Rex Reed

A rewarding family film indeed, at a time when we badly need one.

Let it be said that Ms. Streep is galvanizing, even as the film slogs through too much information and not nearly enough illumination.

What saves the movie from tedium is a cast that is easy to watch, from understated veterans such as Belushi.

Dreary, depressing and desultory, A Most Wanted Man is not my cup of Schokolade mit Schlagsahne.

It’s one terrific, offbeat and heart-pounding thriller set in the frozen wilderness of a Wyoming Indian reservation that never ceases to surprise, enthrall and pump the adrenaline with an energy that stuns.

It might prove to be too insular to appeal to a wider movie audience, but to a passionate Anglophile like me, Queen and Country is a funny and nostalgic portrait of a bleak, rationed postwar England still digging its way out of the rubble.

Put a staggering accomplishment called The Impossible, from Spanish director J. A. Bayona, at the top of the season's must-see list.

They are two intelligent, sophisticated people searching for the spicy condiment they need to keep their relationship fresh during a bittersweet weekend in Paris, and, like the film that frames them, they are smart, substantial and enchanting.

A fresh and valiant attempt to breathe some fresh air into the #MeToo movement, Submission is stimulating and intelligently rendered until the final act, when predictability sets in.

Implausible dialogue, contrived activist themes and an overstuffed, hard-to-follow trajectory (even for a parable) muddy the waters of a swamp that needs draining.

It’s been years since either Meg Ryan or David Duchovny appeared in a feature film, but now that they’re back, co-starring in a two-hander called What Happens Later, it’s fairly obvious that neither has forgotten anything about charm or how to keep a mediocre movie alive. They’re still appealing. This film is not.

Another war biopic opening on Christmas day, with tight, two-fisted direction by Clint Eastwood, and a compelling centerpiece performance by Bradley Cooper.

The result is a film of great humanity that reveals Albania as a primitive region struggling to bridge the gap between medieval European customs and the tide of progress.

Although they are no longer together and are living their own separate personal lives, their story, fictionalized but still autobiographical, bonded them for life. Apparently, they are best friends whose dedicated collaboration was the only way they could tell this harrowing story. It's a brave effort any way you slice it.

Honey Boy is a dolorous example of an alarming trend in modern movies — the miraculous ability of an infinitesimal talent to raise money for an obnoxious, self-indulgent film about his own life designed to appeal to absolutely nobody except the arrogant subject himself. In this instance, the jerky centerpiece in love with himself to the detriment of everyone in the audience is Shia LaBeouf.

Rage is another formulaic re-tread that needs its brakes re-lined.