Peter Travers

Solondz likes to put the screws to moral hypocrisy. As always, he goes too far. As always, you don't want to look away.

Blanchett burns on a high flame, and Redford finds the wounded dignity in Rather.

The dialogue is clunky, the A-list actors are slumming and, yeah, you've seen it all before. But Kong: Skull Island is a creature feature that's damn near irresistible.

Refreshingly naughty and nice.

The film, quite rightly, is a tour de force for Bardem.

Messed up as it is, you can't tear your eyes away from this explosion of brutal sounds and images.

300 is a movie blood-drunk on its own artful excess. Guys of all ages and sexes won't be able to resist it.

Avengers: Infinity War leaves viewers up in the air, feeling exhilarated and cheated at the same time, aching for a closure that never comes ... at least not yet.

Prepare to be scared senseless, and then, when you think you have it figured, your certainty will be shaken by scenes built to scare you even more.

Owen, in a heartfelt, award-caliber performance, never goes soft. It's his core of toughness that makes the movie so funny, touching and vital.

In a movie with more subtext than "Rosemary's Baby," nearly everyone, including Tim Roth as Dahlia's lawyer, harbors secrets. Salles unleashes a torrent of suspense for one purpose: to plumb the violence of the mind.

The mischief Thornton does make adds up to wild, rowdy fun.

Haden Church gives the movie the joyous kick it needs. His flirty thrust-and-parry with Collette is beautifully played.

There's more palm-sweating suspense in one minute of this baby than in all of "The Omen."

You won't feel too much like a jerk watching this rock & roll hostage comedy. There are laugh licks and spirited performances. It's fluff done with flair

Don't get me wrong – the movie lays on the raunch, and there are more gut-busting laughs than you can count. But no one gets objectified or patronized.

A no-bull throwback to 1970s action films. It zips along with B-movie verve while adding the rich details and go-for-broke acting that heralds something special.

Harington and Vikander provide the spark the film needs to get us through the tribulations and tragedies that pile on with numbing regularity. You leave Testament of Youth feeling some of the impact that Brittain’s book must have had at the time.

It's a tense, terrifically funny action dazzler with a wow level in special effects that will be hard to top.

Let Clarkson and Fanning take you to the rabbit hole of seductive enchantment that defines this movie. And don't ask what to do -- jump.

Rob Marshall's flawed but frequently dazzling Nine is a hot-blooded musical fantasia full of song, dance, raging emotion and simmering sexuality.

Even when the film falls to pieces, McAvoy's bonkers brilliance will blow you away.

The movie does Thompson proud. It's a scorcher.

If you’re longing for a delicious romantic romp to take your mind off the world going to hell in hand basket, Paris Can Wait is it.

Leigh isn't breaking new ground, but he knows how a daily grind can kill love. Strong stuff.

Even when the sequel loses momentum, and it does like to repeat itself, Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci are comic virtuosos not to be resisted. That’s all.

Matthew Michael Carnahan's caffeinated script isn't much concerned with balance, but it gets some anyway, from the resonant images of culture clash that Berg catches on the fly and a remarkable performance from Ashraf Barhom.

The ending isn't squishy scary or deeply satisfying. Bummer. Otherwise, Prometheus – especially in its spellbinding first hour – kicks ass so hard and often that it's impossible not to be thrilled by it.

Director Colin Trevorrow and writer Derek Connolly keep the film humming with funny and touching surprises. And Plaza is a flat-out enchantress.

Washington digs so deep under the skin of this complex character that we almost breath with him. It's a great, award-caliber performance in a movie that can barely contain it.

The film's relentless pummeling grows wearying at 135 minutes. The first Terminator, a half-hour shorter, was leaner and meaner.

Sobs are earned the hard way in this moving drama, which grips you with such scrappy humor and no-bull grit and grace that you'll be hooked.

Damsel won't work for everyone. It's too quirky for that. But it goes its merrily deranged way with prankish enthusiasm and a genuine sense of the absurd.

McGregor goes bone-deep in a performance of shining subtlety. And a never-better Plummer is simply stupendous, refusing any call to sentiment as he shows us Hal's resonant lunge at life. Mills works the same way. Beginners is one from the bruised heart.

Green made the wise choice to be funny in telling his sad story.

Polanski has great wicked fun with sex, love, cruelty, books, movies and, of course, himself. If you don’t go along with the joke, you’re in for rough sailing.

The stellar Adam Scott stars in an Irish horrorfest from Damien McCarthy, a visionary new talent who really knows how to scare the hell out of and into you.

Naranjo, a graduate of the American Film Institute, has a gift for staging action that defines character. The film is a harrowing experience. It cuts deep.

Director George C. Wolfe had a dream to put unsung civil-rights firebrand Bayard Rustin front and center in a movie. And now, with the help of executive producers Barack and Michelle Obama and a thrilling acting tour de force from the great Colman Domingo, he has.

Works enough miracles of 3-D animation to charm your socks off.

American Animals is a high-style caper that touches a deeper chord of youthful indiscretion and moral imbalance. You won't be able to stop talking about it.

Kristen Wiig is an indisputable goddess of comedy. And this rowdy fem-friendship movie she stars in and wrote with Annie Mumolo is infused with the Wiig brand of wicked mischief.

Depp and Burton fly too high on the vapors of pure imagination. But it's hard to not get hooked on something this tasty.

There's no denying the exuberant energy and emotional force of this movie. It gets to you.

Higher Learning is seriously intended and seriously flawed. Singleton tends to shout his objectives. But in an era of cop-out escapism, it is gratifying to find a filmmaker who is spoiling to be heard.

The film is dawdling, sometimes maddeningly so, but Newman and Woodward deliver lovingly detailed and bruisingly true performances that not only command attention but richly reward it.

Both boys give such heart-rending performances that fear of reprisals for participating in the scene persuaded the studio to postpone the film's release to give them time to leave Kabul.

The Humbling is a dark dazzler shot through with mirth and delicious malice. But be warned. It is not Roth's novel.

The film is corrosive in its take on the injustice that allowed Ted to live and prosper in a protective bubble of privilege. Clarke makes it clear that the man himself most likely felt the same way.

It's true that the film is covering old ground – the shocking originality of the first Alien is a one-time thing. No worries. I'd rank Alien: Covenant with the best of the series, right after the first two chapters. Fans are going to freak out. Join in.

Ferrell delivers a performance of implosive intensity that rings true in every detail.

Played as a child by Abigail Chu and as an adult by Delphine Chanéac, Dren morphs into a special-effects miracle, sexy and scary in equal doses.

Foster's film doesn't doubt that money rules our lives. But it does wonder, provocatively, why we're dumb enough to let it.

As played by the spectacular Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Hesher is the id run rampant.

You expect hardcore hilarity from Neighbors, and you get it. It's the nuance that sneaks up on you.

Altman clarifies a convoluted plot with a magician's ease, creates an atmosphere that brims with the pleasures of the unexpected and explores character nuances.

Brad Pitt doesn't really act in Ocean's Thirteen, he just glides through the third chapter in Steven Soderbergh's heist-flick annuity on the magic carpet of his own unimpeachable cool. Don't knock it. Genuine star power is rare. Pitt has it in spades -- all aces.

Maher can be a smartass, but his attempts to apply reason to religion are more a challenge than a threat.

The film is a striking cinematic tone poem.

See this darkly comic character study unburdened by preconceptions.

Does the plot spin out of control? You bet. But dumb fun this smart is a gift.

With its pokey pace broken by bursts of violence and racial tension, the end of Paul Schrader’s man-in-a-room trilogy falls short of the master’s peak. But this mesmerizer is the work of a true film artist continually striving to connect his tortured soul to ours.

A hypnotic movie of harsh truth and healing compassion. It sticks with you.

Ayoade, the British comic making a remarkable feature debut with his adaptation of Joe Dunthorne's 2008 novel, blends mirth and malice with deadpan brilliance.

After a one-year intermission, “For Good,” makes its debut as a darker, gloomier, frustratingly less dazzling take on the “Wicked” IP. Should you still see it? Damn straight. Despite its stumbles, the final half of this witchy brew soars on the musical wings of Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande who are twice as wonderful the second time around.

The whole movie is a grab-bag of insanity so off-the-chain hilarious that you stick with it even when the convoluted plot goes haywire.

Fed Up has a fire in its belly to change things. Naïve? Maybe. So what. I say, Godspeed. Here is something rare at the multiplex: a movie that matters.

Blazing performance will burn in your memory. Same goes for the film.

Fukunaga, son of a Japanese father and a Swedish mother, is a filmmaker to watch. He has reanimated a classic for a new generation, letting Jane Eyre resonate with terror and tenderness.

Any doubts about three Chinese actresses speaking English with Japanese accents vanish in the face of their deeply felt performances and the world Marshall conjures with magical finesse.

Luhrmann is a director with the style and snap to have these tired routines on their feet and kicking like a line of Rockettes.

The line between making guerrilla art and selling out has never blurred more provocatively.

The sequel is more musically varied, though Kay Cannon's script amps the sass at the expense of structure. But the MVP here is Elizabeth Banks.

Lucy Liu deglams with a vengeance to give the performance of her life in a shocking true story of a mother-son relationship that goes tragically off the rails.

Hanging with Quill and his mercenary space misfits is still everything you'd want in a wild summer ride.

The movie belongs to Moretz, whose sensational performance will be talked about for years. Her scenes with Cage, who wears a Batsuit and uses a voice borrowed from Adam West, are a hoot.

Writer-director Andrew Niccol, who worked impressively with Hawke on the topic of genetic modification in 1997's "Gattaca," puts a lot out there.

Obvious Child is a romcom with a sting in its tail. And Slate is a dynamo, nailing every laugh while showing a true actor's gift for nuance.

Journeys, shot on the last two nights of Young's 2011 solo world tour, is essential Neil Young.

The role is a beast, and Cranston, in a tour de force of touching gravity and aching humanism, gives it everything he's got. It's astounding to watch, and an award-caliber performance from an actor who keeps springing surprises.

Bigelow's artful handling of the magic & menace of the night is hauntingly apparent.

Best of all is the excitement of watching Mann use his kinetic powers as a filmmaker to tackle the new face of 21st-century warfare.

Wheatley and screenwriter Amy Jump (his wife) have energized Ballard's parable of class warfare in the technology age with a daring approach that will touch a nerve or have you bolting for the exits.

It's funny. So is Nicole Kidman, very Cruella De Vil as Millicent Clyde, a taxidermist with an eye on adding Paddington to her stuffed collection. It's an excuse for some chase scenes and physical comedy (Paddington gets his head stuck in a toilet bowl) that manage to suggest both the Marx brothers and Wes Anderson. I mean that as a good thing.

Michael Fassbender delivers a bold and brilliantly immersive performance as a sex addict in Shame. He is so raw and riveting you won't be able to take your eyes off him.

Moore shows us acting at its best, alive with ferocity and feeling and committed to truth.

Spielberg's visual inventiveness is unflagging.

This film is a muckraking provocation whose time has come.

Michael Moore might want to look into this before more animal docs steal his thunder.

What makes Crazy Stupid Love a cut above is actors who let pain seep into the laughs. Here's a comedy you really can take to heart.

It sounds sappy, and sometimes it is, but director Koepp and co-writer John Kamps stay alert to the humor and pathos of Bertram's isolation.

Creative Control goes its own playful, provocative way. For a film about technology's growing dehumanization, this stylized beauty is a frisky, formidable temptation.

The film, sometimes talky and overemphatic, is also literate, erotic, brutally funny and touched by brilliance in its quartet of live-wire performances.

At its best, The Russia House offers a rare and enthralling spectacle: the resurrection of buried hopes.

Dull title for a juicy, fact-based caper movie that's full of surprises I have no intention of spoiling.

The three actors could not be better. Huge feelings are packed into this small, fragile movie. It's something special.

In essence, City of Gold is a celebration of a critic who helped define a city by what it eats. And at a bargain price. So take notes, and dig in.

Dazzling, sometimes hilarious and surprisingly emotional documentary.

The movie rises and, at times, even soars. This is all - and I do mean all - thanks to what human actors in league with computer technology can now achieve to bring the apes to life. No more guys squeezed into monkey suits and talking in posh accents. Performance-capture makes all the difference.

Oscar winner Emma Stone teams up again with her Poor Things ’director Yorgos Lanthimos for a mesmerizing mindteaser, costarring a fabulous Jesse Plemons, that tells three stories that you can’t stop thinking about as they entertain and exasperate.

Mara is funny, fierce and altogether wonderful, even up against an irresistible costar.

Writer-director Richard Shepard gives Brosnan his meatiest role ever, and he digs in with relish.

There are delicious bits aplenty in Spider-Man 3 for those who care to notice.

Backbeat catches the Beatles in the act of discovering themselves. It’s a thrilling spectacle that rocks the house and a lot of lazy misconceptions about how legends are made.

Though the material isn't up to Mr. Show's high standards, some great laughs abound.

World War Z is still as smart, shifty and scary as a starving zombie ready to chow down on you, baby, you.

The funny, touching and vital Beatriz at Dinner probably tackles way more than it can handle, but so what? Godspeed. You won't know what hit you.

It's all infectious fun, despite the lack of originality. In the art of tickling funny bones, Crystal and Goodman earn straight A's.

Stamp's award-caliber performance as a closed-off man on the brink of turning into stone is a miracle of subtlety and feeling. This is acting of the highest order. Redgrave partners him superbly, bringing warmth and nurturing humor to a role she refuses to play for easy tears.

Peckinpah rubbed our noses in the bloodlust. Lurie invites objectivity. He gets strong, complex performances from actors who won't be painted into corners.

This sweetheart of a comedy boasts a hilarious and heartfelt performance by Keri Russell.

This Trainspotting sequel may feel like that for many who raised a fist in unison with the first film's f--k-the-world defiance. There's a hard-won wisdom at work here, as well as an aching sense of loss. Any way you look at it, T2 takes a piece out of you.

Woody Allen's sexiest movie ever.

The Fate of the Furious doesn't have a thought in its head to match the best of Bond and Bourne. What it is, in every sense of the term, is insanely entertaining.

Duncan zips through five decades and dozens of characters without reducing the participants to cliches or slogans. A remarkable cast helps him to keep focused on the core of the piece.

This kinky game of murder and eroticism is preposterous but never boring.

Ferrell is effortlessly uproarious. And watching hardass Wahlberg, in his first starring shot at farce, shake his sillies out is not to be missed.

Even when the laughs don't always snap, Key and Peele are ready with another one or a dozen that do. These dudes really are the cat's meow.

Ribisi and Macht are sleaze incarnate. James Caan, as a conniving lawyer, and Rade Sherbedgia, as a Russian crime boss, are even more cootified. Best of all is Wilson, digging into his juiciest role in years and putting a human face on this mesmerizing morality tale, a journey into the toxic heart of the American dream.

By spinning something fresh out of something familiar, Reality Bites scores the first comedy knockout of the new year. It also brings out the vibrant best in Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke as friends who resist being lovers, makes a star of Janeane Garofalo as their tart-tongued buddy and puts Ben Stiller on the map as a director.

These performers keep you mesmerized, making the most of what they're given even when the film sinks into a swamp of whose-dick-is-bigger competitions and sports clichés about product endorsements.

Forget the silly title. There’s a world of hurt behind the laughs in this emotional powerhouse as therapist Morgan Freemen treats a PTSD soldier (a very fine Sonequa Martin-Green), home from Afghanistan but still talking to the scrappy ghost of her army bestie (Natalie Morales).

What Button shows is that Ben is ultimately not the hero of his own life or his own movie. He gets inside our head, that's for sure, but, frustratingly, we never get inside his.

Popstar mixes the hilarity with a surprising amount of heart. 4Real.

Elle Fanning does the monster mash and brings audiences back to theaters in droves by lacing the action with laughs

It's a haunting and hypnotic film.

The actors could not be better. Sarsgaard, Scott and the luminous Clarkson negotiate the film's razor-sharp laughs and bone-deep tragedy with resonant skill. Lucas' powerfully haunting film gets under your skin.

There’s a timely message in this animated beauty about a time-traveling 10-year-old boy who dreams of the dinosaur era but lands in 2075 instead.

Nicole Kidman burns up the screen in Helena Reijn’s erotic spellbinder about why a married-with-children titan of industry would risk career suicide to find her true self by losing control with a hottie young intern (Harris Dickinson) who bends her to his cruel will. Not as transgressive as it wants to be, but damn close

The real action in Silver City happens on the fringes, where the mischief is. Daryl Hannah is spice incarnate as Dickie's sexy screw-up sister. Billy Zane plays a lobbyist with insinuating soullessness. And Dreyfuss feasts on the snappiest lines.

Indefensible on a moral level, Rob Zombie's perversely watchable follow-up to his much-reviled cult hit "House of 1000 Corpses" is loaded with filmmaking energy.

Younger knows it's fun to watch Rafi and David cross lines of age, culture and religion. He also knows it's painful. That's what makes his movie hilarious and heartfelt.

The film can't hide its stage origins, and in cutting almost an hour on the journey from stage to screen some resonance is lost. But Bennett's dialogue sparkles and skewers with killer wit. Dig in.

Before it runs off course into excess, this brilliantly acted film version of the 1999 novel by Andre Dubus III moves with a stabbing urgency.

Spectacular in every sense of the word, even if you don' t know an Orc from a Uruk-Hai.

Edward Scissorhands isn't perfect. It's something better: pure magic.

Heebie-jeebies are guaranteed.

The film is for horny pups of all ages who relish the memory of reading stroke books under the covers with a flashlight. Verhoeven has spent $49 million to reproduce that dirty little thrill on the big screen.

Just one talking head, that's all. But the head in this mesmerizing documentary belongs to Traudl Junge.

When is a movie fall-down funny even when some scenes fall flat on their fat ones? When it's Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues.

Meryl Streep -- at her brilliant, beguiling best -- is the spice that does the trick for the yummy Julie & Julia.

Are we always still in high school in our heads? 21 Jump Street thinks so. And Hill and Tatum are just the crazy-ass comedy team to prove it.

Adapting Robert O'Connor's novel, director Gregor Jordan slaps us with keen wit and purpose.

What is surprising -- remarkable even -- is that Beloved arrives onscreen with a minimum of dull virtue, gagging uplift and slick Hollywood gloss.

How many movies these days leave you wanting more? The funny and heartfelt Home is a small treasure.

It's still a first-class charm assault.

Polanski, working from a fluid script by Dorfman and Rafael Yglesias ("Fearless"), gives the story its due. He creates an atmosphere of claustrophobic tension to rival his "Knife in the Water" and "Repulsion".

Berg's unquestioning faith in law and order could have used, well, a little questioning. But there's no doubt about the worth of the movie as a well-earned tribute to the heroes and victims of a tragic event that may have just made Boston stronger.

Del Toro is the movie's force field. This is a performance you will not forget.

The love story, beautifully acted by Richard Gere and Jodie Foster, makes for a ravishing romance. And British-born Jon Amiel (Queen of Hearts, TV’s Singing Detective) directs with admirable restraint.

The film's secrets unfold slowly, allowing Phoenix and Paltrow -- a luminous fusion of grace and grit -- to build a relationship in full. The script, by Gray and Richard Menello, is inspired by Dostoevsky's "White Nights."

The funny, touching and vital Jeff, Who Lives at Home reaffirms your faith in Jay and Mark Duplass. Their films hit you where you live.

Bury the nostalgia. Like the rap twist Kayne West puts into the film's classic theme, this movie is best when it stirs it up.

The film goes beyond historical anecdotes. Besides fresh and funny insights from the likes of Norman Mailer and John Waters, it shows how little censorship politics have changed from Nixon to Bush.

You'll notice that the actors are way overqualified for this nonsense. But the kick they get out of one another is what pulls you in. Traeger's script does more than strain credulity, it administers multiple fractures.

The uniformly fine performances are a tribute to Washington, who plays the shrink with his customary command.

The result is commendably non-West-centric, but no less sentimentally conceived.

Hess and his terrific cast -- Heder is geek perfection -- make their own kind of deadpan hilarity. You'll laugh till it hurts. Sweet.

Berg does a tremendous job of throwing us into the action with the help of dizzying handheld camerawork from Enrique Chediak.

Almodóvar's admiration for Munro is not misplaced. Despite rough patches, Julieta morphs into a haunting and hypnotic tribute to both their talents.

Like the best war movies, Lone Survivor laces action with moral questions that haunt and provoke.

Luna and García Bernal display the kind of chemistry that makes you overlook the clichés in the script by first-time director Carlos Cuarón. Sometimes good-natured fun is enough.

Best known as Ed Helms' nagging fiancée in "The Hangover," Harris is just perfect without ever looking down on Linda's faith in God and herself. Her performance earns a special kind of glory.

There's no denying the kick of Pitt's memorably offbeat performance and writer-director Tom DiCillo's stylish debut.

Adrien Brody deserves superlatives for his acting in the alternately mesmerizing and maddening Detachment.

If there were an ounce of taste left in Hollywood, the magnificent Vera Farmiga would be a front-runner for the Best Actress Oscar.

The funny and heartbreaking Off the Map, directed with a poet's eye and a keen ear for nuance by Campbell Scott, resonates with something rare in today's movies: simplicity.

Uneven in tone and pacing, Guillermo del Toro’s passion project about a monster and his creator still roars to life as a thing of beauty and terror.

Happy End is a puzzle and it's our job to connect the pieces. If it doesn't drive you crazy first, you'll find yourself maddened and mesmerized to the bitter end.

If you haven't seen Marion Cotillard play Lady Macbeth, you really haven't seen the role inhabited with the glorious fire and ice it needs to haunt your dreams.

For all its bile and incoherence, In Praise of Love is filled with haunting images and insights. Godard may be a lion in winter, but the lion still roars.

It's the work of a filmmaker with a stunning future.

The ending is a TVish cop-out. But until then, watching Wood sweat emerges as a pulse-pounding experiment in terror.

Keane means to shakes us, and does.

Triple 9 is no "Reservoir Dogs," but it is a twisty, terrific ride.

In an era of dumb farce, Something's Gotta Give is something special.

In the guise of a nerve-jangling thriller, director Gabriele Salvatores, an Oscar winner for "Mediterraneo," delivers a fierce, frightening and deeply moving study of childhood. It's a keeper.

The Pangs deliver enough shivery scares to keep you up nights. Eyes wide shut.

a bang-up ride that means to wring you out. Mission accomplished.

The film itself, energetically directed and written by Michael Hoffman, can't always rise to the level of its two dynamo stars.

Sarah Silverman is the most outrageously funny woman alive.

Looking for fun and a chance to scream bloody murder, then send for this terrific horror comedy in which Rachel McAdams crash lands on a desert island with her bullying boss (Dylan O’Brien) and decides to painfully alter his jerk DNA. Despite a divisive ending, I smell a hit.

With the male need to control women hitting a new flashpoint, Alex Garland’s provocation is fired by urgency as the extraordinary Jessie Buckley stars as a widow threatened on all sides by toxic masculinity. Garland is stingy with answers, but his implications are incendiary.

First-time director Eli Roth turns this cheapie into a greatest-hits of horror. It's a blast of good gory fun that just won't quit.

Lennon's spirit, like his music, shines through this movie like a beacon. Powerful stuff.

Horror-movie heaven.

Credit Rachel Weisz, who's just the dynamite actress needed to play a character who could be a misunderstood innocent or a fortune-hunting seductress who could be a cold-blooded killer. How delicious to watch the star keep us guessing.

Café Society isn't peak Allen, in the manner of such recent high points as "Midnight in Paris" (2011) and "Blue Jasmine" (2013), but the film — which could be helpfully subtitled Manhattan v Hollywood — feels lively, lived-in and fallibly human.

A sexy tennis bum (Sam Riley) and a married woman (Stacy Martin) meet at a luxury resort and stir up murderous thoughts in a too cryptic thriller from German director Jan-Ole Gerster that recalls Hitchcock and Antonioni while revealing a tormented mind of its own.

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

Murder is just another day at the office for corporate America, and the film hammers that theme home with diminishing returns. But the acting is aces, especially Pitt mixing it up with the superb James Gandolfini.

What's on screen in The Grandmaster is off-puttingly disjointed, but it's also dazzling in its startling action and ravishing romance.

It's a hilarious and heartfelt ode to twentysomething angst. Braff has himself a winner.

Thanks to this team of merry pranksters, 22 Jump Street hurts so good.

Propelled by Mark Mancina's percussive score, this Tarzan swings.

In fact, Bell the writer, director, producer and actress knows how to set a savvy trap. While we're laughing, she pulls the rug out, making us see Carol's world as a microcosm for the world every working woman lives in. That she does it with subtlety, humor and touching gravity marks Bell as a filmmaker to watch.

This lean, mean, R-rated action machine is way better than you might think since Momoa and Bautista take the time, between fights and jokes, to examine the bruised places in the hearts of these half brothers. You feel for them, and that makes all the difference.

The Muppets slaps a smile on your face you won't want to wipe off.

In a multiplex filled with empty New Year vessels (take that, Kangaroo Jack), this holdover grabs you hard.

Carell is the life of the party and the main reason this animated blast of slapstick silliness packs appeal beyond the PG crowd.

Yes, his direction hits a few tonal bumps; he could have been tougher on his screenwriter on tightening the plot twists. No matter. Wind River packs an elemental power that knocks you for a loop.

Scenes move from hurt to resigned laughter and ring poignantly true. The heroically unfashionable result is a minor but distinct pleasure.

It's basically a pricey home movie in which Adam Sandler spotlights his wife and two daughters. It's also an unexpectedly sweet and sassy surprise. Comic dynamo Sunny Sandler, his youngest, gives nepotism a good name as a Jewish girl on the cusp of womanhood.

OK, sensitive tykes may be scared shitless. But those who tough it out with this twisted, trippy adventure in impure imagination will only be the better for it.

Yes, this far-out fable is too much in every department. But it is also the work of a visual storyteller drunk on the power of movies to stir things up ... and maybe even to heal. It's a bumpy ride, for sure, but hold on. Okja is worth it.

All you really need to know is that The Rover is a modern Western that explodes the terms good and evil; that its desolation is brilliantly rendered by Michôd and cinematographer Natasha Braier; that Pearce and Pattinson are a blazing pair of opposites.

Yes, it’s about paleontology, but hold the yawns. Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan hit new acting peaks in Francis Lee’s deliberately-paced portrait of two ladies on fire in Victorian England.

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?

No use fighting it. this laugh-getting, tear-jerking, part-affecting, part-appalling display of audience manipulation is practically critic-proof...The result can best be described as shamelessly entertaining.

A thrilling combination of documentary and musical dazzler.

Fusing animation and live action with a series of outrageous props, Gondry veers dangerously close to being precious. But make no mistake: Gondry's hallucinatory brilliance holds you in thrall.

The good news is that Mockingjay – Part 2, the big finale, has quit the ass-dragging in favor of what made the book a page-turner. There's the visual fireworks, for sure. But there's also the darkness of the theme.

If you're a Gilliam junkie, as I am, you go with it, even when the script by Ehren Kruger (The Skeleton Key) loses its shaky hold on coherence.

Priyanka Chopra-Jonas lends her beauty and star power to Ramin Bahrani’s unwieldy but enthralling screen adaptation of Aravind Adiga's bestselling novel about the haves and have-nots in modern India.

The luminous Michelle Williams goes bone-deep here. Monroe's beauty was one of a kind. No one, not even Williams, can act it. What Williams does, with fierce artistry and feeling, is illuminate Monroe's insights and insecurities about herself at the height of her fame.

Langella delivers a master class in acting. He's playing Leonard Schiller, an aging author aching from the loss of his wife, a weak heart and literary neglect.

In this tale of stunted development, Theron is a comic force of nature, giving her character considerable density and humanity despite her monstrous aspects.

Oh no—not another doomsday thriller! Yes, but hold on and see how director Sam Esmail and producers Barack and Michelle Obama, powered by an exceptional all-star cast (Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Mahershala Ali, Kevin Bacon), make you care while frying your nerves to a frazzle.

What makes Legends such an entertaining male weepie is the star shine. Though the admirable Quinn has the toughest role, Pitt carries the picture.

Mitchell has his own twisted gift for letting atmosphere help define character. It Follows creeps you out big-time in that cool way that freezes the blood.

It's a hoot to watch Fonda cut loose and mix it up with J. Lo, even when the laughs turn mean-spirited.

The modestly perfect antidote to a synthetic, overblown movie summer: a blast of exuberant fun that stays rooted in humanity.

Count Cinderella as a dazzling dream of a movie from director Kenneth Branagh, who can leap from the Bard (Henry V) to the boffo (Thor) with no apparent sweat.

Hot! Hot! Hot!

The blistering confrontation scene between Hopper and Walken -- both in peak form -- will be talked about for years. It's pure Tarantino: a full-throttle blast of bloody action and verbal fireworks.

It’s always a slam dunk when Adam Sandler drops his doofus routine and really acts. And here, as a basketball scout who yearns to coach, he infuses every frame of this formulaic crowd-pleaser with a real-deal love of the game. Hot damn! We have a winner.

Powerfully moving and fanatically obtuse in equal doses. The typical star rating doesn't apply, because scenes range from classic to poor and all stops in between.

With a $15,000 budget too puny to empty a petty-cash drawer, the no-frills Paranormal Activity comes packed with thrills.

Lightweight but utterly beguiling.

Actor David Oyelowo makes a heartfelt directing debut in a PG adventure about a boy (Lonnie Chavez) in search of a mythic creature who might save his dying mother. Even when the pace drags, the film remains a rare gift for family audiences.

John Magaro is touching and vital in a wrenching family drama that speaks to what’s broken about family in America.

These three unimprovable actresses make The Hours a thing of beauty.

Les Cowboys pulls in with no intention of letting you go. It's a workout worth taking.

Even the film's missteps (the score, by Barrington Pheloung, is cringe-inducing) can't stop this meditation on love -- Martin calls it "Jane Austen for the twenty-first century" -- from melting into heartbreak.

You’ll be thinking about this scary, savvy fright fest long after you wake up screaming.

Lee's technique is impeccable, but he's chasing more inner demons than one creature feature can handle. No wonder the audience cheers when TV Hulk Lou Ferrigno shows up for a cameo. It's a reminder of a time when it was easier being green and a Hulk could just get pissed off and bust shit up.

Kitano is a riveting spectacle. So's the movie.

Sure, it’s a bit predictable, but actress Zoe Kravitz—in a promising directing debut— milks every ounce of suspense out of this #MeToo thriller set on an island paradise where pretty young things accept invites from tycoon Channing Tatum at their own peril.

Cool stuff. Cool movie.

What makes it delicious fun is Posey, a party girl for the ages.

Writer-director Jacques Audiard (A Prophet) probes the psyches of two people in crisis. His hypnotic film means to shake you, and does. Schoenaerts reveals unexpected layers in Ali. And Cotillard delivers a tour de force of unleashed emotions. She's astonishing.

Mellencamp has made an admirably unfussy movie that sneaks into your heart with the hypnotic power of a song.

Hopkins and Mirren are acting pros in stellar form. There's no way you want to miss the pleasure of their company in a movie that offers a sparkling and unexpectedly poignant look at how to sustain a career and a marriage.

The stunts dazzle until you miss the low-key charm and cost-conscious inventiveness of the original. Desperado is best when Rodriguez lets his playful side cut through the blare of a born filmmaker indulging his first chance at high-end Hollywood fireworks.

There's only one star in this movie: Everest. Kormákur couldn't shoot higher than base camp, around 14,000 feet, without sickening the actors. But a crew traveled to the top to get footage, while much of the climbing was shot in the Dolomites. No matter. You watch Everest and you believe.

The good news is that Coogler puts his own stamp on it. You can feel this fine indie talent stretching his wings in the mainstream.

Christopher Plummer steals the show without resorting to camp as Nicholas' wounded and wounding Uncle Ralph. It's a great performance and a reminder of Dickens' grandeur. This Cliff's Notes of a film, though lively fun, only hints at that.

Lurie has crafted a different kind of thriller, one with a mind and a heart.

The thrill of the film is watching Ant-Man and the Wasp team up and raise hell together. Rudd is a winning combination of sass and sincerity. And it's a kick to watch Lilly break out and let her star shine.

My advice? Just go with ParaNorman. There's magic in it.

The film offers few answers about Fischer's descent into derangement. But you watch Maguire and slowly, with pity and terror, you understand.

Director David Gordon Green and screenwriter Peter Straughan sometimes stumble over this vast terrain of self-serving scoundrels (Trump trumps anything they can make up), but the laughs keep firing.

Sloane is a nasty piece of work. Yet Chastain draws us in, making us see what the character keeps inside by the sheer force of her fireball performance. There are times when Miss Sloane plays like a pilot for a TV series. No knock on that. If Chastain stars, I'm in.

Leatherheads is most on its game when it's in the game, and in the zone of Clooney's no-bull affection for the faces of his actors.

As a thriller, The Recruit is merely an entertaining ride. But remember: Nothing is what it seems. It's the subtext -- two actors from different generations faking each other out with skill and affection -- that counts.

Following his surprisingly subtle work in "Sleeping With Other People," Sudeikis again shows real skills as an actor.

It's Fincher's deliciously depraved conceit that his perfectionist process is not unlike the killer's. In this director’s hands, and a mesmerizing title turn from Fassbinder, what could have been a compendium of hitman cliches becomes a tangle of loose ends hauntingly left untied.

You could call it an Aussie "Dreamgirls." I'd call it a blast of joy and music that struts right into your heart.

Foster keeps the party hopping, although more dark humor would have helped before she winds it down with sentiment and bromides.

This mesmerizing mind-bender ought to prove two things: (1) Robert Pattinson really can act; (2) Director David Cronenberg never runs from a challenge.

Molly's Game bristles with fun zingers, electric energy and Sorkin's brand of verbal fireworks – all of which help enormously when the movie falters in fleshing out its characters.

Bateman's dazzling deadpan can raise tired zingers to raucous life with only a throwaway eyebrow lift. And McAdams takes to comedy with a natural actor's grace and precision. Talk about fun company. They're it.

It also addresses questions of aging and neglect that Hollywood likes to run from. Langella, who's played everyone from Dracula to Nixon onscreen, is giving a master class in acting. Enroll now.

Because Allen hasn't lost his knack for slapstick with a sting, Anything Else hits its mark more often than not.

It's a winner. And not just for oenophiles. Director Randall Miller, who co-wrote the script with his wife Jody Savin, keeps the plot brimming with spirit and wit.

Potent if hardly evenhanded documentary.

The acid comedy of Grant's performance carries the film. It helps also that newcomer Hoult is that rare child actor who mercifully underplays the pathos of his role.

M. Night Shyamalan can be too fuzzy, earnest and full of himself. But this doomsday thriller starring a never-better Dave Bautista as a modern horseman of the apocalypse confirms that the Sixth Sense maestro knows how to fill the screen with tension and squeeze.

The reason that Boy Erased hits you like a shot in the heart can be found in Jared’s relationship with his parents. Kidman brings stirring compassion and a growing strength to a woman who learns about herself the more she learns about her son. And Crowe is magnificent as a believer who can’t quite storm the barricades his faith erects around a true reconciliation with his son.

Irresistibly silly.

It’s funny — as is a lot of this eager-to-please, all-over-the-place movie — thanks to the dry snap of Moran’s dialogue and Feldstein’s exhilarating performance.

Ignore the film’s foolish framing device and Halston emerges as a fascinating study of a fashion artist who allowed women to live an idealized vision of themselves.

A top cast, guided by actress Bonnie Hunt in her directing debut, mixes comedy and corn with savvy.