Michael O'Sullivan

The drama itself packs a powerful -- and timeless -- gut punch.

It’s a series of small and seemingly meaningless incidents that, in Wells’s telling, loom large only from the vantage of hindsight.

Dunkirk isn’t comfortable to watch; it never relents or relaxes. At the same time, it’s impossible to look away from it.

Petite Maman is what every film should be: powerfully, even arrestingly original; grounded in emotional truth; hyper-specific; deeply universal; strange; mesmerizing; and not a minute longer than necessary. It is, in short, a small wonder.

Sandler is so good, so committed and so watchable that, despite everything — Howard’s irrationality, a rogue’s gallery of unpleasant characters, the foreboding of a bad, bad end — you can’t take your eyes off the screen, which Sandler seldom vacates.

Beneath this straightforward (if enigmatic) premise, there is a gradual slippage, as if the plate tectonics of Weerasethakul’s seemingly solid medical/mental mystery were subtly rearranging themselves, like puzzle pieces shifted by an unseen hand. As they lose their narrative mooring, the various parts of the whole have the effect of rearranging your own consciousness, in a way that leaves your perceptions feeling profoundly altered, perhaps permanently.

But make no mistake: Hogg’s quirky coming-of-age tale (which teases a forthcoming sequel) is no misty remembrance of bygone days. Rather, it is a clear-eyed reflection on how hindsight — and true art — is always 20/20.

There is so much going on here, yet the director handles the film’s constellation of themes and sweeping emotion with impeccable assurance and an at-times breathtaking sense of the poetic.

Overflowing with madcap visual flair and following a rambling thread of a plot that seems, at times, more the product of free association than an actual script, The Triplets of Belleville is a triumph of animated style over substance.

It's one heck of a basis for a funny movie.

A major technical accomplishment. But it’s also a major feat of storytelling, one that mentions no dates, place names or famous battles, yet nevertheless manages to evoke a profound sense of connection with its nameless subjects.

All foreplay and no climax.

Small moments take on larger meaning in this exquisite memoir. That’s as true of the plot — in which nothing terribly significant happens, except life — as it is of the visuals.

To say that there is also a monomania to the film is, if anything, an understatement. But it is precisely that sense of tunnel vision that makes Fury Road such a pulse-pounding pleasure.

Despite the seemingly uncinematic nature of this inert, even claustrophobic scenario, the film mesmerizes, utterly.

May be a fish tale, but its story of the paradox of love -- knowing when to hold on means knowing when to let go -- is profoundly humane and human.

Neither wholly cynical nor wholly romantic, Kaufman's story is a balance of smarts and sentiment. It's the most fully realized working out of his two favorite obsessions: the subjective nature of experience and the psychological mysteries of pair bonding.

Works as both historical allegory and moving family drama.

Argentine filmmaker Daniel Burman's shaky-camera, cinema-verite-style dramedy meanders in charming fashion.

Binge-watching the first eight installments before you settle into this one isn’t strictly necessary, but I wouldn’t discourage it, either. They’re that good.

A gorgeous, magical and melancholy fantasia about the joy and pain of human existence.

The speculative ending is actually the most intriguing thing about “The Alto Knights,” more interesting even than De Niro times two. And yet the film’s climax nevertheless fails to raise much of a heartbeat in this boglike slog through a momentous moment in murderous mob history.

Gradually, a story of bittersweet beauty and unexpected tenderness emerges.

Surprisingly, it isn’t heavy-handed, moralizing, polemical or sentimental. And you can enjoy the film without knowing any of that.

Psychological suspense at its finest.

The Quiet Girl is that rare thing: a work of storytelling that speaks most loudly when it is saying nothing.

All too often, the second movie of a trilogy is a bridge. ("The Matrix Reloaded," anyone?) As often as not, it feels more like the first half of the last movie than a film in its own right. The Girl Who Played With Fire is no exception.

For the most part, the film balances its outrage with objectivity.