Stephen Farber

Berger does a fine job controlling all of these performances, and he also creates a rich atmosphere for the production.

This intense, painful movie lingers in the memory.

Although the film runs more than two hours, the story is so compelling and the production so beautifully controlled that we are gripped by the characters' quest right up to the shocking end of the story.

There is no denying the emotional force that this film develops, and for that, we can credit talented filmmakers and two stars working at the height of their powers.

There is no simple answer to the questions this film poses, but it makes us think about the complexities of an issue that has been muddied by tough-on-crime politicians.

The important point is that the charm and poignancy of the original text survive. And Wright’s technical achievements are worth saluting.

Director David Weissman brings a rewardingly fresh and personal perspective to the subject.

All of the key creative personnel contribute to the movie's nail-biting tension and unexpectedly moving finale. Jon Harris's editing is matchless, and Rahman's score effectively heightens the emotion. Ultimately, however, it is the talents of Boyle and Franco that sock this movie home.

Pray does not browbeat viewers into applauding the artist’s achievement. The filmmaker thoughtfully documents a phenomenon and allows the arguments to continue to rage after the lights come on.

Anchored by two outstanding performances from Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce, the film is a triumph of writing as well as unostentatious filmmaking.

What is admirable about Ivory Game is that it recognizes the complexity of the issues.

Prisoners can at times be a hard film to watch, but thanks to all the talent involved, it’s even harder to shake off.

Nothing would work quite as well without the performance by Pugh. She commands the screen from her very first appearance, and we never have doubts that anyone who tries to interfere with her will be facing a formidable adversary.

It deserves praise not as a polemic but as a richly humanistic, emotionally searing drama that sticks in the memory.

Beyond the film’s technical expertise and the political issues that it raises, it works best simply as a tribute to a group of talented and courageous women who missed out on opportunities that might have benefited us all.

This fascinating documentary about famed photographer Bill Cunningham features interviews with Vogue editor Anna Wintour, author Tom Wolfe and New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.

An impressive film ... Alternately disturbing and inspiring, it manages to capture the diversity of America in a tight 73 minutes.

Cooper seizes control of the movie when he’s onscreen, but the two young leads are also enormously appealing.

Changing the Game is beautifully crafted, with strong visual evocations of the different locales that these young athletes inhabit. The editing is also sharp, so that we rarely feel we are spending too much time with one set of characters.

Dori Berinstein's tender but sharp portrait finds a lot of depths in the woman whom many see as a camp figure.

The film probes the experience of grief in a subjective, intuitive manner, and it achieves remarkable intensity in exploring this theme.

A rare look into the mind of an assassin, Incitement provokes and disturbs.

The subject of mentorship is not treated frequently onscreen, but Mr. Burton may be remembered as one of the definitive explorations of the theme. All the technical credits help to ground the film — cinematography by Stuart Biddlecombe is especially striking — but it is the performances that truly mesmerize.

The film works as a moving anti-war essay and as a gripping thriller.

Beyond celebrating the music, 40 Years in the Making: The Magic Music Movie has something to say about the compromises and reconciliations that are a part of aging, and it turns out to make for a stirring and healing reunion.

It’s consistently sharp-edged and even suspenseful.

This potent work about stolen childhood deserves attention because of the freshness of the cast and because it confirms that Gavron is a director to watch.

Beyond its visual splendors, however, the film achieves searing moral power.

Perhaps inevitably, the film moves toward a deeply poignant conclusion, but there are enough rambunctious and slightly zonked-out moments to provide a vivid, full-blooded portrait.

The film expertly captures the tensions in the Austrian capital on the eve of Hitler’s takeover, and it also manages to be a vibrant coming-of-age story and an intriguing portrayal of Sigmund Freud, expertly portrayed by Bruno Ganz.

The filmmakers never underline the emotions they want to evoke, and yet by the end, audiences may be moved to tears by this tale of fractured lives that find just the right measure of repair.

This is no more than a minor piece of social history, but it wins us over with humor and a pointed touch of melancholy.

The basic story has been told many times before, but it’s intriguingly retold by screenwriter Philip Gelatt and director Sebastian Cordero in this low-budget, bare-bones rendering of a familiar theme.

The film honors the hard-working, often unacknowledged craftsmen in the film industry and stirs provocative questions about the fine line between legitimate devotion to an artist and dangerous hero worship.

Branagh’s most personal film is imperfect, but the emotion that it builds in the final section, as the family plays out a wrenching universal drama of emigration, is searing.

Shannon’s performance is the main attraction of this dark character drama, but it also boasts a seductive atmosphere and some penetrating insights into the male psyche.

The result is fascinating, often moving, if also incomplete.

Sacks’ personal life was as startling as his professional achievements.

The film turns out to be highly effective, thanks to the skills of the actors and director Zaza Urushadze.

Charged never simplifies Eduardo’s nature or the key relationships in his life. We end up appreciating his charisma and marveling at his resilience without ever seeing him as a paragon.

As a piece of filmmaking, Chasing Chasing Amy is effectively put together.

Nichol has created a loving valentine to all the iconoclasts who resist what the rest of the world defines as progress.

McCarthy’s performance, which is paired with an equally rewarding turn by British actor Richard E. Grant, anchors this bizarre, compelling true story.

Engrossing, quietly revelatory, and often profoundly moving as it retells a story we only thought we knew.

Perhaps there are a couple of unnecessary complications on the way to the denouement, but the storytelling is lively and piquant, demonstrating the director’s sense of humor and sharp observational skills.

This small gem offers a lovely evocation of Spain as well as a touching tribute to an unforgettable moment in time when the Beatles seemed to offer brand new possibilities, the idea that strawberry fields might indeed go on forever.

Dorfman declares that she was never a media or critics’ darling. “I was at the bottom of the list,” she says when talking about her position in the ranks of modern photography. This film will convince you that she definitely deserves a higher position in the pantheon.

The two superb performances and the tactful hand of a gifted new director ensures that the audience will still be thinking about these people long after the journey ends.

Two excellent performances bolster a thoughtful script, and the result is that the discomfort we feel seems perfectly controlled by the filmmakers. The movie is candid and disturbing but never exploitative.

While the concept may sound schematic, it is brought to vivid life by wonderful characterizations.

There is no question that it is an extremely well-crafted piece of work.

A rich reminiscence of a gifted actor who died far too young.

This doc is always thoughtful and tightly edited, and it has an emotional impact that not many docs can equal.

Set in Rhode Island, the film focuses on three boys who have had a parent in prison (one of those parents is a mother), and it probes the impact on the children with clarity and poignancy.

Sparkling dialogue would count for little without two actors to deliver it expertly. Garcia (who is also one of the producers of the film) is generally cast in more serious roles, but he revealed a gift for comedy in "City Island" a few years ago, and he revisits that terrain rewardingly here. Farmiga is marvelous.

It's a pleasure to surrender to the movie's lush visuals, which are accompanied by wonderful jazz classics performed by Valdes, Estrella Morente, and Freddy Cole (Nat King Cole's brother), among many others.

South Mountain transcends the limitations of some nakedly personal films to offer an affecting vision of frayed family ties.

Little Pink House brings urgency to a fascinating, underexplored theme.

Palmer keeps his focus tightly on the families, which makes the movie admirably unpretentious but also incomplete. Nevertheless, the picture has a vibrant central character in James McDonagh, the leading fighter in the clan who begins to question the rites of violence.

Aside from the provocative premise, The Wall of Mexico has a few other points to recommend it, though it can’t be considered a complete success. Directors Magdalena Zyzak and Zachary Cotler, working from a screenplay by Cotler, have made some miscalculations that undermine what could have been a powerful exposé of present-day xenophobia.

There isn’t a tremendous amount of new information in this generally well-crafted documentary. But it makes a potent, urgent case against the merchants of doubt who play games with the planet’s future.

Bolstered by a career-best performance from Mickey Rourke and outstanding work by Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood.

The movie probably runs on a little too long considering the lack of complexity in the script, but it achieves moments of pathos that speak eloquently to our present mood of discord, tempered with a tentative hope of reconciliation.

While the movie’s theme is familiar, even a little stale, the vivid details help to freshen the story, and the actors sock the movie home.

Although there is nothing groundbreaking about the story told in Standing Up, a series of small grace notes help to freshen this dissection of lost souls searching for second chances.

The two central performances could hardly be better.

Despite the sometimes clumsy exposition, Lyrebird turns out to be an enjoyable melodrama.

The resolution seems honest and mature, and a brief epilogue is so powerful that it makes us forget some of the film’s earlier lapses. The emotionally devastating last line socks the whole movie home.

Almost all of the performances achieve perfect pitch. This is a tribute to Lundgren’s direction, and he also makes excellent use of the serene Oregon locations.

No one who sees the film will feel it breaks any new ground, but as a cinematic equivalent of comfort food, it goes down easily.

While the film is too convoluted to stir boxoffice excitement, it offers some rewards for sophisticated moviegoers

Despite the predictable touches in the script by Mark O’Halloran, director Paddy Breathnach reveals a sensitive touch with the material.

Vreeland’s willingness to include painful as well as flattering details is what gives Love, Cecil its punch.

The best thing about the movie is the way in which it subverts all the clichés of the star-is-born story.

The greatest documentaries cut deeper and more unflinchingly. But if The Way I See It sometimes skims along the surface, the potent images of a truly gifted president in action offer a welcome journey back to a more hopeful era.

Handsomely mounted and well acted, the film breaks no new ground but remains engrossing.

The film benefits from the fine cast and from many sharp and poignant moments. It's an impressive achievement technically as well.

Ethnic comedies have their limitations, and a sharper script would have helped this one to stand out from the pack. Nevertheless, audiences in a forgiving mood will enjoy the byplay among an appealing bunch of desperate characters.

Given the craziness of the concept, it is surprising that several of the scenes work as well as they do.

The interviews in the film are perhaps a bit more limited than they might be, with the directors relying on the same people repeatedly. ... [But] the film will help to introduce worldwide audiences to his stirring story.

Herzog’s film may not be the final word on Gorbachev, but it is affectionate and candid and leaves audiences in a melancholy mood about the sometimes short-lived nature of reform.

Honeymoon is a microbudgeted horror movie that achieves some genuinely shivery moments.

Skillfully edited and energetically paced, Smiling Through provides a memorable time capsule for those who miss the smart magazines that will never return.

This film will not resolve the question of whether technological “progress” represents an advance or a decline in civilization, but it certainly will provoke conversations about that issue. And the focus on a real person over a period of years certainly adds pungency to the debate.

The stunt work is amazing, and the pace is breathless enough to keep one watching right up to the somewhat ambiguous conclusion.

The film fails to provide many practical solutions to the problems it identifies. Still, it’s an effective piece of agitprop suffused with sadness over the decline of a rich part of the American heritage.

In short, this film leaves us moved and provoked — and impressed with its technical accomplishments — even if it isn’t a perfect distillation of our ongoing national nightmare.

The horrors of recent decades deserve the thoughtful, impassioned analysis that Moreh provides.

Vallee’s latest offering is alternately harrowing and heartbreaking, but laced with saving bursts of humor.

It is a tribute to Bening’s performance that she keeps us mesmerized by Nyad even at her most stubbornly pigheaded.

It is an engaging and often touching comic drama that builds power as it moves toward its immensely satisfying conclusion.

The film evolves into an unconventional road movie that turns out to be quietly affecting.

Hawke’s film is very well crafted, tightly edited and elegantly photographed. The acute musical selections only add to our appreciation of Seymour’s selfless devotion to his art.

Cumberbatch and Foy play beautifully together; the chemistry is palpable, and both performers know how to charm audiences without overselling the romance.

Shot Caller may cover little new ground but navigates familiar terrain with considerable skill.

This film is vital in uncovering a hazard that was kept hidden for far too long. At last the secret is out, and Landesman and his fine cast will help to keep the conversation going.

Mapplethorpe comes across as remarkably candid and unassuming, though his ambition was always clear.

Morris clearly invested so much time and energy in McKinney's story because he saw her as emblematic of our crazed times. Others might wonder whether the sad saga deserves quite this much attention, but there's no denying the film's morbid fascination.