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.

Hostiles is not for the faint of heart, but it winds up being about having a heart in a world that seems almost without hope.

Stolakis skillfully interweaves present-day interviews with archival footage of these prominent figures in the movement — all of whom have renounced their roles and are now living as out gays or bisexuals.

Director Garret Price was right. This is no period-piece dark comedy. On many levels, it’s a horror film.

Though the subject matter is intense and shocking, the intuitively sensitive and subtle Polley teams with a brilliant ensemble cast to tell the story with grace and empathy and even some much-needed doses of earned humor. It’s a film you won’t soon forget.

This is one terrifically twisted parental play date.

This is one of the most moving films of 2016. Every 20 minutes or so, it grabs you and puts a lump in your throat.

For every moment of inspiration and hope in the teen-political documentary Boys State, when you find yourself thinking, By gosh, the kids are all right, there are at least two jaw-dropping instances of 16- and 17-year-olds compromising their values with such cynicism you weep for our future.

While the overall tone of Moana is uplifting, the story makes room for some pretty deep insights.

With explorations of themes ranging from identity to forgiveness to corruption and fear and self-love, “Emelia Pérez” is one of the most creative and striking films of the year.

Labor Day is an admittedly strange hybrid. Rarely have I seen such outrageous plot points executed with such lovely grace.

With First Reformed, Schrader delivers his most impactful work in years, with Ethan Hawke’s haunting and brilliant work as Ernst Toller joining the ranks of great lead performances in Schrader films. This is an inescapably memorable and at times almost unbearably sorrowful piece of work.

Working with an economical running time of 100 minutes and a relatively modest budget, Hart infuses Fast Color with genuinely moving drama, an engrossing, supernatural-sci-fi mystery and some pretty darn impressive special effects.

It’s a tribute to the amazing and fantastically perplexing and singularly mind-blowing Hulu film “In & of Itself” that even though a few of the feats performed by magician/actor/storyteller/performance artist Derek DelGaudio in his one man-show could be explained away by the use of special effects (which DelGaudio does NOT employ, as far as we can tell), most of it just seems ... Magical.

This is one of the most shocking and one of the best movies of the year.

Her works as a real romance, and as a commentary on the ways technology connects everyone to the world but also isolates us from legitimate, warm human contact.

With a combination of bone-dry wit and blood-drenched horror, writer-director Dan Gilroy’s Velvet Buzzsaw skewers some of the most pretentious denizens of the art world you’d ever want NOT to meet — and does so with precision and flair and pitch-black humor.

This brutal, bloody, dark and at times gruesomely funny thriller isn’t some David Fincher-esque mood piece where all the clues come together at the end. It’s more like a modern-day, Georgia version of a spaghetti Western.

Even though “The Idea of You” adheres to many of the time-tested elements of the Rom-Com Playbook, the premise is a bit tricky and could have turned cringey in the wrong hands. Instead, the potential “ick” factor is played for just the right combination of cringe humor and legit insights about how even in 2024, we tend to be more shocked and judgmental about age-gap romances when it’s the woman who is older.

It’s impressive how well director Malcolm D. Lee (working from a script by Kenya Barris and Tracy Oliver) balances the serious material with the bawdy, freewheeling comedy pieces.

This is one of the better musical biopics of the last 20 years.

This is a Noah for the 21st century, one of the most dazzling and unforgettable biblical epics ever put on film.

Thanks to Downey’s genius, Iron Man 3 is equally terrific, whether Tony’s fending off an army of villains or bantering with a kid in a shed on a cold, snowy night.

It’s one of the most visually striking and leanest versions of “the Scottish play” ever put on film, with blockbuster performances from Oscar winners Frances McDormand and Denzel Washington as Lady and Lord Macbeth, and a brilliant supporting cast.

The real star of the film is writer-director Jordan Peele, who has created a work that addresses the myriad levels of racism, pays homage to some great horror films, carves out its own creative path, has a distinctive visual style — and is flat-out funny as well.

It’s the kind of film that grabs you from the opening sequences and holds you in its grimy grip all the way through the closing credits, when the s- - - is still hitting the fan.

Filmmakers Cristina Constantini and Kareem Tabsch have fashioned an illuminating and insightful documentary/biography.

This is a dark and brutal cautionary tale that traffics in any number of familiar scary-movie touchstones, but does so in consistently clever and entertaining fashion.

Against all odds, the billion-dollar “Fast & Furious” franchise is actually picking up momentum, with “FF6” clocking in as the fastest, funniest and most outlandish chapter yet.

Like that damn disembodied hand, Talk to Me will keep you in its grips throughout.

Skate or Die is culled from more than 100 hours of footage shot by Ferguson in the late 2000s and early 2010s, and with a great assist from editor Zebediah Smith, the end result is an 84-minute, journalistically impressive documentary that knows how to get out of its own way and let the story and the subject matter come to three-dimensional life in a stylistically appropriate fast-paced fashion.

Dying Laughing is a movie about stand-up with no performance footage. It’s like a documentary about baseball with no game footage — but it’s great and it’s valuable and it’s wonderful, because we love seeing and hearing these all-time greats talk about what they do with such passion and candor.

The dialogue is peppered with funny one-liners that occasionally sound a little too spot-on (we can almost see the dialogue leaping off the page), but Helms and Harrison have slipped so seamlessly into their characters and are so good at making every line reading seem real and spontaneous, we stay involved.

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.

Working from Justin Lader’s smart script, Moss and Duplass expertly portray a very typical couple going through a rocky time — and they’re just as effective when the weirdness kicks in during their getaway weekend.

To Be Takei is a celebration of a man of great resilience, infectious humor, a voracious appetite for the richness of the human experience, and the best laugh in the history of laughing.

With clever and assured direction filled with striking visuals by the Dutch actor-writer-filmmaker Halina Reijn (adapting Sarah DeLappe’s screenplay, which is based on a story by Kristen Roupenian) and a cast of talented and great-looking young actors throwing themselves into the wonderfully twisted material, “Bodies Bodies Bodies” plays like a slasher-film update of “And Then There Were None,” with a dash of the classic “Twilight Episode” episode titled “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” sprinkled in.

Firth is brilliant. He’s playing a veteran super spy in a very violent but very silly movie, but even when Harry is explaining why there’s a dead stuffed dog in his bathroom, Firth gives a disciplined, serious performance.

Liev Schreiber is outstanding as the hulking, rough-edged, amiable and charismatic Wepner.

With crisp and assured direction from Byron Howard and Jared Bush (with lead screenwriter Charise Castro Smith co-directing), a bounty of catchy new songs by the ubiquitous treasure that is one Lin-Manuel Miranda and fantastic voice work from the ensemble cast, Encanto is a magical and warmhearted journey with lovely messaging about the importance of family, some genuinely funny set pieces and those stunning visuals that fill every corner of the screen.

In the middle of all the wince-inducing, limb-bending, bone-crunching, face-exploding bloodshed, Vaughn turns in a legitimately great performance that ranks among the finest work he’s ever done.

In the alternately exhilarating and heartbreaking documentary Whitney, the Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald (“Touching the Void,” “The Last King of Scotland”) does a magnificent job of taking us through the paces of Houston’s life and times.

This is one of the most entertaining movies of the year.

For all its influences and roots in similar types of comedies, Emergency is an original work, very much of its time.

Nothing about The Last Duel is subtle. Just about everything about The Last Duel is brutally effective.

The Darkest Hour is filled with authentic touches, large and small. Most authentic of all is Oldman’s performance.

Marjorie Prime sounds like the title of a British miniseries, but is in fact one of the strangest, most disturbing and most thought-provoking films of 2017.

The Craft: Legacy is a smart, edgy, wickedly funny and wild ride from the talented writer-director Zoe Lister-Jones.

Of course, the aging-hit-man theme is hardly original, and at times Asher feels almost TOO familiar — but thanks to the great performances by Perlman and the supporting cast; a knowing and literate script by Jay Zaretsky, and the slick direction of Michael Caton-Jones, this is a sparkling black diamond of film noir.

It’s a period piece with a wink. It’s also funny as hell and a true big-screen treat.

It’s a shame this real crowd-pleaser won’t be playing to crowds, but it still works as a Friday night, pop-the-popcorn, living room entertainment.

While the musical numbers don’t match the impact of the originals and there’s a bit of a lull in the second act where not all that much seems to be happening, The Lion King is on balance a solid and at times stunningly beautiful film.

Gere’s work in “Norman” is to be treasured. It’s one of the best performances in any movie this year.

Joaquin Phoenix has never been shy about going big if the role called for it — and maybe even if the role didn’t necessarily call for it — but his performance here ranks as one of his best because of what happens between the outbursts.

The Lovers gets a tad too theatrical in the last act, and the deeply cynical resolution might not sit well with everyone. (I thought it was just about perfect.)

Virtually every frame of this film is strikingly effective.

Deliberately ambiguous, The Reluctant Fundamentalist provides just enough answers while leaving us with more than enough questions. It's a film that demands discussion afterward.

Elton John deserves a movie operating on a much grander scale than a standard, paint-by-numbers showbiz biopic, and Rocketman is a suitably snazzy vehicle.

In Gabe Polsky’s Red Army, the Iron Curtain surrounding the Soviet dynasty is pulled back to reveal an immensely effective but dehumanizing machine in which hockey served as an important propaganda tool, resulting in some of the most impressive teams ever to take the ice.

Some movies swing for the fences — and either strike out in big-budget, spectacular fashion, or hit a home run. Others, such as the smart, lovely, funny, occasionally edgy, slightly cynical and ultimately heart-tugging Other People, are the equivalent of the singles hitter in baseball — content to accumulate one small and legitimate successful moment after another.

Directed with claustrophobic, docudrama-style intensity by Derrick Borte (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Daniel Forte) and featuring a career-best dramatic performance by Gaffigan, American Dreamer is a dark and intense and sometimes brutally violent slice of rotted life.

Huge, important things happen to characters secondary and primary. Surprises big and small abound. As is the case with all of the “Star Wars” films, where there is evil there is heroism, and where there is bravery there is sacrifice — and sometimes where there is love, there is heartbreak.

This is a quietly gripping gem.

As eccentric as his subjects are, Burton plays things relatively straightforward. This is one of the most mainstream movies he’s ever done. It’s also one of the more entertaining movies of the year.

A rich, smart, funny, sometimes acidic portrayal of a couple who can be spectacular when they’re in tune — and toxic when they’re at each other’s throats.

It’s a memorably stark and authentic work that is at times so gut-wrenching it’s almost unbearable — but Park deftly weaves in moments of warmth and humor and hope as well. This is a special film.

Thanks in large part to the winning chemistry between Ali and Mortensen, and a pretty darn inspirational true-life story as its foundation, this was one of the best times I’ve had at the movies this year.

Madness abounds in The Accountant, an intense, intricate, darkly amusing and action-infused thriller that doesn’t always add up but who cares, it’s BIG FUN.

The mission of Eating Animals isn’t to get you to swear off meat (though I’m sure the filmmaker and the narrator would applaud that). It’s to raise your consciousness about the good, the bad and the ugly of animal agriculture.

Gaffigan’s a regular guy holding up a mirror to our everyday world, and turning those reflections into laughs and bigger laughs — and sometimes best of all, smiles of recognition.

As you’d expect, Ridley Scott’s sweeping, decades-spanning and magnificently filmed epic Napoleon is a stylized and violent interpretation of the life and times of one of the most famous and infamous military commanders and political leaders history has ever known — but it’s also a surprisingly funny indictment of a sniveling brute of a man who is utterly unaware of his shortcomings, so to speak.

The Stanford Prison Experiment is the kind of movie that raises as many questions as it answers. It’s also the kind of film where you want to budget some time for discussion afterward. You won’t be able to shake this one off easily.

Thanks to the stylish direction by Paul Feig, a whip-smart screenplay by Jessica Sharzer (adapting Darcey Bells’ novel) and performances that pop from the screen, A Simple Favor is a sharp-edged delight.

Writer-director Tom Tykwer is clearly a fan of the source material, and he has done an admirable job of taking a melancholy, beautifully rendered piece of prose and catapulting it to visual life.

This is no history lesson, but it’s mainstream Hollywood entertainment that respects the history and seems to invite discussion and debate.

Red Rocket is the latest blazingly original gem from director/co-writer Sean Baker, who in films such as Tangerine and The Florida Project has displayed an uncanny ability to carve out offbeat slices of life in the American subculture.

We’re gifted with the powerful and comprehensive documentary, Punch 9 for Harold Washington, which serves as an invaluable reminder of that time in Chicago and American history for those of us who were around in the early 1980s, and a must-see piece of living history for younger generations.

Almodovar’s stylized and meta slice of self-representation is as visually stunning as it is emotionally effective.

As can be said of most Apple products, it’s a wonder to behold — despite a few irritating glitches.

A meticulously crafted, sparse but beautifully photographed full-length feature film with strong work from a reliable veteran and a breakout performance from an actor you might not have heard of before.

The Gentlemen never ceases to surprise and amuse.

A Quiet Place Part II might not carry quite the same original wallop as the original (how could it?), but this is a meticulously crafted, spine-tingling, fantastically choreographed monster movie that expands the canvas, works as a stand-alone story and leaves us wanting more from this franchise.

“Rental Family” is unabashedly sentimental, almost Frank Capra-esque at times. It’s also a thoughtful and insightful presentation of this unique and admittedly strange business of renting humans to help other humans. And it’s a knowing character study of a gaijin in Japan who knows he could live there forever and never fully grasp and understand the culture, but will never stop trying.

The cast is outstanding, with Mikkelsen leading the way in a nomination-level performance as Martin. Another Round is filled with memorable sequences.

Co-directors Joe and Anthony Russo and the team of screenwriters have fashioned a story with just the right balance of superhero fun, nods to the greater Marvel Universe and genuine dramatic tension.

A candy-colored fever dream is the most unforgettable movie of the year so far.

This is one of the better intimate dramas of the year.

Robbie turns in a much richer and funnier and layered performance as Harley this time around, thanks in large part to the stiletto-sharp screenplay by Christina Hodson.

Even though it feels as if we’ve seen this movie before, Run All Night is a stylish and kinetic thriller, with Neeson at his gritty, world-weary best, some of the coolest camera moves in recent memory and a Hall of Fame villain in the great Ed Harris.

This is every inch the prestige Brit biopic, from the use of certain visuals as transitions to the lush and rousing music by Oscar-winning composer Volker Bertelmann aka Hauschka (“All Quiet on the Western Front”) to the sometimes heavy-handed messaging in the dialogue, but the story of the man who came to be known as “The British Oskar Schindler” is deserving of the reverent biography treatment, and who better than Anthony Hopkins to tell us that story?

Linoleum winds its way to an ending that will take some by storm, while others might have figured it out halfway through. Either way, it feels authentic, and earned, and it might just take your breath away.

Brie’s performance is open and honest and disturbing and funny and lovely and resonant. The work is so good and so convincing that even when Sarah is spouting the craziest of her mad theories, there’s a small part of us that wonders if Sarah’s truth is the real truth. We certainly believe SHE believes.

Making great use of 21st century technology, this latest version is the most visually sweeping and impressive version yet, and it comes close to matching the original for its visceral, gut-punch effect.

Thanks to a stylish directorial turn by Jodie Foster and the shining star power of George Clooney and Julia Roberts (as well as a first-rate supporting cast), Money Monster rises above an uneven script that veers from clever and insightful to heavy-handed and obvious — sometimes within the same scene.

It’s certainly one of the most romantic and one of the most breathtakingly beautiful movies of the year.

Dev Patel comes out swinging in the monumentally entertaining and bare-knuckled revenge flick “Monkey Man,” serving up a series of extended and elaborate fight sequences so bruising and hyper-violent they make the action in the “Road House” reboot seem like a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors.

Even with the stretched-out running time, Prisoners is one of the most intense moviegoing experiences of the year. You’ll never forget it.

Thank the cinematic and music gods it was never destroyed or lost, as Summer of Soul is an absolute found treasure of golden onstage moments, interspersed with interviews from participants such as Gladys Knight as well as attendees and cultural commentators, along with celebrity artists such as Chris Rock and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

If six people walked into a screening of the Coen brothers’ Western anthology The Ballad of Buster Scruggs at six different times, they too would come away with vastly contrasting impressions.

For the most part, thanks in great part to Benson’s rich screenplay and Chastain’s nomination-worthy work, I was immersed in this story no matter who was telling the tale.

A first-rate post-World War I drama with a heavy dose of sentiment and a gripping storyline.

With Smollett, Howery and Merkerson infusing life and depth into the adult characters, and the young actors Blake Cameron James and Gian Knight Ramirez turning in natural and affecting work, “We Grown Now” will resonate with you for a very long time.

If you’re looking for a smart, insightful, slightly cynical yet warmhearted and consistently smile-inducing slice of life reminiscent of the best character-driven films of the 1970s, punch your ticket right here.

Lion is a beautifully told, uplifting story of courage and determination.

With the chilling, creepy, bold and sometimes bat-bleep absurd Split, the 46-year-old Shyamalan serves notice he’s still got some nifty plot tricks up his sleeve and he hasn’t lost his masterful touch as a director.

Companion is darkly funny and has some great jump scares, but it’s also a meditation on how some men have a default switch that makes it far too easy for them to be manipulative and abusive.

The Rewrite is hardly shattering new ground, but the familiar path is strewn with a steady stream of smile-inducing moments, two terrific performances from the leads and a first-rate supporting cast.

Captain America: Civil War is a classic example of what the big-ticket summer movie experience is all about.

For all its sobering reporting and imagery, Fin also has moments of pure beauty, as when Roth literally swims among sharks, who greet him with mild curiosity and a benign approach. Despite the handful of stories every year about a shark attacking a human, we know the truth: We’re the predators, and they’re the prey.

Writer-director Nichols does a skillful job of paying homage to the glamour and bad-boy appeal of motorcycles and motorcycle movies, but also illustrating that while these guys are the stuff of feature films, in real life you’d most likely grow tired of their company after yet another day of drinking and petty crime.

For a time this movie will probably be best known for the behind-the-scenes drama. But the work itself deserves to endure as one of the better films of 2017.

Kate Mara delivers one of the best performances of her career in the title role.

In this world, it seems as if every moment of happiness, every glimpse of a better future, is fraught with dangerous consequences.... But redemption and hope eventually shine through here and there, and when that happens, it’s a beautiful thing.

The Front Runner doesn’t hit us over the head with parallels to today’s political and media world. It doesn’t have to.

Ford v. Ferrari expertly captures the essence of mid-20th century racing, and the spirit of the men who went to battle in Le Mans.

You need to be strapped in and focused for director and co-writer Charlie McDowell’s ambitious, unnerving, slightly loopy and beautifully ambivalent gem, which only tackles the question: How would people react if there was absolute proof of an afterlife?

The Wife is visually arresting, but Runge wisely opts for a straightforward approach overall, giving center stage to the dialogue and the actors.

Thanks to the creative efforts of director Gerwig (who co-wrote the screenplay with her partner Noah Baumbach), the absolutely pitch-perfect casting starting with the gorgeous and talented humans Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken, and a candy-colored, screen-popping production design that transports us to Barbieland and beyond, this is a truly original work — one of the smartest, funniest, sweetest, most insightful and just plain flat-out entertaining movies of the year.

Frame by frame, ’71 is one of those intense war thrillers where you know it’s fiction, you know it’s not a documentary, and yet every performance and every conflict feels true to the history and the events of the time.

Writer-director-editor Kristoffer Borgli’s Dream Scenario has one of the most ingenious setups of any movie of the 2020s and, even more remarkably, delivers on that premise for at least three-quarters of the story, before it falls just short of greatness in a final sequence of events that feels just slightly, slightly underwhelming.

In Erica Tremblay’s lean and quietly powerful “Fancy Dance,” a 13-year-old girl named Roki can scarcely contain her excitement about an upcoming dance, but the circumstances in this story couldn’t be more different than those old-school high school fairy tales.

To be sure, this is a special moment for movies, seeing as how this is a mainstream, theatrical release, R-rated gay rom-com featuring a cast of LGBTQ actors, and of course we should salute that — but for all its forward-thinking casting, cutting-edge references, sexual frankness and cultural awareness, “Bros” should also be celebrated for creating an instant near-classic of the genre, filled with so many of the touchstones we’ve come to expect from romantic comedies and featuring crisp writing and a host of richly layered performances from actors who can handle quick comedy as well as legit drama.

Director and co-writer Rhyan LaMarr’s made-in-Chicago indie film Canal Street is a work of fiction, but it contains so many essential truths, so many recognizable situations and characters, so many (sadly) familiar moments of heartache, it rings as true as a documentary.

Risk is filled with dramatic scenes straight out of a spy thriller.

Although there are moments when the characters in Dear White People sound as if they’re reciting different sections of a thesis, overall Simien’s screenplay is tight, funny, smart and insightful, and his direction has just enough indie feel without becoming too self-conscious or preachy.

This is one of the most painfully realistic depictions of dementia in recent film history, and yes, that means The Father can be a tough viewing experience at times — but how can one be anything but grateful for the chance to see one of the world’s greatest actors doing such enormously moving work past his 80th birthday?

This is a film in which characters make questionable and sometimes troubling choices right up until the final scene, and yet we understand why they do the things they do, and we root fiercely for things to work between them.

Foxcatcher is a disturbing and memorable film.

It’s exciting to revisit the battles, starting with a blowout of a tough Greece team, a victory over the talented Argentina squad, and the epic final battle against Spain.

If you told me Bird Box was based on a Stephen King story — yep, I could see that. It’s that chilling. That suspenseful. And oh yes, that scary.

With Samy Burch’s razor-sharp script providing some fantastically flourishing dialogue passages, frequent Haynes collaborator Julianne Moore delivering the latest in a long line of magnificently calibrated and memorable performances, and Moore’s fellow Oscar winner Natalie Portman turning in equally layered work, this is an intricately crafted study of people who are experts at putting on facades and all too skilled in the art of deception.

“Fallout” just might be the best of the franchise, and what a rare thing that is for a long-running series.

The One and Only Dick Gregory is a comprehensive biography of a mercurial, brilliant and wildly funny artist-activist.

Typical Spielberg. Pulling on multiple heartstrings at the same time, to great effect.

It’s a sharply honed, darkly funny, ultra-violent and wildly entertaining late 1960s period piece about the making of future made man Tony Soprano, the early criminal escapades of many key characters from the HBO series — and the blood oaths and ruthless betrayals that would set the checkered table for virtually everything that would happen to the Sopranos, their extended family and their associates some three decades later.

The Czech writer-director Václav Marhoul has done an astonishing job of adapting Kosinski’s novel in all its brutality (and its moments of humanity), lensing the story through timeless, dream- and nightmare-like 35mm monochrome and delivering a near-masterpiece epic that will leave you exhausted after its 169-minute running time — but grateful you’ve seen one of the most memorable movies of the year.

Bad Words is the kind of pitch-black dark comedy that makes you wince even as you give up on stifling the chuckles.

If you’re going to go all-in with the gorgeous and chilling and sometimes ludicrous Ex Machina, if you’re going to buy into the lofty debates and the wiggy humor and the borderline misogynistic notion of the perfect woman, you’ll have to check your logic at the ticket counter.

At times the film overdoes it with the clown metaphors (including the use of songs such as “Everybody Plays the Fool” and “Send in the Clowns”), and I had major misgivings about one particular subplot, but with Phoenix appearing in virtually every minute of this movie and dominating the screen with his memorably creepy turn, Joker will cling to you like the aftermath of an unfortunately realistic nightmare.

Based on a short story from Joe Hill and directed with tone-perfect style by Scott Derrickson, who wrote the screen adaptation with his “Doctor Strange” writing partner C. Robert Cargill, The Black Phone is a hauntingly effective, perfectly paced, consistently chilling and wickedly warped horror gem.

What it does, and does so effectively, is remind us that the orchestrators of this genocide weren’t one-dimensional, psychopathic creatures out of a horror film; they were something far more terrifying. They were people.

From its opening moments through its pitch-perfect closing notes, Don’t Come Back from the Moon is a stunning and stark and beautiful thing to behold.

Titane is a triumph of hallucinogenic, gender-switching, erotic and violent horror from writer-director Julia Ducournau.

Directors Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes do nomination-worthy work in telling the story of what women had to endure in the years immediately preceding Roe v. Wade — and how one group of smart, independent, determined, resourceful and brave women in Chicago created an underground network to facilitate illegal but safe abortions for literally thousands of individuals from 1968-1973.

We can see every plot point rounding the turn long before the finish line, but that’s OK, because we’re having a (dare I say it) jolly grand time every step of the way.

With some genuinely insightful dialogue, a number of truly funny bits of physical business, and small scenes allowing us to get know and like a half-dozen supporting players, The Intern grows us on from scene to scene, from moment to moment.

It’s almost as if Ritchie wants to make sure we know he directed this, because it doesn’t seem like “a Guy Ritchie film.” Duly noted, and kudos to the veteran filmmaker for delivering a skillfully made and gripping tale about the hell of modern war and the universal nature of sacrifice, commitment and heroism.

After all these years, the land of Zamunda is still the world capital of comedy.

From the direction to the script to the production elements to the performances, Triple Frontier is a first-class ride.

It’s a hard-R live action cartoon, and it is superb, wall-to-wall action entertainment, and I’m already looking forward to “John Wick: Chapter Four: This Time He Adopts a Cat.”

The ensemble is uniformly excellent, but this is Tim Blake Nelson’s showcase from the moment he appears onscreen, and he delivers world-weary greatness every step of the way.

At times the deception and the intrigue and the twists and turns make it nearly impossible follow every detail of the plot, but even when things get muddled, we know Ethan’s our hero.

Most impressive of all are the performances by Sebastian Stan as the raw and ambitious younger Trump, and Jeremy Strong (the “eldest boy” from “Succession”) as the unconscionable Cohn. This is “The Art of the Deal” told as a Frankenstein dark fable.

Thanks to director Jon Favreau’s visionary guidance and some of the most impressive blends of live-action and CGI we’ve yet seen, The Jungle Book is a beautifully rendered, visually arresting take on Rudyard Kipling’s oft-filmed tales.

This is a sweet, funny, smart, genuine all-ages movie with simple, timeless messages.

Writer-director Chung and the production team have delivered a sepia-toned memory piece that never sugarcoats the culture clashes in and out of the Yi household and yet remains hopeful in tone throughout, reminding us of the power of family and of the Great American Dream.

A strong and steady drama from writer-director-actor Joel Edgerton, featuring yet another effective and authentic performance by Lucas Hedges as a teenager in crisis.

Writer-director Cooper (Crazy Heart, Out of the Furnace, Hostiles) is an enormously gifted storyteller who infuses nearly every moment of this movie with a sense of despair and hopelessness, as some genuinely goodhearted but in most cases deeply damaged souls struggle mightily to battle a mythical, flesh-eating creature from the deep woods while also dealing with real-world trauma that’s equally frightening.

As we’re enjoying the beautiful cinematography and the fine acting and the dark humor, Benjamin Dickinson is delivering a signature work announcing his arrival as a filmmaker to watch for years to come.

Leave the World Behind is a bold and tricky endeavor that pays off in just about perfect fashion. You might never think of “Friends” in the same way again.

Trainwreck is my favorite romantic comedy of the year, and despite (or maybe because of) all its sharp edges and cynical set pieces, it’s a movie you want to wrap your arms around, or at least give a high five.

I loved the spirit and the heart of this film.

It’s yet another instantly immersive, richly layered and beautifully shot chapter in one of the most impressive directing careers of our time.

Even though the Chicago-born and Wheaton-raised Belushi’s life story and legacy has been examined time and again, the documentary simply titled Belushi is a work of great value.

Thanks in large part to Munn’s elegant, authentic, grounded and moving performance, we’re rooting hard for Violet to find some inner peace.

There’s life, there’s TV — and there are movies about TV, and though Being the Ricardos is a work of drama, it has the essence of truth.

Director and co-writer Clint Bentley’s sun-dappled, beautifully photographed, rough-and-tumble backstretch drama “Jockey” gets the rollercoaster life and often tough times of the jockey and the horse racing world just right.

Woody is still capable of writing and directing one of the liveliest, funniest and sharpest movies of the year.

Whereas so many of these films end with the big game/fight/match and a freeze-frame moment of glory before the credits roll, The Fire Inside is finding another gear.

This is essential viewing for any Bears fan, and for that matter any football fan.

Director Chris McKay keeps things zipping along, alternating between smart and often hilarious rapid-fire exchanges of dialogue, and big, big, BIG action sequences that fill every inch of the screen with brightly colored, fantastically kinetic action.

From the get-go, we have a pretty good sense of where The Water Man will take us, and while there are a few small surprises along the way, the real delight is the journey itself and how the real bond of a family is stronger than any monsters lurking in the dark.

Jones and Murray are wonderful together; many of the best scenes in On the Rocks are when it’s just the two of them, verbally fencing.

It is a straightforward and of course inspirational and at times profoundly moving tale, and even though we can predict just about every note it will strike before the opening credits roll, Green and screenwriter John Pollono and the outstanding cast elevate the material and make it something special and memorable.

The screenplay by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift is sharp and funny, and contains knowing insights about misogyny in the workplace and the shifting dynamic between a toxic male boss and an overlooked and mistreated female employee. Mostly, though, “Send Help” is about paying your ticket for an R-rated, Sam Raimi thrill ride with projectile vomiting, flying ropes of blood, and a handful of scenes that fly so off the rails that you wonder if we’re in the middle of a dream sequence, or the mayhem is real.

Director Michael Barnett’s “Changing the Game” is an expertly crafted, empathetic, journalistically sound documentary following three strong, bright, likable and admirably accessible and forthcoming transgender teen athletes.

The fantastically nostalgic, consistently funny, mischief-laden and genuinely touching 8-Bit Christmas (now on HBO Max) reminds me of A Christmas Story — with a touch of the storytelling device employed in A Princess Bride.

One of the many graceful touches in Welcome to Marwen is the total lack of pity or condescension in either world.

Director Haynes has a knack for framing his characters with just the right touch. There are no throwaway shots in this film.

In Abel Ferrara’s lurid, sometimes grotesque, train-wreck-watchable Welcome to New York, Depardieu almost literally fills the screen as an enormous bear of a man with insatiable appetites for money, sex and power.

It’s a fantastically over-the-top, drive-in B-movie for the streaming generation.

You need to see this one on the biggest screen possible, and let it wash over you as if you had stepped inside the most incredible video game experience ever created — one in which events in the manufactured universe can have lasting and serious real-world consequences.

It’s a new twist on the period-piece slasher movie, smart and strange and fantastically depraved. I kinda loved it.

The 1971 version of The Beguiled was blunt and overheated and a little bit nuts. The 2017 edition is more sophisticated and nuanced — but it’s still a little bit nuts.

I found it to be a fantastically creative, fourth-wall-breaking, pop-art waking dream.

Neither hagiography nor cold-plate dish, this is a solidly researched, well-photographed, crisply edited film that chronicles Trotter’s life with journalistic integrity, while providing fascinating glimpses into the “foodie” culture of the times, in Chicago and around the world.

Café Society is a gorgeous and lightweight confection, a love letter to the Hollywood of the mid-1930s, as well as the New York of the same era.

I Am Ali serves as further testimony Ali wasn’t simply a great boxer, he was a great man who happened to be a great boxer as well.

Just about every scene features an Oscar winner or an Oscar nominee or an Emmy winner and/or a first-rate character actor — and just about every scene is a bloody mix of taut thriller and utterly implausible noir plot point. This is a sordid but slick and gutsy mess that comes across like a cover-band version of a Michael Mann movie.

Drawing from behind-the-scenes footage and photos on the “Rust” set, police footage from the scene and from interrogation rooms, interviews with actors and production staffers as well as director Joel Souza (who was wounded but fully recovered) and Hutchins’ personal archives, “Last Take” is a powerful piece of work.

Writer-director Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade is a sweet and intelligent and sometimes absolutely heartbreaking slice of modern-day, eighth-grade life, which, in some ways (hello social media), is radically different from the eighth-grade experience of 1998 or 1978 or 1958, but in many ways is absolutely relatable to audiences of any age or gender.

Ferrell and his longtime collaborator Adam McKay have a unique gift for creating characters that are human car wrecks yet somehow win our affection.

It’s a crazy kaleidoscope of bright colors, dark corners, David Lynch-style set pieces and shock moments designed to keep you up at night — and it features a quintet of memorable performances from two of the best young actors around and three iconic Brits.

With Pamela Adlon (“Better Things”) directing in a style reminiscent of the best Woody Allen and Nora Ephron movies of the 1970s and 1980s, a sharp and hilarious and poignant screenplay by Glazer (“Broad City”) and Josh Rabinowitz, and winning performances from the co-leads, “Babes” is one terrific friend-com, or should we say a mom-com, and I can already picture Eden and Dawn making fun of that latter term.

The Homesman is not an easy, comfortable viewing experience. That’s part of what makes it unique.

The formula has rarely been mined to such resounding success. This is one of the funniest movies of the year AND one of the most romantic movies as well.

Equal parts film noir, relationship drama, dark comedy and mood piece, Digging for Fire is a movie made by someone who clearly loves the art of movies.

Levinson’s dense and richly layered, albeit sometimes overly theatrical, script affords Washington and Zendaya multiple opportunities to showcase their considerable talents and for the discourse to expand beyond the fraying relationship.

A vicious and cheerfully twisted psychological thriller dripping in deception and dread, bathed in pop-art colors and infused with a wickedly dark sense of humor.

An astonishing, horrific, fascinating and complex true-crime story that starts with a brutal act of murder in the late 20th century and winds its way well into the 2000s and 2010s.

There’s a terrifically entertaining sequence late in the film that plays like an homage to a certain element of the original “Poltergeist,” and a thrilling and nerve-wracking extended final sequence that will put you on the edge of the proverbial seat.

It’s not easy to make an emotionally involving film in which some of the most pivotal moments are about phone calls and making copies of documents and a source circling names on a document — but save for a few overly dry moments, Spotlight prevails.

Regardless of Crudup’s ranking as a box-office draw, he’s every inch the movie star in Rudderless, a rather strange but engrossing film with one of the more jarring twists of any film in recent memory.

Fighting With My Family works as a cheeky but never condescending story of one of those “chin-up” working-class British families so often featured in the movies, and of course primarily as the story of an undersized, overmatched outcast who is determined to succeed against all odds.

Aubrey Plaza is a sensation as Ingrid, who is alternately charming and sad and pathetic and absolutely insane. Plaza has a unique and magnetic screen presence that creates great empathy, even when she’s portraying a mostly off-putting character.

One of the many surprising delights in the bright and brassy and wonderfully funny Thor: Ragnarok is the recasting of the God of Thunder as a perpetual underdog.

While The Good Lie certainly doesn’t shy away from scenes designed to make us shake our heads at man’s inhumanity to man and scenes designed to make us dab at our eyes, it’s the kind of movie that earns those moments.

It feels as if about 50% of this movie accurately captures the music business, while the other half is a fluffy confection of pure fantasy — and that’s a formula that works perfectly in an escapist film such as this.

Even on my most Ebenezer of days, I wouldn’t have been able to resist this sentimental journey.

This is one of the most stunning visual treats of the year and one of the most unforgettable thrill rides in recent memory.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things is crazy good.

Watts achieves a kind of early Coen brothers, early Tarantino feel.