Stephen Whitty

Despite his draw to tragic subjects, Lonergan holds onto a sharp, dark, Irish sense of humor, and a feel for the absurd that comes out at the most unexpected times. A playwright's sense of what actors do, too. Affleck gives a career-best performance here.

Silence is a slowly unfolding, deeply thoughtful film about questioning yourself. About questioning authority. About taking stock of where you've failed as a human being, and wondering how you can make amends — to yourself, to others, and to God.

Even if you disagree with Moore, it’s hard not to admire his bravura filmmaking.

Let other directors play with toy soldiers and computer effects. This is big-time, old-school filmmaking. Dunkirk isn’t overdone. It’s simply done epically...But it’s also human. It has room for small acts of heroism, of kindness, of forgiveness. And for a single, simple important, timeless message of resilience: Take what comes. Do what you can. Never surrender.

The cast is all top-notch. Harrelson can peel and eat scenery like a bunch of bananas, but he’s mostly in control here. Andy Serkis is beautifully intense as Caesar, and Steve Zahn a welcome addition as the scaredy-cat Bad Ape.

A warm gathering of Scandinavian artists, with Sweden’s Skarsgård and Norway’s Hovig both excelling under Norwegian director Maria Sødahl’s attentive care.

The Irishman is vintage Scorsese, with an often sinuously moving camera, occasional break-the-fourth-wall monologues, wicked wise-guy humour, and explosions of sudden tenderness and casual violence. And its final half-hour pulls something even deeper from the filmmaker – moments of reflection, twinges of regret, worries about chances thrown away.

We get it, and DC finally should, too: Superhero movies can be fun. And Wonder Woman is a movie that'd send even the Suicide Squad home smiling.

It’s not just “Impossible,” it’s irresistible.

Kind of like all the other characters Annette Bening plays, year after year - never to nearly enough applause.

The smartest kind of sequel, Ralph Breaks the Internet remembers what you liked about the first film. And then, not only gives you more of the same, but something different.

Spun mostly of sugar and air, this film is a lightweight, but mostly sweet, treat – and a lovely reminder of when pictures could just be low-key amusements, and the pandemic hadn’t yet turned cities into ghost towns.

True, sometimes director Steven Spielberg lays it on so thick you think he has a trowel. Inspiring scenes are flooded with sunshine. John Williams’ score swells and kvells. (Of course, Spielberg didn’t become America's most popular director by being its subtlest.)

Grumpy T'Challa may be on the throne, but it’s the women who rule. And Michael B. Jordan adds fire as Killmonger.

Gorgeously photographed, and as loosey-goosey as its hero, Captain Fantastic takes some unexpected turns. Is Ben eccentric or irresponsible? Is he raising free-thinking iconoclasts — or training a new generation of Unabombers?

This may be a sci-fi fantasy about giant man-eating bugs, but it’s grounded in human facts and folly. Little here is safe. Nothing is predictable. It’s surprising how effectively the silence increases the scares, too.

Directed by, and starring, Don Cheadle, it's more about truth than facts. Did this all happen just the way it's laid out? Definitely not. But if the notes are wrong, the themes are right.

Washington isn't a visionary director, something he's proved before in "The Great Debaters" and "Antwone Fisher." But he is a fine actor, and if nothing else Fences preserves his career-best performance, as a loving, bullying, wounded, roaring bull of a man.

Even when the storytelling falters - several crucial scenes take place in between the various segments, with major events happening off-screen - Jenkins' sharp eye and his film's beautiful cinematography keeps us watching.

As the colonel, Mirren is terrific — a fierce warrior willing to bend as many rules of engagement as it takes. As her commanding officer, the late Alan Rickman is just as dedicated but a little tired of bloodshed.

It is sweet, and funny and quietly upbeat. Take a chance on it — and take your mom.

See Remember. You won't regret it — or forget it.

No, this web-slinging crime fighter isn’t quite of world-saving, world-weary Avenger caliber yet. But that’s OK. In fact it’s better, because he’s something we’ve really been missing for a long time. Our old friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man.

There is nothing safe about The Birth of a Nation.

Carefully made and perfectly acted.

Built on a potent mixture of quiet bravery and hard-won access, David France’s new documentary, Welcome to Chechnya, puts audiences in the middle of the literally life-or-death struggle of an already endangered minority.

It's not only filled with the usual special-effects eye candy, but smart, fan-focused writing.

Its quiet humanism and painstaking attention to detail are sure to appeal to the core audience which has faithfully followed her for more than a decade.