Peter Hartlaub

Feels like a streamlined improvement on the original.

Very imaginative and can be enjoyed by audiences of all ages.

Besides the huge smiles on your faces, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse offers mainstream moviegoers an overwhelming feeling of optimism. If this kind of risk-taking and artist-driven creativity can exist in Hollywood’s biggest money-making genre, then our superhero movie future is filled with hope.

If you're the type who doesn't go to art-house films , Murderball should be your exception. It's hard to imagine anyone could walk away from this movie disappointed.

One of Miyazaki's most kid-accessible movies, but still an unnerving film.

Ernest & Celestine builds a delicate and charming animated world, but you wouldn't want to live there.

One of the more thoughtful and valiant feature film directorial debuts in recent memory.

A great piece of filmmaking and a legitimate science-fiction/horror classic.

Children of Men is Cuarón's run for freedom, with a riveting story, fantastic action scenes and acting so universally solid that even the dogs perform masterfully under his direction.

A return to rowdy form for Chappelle.

A meditative state of a movie. While shorter-attention-spanned moviegoers should stick to "The Fighter," this is an interesting and enjoyable entry on the opposite side of the genre.

Miyazaki is arguably at the Kubrick/Polanski level, where his lesser films still yield great rewards. Even during the moments that don't soar, The Wind Rises continues to satisfy.

Captures an artist who has decided not to burn out, but to fade away with dignity.

The movie is a wonderful surprise, cleverly written and executed brick by brick with a visual panache.

As impressive as it is geeky. Most of the principal characters look like they haven't seen daylight since "Pac-Man Fever" was on the charts.

This is an extremely violent movie, with one long gory scene that's particularly hard to stomach. The great majority of Triad Election is about political maneuvering, but when the conversations end, the blood flows mightily.

A film that is at its best onstage.

Anvil lives somewhere in that thoroughly entertaining gray area between self-parody and the triumph of human spirit.

A strikingly immersive movie, a slow burn filled with subtleties and nuance, with its message nestled in the details as much as the greater story. While other filmmakers have effectively captured San Francisco’s landmarks and topography, story co-writers Fails and Talbot seem to be filming San Francisco’s streets with a microscope.

It stands out as one of the best films of the genre, on the strength of the storytelling and wonderful performances.

Arrival works as mainstream entertainment, but includes hallmarks of the “2001: A Space Odyssey”/“Silent Running” era of artist-driven science fiction. It has Hollywood stars, but makes great effort to strip them of any false glamour. The film is tightly calibrated, but leaves things open to interpretation, for discussion on the ride home and beyond.

Coco is the best-looking Pixar movie since the tonally uneven “The Good Dinosaur.” The colorful afterlife is the centerpiece, but excellence is found in unexpected places.

The locally sourced documentary is always engaging — lively and well-paced with an impressive list of interviewees from Hillary Clinton to Huerta herself.

Plays like two films in one, and succeeds on both levels.

A slow start keeps Moana from reaching “Frozen” or “Beauty and the Beast” levels of excellence. But the comic self-awareness, engaging songs and a fulfilling finish are enough to merit a strong recommendation.

The result is a warm and extremely thoughtful journey, with a deliberately bare-bones narrative.

The fly-on-the-wall style is a slow build that leads to an immersive experience, and then an ultimate payoff as the change-minded department detours into another scandal. The Force is like watching a drug addict take a few meaningful steps toward recovery, only to relapse again.

What Sweetgrass lacks in context it makes up for in voyeuristic camera work that reveals a gritty beauty in the landscape, along with the human and livestock characters.