the most of her circumstances, or Dennis the Menace determined to drive the oldsters stark-raving mad. Her escapades eventually take a turn from boisterously fun-loving to downright dangerous, which kicks the movie’s low simmer into full boil.

American Me is crafted with heart and conviction and intelligence. It demands no less of its audience. It insists that there are no quick fixes, but that solutions are of the utmost urgency. It demonstrates how the capacity for change resides within each individual.

Hopefully find the audience it deserves.

Rejecting normality for nomadism, Van Zandt's life was difficult, but, man, what a legacy of music he left.

In the Line of Fire is a terrific action movie with good performances and a smart script that occasionally falters for trying too hard but, on the whole, takes us on psychological journeys that few of us have had opportunities to experience.

Humor is a key ingredient in Kafka, though it definitely leans toward the wry and quirky. The movie loses some of its clarity and narrative force in mid-story however, though it never abandons its original visual style and focus.

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

A fun, well-assembled and -performed slice of life that requires no special affinity with the subject matter in order to -- ahem -- get one's groove on.

Balibar and Depardieu make a compelling duo who exude an animal magnetism that's undeniable.

The performances in this costume drama are wonderful.

Part drama, part civics lesson, part entertainment, it sustains our deep curiosity despite the forgone knowledge of how things turn out.

Maintains a breezy charm throughout and contains many extremely funny sequences.

A tour de force of modern cinema.

Some have remarked that The Post is the story of Kay transforming into Katharine Graham, which is pretty on the mark.

Butler's film hopes to confront our national battle fatigue so that we may move on.

The entire cast is marvelous and capable of conveying continents of emotion with a furtive smile or arched brow.

Smart, quick, funny, and economical, Attack the Block is an alien-invasion movie that is a breed apart.

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.