Peter Hartlaub

Feels like a streamlined improvement on the original.

By the time the ride is over, director Drew Goddard and co-writers Goddard and Joss Whedon will change course three or four times, nodding and winking but never losing momentum.

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.

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

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.

The movie is laugh-until-your-stomach-hurts hilarious.

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.

I'd be shocked if we see a better horror film in 2013.

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

The studio made a great film.

Moviegoers will love or hate Oliver Stone and his politics until the end of time. With well-made movies such as Snowden, though, his skill as a filmmaker becomes much harder for the detractors to debate.

It would have been enough for The Other Dream Team to simply pay tribute to the tie-dyed underdogs, but the filmmakers strived for more. Adding detailed historical context, the quirky feel-good story becomes a tragedy and a lesson. And that makes the victories resonate even more.

It’s smart and funny and makes great effort to capture not just a time and place, but the specific feelings of being on the verge of adulthood and thinking the world is against you.

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.

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.

The result is a comedy that's low budget in all the right ways - so hilarious, testosterone-charged and yet cringe-inducing to watch that the result is almost exhausting.

It's a hilarious comedy made even more successful because so much of the satire seems fresh.

This may be Favreau’s best achievement — taking a beloved film guided by Walt Disney himself and crafting something distinct and memorable.

As challenging as it must have been to pilot Joss Whedon's space opera from the TV junk pile to the big screen, the finished product is a triumph.

The result is an excellent film - entertaining and informative and sometimes stunning in its display of the personal demons shared by these two geniuses.

Bursts with action, ideas and interesting characters.

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

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

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.

"Searching" has emotional valleys and zeniths, and gasp-inducing turns, as old friends, fans and Rodriguez's grown daughters are interviewed.

Evans pays careful attention to atmosphere, while giving wide berth to cinematographers Dimas Imam Subhono and Matt Flannery, who find beauty among the mayhem. Everything on screen is crystal clear and vibrant, like a city street right after the rain.

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