Peter Travers

A movie of prodigious power and feeling that is also high-spirited, hilarious and scorchingly erotic.

Detractors will see the usual parade of repressed feelings in a Masterpiece Theatre setting. Those who look closer will find one of the best films of the year.

Launches the fall season with a crashing thud.

This documentary succeeds triumphantly on so many levels that its full impact doesn't hit you until you have time to register its aftershocks.

Room deserves to be seen unspoiled. All you need to know is that the performances of Larson and Tremblay will blow you away.

Prepare to be wowed by one of the best movies of the year, starring a sensational Sandra Hüller (heads up, Oscar) in Justine Triet’s spellbinding murder mystery that is really a forensic anatomy of a marriage told through the gripping story of a wife on trial for killing her husband.

Just try to take your eyes off Dern. In his finest two hours onscreen, he gives a performance worth cheering. There's not an ounce of bullshit in it. Same goes for the movie.

It's a role of fierce demands, and Rampling meets them all. In a summer of crass, Rampling is a true class act.

This new animation classic, the first in a two-part sequel, is out to make history. Consider it done. In a word—wow! You’ve never seen anything like it in your life.

Jackson’s visionary triumph, heightened by the blazing performances of Lynskey and Winslet and by Alun Bollinger’s whirling camera, is in capturing the delirium as the girls whip themselves into an erotic frenzy with Mario Lanza records, semi-naked dances in the woods and revenge fantasies.

The knockout punch comes from Eastwood. His stripped-down performance -- as powerful as anything he's ever done -- has a rugged, haunting beauty. The same goes for the movie.

Kent will have you climbing the walls simply by plumbing the violence of the mind. Brace yourself.

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.

The actors are to die for. Bening and Moore nail every nuance of a relationship going adrift. And Ruffalo is dynamite as a man keeping himself at a distance. Kids makes its own special magic. It's irresistible

Lynch takes us on a journey of shattering understatement -- a remarkable accomplishment.

An uncommonly good movie - a thriller that transcends thrills to become a heartfelt and heart-stopping personal drama.

Forget the biopic imitations, the found concert footage in this music doc soars with 100 essential minutes of The King back on his throne and thrillingly alive on stage and off. I’d call that a must-see.

Duvall is a blazing wonder in a film that ranks with the year's best.

To Die For, sparked by a volcanically sexy and richly comic performance by Kidman that deserves to make her an Oscar favorite, is prime social satire and outrageous fun.

A dynamite film that ranks with the year's best.

Jane Schoenbrun's off-handedly revolutionary mindbender about two teens bonding over a sci-fi TV series isn't always easy to get your head and heart around. But hold on for its incendiary daring, its willingness to go for broke. Schoenbrun is a trans game-changer. They make us believe.

What would make a 30-ish woman have sex with a 12-year-old boy? Expect director Todd Haynes to throw you thrillingly off balance with peak acting from Julianne Moore and Charles Melton as the lovers and Natalie Portman as the actress eager to go Hollywood with their squirmy moral tale.

Writer-director Michael Patrick King, the creative force behind the show's later seasons, can't disguise the fact that the movie is basically five TV episodes strung together (only three hit the mark). But his script is more honest about aging than anything in "Indy 4."

Thank Maggie Gyllenhaal, in a stunning debut as director and screenwriter, for creating one of the year’s very best movies starring the magnificent Olivia Colman as a mother haunted by her troubled past. This, you do not want to miss

Nanjiani and his wife/co-screenwriter Emily V. Gordon carved this romantic comedy out of her personal hospital experience and their own culture-clash relationship. Their hilarious and heartfelt script has a rare authenticity that pulls you in and keeps you glued to the screen.

Just so we're straight, Ben Affleck doesn't merely direct Argo, he directs the hell out of it, nailing the quickening pace, the wayward humor, the nerve-frying suspense.

Writer-director Olivier Assayas crafts a near perfect blend of humor and heartbreak, a lyrical masterwork that measures loss in terms practical and evanescent.

The actors are outstanding, illuminating four different views of loneliness. But it's Camara's tour-de-force performance that anchors the film, that shocks and unnerves us.