Stephanie Zacharek

A Separation doesn't try to make easy sense of that world, or of this family's suffering. It's simply a quiet cry of anguish.

This is a straightforward family comedy-drama, a movie made for adults, and one that actually gives its actors – among them Chris Pine, Elizabeth Banks, Michelle Pfeiffer and Philip Baker Hall – something to do. That's more of a rarity on today's landscape than it should be.

The Tillman Story isn't designed to be a shockeroo exposé; it's more a slow, steady rumble of anger and dismay at what the U.S. military, and the government, can get away with in the name of public relations, as if PR - and not human lives - were the most important consideration during wartime.

Olsen's performance is restrained but not tentative; you could say the same for the movie around it.

The Extra Man is something of a love letter to the marvelous weirdos of New York.

The "black maid" may be a cliché. But when was the last time we saw a story told from her point of view?

The thrill of Tony Scott's Unstoppable, in which a runaway freight train hurtles through rural - and toward not-so-rural - Pennsylvania, is that its setup asks us to believe only in human ineptitude.

Mattie is a no-nonsense mite with a forthright manner and a mean head for figures; she wears her hair in two sturdy braids whose tips have never seen the inside of any inkwell, believe you me.

O'Brien describes a number of those basic human feelings that drop-kick all of us from time to time, like being resentful of anyone and everyone who still has a job when we don't.

It's the kind of movie that makes the world feel like a smaller place, suggesting that the similarities connecting us across continents and cultures are more resonant than the things that divide us.

Dark Skies is about the fragility of family, a muted meditation on how precious it is...it does affirm that genre filmmakers who work with their eyes, their hearts and their brains still walk among us.

LUV is partly a story about drugs, guns and street crime, the legacies we pass on to our children despite our efforts to do otherwise. But it’s also about the things we pass on to our children with love: How to tie a necktie, hold a steering wheel, shake another person’s hand. And it’s about the hope that those things will win out in the end.

No is anything but a somber political tract; it’s a little bit of a thriller, and more than a little bit of a comedy.

If Broken City – the first film to be directed solo by Allen Hughes, one-half of the Hughes Brothers directing team – is a little flawed and cracked itself, it still squeaks by as a reasonably thoughtful piece of big-screen entertainment.

A true New York City movie, alive every minute. There’s some Woody Allen in its veins, but it’s driven more by the free-for-all spirit you find in pictures like Peter Sollett’s 2002 “Raising Victor Vargas” and Spike Lee’s 1986 “She’s Gotta Have It.”

Levine – whose last picture was the intriguing, if only partly effective, cancer comedy “50/50” — is going for something more here, exploring what makes us human by contrasting it with a character who has lost all the basics and is desperate to get them back.

A Place at the Table is a fairly no-frills effort, but the ideas behind it are sound.

Somehow this Jungle Book works, because Favreau has both a sense of humor and a sense of spectacle.

The movie is smart, lavish and fun without being assaultive.

You’ve seen every element of Sing Street hundreds of times before — it’s Carney’s knack for assembling them that makes the difference. In his hands, this isn’t just a nostalgia trip. It’s an homage to teenage kicks and the urgency of getting them any way you can.

Wedding Crashers may be the most optimistic Hollywood comedy of the year, because it restores at least some dim hope that directors, writers and actors with actual brains in their heads can somehow triumph over unimaginative studio execs. In that way, Wedding Crashers isn't just the life of the party, but its pulse.

There’s a fantasy element to Master Gardener that bolsters the movie’s convictions rather than weakening them.

The group's members come off more like real musicians than parodists.

It's mournful and troubling in a way that goes beyond ordinary movie manipulation. It burns clean.

All three actors are clearly having a blast with this satire of actorly egos and vanity projects, but it’s Cruz who truly dazzles.

Fans of "Swingers" may be disappointed. Made doesn't give us as many jazzy catchphrases to latch onto, or figuratively hoist us aloft on a giant martini glass of prolonged adolescence. But then that's precisely why it's the better movie.

I can't recall the last time a picture left me feeling so caffeinated.

You can probably guess every beat of The Mustang ahead of time, but what does that matter? The picture, shot by Ruben Impens, is gorgeous to look at.

Shazam! just breathes, and it’s bliss.

Edwards (director of 2016's Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and the 2014 Godzilla) and Koepp (who wrote the scripts for the first two Jurassic Park movies) know what they’re doing here: they locate the perfect ratio of human business to dinosaur antics, favoring the dinosaurs when in doubt.

It’s not going to change the summer-blockbuster landscape single-handedly, but at least it comes by its thrills honestly: This is a spectacle that trusts us to think.

In A Touch of Sin, Jia is attuned to, and saddened by, the violence he sees creeping through his country, caused at least partly by the ever-widening disparity between rich and poor. He ends on a note that's more haunting than hopeful.

There’s enough magic, and extraordinary visual imagination, to smooth the edges of the movie’s problems.

Documentaries don't have to be technically great to be irresistible, and Bess Kargman's First Position, which follows six young ballet dancers as they prepare for an elite competition, is a case in point.

Buirski clearly shows that the spark that made her great couldn't be snuffed out so easily.

Such an exhilarating, spirited piece of work that its embellishments and omissions cease to matter.

When Rose-Lynn opens her mouth to sing–her speaking voice has a Glaswegian burr, but her singing voice is all Tennessee–you’re wheedled into forgetting her flaws and sins and wanting only the best for her and her kids

Though Guadagnino is a gifted director, his style is sometimes showily baroque to a fault. (Exhibit A: Suspiria.) But Queer, stylish as it is, may be his most heartfelt movie, at least since Call Me By Your Name.

Aside from the fact that Operation Mincemeat features not one but two former Mr. Darcys (one from the much-loved 1995 Pride and Prejudice mini-series, the other from Joe Wright’s similarly marvelous 2005 film adaptation), and works beautifully as a romance, it’s also a cracking espionage caper.

Nichols—director of Take Shelter, Mud and, most recently, Midnight Special—tells the Lovings’ story in a way that feels immediate and modern, and not just like a history lesson.

A picture that's fully open to some pretty rough truths. But it's also a joyful, heartfelt movie, one that speaks to the openness and vitality we see in Bettie's pictures.

This is primo Nicolas Cage dialogue, inquisitive and soul-deep, the kind of stuff he was born to say. To hear and watch him in this movie is like greeting an old friend. Pig seems to have come out of nowhere, but we’re lucky to have it.

A clever picture, and something of a novelty -- it's not going to change the face or direction of horror filmmaking in any drastic way. But it's fun to watch something that's so obviously made with love.

This odd little wonder captures the delicate textures and shadowy half-secrets of family life, mapping them out in a mosaic of fragmented dialogue and half-poetic, half-prosaic images.

This ambitious blend of live action and computer animation runs the risk of being overwhelming and sterile, but it turns out to be a pleasing and sweet-natured adventure thanks in large part to Spielberg’s big, friendly secret weapon: Mark Rylance, as the BFG himself.

With his charming, sympathetic picture The Lost King, Stephen Frears digs into the fairly recent rehabilitation of the misunderstood monarch’s legacy—as well as the 2012 discovery of his long-lost bones beneath a Leicester parking lot.

It’s Waititi’s ability to balance unassailably goofy moments with an acknowledgment of real-life horrors that makes the movie exceptional.

The kicker is that Joy Ride is funny, too. In fact, it would be a superbly frightening entertainment if not for the way Dahl fixates, disturbingly, on sadistic details.

Like so many movie love stories before it - from Murnau's "Sunrise" to Linklater's "Before Sunrise," and beyond - Cairo Time is about two wandering lovers, people spending time together without realizing how precious that time will come to be.

Although Eggers is discreet – the things you don’t see are more horrifying than those you do – the picture’s relentlessness sometimes feels like torment. But if you can survive it, The Witch is a triumph of tone.

The picture itself is so ebullient and celebratory that it practically beams with perverted innocence.

The picture is clever and vivacious -- at times, like the first "Shrek," it seems a bit taken with its own precociousness. But its moments of sheer inventiveness can still catch you off-guard, and some of them are wittily poetic.

Among the least-heralded of the Christmas releases, Casanova is one of the few that's wholly enjoyable.

Lee seems less interested in capturing how people of color talk than in capturing how people talk. He coaxes us to step in and listen, and the very casualness of his invitation is the key to the joyousness of The Best Man Holiday, flaws be damned.

There's so much dreamy beauty in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that it's almost like a narcotic.

The World's End is a big, shaggy dog of a thing, a free-spirited ramble held together by off-kilter asides, clever-dumb puns, and seemingly random bits of dialogue that could almost become catchphrases in spite of themselves.

A picture that's by turns inventive, tender and boring, and one that uses a variety of novelty point-of-view techniques: If Penisvision isn't your thing, then Vagin-o-rama just might float your boat.

What you DO get with Secretariat is a picture that, unlike its bland predecessor Seabiscuit, actually captures some of the thrill of racing.

It's a breezy and entertaining little charmer.

Cooper also pulls off the near-impossible, making us feel dashes of sympathy for this twisted and unscrupulous man.

There’s poverty in every country, and in every country there are people yearning to do better for themselves. But The White Tiger—especially Gourav’s performance, marvelous in its intensity and shifting tones—captures that drive in a specific and persuasive way.

The Dig—set in Suffolk, England, in 1939 and based on a true story of buried treasure—is a restorative escape, a smart, gentle picture whose transportive qualities should not be underestimated. It’s the cabin-fever-relief movie of this bleak midwinter.

The picture works because, despite the fact that it took nearly six years for the filmmakers to bring it to the screen, it doesn't strive for greatness. It's fleet, concise and clever in a nut-ball way.

As reporters, they’re tireless. As moms, they’re tired. That’s what gives She Said its believable texture. That and the fact that, regardless of this story’s ultimately explosive impact, She Said is simply a story of journalists at work.

This is a comedy with grim underpinnings, set in a society where violence seems to be the only answer. Anderson doesn’t find that exhilarating—if anything, he’s despairing about it—yet he soldiers on, pinpointing some truths so somber and dismal that it hurts to laugh about them.

Pacific Rim is big and dumb in a smart way.

Breezy and enjoyable.

The best rock 'n' roll movies are less about strict authenticity than about capturing a vibe. And The Runaways gets the vibe just right, from its opening shot.

It's such a lovely piece of work -- and, especially for a filmmaker whose name is barely known outside of art-house circles, so pleasingly accessible -- that it's troubling to think that few people outside of major cities will be able to see it.

There are so many ways Despicable Me 2 could have gone wrong, and so many things it does right.

How many human beings among us are capable of making a comedy with wit and intelligence that also takes bold pleasure in unabashed silliness? I think this is what happens when you let an elf loose with a movie camera.

An intelligent adult thriller about the death of newspapers.

It's immediate and vital, and it doesn’t leave you feeling like you’ve got all the right answers.

After Yang invites us to think about big questions that might normally invite melancholy. Yet somehow, Kogonada pulls off the opposite effect. His movie makes us feel less alone, part of a network we can’t fully comprehend from our place on Earth.

At once deeply affectionate and sharply observed: There's never anything smart-alecky about Wright's approach as a director.

Lingua Franca — which made a splash at the Venice Film Festival last year, the first film by a trans woman to be featured at the festival — is a gorgeous and delicate picture, an understated work that opens a window on an intimate world.

The picture is grand and nutty and visually splendid: Vogt-Roberts knows he's gotta go big or go home, so he treads boldly.

In Berger’s hands, it all works a treat, right up to the movie’s shockeroo surprise ending. Berger’s 2022 All Quiet on the Western Front won the Best International Feature Oscar, and he guides this film, too, with a sure and steady hand.

That’s the magic of Leigh; it’s white magic, not the dark kind, drawing out compassion we almost don’t want to feel.

Director John Cameron Mitchell - adapting David Lindsay-Abaire's play - has a surprisingly deft touch with this admittedly downbeat material; he builds dramatic intensity in subtle layers, rather than slapping it on with a trowel.

Personal Shopper is a strange and beautifully made film, and both star and director are clearly energized by their dual mission.

That sense of one small, private world shattering within the larger and even more unstable one around it is the essence of Michael Winterbottom's unmooring, bleakly beautiful film version of A Mighty Heart.

As good as Harris is, though, it's Harden's performance that sticks with you long after you've seen the movie. She understands what Krasner must have known intuitively. Greatness comes not from cleaning up messes, but from allowing them to be made in the first place.

This is a superb, delicately calibrated comic performance: Carell never allows the character to swerve into excessive cuddliness.

This is a shimmery beaded curtain of a movie, a slight, charming picture that's almost all facade. But what a facade!

All lives are made of shadow and light, and The Times of Bill Cunningham acknowledges that. But through it all, spending time in Cunningham’s presence is bliss.

It’s effective in a somber way, and as shot by cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, it’s dazzling to look at, a reinvention of classic literature of the old west with a storybook feel.

The Deep End doesn't have a knotty message, but it's a much more meaningful picture than "Suture."

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 is probably about as good a movie as you can make from just half of a rather complicated book. But then, it's not just a movie but a promise: When Part 2 arrives, next summer, a cloud of desolation is likely to descend upon us.

It’s the kind of story that was made for the intimacy of the movie theater, and for the possibly lost tradition known as movie-date night. As ambitions go, that’s a pretty noble one.

Levinson and Pacino's willingness to explore the creakier end of life isn't a drawback; it's what gives The Humbling its bittersweet vitality.

This is a teasingly complex political thriller, but it's also a sort-of romance.

12 Years a Slave works so hard to be noble, but it doesn't have to: Ejiofor is there to do all the heavy lifting.

It's hard to say whether Patric Chiha's unabashedly out-there drama Domain is actually good or whether it simply nuzzles very cozily against the shoulder of so-bad-it's-good. After seeing the movie twice, I'm inclined to say Domain splits the difference.

Red Rocket isn’t the warmest of Baker’s films; it has a flinty edge that makes it hard to embrace. But as movie characters go, Rex’s Mikey, a magnetic egomaniac, is an extraordinary creation.

Farewell, a cold war drama by the French director Christian Carion, isn't just a movie set in 1981; in many ways it feels like a movie made in 1981.

Weisz has never been better: She's joyously expressive and alive, but there's gravity beneath that milkmaid complexion. She's grounded even when she's being flirtatious. And Fiennes has never been more moving.

To watch this movie’s actors, many of them playing versions of the men they used to be not so long ago—to see them incorporating classic pop-locking moves into their swordplay, or tinkering with the phrasing of Hamlet’s soliloquy until it rings true to their experience—is to witness a cautious but joyful reawakening.