Todd McCarthy

A smart sex comedy that successfully swims upstream to spawn and score.

Outstandingly realized on all levels.

This first English-language outing by the ever-adventurous French director Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust and Bone) is a connoisseur’s delight, as it's boisterously acted and detailed down to its last bit of shirt stitching.

It's a dramatic tale loaded with all manner of dynamics, political and personal, and Spielberg charges out of the gate at a brisk clip, extends his hand and all but enjoins the viewer to grab hold and be swept along for the ride.

Loaded with pleasures, the greatest of which derive from the on location filming in Prague, the most 18th century of all European cities.

Brandishes the sort of intelligent wit and bracing nastiness that will make it more appealing to discerning adults than to teens who just want to have fun.

The drama flows gorgeously and, unlike in many other franchises in which entries keep getting longer every time out, this one is served up without an ounce of fat. It provides all the tension and action the mainstream audience could want, along with a good deal more.

Even as the narrative becomes more perplexing — as before, realistic masks conceal true identities, characters' actual agendas remain hidden — the fast-moving spectacle unfolds in extraordinary fashion.

George Lucas has reached deep into the trove of his self-generated mythological world to produce a grand entertainment that offers a satisfying balance among the series' epic, narrative, technological and emotional qualities.

Technically superb and witty in an old-fashioned, veddy British way that will delight many adults but will sail over the heads of young audiences.

Wonderfully acted and slickly mad. Acutely written with an eye to the motivations and ambiguities involved on both sides in such a relationship.

A superbly wrought yarn set in the milieu of first-generation Russian mobsters in London that is simultaneously tough-minded and compassionate about the human condition, Eastern Promises instantly takes its place among David Cronenberg's very best films.

Smart, droll and dazzling to look at and listen to, writer-director Tony Gilroy's effervescent, intricately plotted puzzler proves in every way superior to his 2007 success "Michael Clayton."

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.

Perhaps the nature of the story is such that the film can’t help but be obvious and quite melodramatic at times, but it gets better as it goes along and builds to a moving finish.

Executed to near perfection in all artistic departments, this superior adaptation of the perennial favorite novel will find its core public among girls , but should prove satisfying enough to a range of audiences to make it a solid performer for Warner Bros.' family entertainment banner.

A dazzling delight.

Artistically on a plane with or near the vet filmmaker's best work, this period drama about a woman slowly discovering her metier is an artisanal creation par excellence.

A faithful, powerful and superbly acted adaptation of Andre Dubus III's international bestseller.

By getting Tyson to open up as he has, Toback has succeeded in illuminating one of the most polarizing, complex and -- the film almost forces one to admit -- misunderstood figures of our time.

Lemon represents a feature debut of unusual assurance and control with a style all its own.

A "GoodFellas" with heart, A Bronx Tale represents a wonderfully vivid snapshot of a colorful place and time, as well as a very satisfying directorial debut by Robert De Niro. Overflowing with behavioral riches and the flavor of a deep-dyed New York Italian neighborhood, the film also trades intelligently in pertinent moral and social issues that raise it above the level of nostalgia or the mere memoir.

Like hard-edged "Masterpiece Theater."

Artist evinces unlimited love for the look and ethos of the 1920s as well for the style of the movies. The filmmakers clearly did their homework and took great pleasure in doing so, an enjoyment that is passed along in ample doses to any viewer game for their nifty little conceit.

Emerges as the best in the overall series since "The Empire Strikes Back."

Taken together, "Flags" and "Letters" represent a genuinely imposing achievement, one that looks at war unflinchingly -- that does not deny its necessity but above all laments the human loss it entails.

Nutty, arcane and jaw-dropping in equal measure, this is a head-first plunge down the rabbit hole of Kubrickiana from which, for some, there is evidently no return.

The Safdies and the cast go deep enough here to make the film a genuinely human one.