Scott Tobias

If Pistol Opera turns out to be Suzuki's swan song, instead of just an anticlimactic comeback, no one can claim he didn't go out on his own stubborn terms.

Kitano's gentle side reigns in Dolls, a gorgeous meditation on love and devotion, but the film's hypnotic tone and beautifully formalized color scheme makes it unlike anything he's done to date.

Truth be told, Sachiko Hanai is probably an accomplished "pink film"; just don't mistake it for something classier.

A damning example of justice bending toward those who can most afford to buy it.

When Gyllenhaal stops selling out, the movie starts.

To its enormous credit, doesn't cast the conflict as cut-and-dried exploitation. It presents something altogether more complex--too complex, unfortunately, for an 85-minute documentary to elucidate perfectly.

Though an assured and diverting piece of filmmaking, Man On The Train sags from complacency, rarely breaking its neat construction to animate the friendship with any real warmth and life.

Jarmusch's superb Down By Law can be described as many things–a minimalist fairytale, a modern twist on '30s prison dramas, an existential comedy–but it's memorable first and foremost as a richly textured look at old New Orleans and the enchanted bayou surrounding it.

A chilly and extraordinarily controlled treatise on film violence, Funny Games punishes the audience for its casual bloodlust by giving it all the sickening torture and mayhem it could possibly desire. Neat trick, that.

It helps that the actors' faces are so mesmerizing, particularly Manjinder Virk as Lorraine.

Without soft-pedaling it in the least, Bonello nonetheless mourns the passing of a time where prostitutes didn't control their destinies, but at least had each other.

Emerges as something rare, an issue movie that's so honest and keenly observed that it doesn't feel like one. It earns its thesis statement through minute details and a unique grasp of a commonplace problem.

Broken Wings doesn't stray far from the common melodrama in its setup and resolutions, but Bergman's uncommon sensitivity makes the film feel specific, intimate, and utterly plausible at every turn.

Cul-de-sac functions better as an affectionate goof on Waiting For Godot, enhanced by an unforgettable setting that naturally severs the trio from contact with the outside world.

Since Belfort and his crew are complete knuckleheads, every bit the low-class slobs who bray like animals on the trading floor, The Wolf Of Wall Street may be the funniest film of 2013, rife with gross misbehavior, pranks, and tomfoolery.

The film can feel worked-over and schematic, as if Bonello was too preoccupied with serving the thesis to trust his peerless intuition.

All these characters make a beautiful mess together, even if McCarthy spends too much time tidying it up.

The film gets its distinction from the performances by Cheung and Nolte, whose scenes together are suffused with loss and unexpected mutual compassion.

Heaven Knows What isn’t interested in merely exploring the world of New York City addicts. It wants to make their experiences felt, with the dissonant, amp-cracking roar of a punk anthem.

At once bitterly funny and devastating, Lost In La Mancha sides with Gilliam in form and spirit, piecing together the train wreck with snaky humor and interludes that cleverly mimic his Monty Python collage animations.

Though the lightness of Bernie can get disconcerting at times, even cartoonish, Linklater approaches the story with a bemused curiosity that seems about right under the circumstances.

It's no surprise that Bridemaids sputters, coughs, and lurches, but it's a winning shambles, buoyed by a sharp, balanced comedic ensemble and some truthful observations about how close friends adapt when their lives fall out of step.

Quite apart from its environmental agenda, the film is a reminder that there's no space for substance in political discourse: A 30-second soundbite on global warming could easily be brushed off as tree-hugging rhetoric, but after 100 minutes of level-headed elaboration, it's chillingly undeniable.

Damon's minimalist style is key to why the Bourne movies have become an oasis from other blockbuster action fare.

Without Kaurismäki to introduce these lonely, forgotten souls to audiences, who's going to be his friend?

Mostly, 24 City falls into the same Jia trap of inadvertently drawing the viewers' gaze past his human subjects and to the poetic images of a country in painful metamorphosis.

Night Moves is a film of deliberate, gnawing intensity and focus, built around a Jesse Eisenberg performance that doesn’t give much away, at least not easily.

Like his underappreciated "Haywire," Side Effects screws around in its own thriller architecture, toying with feints of structure and clever bits of misdirection, and otherwise playing the audience like a fiddle. At this point in his career, Soderbergh pulls it off with the unpracticed ease of a maestro.