Peter Travers

The first indisputably great movie of 2024 is a blazing Oscar contender about a real-life prison arts program that helps caged birds, led by a simply stupendous Colman Domingo, to rediscover their humanity with a heart full to bursting and a spirit that soars.

Pixar tackles the topic of female puberty in this animated funhouse ride about a 13-year girl from Toronto’s Chinatown who turns into a giant red panda in this wise and wonderful metaphor for the roller coaster of messy adolescence.

Writer-director Peter Sollett takes the familiar and turns it into hot, heartfelt movie magic.

Demange's film, spiked by an outstanding, all-stops-out O'Connell, makes politics unnervingly personal. Too much? What else do you expect of a cinematic knockout punch that sends you reeling?

Forget "The Conjuring," Blackfish may be the scariest movie around.

It's warped and wonderfully effervescent. Ditto the songs by Danny Elfman, who sings the role of Bonejangles, the frontman for a skeleton jazz band at a swinging underworld club. Best of all is the love story.

You’d have to search hard to find a movie this hypnotic and haunting.

A sequel of twisted thrills and sly surprises.

All credit to O’Sullivan, Thompson and a tone-perfect cast for creating a film that moves to the rhythms of life as its lived rather than fantasized. Saint Frances retains its rough edges to that last. And that’s some kind of miracle.

Sometimes it's racism; sometimes bum luck; sometimes it's producer Phil Spector putting Love's voice in another singer's mouth. You watch. You hear the gospel spoken in the voices of these women. And you marvel.

Tone-deaf but thunderously exciting.

Despite its grandiose title, 20th Century Women unfolds as series of small moments – some hilarious and heartfelt, other silly and sorrowful – that help define the characters and their time.

Writer-director David Michôd catches you in a vise and squeezes - hard.

Scorsese builds Hugo in the Méliès manner, creating a complete, ravishing Parisian world on a soundstage in England and reveling in the sheer transporting joy of it. Hugo will take your breath away.

A wickedly smart and funny free-for-all, and sassy enough to shoot well-aimed darts at corporate branding.

Horror-movie heaven.

Who would have guessed that a documentary about gamers obsessed with scoring a world record at Donkey Kong would not only be roaringly funny but serve as a metaphor for the decline of Western civilization?

A savage comedy of sexual extremes; the barbed laughs draw blood.

What catches us in Spider's web -- besides the indelible performances of Fiennes and Richardson -- is the director's sympathy with this freak man-child who struggles to order his confused memories into a kind of truth.

The queer horror of this spellbinder isn’t new, but it hits a raw nerve in this time of a new resistance to LGBTQ rights. Aussie director Adrian Chiarella mixes horror and homophobia into a trenchant social commentary that needs to be heard.

The twice Oscar-nominated actor appears onscreen only briefly. Hawke knows where the spotlight belongs. Believe me, the 81 minutes spent in Bernstein's funny, touching and vital presence is something you don't want to miss.

One-word reaction: bravo.

It's a total triumph, brimming with humor, heart, sexual heat, political provocation and a crying need to stir things up, just like Harvey did. If there's a better movie around this year, with more bristling purpose, I sure as hell haven't seen it.

Lukas Moodysson, a young Swedish director, crafts a stunner of a film out of familiar turf.

Debuting director Regina King ignites sparks by casting four dynamite actors as 1964 civil-rights icons—Kingsley Ben-Adir as Malcolm X, Eli Goree as Cassius Clay, Aldis Hodge as Jim Brown, and an Oscar worthy Leslie Odom Jr. as Sam Cooke—and letting them rip about being Black in America.

Oscar shortlisted for best animated film, this ravishing new gem from anime master Mamoru Hosoda is a knockout fantasia that cuts to the core of Gen Z lives that revolve around digi-tech and yet speaks an intimate universal language of love and loss.

You'll thrill to the action, savor the tasty dialogue and laugh like bloody hell.

Using Staunton's face as his canvas, Leigh crafts a powerfully moving film that is unmissable and unforgettable.