Rene Rodriguez

The infectious dark comedy Wild Tales (Relatos salvajes) argues that payback is more satisfying when it’s doled out in fiery, bloody and outrageous doses.

A marketable counterpoint to last year’s "Boyhood."

With a script co-written by Penn himself and based on a well-regarded novel by the late French crime writer Jean-Patrick Manchette, this one has to have some meat to go along with the gunplay, right? Sadly, no.

Despite the lack of substance, Run All Night is far better than those clunky "Taken" movies with their timid PG-13 ratings. If you’re gonna cut Neeson loose against the mob, a bloody R is the way to go.

Maps to the Stars is haunted by ghosts, the way the film industry is haunted by its past, and Cronenberg gradually tapers down the dark humor and starts to amp up the ugliness of these blank, superficial lives.

Not all of the characters in the movie get just and fair send-offs, but Virzi’s stylish picture argues that’s the price we pay when a capitalist society trains us to place our own selfish interests above everything else. It’s a rat race that ultimately has no winners.

The movie is a furious, in-your-face whirlwind of emotions, but it’s never tiresome or bellicose, and its raucous, messy energy is invigorating.

Sadly, Jupiter Ascending turns out to be the exact opposite: the worst movie the Wachowskis have ever made.

It’s a cry of despair and soul-shaking desperation, leavened with shades of Dostoyevskyan angst.

Abel is a man with ideals in a world that has no use for them: If he’s going to succeed, he’s going to have to use his wits instead of bullets, and although the odds against him are formidable, watching his struggle is riveting entertainment.

With Moore’s formidable, Oscar-bound performance, the picture transcends the usual cliches of the genre to become something far more moving and profound.

Cotillard, who earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance, plays the character as a woman hanging on by the barest of threads.

The film is so gleefully ridiculous that you start to suspect the filmmakers were in on the joke and forgot to tell the actors.

Expertly shot and choreographed in Eastwood’s clean, unfussy style, the Iraq sequences are taut, harrowing and at times excruciatingly suspenseful, particularly a setpiece in which Kyle faces off against his Iraqi counterpart, a superb sniper who has made it his mission to take down the American sharpshooter.

Instead of a history lesson, Selma plays like suspenseful, absorbing drama.

The Imitation Game is vibrant and lively, engaging you on three levels: The fascinating way the Nazis managed to outwit the rest of the world until Turing came along, how his giant contraption (essentially the world’s first computer) will work, and what will happen to him and everyone he knows when the truth about him is finally revealed.

The new version uses addiction as a vehicle to tackle larger themes, eloquently explored by Monahan’s dialogue, which sings in a way uncommon to tough-guy crime-dramas.

Foxcatcher is too cold of a movie to love, but that chilliness is intentional and transfixing, a parable about the darkest corners of the minds of men that dares to whisper instead of shout.

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.

OK, Mr. Jackson, you proved your point by landing the finish. Now please, no more Middle-earth, ever.

The first half of the movie, which alternates between hilariously vulgar, gross gags and some electric improvs and riffs by Rock and his cast of all-stars, has the crackle and pop of a live performance — it energizes you.

In Exodus: Gods and Kings, Scott settles for sticking (mostly) to the Book, skipping the boring parts in order to dish out the razzle-dazzle. This is spectacular entertainment, practically a theme park ride, that could have used more spirituality and soul.

The Homesman, director Tommy Lee Jones’ drama about the hardships of pioneer life in 1850s Nebraska, goes from deathly dull to shocking to intriguing to “Look, there’s Meryl Streep in a bonnet!”

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.

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.

Dark, grim and exciting entertainment.

With a film this funny, exciting and visually stimulating, who cares if you know exactly what's going to happen next, and when.

This is Nolan’s unabashed tribute to "2001: A Space Odyssey," the first movie he ever saw at the age of 8 and the one that made him decide to be a filmmaker (there are homages to that earlier film everywhere).