Peter Travers

Is it that scary? Yes. Will it reduce you to quivering jelly? Oh, my, yes! Does it bust the bonds of the Godzilla formula to fuse fright with feeling? Better believe it, dudes.

The filmmakers offer no commentary. We watch. And what we see is explosive, deeply moving and impossible to shake.

In these troubled times, it's a good feeling to see a funny, touching and vital doc that is both timely and timeless.

As for Lee, he clearly relates to this material and the questions of political, musical and family identity he himself raised in films as diverse as "Malcolm X," "Mo' Better Blues" and "Crooklyn."

Reichardt has crafted a haunted dream of a movie to get lost in.

Fruitvale Station is a gut punch of a movie. By standing in solidarity with Oscar, it becomes an unstoppable cinematic force.

Fact-based family dramas don’t come more intense or indelible than Walter Salles’s emotional powerhouse starring Golden Globe best actress winner Fernanda Torres as a Brazilian wife and mother who fights a military dictatorship to save her flesh and blood

The acting is of the highest caliber. Winger, magnificent and too long between films, is a volcano of repressed anger.

Panahi creates a raw, riveting film.

Brimming with humor and heartbreak, Slumdog Millionaire meets at the border of art and commerce and lets one flow into the other as if that were the natural order of things.

Dark secrets are unlocked, words draw more blood than punches, and Desplechin turns one family into a universe that resembles life as a startling work of art.

The film's sound design, sampling Beethoven and Nino Rota, among others, links up with visual miracles performed by Rain Kathy Li and Wong Kar-Wai's noted cinematographer, Christopher Doyle (In the Mood for Love), to take us inside Alex's head. The result, a defiant slap at slick Hollywood formula, is mesmerizing.

Want to know what the “right stuff” really is? Take a look.

Hollywood does gloriously right by Judy Blume’s groundbreaking 1970 novel about a pre-teen girl (a stellar Abby Ryder Fortson) in a tug-of-war with puberty and religion. Costars McAdams and Bates exemplify Blume’s refreshing candor. Call it totally irresistible.

Cuarón has a gift only the greatest filmmakers share: He makes you believe.

Shaka King’s powerhouse about the 1969 murder of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton (an Oscar-worthy Daniel Kaluuya) by the Chicago police with the help of an FBI informer (Lakeith Stanfield) is a new movie classic that speaks to the toxic racism of its time and ours.

Allen has never crafted anything as fiercely funny as this comedy of coming apart; it’s a groundbreaking film, full of sublime performances alert to the violence done in the name of love.

All the actors, in roles large and small, bring their A games to the film. Two hours and 40 minutes can feel long for some. I wouldn’t change a frame.

The top-tier cast, including Tilda Swinton as a character called Social Services, may be star overload, but each actor performs small miracles.

A landmark musical tribute.

What the film does so movingly as a portrait is show the isolation that comes with creative success.

Booksmart changes the game and opens the genre up to greater possibilities. Directed by the actor Olivia Wilde in a smashing feature debut, this femcentric spin on Freaks and Geeks is high on girl power.

The acting is top-notch, and LaPaglia, who makes the cop's torment palpable, gives the performance of his career.

At the end, with Sean's condition scarily deteriorating, the raw and riveting BPM musters the emotional power to floor you.

Hits hardest when it bypasses sentiment to ponder the inextricable mix of love and pain that comes with the ties that bind.

Nothing about the pulsating ‘Sirāt’ is appropriate or expected or traditional or fully comprehensible. It just is. And it is utterly transfixing.

Sonnenfeld deftly orchestrates the intricate two-part harmony, and Smith and Jones -- a powerhouse comic pair -- make it all look easy.

This week’s shocking, out-of-nowhere Oscar nomination for British actress Andrea Riseborough as an alcoholic single mother from West Texas who squanders her $190,000 lottery win on booze turns an indie movie no one ever heard of into an absolute must-see. Prepare to be wowed!