Peter Travers

What's fresh about Midnight in Paris is the way he (Allen) identifies with Gil's idealization of the past, of the Paris that represented art and life at their fullest.

Your only mistake would be to not see it at all, and miss out on one of the unalloyed pleasures of the fall movie season.

The specter of war haunts Cold Mountain, but you remember it for the heat of its romantic yearning and the mysteries that wrap themselves around you until you're lost in another world.

It'll slap on a smile on your face that won't quit.

What If doesn't break new ground. But it has charm to spare, and Radcliffe and Kazan are irresistible. No ifs about it.

Family audiences rejoice! The Oscar for Best Animated Film belongs right here in this enchanting tale of a robot, voiced by the amazing Lupita Nyong'o, who finds herself playing mother to a baby goose. The result is spectacular in every sense of the word.

A meandering but altogether mesmerizing film from writer-director Azazel Jacobs that finds buoyant comedy and touching gravity in the ashes of a relationship.

Thanks to Professor Marston and his real-life Wonder Women, something close to a death blow was dealt to the demeaning, centuries-old image of the damsel in distress. It's a hell of an origin story.

Yes, it's in French with English subtitles. Don't worry. Nothing gets lost in translation as this coming-of-age tale brims over with humor, heartbreak and ravishing romance.

As directed by the Safdie brothers, Josh and Benny, the movie rips through 100 minutes of screen time like Wile E. Coyote with his tail on fire. It's electrifying.

Eastwood's modest approach to these momentous events shames the usual Hollywood showboating. In a rare achievement, he's made a film that truly is good for the soul.

It feels lived it, honest and painfully funny.

No list of the year's best performances should be made without her (Sally Hawkins).

Moore's fireball of a movie could change your life. It had me laughing with tears in my eyes.

You don't have to be in vogue to enjoy this stylish ride through Bergdorf's. It's a surprise package to die for. Miele and his virtuoso cinematographer, Justin Bare, show how fashion can be aspiration, a model for dreaming the impossible.

A fiercely funny human comedy with jokes that sting and leave marks.

Sound plays as crucial a role as visuals in replicating an authentic culture to drive the storytelling.

Director-writer Martin Hynes shapes his first movie into something emotionally truthful, painfully funny and vibrantly alive. It's a near-perfect road movie, since you don't want the ride to end.

An artistic triumph.

Don’t miss this nail-biting thriller in which director İlker Çatak and sensational star Leonie Benesch turn a tale of petty theft at a German middle school into a battle between freedom of expression and institutional control all too easy to recognize as our own.

Little Men, with its two boys racing at life with the brick wall of maturity still at a distance, is funny, touching and vital. It's truly an exhilarating gift.

Demi Moore seizes the role of her lifetime as a movie star turned fitness guru who gets axed for committing the cardinal sin of aging. You’ve never seen anything like the body horrors in Coralie Fargeat’s gory and glorious takedown of youth obsession.

Top Five is Rock's best movie by a mile. It's authentically hilarious.

I've seen A Mighty Wind only twice so far. Maybe it is less fresh than "Guffman," more strained than "Best in Show." Who cares? It's still a gift from comedy heaven.

Farmiga expertly guides a large and gifted ensemble cast and proves as fearless a director as she is an actress. She lights up Higher Ground and makes it funny, touching and vital.

When a forty-four-year-old man makes a movie about his family and friends sitting around singing old tunes, you certainly don't expect an unforgettable amalgam of humor and heartbreak. But that is precisely what Terence Davies delivers.

When it flies, it soars.

Nothing can detract from the film as a portrait of hell so shattering it's impossible to shake.