Simon Abrams

As we tag along with Haroun’s characters, we learn to appreciate their story as a small, but vivid study of lives that are so much more than their progressive developments.

As a performer, Fischbach’s frantic performance can sometimes be distractingly monotonous, but as a filmmaker, he has an impressive eye not only for compositional details, but also for how his images cut and flow together.

The movie’s cast members all seem to understand their assignments, which makes even the sketchiest material seem more robust. There’s also more technical polish, as well as a general knack for comic timing, than you might expect from a remake of “The Toxic Avenger.”

A visually impressive mix of hand-drawn and CGI animation with basic action-adventure elements that are always viscerally satisfying thanks to Hosoda's apparent warts-and-all love for humanity.

More detailed critical or historical context might have enhanced director Amanda Kim’s already informative and loving portrait of Korean video artist Nam June Paik. But there’s so much in Kim’s movie—especially in actor Steven Yeun’s voiceover narration and talking head interviews with Paik’s colleagues and contemporaries—that this account of Paik’s working life still resonates.

Baskin does what many horror films try and fail to do: it makes you feel like you're a passive prisoner/spectator, watching as an especially vivid nightmare unfolds.

Is it good? Uh, well, kind of. Does it make sense? Hmm, er, ask me another. Is it worth seeing? Oh, absolutely.

Character actor Tom Skerritt takes the lead for once in this gentle, melancholic drama about an older man who, while overwhelmed by suicidal thoughts, figures some things out for himself. Fans of David Guterson’s source novel will probably get it, but everyone else might need a moment to get the picture.

The makers of Going to Mars do right by Giovanni by showing how she speaks for herself.

The heroes of this film are, in other words, selfish, but never in a venal, or ugly way. They're human, and they do what they must to face each successive challenge they're confronted with.

Ne Zha 2 is a rare sequel that amplifies both its action and drama without sacrificing much of what already worked in the last movie. It’s also a rare blockbuster that offers something worthwhile for a wide-ranging audience.

I can't think of another recent domestic drama that is simultaneously so optimistic and so melancholic.

Hark's new film is a consummately bizarre crowd-pleaser that throws everything at the viewer from makeshift plastic surgery by acupuncture to death by spontaneous combustion.

Indian melodrama Rangoon somehow manages to be emotionally resonant despite being overstuffed. This is no small feat given how many different genres, tones, and characters this film juggles.

It’s “Avatar” meets “Fantastic Voyage,” and it also looks really good on a big screen thanks to Disney’s many, many talented animators. With their help, “Strange World” breezes through a checklist of formulaic plot points and canned emotional revelations with enough style and sensitivity to make it work.

There are no good or bad people in The Island, just a group of hapless schmucks who become more sympathetic as they get more desperate.

A worthy documentary tribute to the drag queen icon.

German Concentration Camps Factual Survey may not teach us today much that Schindler's List, your local rabbi, or a quick Google search can't, but it remains a vital artifact of a time when Dachau and Auschwitz were not synonymous with "genocide."

Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko succeeds where so many other movies like it fail simply by making its characters seem real enough to be going through a series of familiar growing pains.

Stone-faced martial-arts star Donnie Yen does a lot with a little in wuxia weepy Ip Man 3, the rare kung fu film whose sentimental dialogue scenes are just as good as its stripped-down action sequences.

Memories of the Sword stands apart from other action films because Park wisely imagines violence as an elemental clash of dispositions.

You've seen neo-noirs like this before, but you probably haven't had this much fun with a modern B movie in a while.

Winningly over-the-top Korean gangster drama Asura: The City of Madness is what you'd get if you combined The Wire with a really good soap opera.

The grisly post-torture-porn horror flick Incident in a Ghostland serves as an effectively punishing critique of the relentless misogyny that has become a staple of every stupid Texas Chain Saw Massacre knockoff that pits sexually active women against emotionally disturbed serial killers.

The equally thrilling and exhausting Hong Kong martial arts fantasy Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings boasts more inventive weapons, monsters, and plot twists than most Western audiences will know what to do with.

Come for Ku's joyful choreography, stay for Yen's most memorable post-comeback performance.

The makers of the irresistible character-study doc Itzhak capture Itzhak Perlman’s characteristic warmth and bravado through short, anecdote-centric scenes that make the Israeli American violinist sound like a big-hearted raconteur who’s just dying to tell you everything about himself.