Ty Burr

A fitting, expertly made final chapter, freighted with hard-won emotions, shot through with a sense of farewell, and fully aware of the epic stakes involved.

Take Shelter plays Curtis's unraveling at daring length. The film will be too slow and dark for some, and it's definitely overlong.

There are three Poles in The Pianist -- Szpilman, Polanski, and Frederic Chopin. Of the three, fittingly, Chopin speaks the loudest.

Mitch Winehouse has disavowed this movie and his portrayal in it, but it’s hard to argue with the scene where he shows up on St. Lucia, where Amy has fled from the hounds of the global media, with a reality-show camera crew of his own.

Smartly written and beautifully played, The Savages is about that point in life where you look around and realize that where you are is probably as far as you're going to get. In spite of this, the movie's a comedy, dry and humane.

Best of all, An Education isn’t alarmist. It knows other people can’t seduce us if we don’t seduce ourselves first and that Jenny is level-headed enough to handle it and learn.

Lebanon gives us viscerally violent, intensely distressing glimpses into war's annihilation of people, places, and communities.

It’s not her greatest work but it’s warm, witty, and thorough. It’s a little like visiting a beloved old aunt who you suddenly remember has more smarts and creativity — more balls — than anyone else you know.

At times, Eighth Grade plays like a nature documentary about life and death on the savannas of suburbia.

One of the best, most karmically satisfying comedies of the year, much to the chagrin of the people who are in it.

The movie captures that heady adolescent sense of time stopping and the moment mattering while standing far enough back to let us acknowledge all the pitfalls Marieme is moving too fast to see.

Ghobadi shows us a world where a village pond can hold both rare goldfish and unforgivable evil, and where every step is onto booby-trapped terrain.

When The Departed roars to life, as it does in so many of its scenes, you feel like nobody understands movies -- the delirious highs, the unforgiving moral depths -- as well as this man does. Welcome back, Marty.

The film is as spare and unvarnished as a wooden temple floating on a lake, but its reflections run deep, and it can ripple your thoughts for months.

A delightfully deranged steampunk adventure.

In its attention to detail and awareness of betrayals both political and human, "Tinker Tailor'' is a movie for grown-ups.

The Wild Robot has reduced a lot of respectable early reviewers to happy tears, and chances are that you and your children will feel the same.

Gosling may be the soul of Half Nelson, but Epps is the film's heart.

How you feel about About Schmidt may depend in large part on how you feel About Jack.

That film remains an electrifying testament to pop music as a communal creative act.

Mudbound is four-square and unshowy, and you might mistake it for old-fashioned. But the presence of an African-American director behind the camera affects everything in front of it.

It’s well worth seeking out for older kids who don’t mind reading subtitles, their parents, and any adults who can appreciate a good story movingly and creatively told.

A documentary about a Macedonian beekeeper doesn’t sound like one of the best films of the year, does it? But few movies capture the great wheel of nature turning with as much beauty and empathy as Honeyland, and fewer still show how easily the wheel can slip its track and come crashing to pieces.

You come away impressed, oppressed, provoked, and beaten down, holding on to Ledger's squirrelly incandescence as a beacon in the darkness.

I don't think I've seen a mainstream movie get fatherhood so right since "Kramer vs . Kramer": the fear, the indulgence, the snappishness, the pre-occupied "uh-huhs" as a child natters about his day, the steamrolling waves of love.

A nice long soak in the Proustian detritus of its era.

The Past, the new film from Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, is taut, quiet, democratic, observant — a fine meal made with rare and subtle ingredients.

Black Bag is a movie about pros made by a pro, and either you’re up to the challenge or you’re not.