Richard Roeper

Even if you’ve somehow never even heard of the story upon which this film is based, it’s a crackling good lawman tale.

A wildly entertaining, over-the-top, blood-soaked, noir-Western from director/co-writer Scott Wiper that’s filled with stunning visuals of the breathtaking and sometimes foreboding countryside (with Morehead, Kentucky, standing in for West Virginia) and searing performances from the ensemble cast.

Wiig manages to make Alice funny as hell, endearing, sad and sometimes a little frightening. There’s not an ounce of condescension or preciousness in the performance.

Tenet reaches for cinematic greatness and, though it doesn’t quite reach that lofty goal, it’s the kind of film that reminds us of the magic of the moviegoing experience.

This is a smart movie about complicated people in search of something approaching inner peace.

With the ensemble cast doing superb work, The Blackening is a horror comedy that packs a serious punch.

Clouds of Sils Maria is an expertly filmed insider’s look at the film business, the trappings of fame and the unstoppable, sometimes bone-chilling march of time. It’s complex and wickedly funny and dark, and it features the best ensemble acting of any film I’ve seen so far this year.

With God Forbid, Corben serves up a neon potpourri of slick visuals, quick cuts, clever re-creation techniques, needle drops such as “Jesus Piece” by The Game, the use of archival footage and sit-down interviews to tell the incredible but true story of one of the most stunning sex/religious/political scandals in of this century. (And let’s face it, that’s saying a lot.)

It was a feel-good story that turned horribly tragic.

Director Garret Price (“Woodstock 99"), who is clearly a fan of the music, nimbly weaves in current-time interviews with Christopher Cross, Kenny Loggins and various session greats and producers with archival footage.

For every sobering note, Becoming has a dozen uplifting moments.

Douglas Tirola’s Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead is a frenetic, rough-edged, unapologetic tribute to the Lampoon, featuring some amazing archival footage, nifty bits of animation and dozens of straightforward talking-head interviews that crackle and pop.

Suffice to say Tragedy Girls has great fun with myriad horror movie tropes.

It’s one of the most endearing romantic comedies in recent memory, with some laugh-out-loud dialogue, gorgeous photography and uniformly charming performances from the entire cast.

A well-paced, nicely directed, post-apocalyptic love story with a terrific sense of humor and the, um, guts to be unabashedly romantic and unapologetically optimistic.

[A] comprehensive and expertly rendered documentary.

[An] uplifting and inspirational and just plain cool documentary.

Logan Lucky is great fun and one of the most purely entertaining movies of the year.

This is a tense, nerve-wracking thriller of the mind, with first-rate performances by Bateman, Hall and Edgerton — a tightly spun thriller with a wicked sense of humor and a wonderfully warped take on long-range karma.

This is a wall-to-wall smile of a movie: big of heart and large in scale, lavishly staged, beautifully photographed and brimming with show-stopping musical numbers.

There’s no trace of Hollywood glamour or gloss to the story, no hint of actor-y flourishes in the deeply resonant performances. Just a lean, finely crafted, memorably real story announcing the presence of a major new filmmaking talent — and a young actor with the promise of limitless potential.

While this period-piece, existential fantasy adventure doesn’t rank with the absolute finest entries in Miyazaki’s iconic canon, it’s still one of the most inventive and creative films, animated or otherwise, of the year.

The courtroom scenes are unapologetically over-the-top and sometimes excruciatingly exact in the details of the murder, but you won’t soon forget Franco’s expertly nuanced performance. It’s as good as any work I’ve seen in a film in 2015, and True Story is one of the better movies to come along this year.

Writer-director Martin does a stellar job of balancing sketch-comedy style laughs with genuinely touching moments.

Toni Morrison is an absolutely beautiful wordsmith and a beautiful force on multiple fronts, and if this documentary is an unabashed love letter to her life and work, I say: Why. Not.

“Between Two Ferns” is filled with hilarious alternate-universe moments.

Just when we thought Keanu Reeves was destined for a career of mostly forgettable films piling up in our straight-to-video cues, the guy is headlining a bona fide, first-class action franchise. Whoa.

In this haunting, darkly funny and elegiac mood piece, Cranston once again displays a nearly unparalleled ability to make us like and care about men who are selfish and impetuous and reckless — yet still seem to have a core of decency buried deep within.