Boyhood is not just a great movie, it's a landmark achievement in film.

It's one of the best movies of the year, one of the best entries ever in the Way We Live Now oeuvre.

Marielle Heller’s debut directorial effort is incisive and universal, despite its very specific and detailed setting.

In Too Late to Die Young, Chilean writer-director Dominga Sotomayor excavates details from her own memory to unlock a hidden bonus level of starkly original cinematic beauty. This spare coming-of-age story is a slow-burning stunner, despite hardly having a plot at all.

Occasionally you see a movie that just satisfies on all fronts — the performances, the direction, the whole package. Even less occasionally you see one that does all that and moves you, too. “The Worst Person in the World” is one of those.

Inside Out is terrific, a mind-bending concept turned into a brilliant film, a return to form for Pixar not just in terms of quality but in taking risks — risks that pay off.

In the end, “Tuesday” is all about learning how to say goodbye. It’s masterfully done. This movie will remain in my top three films of the year.

With “A Real Pain,” Jesse Eisenberg — who wrote, directed and stars in the film — pulls off a kind of magic trick. He’s made a movie with backdrops of pain and despair, both personal and existential, that is also funny, charming and something approaching uplifting. Ta-da!

Gosling is terrific, playing hangdog and irritable yet still managing to be someone you root for (even if you want to smack him in the head every now and then). Stone is even better. It’s her best performance, and that’s saying something. Their relationship, their chemistry, everything about it, and everything about La La Land is, well, magic.

Although the Pythons went on to make a number of movies, true fans will always have a special place in their hearts for Holy Grail, which is Python at its best. [14 Sept 2001, p.1P]

It’s delightful to see filmmakers and actors take such big swings. It’s even more delightful when they connect, and in Poor Things, they do.

The film is a sweet, funny and heartfelt look at friendship and strength.

It’s powerful, a technically dazzling achievement; so audacious is Nolan’s filmmaking that if it didn’t serve the story you’d think at times he was just showing off. He’s not.

It’s a film that gets brilliantly to the truth of how and why we fall in love, and replicates that sensation — and the heartache that follows.

Moonlight is a minor miracle, a movie that mines beauty out of the ugliest situations, and a glimmer of hope from heartbreak.

The Zone of Interest, then, serves as a horror story about the past, and a cautionary tale for the present.

For a movie with such big emotions, it also feels grounded and realistic. Somehow, Cooper has made a Hollywood fairy tale seem utterly believable and magical at the same time.

Between the galloping pace of the action and the percussive soundtrack and sound editing, you remain tense the entire time. Garland just won’t let you relax.

This is a wonderful movie.

50/50 is a tremendous movie. It's also a really funny one, which doesn't mean it won't make you cry.

The resulting portrait is nothing short of a tiny filmmaking miracle. It’s guaranteed to make you feel something — hopeful, probably, for Grace and her wards. And maybe even for the future of indie filmmaking.

The Irishman is a great movie, easily one of the best of the year, one of the best of the great Martin Scorsese’s career.

A great movie, a look inside a world so foreign that it might as well be another planet, yet so universal that its observations are painfully familiar to anyone, anywhere.

A genuine triumph, a great movie with astounding performances so natural, so genuine, that you forget it's a movie.

What a great movie.

Thanks to the nicely layered characters and a near-perfect mix of action and merriment, the movie feels wonderfully vivid and alive.

A Hidden Life is less a story than an experience, a spiritual journey made accessible through light and sound. Malick doesn’t transcend cinema. He sanctifies it.

The Artist is such an engaging, delightful film that, if you like movies, you will walk out of the theater with a smile. You just will; it's that inspired.

The movie just hits the nail on the head: that sense that we're just going through life, trying to navigate it the best way we can in each moment. There are a lot of things to love about Truman — including the dog — but that could be one of its best and biggest attributes.

Greed, the lust for power and the willingness to do anything to obtain it are all on a lot of people’s minds just now. Washington offers a glimpse into that dangerous combination, one that resonates as strongly as ever.

This is a fully realized film, with a confident eye and lived-in performances. What a treat.

Manchester by the Sea is a masterpiece in a minor key, an exploration of grief that never lets its characters — or its audience — off the hook. It manages this even when it’s funny, which is surprisingly often.

Foster was born to this kind of role, rugged but soulful, and he’s outstanding. The surprise is Pine, giving by far his best performance.

It's an affecting, visceral work that deserves eyes on it no matter if it's projected in the darkened recess of the cinema or streamed in the comfort of a living room.

It is devastating and magnetic and most of all brilliant. Don’t miss it.

A great movie, an astonishing achievement on nearly every level.

The acting is outstanding, the direction assured if straightforward. 12 Years a Slave is a history lesson of the best type. It’s brilliant. But, more crucially, it’s important. It’s brutal truth that demands to be seen.

Anderson’s vision of this world, this era, these people, is so winning that you feel a part of it, yet with the removal of an observer. It works. That’s why Licorice Pizza is a blast.

It is a remarkable achievement.

Her is an outstanding movie, in part because of its originality, but also because of its execution.

Wreck-It Ralph is smart, funny, sweet and sassy. And that's just Sarah Silverman's character... The movie is a treat for kids and the parents they drag to see it. Or maybe it'll be the other way around. Either way. It doesn't matter how you get to it. Just get there.

The visuals are stunning, perhaps the most fully realized of any film.

Minari is as moving as it is entertaining, and it is a lot of both.

There Will Be Blood is a masterpiece; Daniel Day-Lewis' performance as a ruthless oilman is without flaw.

It is particularly rewarding to see Clooney outside his comfort zone of self-composed cool in The Descendants, Alexander Payne's beautifully gentle, funny and moving film.

It’s 3 hours and 35 minutes long (including a 15-minute intermission), and while it’s full and complete, it never drags or feels padded. It is, simply put, a great movie.

With Drive My Car, the journey is as satisfying as the destination. It’s great.

It's powerful stuff.

Simply put, Argo is why we go to movies.

Emotionally engaging from the start, bolstered by brilliant performances and held together by Song’s understated direction that weaves timelines together flawlessly, it’s more than just good.

Nothing is off the table when your status is threatened, no matter what your station in life. Parasite explores this in stunning fashion.

Dunkirk is a great movie, both an old-time inspirational war epic and at the same time very much a Christopher Nolan movie.

The whole movie is amazing.

McCarthy and his brilliant cast make hard work and truth-telling inspiring.

The movie is emotional without feeling manipulative. It’s progressive without feeling heavy handed. It’s dazzling without feeling like it was made completely on a computer, despite literally being made on a computer! Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is exhilarating, touching, creative and a shoo-in for Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards again this year.

Birdman is a treat. But it's also more than that. It's a full-fledged wonder.

The Tribe is that rare breed of film so masterful in execution it requires watching once, yet so devastating you may never be able to stomach seeing it again.

The Little Mermaid delivers on every front and will likely be one of the summer’s biggest box-office winners.

Marty Supreme is breakneck, it’s nerve wracking and it is above all entertaining as all get out. It makes you eager to see what Chalamet’s going to do next.

Of course, you could just watch this for the performances and it would still be one of the best movies of the year. But why sell yourself short? Watch it for everything that it is, a kind of miraculously unearthed treasure trove of music and politics and culture and soul. So much soul.

Schindler's list is a great movie that serves a greater purpose. [07 Jan 1994, p.D5]

Though everyone is older this time around, and the themes are darker, harder to enjoy, the conversation is just as engrossing. So is the film.

The Guilt Trip surprises by avoiding the obvious. It zigs when you expect it to zag. It's perceptive and thoughtful as it swerves around potholes that easily could have broken an axle.

The power dynamics between two peoples locked in “asymmetrical conflict” — not to mention two sets of gender codes — set the stage for Alayan’s thriller. In storytelling terms, they are the rules by which the tightly wound plot unspools. But the film’s great strength, in addition to the usual quality-control things, is its care to humanize, not demonize, the characters who are playing by those rules.

Hamilton defies a cynical reading. It is a great show, and an important one. Right now the latter might be more a more crucial description that the former. Don’t miss it.

It makes you think. And that's invaluable.

"Three Billboards" is a really good movie filled with terrific performances, but what McDormand is doing here surpasses them all.

Once the movie is over and you realize how the filmmaker has turned the tables, you can't help but be amused — and amazed.

People Places Things is filled with that kind of heart-piercing comedy that makes a viewer cringe and laugh at the same time.

A comedy about an all-female collegiate a cappella group. And to paraphrase one of the characters in the movie, it's A-Ca-Awesome.

It’s only Fargeat’s second feature after 2017’s “Revenge.” That was a good movie. “The Substance” is a substantial leap forward and a film people will rightfully be talking about for a while.

What makes 56 Up, like the “Up” films before it, so remarkable is how it puts these stories together, giving us an ensemble of characters as interesting as any in a scripted drama.

Soul asks its audience to examine what in life truly is important. You never know what your spark might be, until suddenly you do. And it might not be what you think. Turns out you may have had it all along.

First Cow sneaks up on you a little bit. You become engrossed in these men and their relationship, then their business, then their survival. And that’s definitely not nothing. Far from it, in fact

There was a cry from Wallace fans when Segel was cast (some are still up in arms), but he’s terrific. So is Eisenberg, in an even more difficult role.

Carol is a simple story that sneaks up on you. Todd Haynes takes such care in the telling of it — and the gorgeous depiction of it — that it's impossible not to be moved.

Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret is a delightful film, just lovely.

With a brilliant twist at the end, “Nickel Boys” is a masterpiece of an adaptation that showcases the harsh realities of racism within American society.

What’s most remarkable about the film, which was shot in Iraq, are the performances. The cast members are not actors. They’re non-professionals, at least, acting for the first time. Yet their performances feel so genuine, so lived-in.

It's terrific. It's about many things, but dread infuses them all. You won't be grossed out. You'll be creeped out. And that's a lot more satisfying.

It breathes youthful life into a tired franchise and makes the smartest transition yet of characters from the comics to the big screen with clever animation and thoughtful storytelling.

All elements of the film cohesively create a must-see film about overcoming fear for kids and adults.

When telling the story of real-life heroes, it’s easy to lapse into clichés. What makes the terrific Only the Brave such a powerful movie is its abject rejection of them.

How you feel about the film will depend on how you feel about politics, probably. But don’t let partisanship get in the way of appreciating another inventive film from McKay, and some truly brilliant performances. Surely on that, we can all agree.

If you’re making a movie about someone with exacting standards, Day-Lewis is your man. Yet what’s so exciting about Anderson and Day-Lewis’ collaborations is that while the actor is always superb, they’re very much the director’s movies. They feed off of one another, creating collaborative works that show off each other’s strengths.

The metaphor is plain yet elegant: Ai is the clever cat busily devising ways to push through the barriers physical, cultural, mental -- that make humans less than free. And in China, of course, the biggest of those barriers is the one-party state.

There are a few examples that illustrate what makes “Turn Every Page — The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb” such an exciting documentary. Yes, seriously, exciting.

Jean-Marc Vallee’s film is anything but standard, thanks to an astonishing performance by Matthew McConaughey.

Lucky is one of Harry Dean Stanton’s last roles, a rare leading performance, and it is a treasure.

Catherine Called Birdy is a reminder to let our spirits be free, never settle and keep loved ones close.

The second the film starts it's evident you're watching a Studio Ghibli film. The animation is unmistakable and is so detailed and fluid you almost forget you're watching an animation.

For me, it doesn’t really matter if LaBeouf is letting himself off the hook, or if Honey Boy is the ultimate vanity project of a pampered narcissist. What matters is that he has plunged into the maelstrom of his own memories and emerged with a real work of art — something that feels real, feels true, even though we all know it isn’t.

Take my word for it, or better yet go find out for yourself: Big Hero 6 is a treat.

As with "The Central Park Five," you come away from the film impressed by the storytelling but enraged by the facts. It's outrageous that this kind of thing happens, but Berg does an outstanding job of showing us how it does.

The film is a fascinating struggle between Balram’s promise and capability and the generations of ingrained, unfeeling privilege that stacks the deck against him.

Of course blackmail, shady business dealings and overdoses abound in Johnson's crafty tale. He masterfully maneuvers today's political maelstrom with ease and makes these would-be caricatures into people who could very well be sitting next to you for a Thanksgiving feast.

Jenkins brings an urgency to If Beale Street Could Talk, along with the melancholy of problems still yet to be solved.

Scarier than anything you'll find in a horror movie this time of year.