Todd McCarthy

Clint Eastwood has crafted a tense, hard-edged, superbly dramatic yarn that is also an exceedingly intelligent meditation on the West, its myths and its heroes.

Brandishing an ambition it's likely no film, including this one, could entirely fulfill, The Tree of Life is nonetheless a singular work, an impressionistic metaphysical inquiry into mankind's place in the grand scheme of things that releases waves of insights amid its narrative imprecisions.

It’s a demanding sit, a film both rigorous and indulgent, rewarding and aggravating.

As Oscar, Jordan at moments gives off vibes of a very young Denzel Washington in the way he combines gentleness and toughness; he effortlessly draws the viewer in toward him.

Driven by fantastic energy and a torrent of vivid images of India old and new, Slumdog Millionaire is a blast.

Through immaculate use of picture, sound and time, the director adds another panel to his series of pictures about disaffected, disconnected youth.

The excitement, majesty and extraordinary human accomplishment of the American lunar program of the '60s and early '70s is rousingly captured in In the Shadow of the Moon.

This is definitely his edgiest, rawest work in a good while. Acting is of a very high caliber across the board, but Judy Davis, in a very meaty part compared to her previous walk-on for Allen in “Alice,” is incandescent, revealing a whole new side to her personality that has never surfaced onscreen before.

This is a Wes Anderson film -- more lightweight than some, possessing a stronger emotional undertow than others -- that will strike the uninitiated as conspicuously arch.

Wang has made a dramatically confident move into the mainstream on his own terms with highly congenial material.

A witty and sometimes surreal sci-fi comedy, Men in Black is a wild knuckleball of a movie that keeps dancing in and out of the strike zone.

A script as fresh and distinctive as any produced in the States in recent memory.

From a sensory point of view, the film is a pleasure, the images having been manipulated in various ways to evocative effect, Anderson’s voiceovers proving more amusing than not, and the music taking mostly lively turns.

Ultimately, what gives Toy Story 4 genuine heft is that it's a tale of second chances and characters who take advantage of them. Like its predecessors, the film is rambunctious, noisy, genial, unpretentious, action-packed and old-fashioned in a very good way.

Immaculately crafted in beautiful black-and-white and entirely absorbing through its longish running time, Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon nonetheless proves a difficult film to entirely embrace.

Writer-director Robert Eggers' debut feature impresses on several fronts, notably in the performances, historical feel and visual precision, but the overall effect is relatively subdued and muted, probably too much so for mainstream scare fans.

Their physical disparity notwithstanding, Gordon-Levitt and Willis both come across strongly, while Blunt effectively reveals Sara's tough and vulnerable sides.

But the filmmakers have invigorated and enriched the story through the use of a thousand details, a strong sense of time and place, outstanding characterizations and a display of energy and cinematic flair that marks an advance on "My Left Foot."

Widows is a solid piece of genre fiction made more resonant by how its creators have bored down into its characters and sociological implications in ways specifically designed to examine some of the rotten underpinnings of business as usual.

Impressively made and well acted by an exceedingly attractive cast, this dark tale of ceaseless conflict is adult entertainment and will likely disappoint viewers expecting a "Camelot"-like love triangle.

Crucially for such an elaborately dressed production, the characters all come thoroughly alive with their ready wits and pulsing emotions, overcoming the two-century gap with seeming effortlessness.

After a five-year wait since "Sideways," Alexander Payne has made his best film yet with The Descendants. Ostensibly a study of loss and coping with a tragic situation, this wonderfully nuanced look at a father and two daughters dealing with the imminent death of his wife and their mother turns the miraculous trick of possibly being even funnier than it is moving.

This spirited and often very funny lark accomplishes something that most films in the bygone Hollywood studio era used to do but is remarkably rare in today's world of niche markets: It offers entertainment equally to viewers from 4 to 104.

One of Caine's meatiest roles, and he handles it with power, humanity and remarkable emotional fluidity; from the opening moments, an enormous amount comes through his eyes alone.

This full-bodied adaptation of Dennis Lehane's involved and involving 2001 bestselling crime novel about old friends in Boston's working-class Irish neighborhood finds Clint Eastwood near the top of his directorial game with a cast of first-rate actors.

But it doesn't quite all come together here as it did onstage, and relentless scabrousness, heavy claustrophobia and a vaguely dated feel are among the elements that will keep mainstream audiences away.

A low-impact romantic comedy-drama from James L. Brooks in which the central characters are strangely disconnected from one another as well as from the audience.

The opposition of the two dramas winds up in gratifyingly moral and philosophical territory.