Rene Rodriguez

Nolan, who has become an assured, stylish filmmaker in the span of only a few films, keeps the complicated plot spinning.

A mature, insightful and extremely well-acted study of a boy at a crossroads in his life, and a doomed, tortured man who, consciously or not, longs for some kind of redemption, before it's too late.

Ratner is canny enough to close the movie with a devilish tease that will send the Lambs faithful out with a delirious smile. What Red Dragon won't do is haunt your nightmares. Who could have guessed Hannibal Lecter would ever become such a crack-up?

If I hadn't seen the original, I might have gone ga-ga over Reeves' version. But even with the shock of novelty gone, the film still draws you into its chilly, demonic heart.

The Wave builds up a nice bit of genuine tension and hits some surprisingly dark notes.

You may not remember The Crazies in a month, but you'll have a grand time watching it.

It's almost startling to see a film that believes in itself and its characters so deeply.

One of the chief pleasures of My Week with Marilyn - which should not be approached as anything other than fluffy entertainment - is watching Williams bring to life Monroe's inner demons and her movie-star allure with equal aplomb. By the time the film's book-ending closing musical number comes around (That Old Black Magic), the illusion is astounding and complete.

Swinton single-handedly carries The Deep End past its nagging ambiguities.

Precious without ever being cloying, All the Real Girls is a wise, delicate and immensely touching romance.

A high-wire act of storytelling, tone and old-fashioned chutzpah.

Jackson's dazzling vision turns the story into a real movie-movie -- one that, unlike too many fantasy films today, is genuinely transporting.

Although the movie never so much as flirts with melodrama, there is still a bittersweet undercurrent.

La Promesse (The Promise) makes filmmaking look easy. The movie is deceptively simple, a tight little drama about guilt and conscience in which the creators' strings are completely invisible. It's fine storytelling in its purest form. [31 Jan. 1997, p.27G]

This lively, infuriating and occasionally moving film certainly leaves you thinking, and there isn't a dead spot in it. That's the mark of a real filmmaker, not just a muckraker.

It is to director Tykwer's credit that, although you never come close to understanding Jean-Baptiste, you don't turn your nose up at him, either.

Don Jon is nominally a love triangle between a woman, a man and his laptop, but the movie is much more thoughtful and substantial than that, and it takes a compassionate and humane approach to all of its characters, even when they’re at their most despicable.

By turns endearing and hilarious, Lilo & Stitch is proof the folks at Disney should break their own rules more often.

The movie is wild, but not in the ways that you expect, and it’s also surprisingly chaste — you think you see a lot more than you actually do.

Shower is also a comedy -- but it's the movie's melancholy streak that is its strongest asset.

Shot in the style of a documentary, which lends the movie an aura of utter realism, Maria Full of Grace derives an unsettling power from the clinical details of Maria's ordeal.

For this last chapter, the filmmakers play things relatively straight, resulting in the best Shrek movie to date.

A crackling crime drama assembled from a scrap heap of hoary cliches, Takers proves that everything old can sometimes really be new again.

There is nothing in this surprisingly funny, exciting film that feels like homework, and Branagh even dares to end the film on, if not quite a cliffhanger, then a daring "To Be Continued" note.

In its last half-hour, A Bigger Splash becomes a specific kind of story, and it’s not as pleasurable or strange as what preceded it.

An uncommonly intense and frightening experience, The Conjuring is the first genuinely scary release in ages by a major studio that features practically no violence and spills only a bit of blood.

Focusing on the contestants who make the initial cut -- two men and two women -- the film can't resist wringing some American Idol-style suspense from speculation about who the eventual victor will be. But the movie also leaves no doubt as to who the real winners are.

Rush is the kind of Hollywood studio production that has sadly become all too rare — a smart, exciting, R-rated entertainment for grown-ups that quickens your pulse and puts on a great show without ever insulting your intelligence.

In The Shape of Things, love doesn't just hurt: It bites, and bites deep.

May not reinvent the wheel, but its expertly delivered thrills would hit the spot at any time of year.

It's the overriding spirit of the movie that forms its greatest appeal: Here's a movie that isn't intent on conquering the world but simply entertaining you for a breezy 90 minutes.

This is a quiet, powerful film about the lengths we'll go to for the sake of the people we love - and the depths we'll sink to for the sake of the ones we hate.

Bug has an uncompromising, anything-goes daring: Friedkin, 71, has nothing to lose at this point, and he has made this low-budget, brazenly over-the-top picture strictly on his own terms.

This is the sort of small, intimate movie that, if it had been made on a low budget by independent actors, would be celebrated to the skies.

Dark, grim and exciting entertainment.

A manic and at times surprising comedy that has more imagination and creativity than all the Transformers pictures combined.

The film isn't as concerned with terrifying you as it is with showing you a good time, culminating with an over-the-top climax that is simultaneously utterly ridiculous and enjoyable.

Elysium, the second movie from writer-director Neill Blomkamp, isn’t quite as inventive or fresh as his knockout debut, 2009’s "District 9." But the new picture is cut from the same cloth — furiously exciting sci-fi, carefully considered and loaded with allegories and social commentary.

For those with the patience to latch onto Van Sant's slow, methodical groove. It's worth trying.

More sour than sweet, but Steers knows that, even in a cruel, unsentimental world, there is room for forgiveness and hope. Just don't expect a hug.

Blue Caprice only spends a few minutes reenacting their crime — the movie shows us exactly how they did it in just a couple of scenes — because the facts of the case aren’t the movie’s focus. Instead, this lyrical, frightening film is a portrait of a man consumed by self-hatred who decided to take it out on the world.

So thoroughly absorbing while it's unfolding that later, when you play the movie back in your head, it's surprising to realize how ordinary it is. That's a testament to Nolan's talent: He's able to make even the hoariest clichés feel fresh.

The movie's utter lack of predictability helps to keep you engaged, even if some of the plot turns are a bit baffling, and the unusual depth and complexity of the characters -- the eponymous heroine in particular -- give the picture its unusual, scalding power. You've never met a mother quite like this one.

Corben has done an impressive amount of journalistic research that will be of particular interest to South Florida audiences. Every time you think Miami couldn't possibly get any weirder, it does.

May prove too dark to make the list of Schwarzenegger's biggest hits. But the movie suggests the actor still has a lot to offer -- and he's willing to take some chances, too. Welcome back, Arnold.

Grim, relentless and immensely satisfying, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 sends out the dystopian sci-fi franchise on a feel-bad high. Readers of Suzanne Collins’ source novel, who already know what’s coming, will be pleased by the movie’s merciless fidelity to the source material (or perhaps, considering the book is the least popular in the trilogy, will just be annoyed all over again).

Like "The King’s Speech" or "Shakespeare in Love," The Theory of Everything sometimes feels a bit too polished and precise, leaving no room for ambiguity and always staying easy to digest, like elegant pap.

Could there possibly be anything left to gain from yet another adaptation of Charles Dickens' tale about crabby old Ebenezer Scrooge and his life-changing encounter with three ghosts on Christmas Eve? In the case of Disney's A Christmas Carol, the answer is a surprising, resounding yes -- at least so far as the IMAX 3D version goes.

Light on plot but heavy on observation: Wang concentrates on exploring the unseen ways in which mother and daughter rely on each other.

This charmingly modest and entertaining film feels warmly human, and its virtues will remain in your memory days after you've seen it. [02 Sep 1994, p.G4]

The movie kicks off with a wonderful setpiece that shows off Spielberg’s ability to tell a story primarily through visuals — is there any other filmmaker working today better at this?

Frida, the kaleidoscopic drama based on the life of the Mexican painter/feminist/icon Frida Kahlo, was directed by Julie Taymor, which is the movie's first blessing.

Yes, Pineapple Express is exceedingly crude, but it's never mean or lewd, and for all the drugs and gore in it, the movie is also strangely, unrelentingly sweet, even when its characters are bleeding to death.

Everyone in the movie is a buffoon or a dolt. No one is redeemable. The humor comes at the expense of the characters: You're always laughing at them, never with them. The Coens have never seemed this disdainful, this mocking, of their fellow man.

The movie is filled with graphic sex scenes that leave nothing to the imagination — this film would make even John Waters blush — but there’s more at work here than shock value and sensationalism.

Chungking Express is really a sly and perceptive examination of the effects of urban alienation on romance -- specifically in its scarily dense and overdeveloped setting of dazzling Hong Kong. Chungking Express meanders at times and occasionally annoys (you won't want to listen to California Dreaming ever again), but the movie is all of one mood, and it leaves you craving more. [29 Mar 1996, p.21G]

Despite its serious subject matter, North Country is a crowd-pleaser at heart.

Succeeds where so many other recent horror pictures have failed: It consistently scares you silly.

The House I Live In is a work of journalism, not propaganda: Jarecki has done his research and leaves it to you to decide what to make of it.

The movie, which is as low-key and subdued as Tewfiq himself, is something of a marvel: a precious work of minimalism that, instead of disappearing into itself the way so many small-scale comedies do, grows before your eyes into something profound and profoundly affecting.

Using a buzzy, unnerving score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Citizenfour makes you share the same sense of shock and paranoia as Snowden spews damning information that implicates the White House in transgressions that extend beyond our borders into other countries.

Musical Chairs is about overcoming impossible odds and never giving up and chasing your dreams – all that afterschool-special stuff - but it's also charming and upbeat, and it's stuffed with great, vibrant, insanely catchy music. No Bee Gees, though.

Here is a crime drama that punches you in the gut, full on, and dares you not to blink.

A very complicated movie. It is also pretty wonderful.

One gigantic pile of cornball clichés, but there's no denying the movie works you over anyway.

This is more of an exercise in experiential cinema, as well as a blistering critique of a society that drives its poorest to unimaginable acts for mere survival.

There's nothing in Bounce you haven't seen before, but the movie is surprisingly unsentimental, the Paltrow factor cannot be denied.

Scorsese has crafted a luxurious entertainment that goes down like a flute of sparkling, silky champagne.

The strained, strange relationship between father and son ultimately becomes the emotional center of The Clan, culminating with an astonishing closing shot guaranteed to induce startled gasps. It’s a great, jarring moment that is the work of a filmmaker clearly in love with his craft — and a flavor for the darker side of human nature.

There's a terrible beauty to the work of Larry Clark, the controversial photographer turned filmmaker, that transcends chic nihilism.

Corbijn makes the familiar strange, focusing on details other filmmakers would gloss over.

Compared to manipulative tearjerkers like "Pay It Forward" or "Men of Honor," Billy Elliot is a model of restraint, one that earns its warmth the hard way -- by making us care about the people who are going through familiar steps.

This Is the End is a marvelously sustained, high-wire goof – a movie so nutty and daring, so crazy and out-there, that it feels like a low-budget independent except with big stars and a sizable budget.

Craven ("Scream," "Nightmare on Elm Street") is already a legend in horror film circles, but this is the first time he has tried his hand at a slick, relatively bloodless suspense-thriller, and the genre suits him.

The first of this summer's would-be blockbusters that deserves to be a hit.

Every time Riding Giants starts feeling a little too insidery for casual viewers, along comes another, even bigger wave, daring these puny mortals to conquer it.

Buoyed by a superlative soundtrack, ATL plays a familiar song about growing up, but hits notes that sound brand new.

There are no "Crying Game" switcharoos or "Sixth Sense" plot twists in store here. But knowing too much about Catfish beforehand ruins the experience.

The sci-fi thriller Repo Men gets off to a sluggish start. But wait. You have to give the movie time to find its groove and establish its premise.

The fact that Garland manages to cram in speculative ideas about the perils of a society that relies too heavily on technology is a bonus. In Ex Machina, love hurts, big time, for man and machine alike.

Unlike last year's "Coco Before Chanel," in which Audrey Tautou played a warmer, kinder spirit, Mouglais presents her character as steely and unbending, a woman who has built her empire on her terms and refuses to abdicate the slightest control on her life.

Unexpectedly funny, leisurely paced and oblivious to the demands of its genre, Inside Man has a loose, playful vibe that's at odds with its grave life-and-death scenario.

Baghead will disappoint gore hounds or anyone looking for an extreme horror experience -- this is more of a comedy-drama than anything else.

The casting is the key to the success of this absolutely hilarious crowd-pleaser.

Tangled packs old-fashioned Disney magic as endless as Rapunzel's locks.

A fascinating record of how the movie fell apart, piece by piece, with everything short of a natural disaster conspiring against the filmmaker.

Where Planet Terror is all hollow, self-conscious homage, Death Proof is the work of a director striving to make something original while remaining true to the movies that influenced him. It is also, once it gets going, terrific, sensational fun -- precisely the vibe Grindhouse aims for, but only sporadically attains.

This is a dark and shivery story about motherhood, a common subject for horror movies, but one that’s rarely treated with such intelligence or seriousness of intent.

If The Score isn't quite in the same league as the classic "Rififi" or even "Thief," its single-mindedness still makes for a refreshing change from the preposterous bloat of most contemporary action movies.

The Visitor is a small movie, but its emotions could not be writ any larger.

A perfectly cast Keanu Reeves pokes deadpan fun at himself in the role of Justin's New Age dentist, who hypnotizes the kid and encourages him to find his inner ''power animal.'' And Vince Vaughn, in a rare straight turn, is excellent as Justin's high school teacher.

Never becomes cloying, because although Agresti does not lose sight of the great sadness at the center of his tale, he resists the temptation to overplay its bigger moments.

What distinguishes The Orphanage are some spare but fiendishly well-placed shocks that give the film an extra sense of danger: You can't take comfort with this one assuming you know what lurks around each corner, because you don't. Trust me.

Tilda Swinton is the star of We Need to Talk About Kevin, and her performance is so complex and volcanic and transfixing that all of the film's flaws melt away.

Filled with conspiracies, intrigue and the suggestion that modern-day society is purposely designed to drive us a little nuts, The Manchurian Candidate is a paranoid fantasy for our time.

The performances are all terrific - Stillman gets his actors to latch onto his absurdist vibe, then gives them wonderfully rich dialogue to play with.

Point Blank is as disposable as a feature-length episode of TV's 24: The movie is all adrenaline and excitement, and it doesn't really stay with you. Just try to tear your eyes away while you're watching it, though.

Oliver Stone tried encapsulating Alexander's life into one movie, only to discover the task was impossible. Bodrov knows better, using Mongol -- the first of an intended trilogy -- to center on Genghis Khan's formative years.