Steve Davis

Brutal yet elegant, 12 Years a Slave is a beautifully rendered punch to the gut about the most shameful chapter in American history.

Although the stellar contributions to this supremely intelligent film are many, there's no mistake that the presence of director Redford dominates the film.

Maybe the film is simply a fanciful manifestation of one person’s healing passage through a landscape of grief and trauma. But there is little doubt that The Boy and the Heron is one of the Japanese auteur’s most cinematic feature-length films – maybe the most cinematic — in his relatively limited oeuvre.

It’s a juicy role for any actress, but Lawrence takes it two or three steps further than anyone else who comes to mind could. She’s a true original, a rara avis with beautiful plumage.

If you’re yearning to take a sentimental journey, Brooklyn is the perfect destination.

Grant punctuates almost every piece of Hock’s dialogue with an absurd gesture or facial expression – the theatricality of his portrayal of this not-so-street-smart bullshit artist is fascinating.

This year's entry in this lowly subgenre is Four Christmases, a D-list comedy with A-list actors.

In her assured film debut as Freddie, Park holds your rapt attention.

Will likely warm the cockles of your heart, even though it's hardly the stuff of great romance.

The way the destinies of four people converge in a small Arkansas town in One False Move is nothing short of wondrous.

No talking heads here, just Marlon in all his magnificent complexity. For any cineaste, it’s a mind-blowing experience.

While Levi gives you someone to genuinely root for, once the movie reaches Warner’s debut game for the Rams in 1999, all nuance goes out the window as you’re pounded into semi-hysterical submission to cheer for a proverbial win for the gipper.

The extraordinary performances on the Paris stage and fencing piste come early in Chevalier: They set a bold and lively tone the remainder of the film has trouble matching. Instead, it melodramatically proceeds, trope by trope, as Bologne receives his comeuppance for believing in his own brilliance.

Tangerine’s greatest accomplishment, however, lies with director Baker, who filmed the movie using an iPhone 5S. It’s an amazing achievement – the fluidity of the camerawork is exhilarating at times, the intimacy of the close-ups sometimes unsettling.

Contradictions abound in this messy and unfocused drama that purports to believe that family is everything, when all else fails.

Unlike other filmmakers in the autumn or winter of their careers, Eastwood doesn't seem content to rest on his laurels and give his audiences the tried and the true. For that reason, among many others, he and Million Dollar Baby are true champions.

Its simplicity belies an emotional complexity that will linger in your mind like a gentle dream.

Whatever your perspective, there’s one thing for sure: The Red Turtle is unlike anything else you’ve seen in a while.

Whether strutting like a bantam rooster for the Lord, fervently calling himself a “genuine Holy Ghost, Jesus-filled preaching machine,” or humbly acknowledging the folly of his actions, Duvall inhabits the character of Sonny, completely disappearing into the man's skin.

Director Benton's style in Nobody's Fool is controlled, almost austere, but it allows the actors to breathe familiar life into their roles. It's a fresh air they breathe, a rejuvenating one that affirms the virtues of a simple story about everyday people.

From its brilliant and sublime opening sequence to its self-reflexive ending, The Player distills everything that's wrong with the American film industry with the precision of someone who's been there.

It’s that feeling of seeing something unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. It’s the experience of witnessing the fresh, the new. And if you love movies, there’s nothing like it.

At long, long last: the real thing.

It's an occasionally entertaining ride, although one fraught with numerous logical holes.

In the end, Tea With the Dames peters out as a conversation, given there’s no real beginning, middle or end to the film. It’s a privilege, however, to have been given a tableside seat to listen to this foursome reminisce and ruminate for an hour and a half, with laughter punctuating the conversation every few minutes.

Spielberg suppresses his worst tendencies in the uncharted territory of his first movie musical. His solid direction respectfully doesn’t oversentimentalize the material.

In a genre dominated by computer-generated compositions and design, its old-school simplicity is sweetly anachronistic, while its hand-drawn elegance is often something to behold.

Refreshingly unsentimental and straightforward.

Burnham’s sociological precision as a screenwriter and director, however, would likely not feel as genuine if not for Fisher in the pivotal role of Kayla. She doesn’t act the part as much as she breathes it. It may be the most honest performance you’ll see in a movie this year.

There's no doubt that the slow disintegration of Allen and Farrow's relationship inspired this work, but that is where the comparisons end. This is not an instance in which art imitates life, as so many have claimed. Here, real life is the stuff of tabloids, while Husbands and Wives comes close to the exquisite stuff of art.

While the tone of Rafiki is simple and direct, director Kahiu demonstrates a delicate touch when she enhances Kena and Ziki’s early euphoric attraction to one another through a subtle shift in the otherwise vibrant cinematography by Christopher Wessels.

In video segments scarier than any couch-jumping antics on a talk show, actor Tom Cruise salutes the organization’s Napoleonic chairman David Miscavige like a soldier in an army of darkness, and rambles on about a world free of suppressive persons like he’s auditioning for the loony bin. One thing is clear in Going Clear: The man has taken one super-big gulp of the Kool-Aid.

Graduation may not occupy a place at the top of the class of contemporary Eastern European cinema like some of Mungiu’s other films, but it definitely sits above the curve.

Although flawed in many respects -- it's not as smooth and silky a movie as it could have been -- Don Juan DeMarco nevertheless evokes a romantic mood that tickles and caresses.

The premise is ripe for potent melodrama, but director Jacquot (who gets co-screenwriting credit) ultimately doesn’t finesse the situation.

If Tuff Turf had used a little more of Downey's relaxed intelligence and amiability, and a little less teenage angst and sense of violence as retribution, it might have been tough stuff. As it is, it's a lightweight in a genre populated with featherweights.

It’s a movie from which you can’t look away, no matter how hard you may try.

There's much to enjoy here as long as your expectations aren't too high.

From its opening tracking shot of four furry legs sauntering through a bed of colorful pansies as cars and trucks whoosh nearby, Stray is a documentary of unhurried pleasures.

When it rolls, Barbershop: The Final Cut lets its hair down like few others do.

As Dawn, Matarazzo isn't afraid to evoke the horrors of puberty with a straightforward charmlessness: She's gawky, unhappy, and confused, while her tingling of sexual desire downright gives you the shivers.

The film is one big advertisement for the multicolored building blocks from which it’s made. The Lego Movie may be the shrewdest marketing ploy you’ve ever seen.

At first, you may question whether this is all some elaborate head game, but gradually the creatively unorthodox approach to pay tribute to a man who gravitated toward unconventional artistry enlightens more often than it disorients.

Even the documentary crew, composed of seasoned climbers and longtime friends, can barely watch their buddy painstakingly move up the peak.

This fresh adaptation shakes the dust off Jane Austen's early 19th-century novel of manners and gives it a good airing out. The result is a witty and lovesick skirmish of the sexes that exceeds all expectations.

It’s a familiar template for domestic drama, particularly in its observations about traditional masculinity, but rarely – at least, in recent memory – has this type of story felt so potent or dangerous.

Taking the concept of the dysfunctional family to a degree that might even boggle Leo Tolstoy's mind, Flirting With Disaster is every son or daughter's nightmare… multiplied.

Unrelenting and inconsolable, with a smattering of compassionate moments, the superb Vortex brings to mind an observation attributed to actress Bette Davis, no less: Getting old ain’t for sissies.

The Iranian production There is No Evil (Persian title: Satan Doesn’t Exist) may not revive the portmanteau film to its former glory (the comic 1963 Italian Oscar-winning trilogy Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow being a stellar example), but it’s a comparatively solid quartet of short films that critically examine the country’s dehumanizing system of capital punishment, putting a human face on the citizen-executioner asked to carry out the all-too-frequently enacted death penalty.

As much a movie about class, race, and sexual orientation as anything you've ever seen.

When the gut-wrenching conclusion of A Hijacking comes in the form of a single, random act, it’s only then you realize how far you’ve been pulled into its emotional core. It’s a staggering moment, one for which you may not be fully prepared. It’s a moment that differentiates the merely good from the very good.

Like Spencer Tracy, Gene Hackman, and others who have made acting on the big screen seem so easy while taking us on a journey that is far from simple, Clooney is the real thing.

The movie’s wit and energy hold your interest, but they don’t spark the pleasure of the unexpected, the thrill you felt in "Laura," "The Last of Sheila," "Chinatown," "The Sixth Sense," or the 1974 adaptation of Christie’s "Murder on the Orient Express" (not Kenneth Branagh’s inept remake), movies whose big reveals surprise you in their elegant simplicity.

Director Lane and screenwriter Thom Stylinski take a lighthearted, folksy approach to telling Brinkley’s life story, using fairly unsophisticated animation and twangy vocalizations in the spirit of the man’s carefully created image.

There isn’t one false move in Tomàs Aragay and Cesc Gay’s beautifully modulated screenplay. Es perfecto.

For the most part, Spielberg appears content to allow the story (admittedly, a tad bit long) to do the talking, though he goes badly off-track in the sappy ending reminiscent of a Fifties sitcom’s notions of hierarchy within the American family. Given the Spielberg film canon, it was inevitable. The guy just can’t help himself.

There’s something refreshing about the old-fashioned way in which it entertains, a mix of silly slapstick and sight gags combined with a gentle heart.

Whatever the case, Foxcatcher provides little insight. Art can shape the truth in ways that resonate beyond the obvious. Regrettably, the truth-shaping here grapples for significance, without any apparent aim. Catch as catch can.

Three Identical Strangers may not achieve the kind of redemptive catharsis we wish for here, but it achieves something almost as miraculous, making an otherwise unbelievable story seem believably real.

Without preaching from the pulpit, A Fantastic Woman powerfully communicates the hostility and hatred that persons such as Marina encounter simply due to their otherness. In its way, it resembles those Hollywood-era message movies like "Gentleman’s Agreement" and "Pinky," but without the self-congratulatory importance that weighs those films down with all the subtlety of an iron anchor.

Given its nonlinear structure, Your Name requires your trust, but once you place your faith in screenwriter/director Shinkai’s expert hands, the reward will come. (Not surprisingly, the film is the fourth-highest-grossing film in Japan’s history.)

If ever there were a happy summer movie, it’s Hairspray. But for all its bubbly musical numbers and effervescent good humor, this film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical feels oddly lacquered -- it’s John Waters by way of Disney.

Less adventurous in structure than many in Davies’ oeuvre, Benediction is both expressionistic and vivid in recounting selected particulars of an outwardly fascinating life, though something feels missing in the totality of things.

Don’t let the early 19th-century France setting of this adaptation of Honoré de Balzac’s serialized novel Illusions Perdues fool you into assuming Lost Illusions is just another stuffy period piece lacking in modern sensibility.

It’s the rare movie that doesn’t trivialize a platonic male relationship with buddy film tropes.

While there are a few loose ends in Drew Goddard’s screenplay, which is faithful to but necessarily less detailed than its source, the film is a triumph of storytelling, a tribute to the power of the crowd-pleaser.

Near-perfect in every way, The Hours is a compelling meditation on making the most of what we're given in life. For some, it may be too cerebral a film experience, but for those who blissfully fall into its finely tuned modulations, The Hours is timeless.

Big Night is, in a word, delicious.

It’s meant to be thrilling fun, but it never takes off in the way imagined.

You can almost smell the desperation in the twisted psychosexuality of Savage Grace.

The movie is like an old honky-tonk song, a little sentimental but full of heart. It torches and twangs without getting too hokey.

For a while, you wonder whether the movie will become a thriller about the perils of solo travel, particularly for single females. But the intimacy of director Kuosmanen’s Dogme 95-inspired camerawork hints that something more is happening here.

Perhaps the bigger canvas here is a native daughter’s tribute to the resiliency of the people of her homeland. It’s no coincidence that the mascot chicken in this rustic Utopia is named Survive.

The beauty of Redford’s rock-steady performances over the last six decades or so is that he never showed off, and yet always commanded your attention.

At its core, this movie is a piece of unflinching activism that forces you to look at something uncomfortable, something those of us in the cocoon would probably rather not see. But see it, you should. See it, you must.

Above everything else, this tribute is a valentine to a man you can’t help but love.

Though it’s impossible to know exactly how these two people felt in coping with this untenable situation – they only wanted to get married and raise a family, nothing else – Nichols gives you a damn good idea, even when it slightly wears your patience.

Like all del Toro films, this Pinocchio thrives on a storytelling imagination that thinks outside the box.

Watching Priscilla feels much like reading a book, with images of white pills pressed into open palms and home-movie montages enhancing the text. Once again, the younger Coppola demonstrates she is as accomplished a filmmaker in her own way as her father.

It's too bad that Gas Food Lodging is as disconnected as it is because there's a real current of feeling here, especially in Balk's sympathetic performance and the film's unflinching depiction of a single woman trying to raise a family on her own. Rather than make a lasting impression, it makes only a passing one, as impermanent as the momentary view of a dying town on the highway.

This weighty French/Polish production is chock-full of moral dilemmas borne from its unthinkable scenario. At times, it’s not an easy experience.

In the end, Barracuda may not have the sharp teeth of the Hollywood nail-biters that have swum before in familiar waters. But if you’re attuned to its slow-burn charm, it still offers some bite.

Despite its best intentions, The Lost City of Z never finds itself, doomed to aimlessly wander to an unsatisfying conclusion of a dream that betrays the best of men.

Fillion’s performance as the constable Dogberry in this section is the film’s comic highlight. Wounded by an insult, his ass-backward indignation achieves a droll momentum that will have you chuckling. All’s well that ends well, indeed.

With beauty and talent to spare, Portman is something to behold: It's as if Elizabeth Taylor and Jodie Foster were somehow genetically melded at an early age. She's definitely a beautiful girl to watch for.

Director Ceyda Torun was born in Istanbul and lived there as a young girl, leaving the city with her family at age 11 to live in Jordan and later New York City, but it’s abundantly clear her heart has never left her birthplace. Kedi is a valentine to her childhood home.

The temporal jumps between the present and varying points in the past deprive the film of a sense of completeness; the transitions from scene to scene are largely disorienting, leaving you struggling to find your bearings.

A remarkable documentary in its own right.

While it can get rightfully goose-bumpy at times, what distinguishes Till from most other well-intentioned films telling similarly themed stories set during this tumultuous era of American history is the absence of white saviors. It’s about time.

In the end, while both of these performers look great together, they really don't seem to belong together. And that's the biggest hitch in Hitch.

For a while, each of their characters seems trapped in a loop from which she can’t break free, unlike the beatific Mara. But the group’s seasoned elders, played by Ivey and McCarthy, are the characters that stay with you. The two veteran players’ understated performances beautifully ground the film with positive wisdom. Lots of words are said in Women Talking, but when these two speak, you perk up and listen.

Filmmakers Boden and Fleck don’t appear interested in eliciting your full-out sympathy for these low-rollers, though the happyish ending seems somewhat a sellout (albeit a satisfactory one). Who’s to blame them? After all, everybody loves a winner.

Snap! That’s the crack of people teetering on the verge in each of the six segments in the perversely entertaining Argentinian film Wild Tales, a more-than-deserving recent Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language film.

Shanghai Triad doesn't feel up to Zhang's usual standards.

The impressionistic documentary Ailey communicates this visionary auteur’s comprehension of the art form: through his own words; through the words of others, most notably, his muse Judith Jamison and fellow choreographer Bill T. Jones; and, with great potency, film clips of archived performances (some of them original performances!) of his work.

The studio’s 1967 version of Kipling’s classic tales (the current film qualifies as a remake of sorts) softened the source’s edges a bit, but it offered a New Orleans jazz-infused score unlike anything in the company’s previous animated features. The new Jungle Book retains the two best songs, although their inclusion may strike the unfamiliar as clunky and unexpected.

Thanks to funding provided by Jane Fonda and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the documentary – once thought to be lost – has been digitally restored to its original length and color quality under the supervision of Greaves’ widow. We should be grateful for this gift.

This film is a pleasurable experience, but it’s a frustrating one as well. There’s a nagging feeling we should expect something more from this guy. To borrow the most quotable line of dialogue from "The Room" (bellowed at the top of the lungs): “YOU ARE TEARING ME APART, FRANCO!”