Steven Rea

If you just give yourself over to Nolan's sweeping, symphonic Cowled Crusader saga, The Dark Knight Rises is, well, a blast.

The dialogue is smart, screwball, sublime.

The lack of any readily identifiable star - no Cage, no McConaughey - makes Blue Ruin feel even more authentic, more rooted in this frightening world.

A riveting sci-fi investigation into humankind's experiments with A.I. (with pages from Spike Jonze's Her and Stanley Kubrick's 2001), Ex Machina marks the extremely able directing debut of British writer Alex Garland, of the novels "The Beach" and "The Tesseract," and of the screenplays for Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later" . . . and "Sunshine."

Slower and talkier than the five Potters that came before - but not necessarily in a bad way - Half-Blood Prince is a bubbling cauldron of hormonal angst, rife with romance and heartbreak, jealousy and longing.

Apart from its anthropomorphic, allegorical angle, Zootopia is also a tale of female empowerment and a classic noir, too.

The plain, reportorial style of Lost Boys -- which simply records its subjects in various settings and situations -- results in a film that doesn't preach, doesn't politicize.

A bruising, dark comedy.

It's the stuff of soap opera, infused with a nonchalant, David Lynch-like surrealism and a nutball Canadian humor. Beer - because of the baroness, and because this is Canada - flows freely.

Even with a voice-over narration, and conversations with her dog, Robyn's nomadic quest is full of grand silences, all the better to take in the sky, the rocks, the world spinning underfoot. Wasikowska plays this wordless wanderer just right. That is, she makes her real.

Tavernier pulls all this off with elegance and style; his battle scenes are tough and bloody, his châteaus grand.

Anderson, 29, does so much in Magnolia, with such nerve, with wily humor and out-of-the-blue bravado, that the film's flaws and lapses don't really matter. It ain't perfect, but it's awe-inspiring.

The Island could be read as a metaphor for societal ills (commercialization, conformity, pharmaceutical overkill) if it weren't so shamelessly dumb. And dumb it is.

It's not a very good title, Waste Land - this isn't a bleak film, at all - but just about everything else in Lucy Walker's documentary works, and illuminates.

Mr. Holmes is about how the past defines us. It is also very much about regret and trying to put things right.

Thanks to a witty script and the recognizably goofy but absolutely earnest delivery of Black, Kung Fu Panda has a human soul, too.

Shines with weird, whimsical invention.

Nat King Cole croons a Christmas chestnut, an opera wafts into the ether, Latin jazz sways. It's all terribly atmospheric, and if you're in the mood for atmosphere, 2046 delivers.

Affleck is more interested in the people in the midst of the action than he is in the action itself, and that gives this accomplished genre piece considerable and compelling depth.

A beautiful eyeful of puckish whimsy and dark-humored mystery, Hukkle (it means hiccup in Hungarian) is a little gem in which nature and humankind commingle, where coincidence and causality collide in a chain of odd, even murderous, events.

Winner of a prize at the Cannes Film Festival in May, the quiet, solemn Climates is a bit like those towering ancient columns that Isa photographs to show his class. The fragmented architecture is beautiful and striking, but also extremely dated.

Stevie is compelling, real-life drama: bleak and disturbing, but illuminating all the same.

Much of Finding Dory is funny, and fun. But there's something kind of haunting about our heroine's memory thing. If you forget where you are, and who you are, and why you are - isn't that called Losing Dory?

Bale is extraordinary, grinning like a kid, displaying wily intelligence, sinewy resolve and spirit - and a bit of craziness, too.

Offers dazzling cinematic family fun, and a mad medley of tunes.

David Gelb's thoughtful and wonderful documentary, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, explores the dedication of this humble, bespectacled man, and the Zen-like focus he has for his work - or, as many would claim, for his art.

Profoundly knuckleheaded.

There's a melancholy sweetness here, a gentle humor that speaks to the angst and awkwardness of girls turning into women, and the awe of boys watching the transformation from afar.