Peter Travers

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.

By stooping low without selling out, this babes-and-bullets tour de force gets you high on movies again.

A hell of a hilarious time at the movies if you're up for laughs that stick in your throat.

Bouchareb's film helped shame the French government into raising pensions for more than 80,000 of these veterans. Here's that rare movie that really did change things. I'll be damned.

Kelly Reichardt makes films that unfold at the speed of life, not Hollywood. She's a poet of the space between words, and the hypnotic and haunting Certain Women presents the writer-director at her artfully attentive best.

What Robert Downey, Jr. is to "Iron Man" and Ryan Reynolds is to "Deadpool" – that's what Benedict Cumberbatch is to Doctor Strange. By that I mean, he's everything.

The Raid 2 lets its warriors rip for two and a half thrilling hours. With the precision of dance and the punch of a KO champion, Evans keeps the action coming like nobody's business. The wow factor is off the charts.

Kirby Dick's indispensable guerrilla attack on the film-ratings system gives Hollywood a swift, smart and hilarious kick in its institutional, hypocritical ass.

Nolan directs the film exactly like a great trick, so you want to see it again the second it's over. I'd call that wicked clever.

Have I got a movie for you—a next gen Fatal Attraction that turns dating into a bloody horror show, makes a star out of Inde Navarrette, and announces newbie filmmaker Curry Barker as the most perversely fierce and funny voice in erotic thrillers since Brian De Palma .

Want to find the heart of rock & roll? You can hear it thundering in Anvil.

Herzog conducts his own expedition into knowing the unknowable -- the true task of any filmmaker. Herzog makes it an art.

Huppert's brilliance is indisputable, her performance alternately playful and deeply moving.

In this fiery revenge thriller from debuting director Aleshea Harris, twin sisters plot to kill the monster daddy (Sterling K. Brown) who burned their house down. There’s no way to take your eyes off what’s on screen. No way in hell.

Leigh embraces the contradictions in Turner. And in tandem with cinematographer Dick Pope, a master of light, he shows us the world as Turner sees it. The effect is harsh and ravishing. Leigh's beauty of a movie touches the heart not by sentimental gush but by the amplitude of its art.​

A lifetime in movies runs through this prime vintage Eastwood performance. You can't take your eyes off him. The no-frills, no-bull Gran Torino made my day.

Why should you suffer through a 140-minute Russian film that is basically a contemporary remake of The Book of Job? Because it's a stupendous piece of work, that's why, and because it represents the kind of challenging, intimate filmmaking that transcends language and borders.

You'll go limp from laughing.

Joel Edgerton and Felicity Jones bring flesh-and-blood immediacy to this classic in the making. about the beauty and terror of pioneering railroad days. A tough sell? Maybe. But not when a movie dares to reach for the stars like this one.

The Secret in Their Eyes has a decent shot at wearing down resistance to subtitled films. Don't be put off. This spellbinder from Argentina will sneak up and floor you. It's that good.

Downsizing brims over with the pleasures of the unexpected, a hallmark of Payne's artistry.

Dissenters who see this film as a wallow in self-absorption aren't paying attention. Baumbach is acutely attuned to the droll mind games of smart people who only think they're impervious to feeling.

What makes True Grit a new classic for the Coens is the way the brothers absorb the unfairly unsung Portis into their DNA, like they did with Cormac McCarthy in "No Country for Old Men." True Grit is packed with action and laughs, plus a touching coda with an older Mattie, but it's the dialogue that really sings. Great filmmaking. Great acting. Great movie. Saddle up.

Kudos to the Russo brothers, Joe and Anthony, for directing the hostilities for maximum impact and without neglecting character. Their thundering epic is also smart, snappy, politically savvy and blessedly fast on its feet.

This is Bond like you've never seen him, almost Freudian in his vulnerability. And a dynamite Daniel Craig, never better in the role, nails Bond's ferocity and feeling.

The film belongs to Firth. Uncanny at showing the heart crumbling under George's elegant exterior, he gives the performance of his career.

A movie of potent provocation and surging humanity that ranks with the year's best.

You’ve seen ‘Being the Ricardos,” but you’ll never understand the successful partnership and failed marriage of sitcom icons Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz until you see Amy Poehler’s emotional roadmap of a documentary. Between the laughs, you’ll blink back tears.