Steve Persall

The End of the Tour asks viewers to lean in, listen well and be rewarded with an uncommonly intelligent and relatable movie experience.

More touching than daring, The Wedding Banquet is an exquisite comedy, brimming with simple human decency and more belly laughs than any comedy I've seen this year. [15 Oct 1993, p.4]

This movie doesn't play any of its themes cheaply.

It's a remarkable movie, the first of 2015 that I can't wait to see and hear again.

The funniest comedy of degeneracy since "Bad Santa," and a career-changer for Aniston and Farrell if they'll only keep following their perverted muses. Horrible Bosses spins hostile work environments into a movie surpassing "9 to 5" and "Office Space" as the touchstone flick for disenchanted drones.

Three Billboards lands somewhere near Coen brothers country, eloquently finding comedy in horror and vice versa. Yet it remains its own mangy animal; a study in grief that’s funny, finding justice in terror and forgiveness after the unforgivable.

The movie's assured direction by Sam Mendes can't be underestimated.

One of the all-time great sports movies — primarily because it's one of the all-time great sports stories.

Hands down and body parts floating, the most irresistibly sick movie in years is Piranha 3D, which should be retitled Piranha 3D, Double-D and C for all the topless cuties director Alexandre Aja feeds the fish and audience.

Even if their names were John and Mary, the two people soon to be a couple at the center of Southside With You could make viewers swoon. Richard Tanne's walk-and-talk slice of budding romantic life is that good at expressing those small moments when love begins taking hold.

Silver Linings Playbook is a bracing shaken cocktail of awkward failure and accidental success, with Pat and Tiffany making a refreshing and unlikely couple to root for. We just want them to be abnormal together, share their favorite antidepressants, maybe even dance to Stevie Wonder.

Nelson's is one of the year's best performances in nothing less than one of the year's best films. [23 Sep 1994, p.2]

This is a gorgeous production, even by Miyazaki's standards.

The soundtrack is a small marvel of music hall tunes and dialogue that is mostly garbled, allowing expressions and body language to be interpreted.

With a loving hand and immeasurable skill, Scorsese has fashioned a classic film for any age, innocent or otherwise. [24 Sept 1993, p.8]

The blueprint for every pirate movie since. [24 Jan 2008, p.28W]

The weight of Carlos' world shows on his rugged face, even with rare half-smiles. This is a masterfully understated performance that should be remembered during awards season.

Blue Jasmine is Allen's 44th movie in 47 years, an amazing run with storied highs and notorious lows along the way. This one ranks among his finest dramas, his best since "Match Point."

The jokes are often double-edged, the performances always spot-on. The Way, Way Back doesn't re-invent the teenage turning point genre, but Faxon and Rash offer a breezy new spin. You'll see more inventive movies this year but few more endearing.

99 Homes combines the insight of documentary filmmaking with a thriller's urgency, opening our eyes to a complex, real-life tragedy while keeping it entertaining.

Furious 7 is so entertaining that you don't notice Dwayne Johnson is missing from action much of the time, only that he kills it when he shows up.

It's the most unsettling nice surprise of 2011.

In some moments, Amy feels like another intrusion on the singer's privacy, like the gossip vultures circling her drug and alcohol binges, awaiting her 2011 death. Those uncomfortable moments are far outweighed by sympathetic ones.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is as artistically manicured as any of his seven previous movies, and richer comically and emotionally than most.

Sicario is a tentacled drug cartel thriller grabbing viewers by the throat and squeezing for two hours. This movie continually defies the conventions of its genre, from its hero's gender to the vagueness of its morality.

Only Scorsese could craft a film of such moral gravity for multiplexes and fascinate for nearly three hours.

The Descendants would still be a splendid movie without him; with Clooney, it's one of 2011's very best.

Monsieur Lazhar becomes a deeply affecting film not for pathos but for the way sadness is conveyed so subtly. It's a small triumph of restrained compassion, coaxing throat lumps rather than jerking tears.