Richard Roeper

With Brooks’ close friend Rob Reiner serving as director and interviewer, the HBO documentary Albert Brooks: Defending My Life serves as a wonderful Greatest Hits retrospective of Brooks’ invaluable contributions to the entertainment world, as well as a brief but insightful look at Brooks’ upbringing, which provides some therapist couch-worthy insights into his motivations and his particular brand of comedy.

The world didn’t need yet another Cinderella story, but the one we got is one of the best versions ever put on film.

This is a bold and unique slice of storytelling that serves up some genuine scares and bone-chilling fright moments while pointing a finger at a culture that alternately glorifies, worships and sexualizes young women and revels in stereotyping them and tearing them down.

Before this movie, Lake Bell seemed to have a nice and comfortable career path ahead of her. She was an actress who always provided a spark, whether the vehicle was mundane or first-rate. Now, she’s a name that provokes keen anticipation. Can’t wait to see what Lake Bell the filmmaker does next.

BS High directors Travon Free and Martin Desmond Roe do a splendid job of alternating between present-day interviews with Johnson as well as a number of former Bishop Sycamore players, who will break your heart as they talk about the realization the dream Johnson was selling to them was almost all illusion.

We’ll leave it at that, with kudos to director Hobkinson for taking a no-frills approach to material that is wild enough as is, and praise for the investigators who painstakingly pieced together a truly fractured puzzle and eventually delivered justice.

Them That Follow is a harrowing and chilling deep dive into an isolated community in the Appalachian mountains.

Writer-director Lorene Scafaria takes a sitcom of a premise and imbues it with depth, intelligence and numerous sweet, melancholy moments that feel just … right.

The Bling Ring is a sly, often hilarious and at times sobering look at the 21st century fascination with celebrities.

Even though we’re trafficking in mostly melancholy territory about lost souls trying to regain their footing, it says something about the tender artistry of the filmmaking, and the beautiful work by the actors, that I’m actually keen to spend more time with these characters and see this story unfold from different perspectives.

I’m not entirely convinced the ending is the perfect landing to everything that transpired before, but Arrival is not a linear adventure of the mind, and it is a film probably best seen twice.

Coco is full of life, especially when we’re hanging out the with the dead.

With horrific wars raging in other parts of the world, and with politically charged violence part of the fabric of this country, “Civil War” will hit home no matter where you live.

Jason Bourne is the best action thriller of the year so far, with a half-dozen terrific chase sequences and fight scenes.

Rossi and Plaza make for a sizzling team; we believe every syllable of their dialogue, every development in their relationship. It’s almost criminal, how good these two are together.

The nice thing about Paper Towns is it’s as much about the friendship between Quentin, Radar and Ben as it is about Quentin’s love for Margo, and his quest to find her after she disappears yet again.

This is a quiet film, moving at its own pace, reflecting life with such realism it’s as if we’re invisible guests in Gloria Bell’s life. And yet there’s something thrilling about watching such a great actress hitting all the right notes every step of the way.

The Voices is a deeply warped, darkly funny and thoroughly depraved horror comedy... and whether you find this sort of thing walk-out-of-the-theater distasteful or wickedly subversive, I’m fairly confident we won’t see another movie like it for quite some time.

Writer-director Jonathan Jakubowicz’s Hands of Stone is a rousing, well-filmed and solid (if at times overly generous to Duran) biopic with a bounty of charismatic performances, two of the sexier scenes of the year, some welcome laughs and a few above average fight sequences.

The Drop is filled with many such small, near-perfect moments where there’s so much more going on beyond the simple exchanges of dialogue.

Gerety delivers a performance that is simply great.

Thanks to the first-class special effects, a star-packed cast, screenwriters who know just when to inject some self-aware comic relief without getting too jokey and director Bryan Singer’s skilled and sometimes electrifying visuals, X-Men: Days of Future Past is flat-out big-time, big summer movie fun.

The gifted writer-director Michael Glover Smith (“Mercury in Retrograde,” “Rendezvous in Chicago”) continues to grow as a filmmaker, as he expertly moves around the pieces on the chessboard over the course of a story told over three days and filled with potentially life-changing confrontations, revelations and realizations.

In less skilled hands, this could have come across as cynical and manipulative material, but Pollono is such a skilled wordsmith and the cast is so universally excellent, Small Engine Repair becomes a viewing experience you won’t easily shake off, not today and not for a long time.

This is a solid example of the Sobering Comedy, where we laugh consistently at the madness onscreen, all the while lamenting how it’s rooted in real-world reality.

The astonishing thing about Gilbert is the behind-the-curtain record it provides of the real Gilbert Gottfried.

Chappaquiddick does a remarkably economical job of encapsulating the madness of that week without overwhelming us with historical detail. The story moves from moment to moment, day to day, with clarity and great dramatic effect — and (rightfully) condemns Kennedy’s actions without turning him into a monster.

All Eyez On Me is enthralling, exhilarating and at times maddening.