Rex Reed

I’m neither Italian nor Catholic, but I was glued to this massive achievement with unwavering fascination, finding it thoroughly and emotionally captivating.

There’s so much to look at and think about that it is sometimes difficult to concentrate on the story, but a plot does emerge in the capable hands of Maïwenn, who keeps the facts straight while keeping one of the most shocking chapters in French history alive and kicking.

A triumph of sensitivity, humanity and good taste that manages to admirably transcend every tendency inherent to the usual label of “tearjerker.”

World War Z towers above every other alleged summer blockbuster. It’s the real deal.

Every complex member of the writer’s legacy has an agenda, with varying gains and losses, and the power of the film rests in the way it captures so many tangled lives as they cross and intersect at curious angles. The camera is literal, so the film sometimes fails to escape its roots of literary inspiration. This did not bother me. How many times do you get the chance to curl up with a good movie?

Painful for sure, but glorious too, Pain and Glory is Spanish wunderkind Pedro Almodóvar’s best and most moving film in years—a brave and wrenching self-portrait of an aging artist under the siege of age and the fear of death.

As scripted, documentary-style fact-based dramas go, it doesn’t get much better than this.

Even when it occasionally falters, it is polished, heartbreaking, and worthy of attention.

The surprising results are unlike anything I’ve seen lately, and the best surprise of all is a funny, inspired and career-enhancing star performance by Ben Stiller that left me touched, applauding and laughing out loud.

At a time when few movies display either a shred of originality or a fresh slant on an old genre, and so many are little more than cookie-cutter derivations of each other, it’s energizing to see something as keenly observed and uniquely competent as Emily the Criminal. It’s a tense and engaging thriller that looks and feels distinctively different.

This is a feel-good comedy bordering on farce, but [Squibb] makes every scene and every line so natural that when you laugh, you’re reacting to genuine humor, not calculatedly constructed punch lines.

Lee Hirsch is certainly one who is making a difference. I endorse him and his brave, powerful movie and urge you to see it for yourself. You might leave Bully with rage, but you will not leave Bully with indifference.

Do not see The Taste of Things on an empty stomach. It’s a French film about gourmet French cuisine, magnificently photographed and meticulously prepared for both the camera and the palate, and raised to the status of art as only the French can.

As Robin Williams’ final film, it tolls a wonderful bell for the legacy of a distinguished career.

Too bleak and wrenching to recommend unconditionally. You need a strong constitution to watch it soberly, but it is a gripping experience that left me weak in the knees.

There’s no way to avoid the resemblances of this film to one of Keaton’s biggest past successes, Mr. Mom, but it’s consistently more intelligent and original.

It’s too monstrous and mean-spirited to please everyone unconditionally, but I found it challenging and honest — and hair-raising enough to work as a modern morality tale in cowboy boots.

Don't miss this one. A brave and inspired antidote to time-wasting mainstream movies, it is unlike anything you've seen before or will likely ever see again. In short, it is unforgettable.

The heart of the film derives from the fact that the more they all get to know each other, the more they all mature and their differences blend. The title comes from a lesson in Huckleberry Finn—that a lie is good if it helps others, the way Huck lied to save Jim from the slave traders.

Several aspects of this sad, grim story remain a mystery, but I am pleased to report that for the most part, Chappaquiddick catalogues the facts and eschews the sensationalism. The result is a film of integrity and disclosure, a controversial chapter in American history that substitutes clinical accuracy for Hollywood embellishment, with an impressive attention to detail and an admirable respect for suspenseful narrative.

As a cautionary tale about America’s inevitable self-destruction, the relentless cynicism of its narrative is often preposterous, but as a visionary look at the horrors that lie ahead for a great country on the rocks—and what America has done to itself already—this is one of the most harrowing yet exhilarating science-fiction epics ever made.

A painful, heart-rending coming of age drama, L’immensità, which translates as “immensity,” is a sensitive, painful prize winner from the Venice Film Festival that mirrors the ethos and intensity of a tortured family’s experience in a time of change.

A fact-based film about the life-altering pain of failure, the thrill of belated success, and the challenges inherent in both, Dreamin’ Wild is a testament to a musical family who epitomize the old saying “No matter how long it takes, if you wait long enough, your dream will come true.”

It's a delectable slice of Southern Gothic humor, a side show of rednecks and Bubbas and Aunt Tooties.

This meticulously nuanced, sensitively acted film version of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by David Lindsay-Abaire gives Nicole Kidman her best role in years, and she chews it like raw steak.

The tender magnetism of Blythe Danner turns an intelligent, sensitive story of love among the not so young into a work of art.

Carefully directed and gorgeous to look at, with haunting performances and maximum suspense.

A joyous, well-researched and liberating film in the feel-good spirit of "Billy Elliot," "The Full Monty" and "Calendar Girls."