The great success for Mendes and Craig, however, is that while Skyfall obviously has a great fondness for the past, it's not trapped there. It also anticipates Bond's future. In this immensely satisfying movie, so do we.

The film doesn’t need to make a case for Marina’s basic humanity and smartly avoids clichés of persecution storytelling, instead ceding the floor to Vega’s magnetic presence and soulfulness. She is a marvel, and if one doesn’t come away loving her as Orlando did, it’s no shortcoming of the film.

Melancholia is an intense, exhausting experience. That may not sound appealing, and for some, it won't be. But nor should it be off-putting. Proceed with caution, perhaps. But proceed nevertheless.

Like the elements of a good hit song, it all comes together and seems fresh. It may sound like something you’ve heard before, but it also sounds new.

It’s all a neat trick. Or exercise. Or brain-teaser. Whatever you want to call it, Upstream Color is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. But once you have seen it, once isn’t going to be enough

Long story short: Hunt for the Wilderpeople is a terrific movie and you should do whatever you can to see it.

This timely movie is a must-see.

Good movies create their own worlds, and that’s certainly true of Goodnight Mommy — even if it’s a world you wouldn’t want to live in.

The enormously appealing thing about Glass Onion is watching the cast have an obviously good time with their characters and with each other.

It’s a film entirely lacking in pomp, but there’s a certain bravado in its delicate reservation. A tender and spare meditation on family unfurls in the stillness of a sleepy, sun-soaked Spanish summer.

It's almost as difficult to sit through Starred Up as it is satisfying to watch it.

A delicious trifle for anyone who has ever dreamt of bantering about the cinema with Luis Buñuel or lounging at the piano to hear Cole Porter sing "Let's Do It."

But it’s Atwell who steps up the most. Like Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s character in “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” her motives are fluid, which makes her more fun.

It’s ambiguity without engagement, art you can admire but not feel.

A mix of comedy, science fiction, nostalgia, adolescent wish-fulfillment and beer, beer, beer, its parts shouldn’t fit together as neatly as they do. But somehow Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg have again managed to make a movie that is knowing, touching and hilarious.

Weinstein normally directs documentaries, and Menashe has a fly-on-the-wall feel at times, particularly in the warmly believable interplay between father and son.

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.

It’s behind the wheel with Miles that Ford v Ferrari becomes a well-oiled entertainment machine, a thrill ride with a driver’s-eye view of the world’s most exciting track. Everything that doesn’t work is just a distant speck in the rearview mirror.

For a movie that seems at times to have no idea what it's trying to do, 'Silver Linings Playbook' is compulsively watchable. ... Throwing together so many movie tropes and blending them is both a brilliant idea and a scary one, but one that Russell proves well capable of handling.

The film is nakedly candid, but Stritch is also a ham who is almost always aware of the camera.

The Proposal makes for a fascinating and not-a-little-morbid piece of artistic trolling.

As a substitution for the tour that never was, this concert film within a documentary does a brilliant job of bringing "Western Stars" to life.

Waves is definitely not a film for everyone, but it has hidden depths that will reward the patient.

[An] enormously entertaining movie.

It’s fun, it’s smart and yes, it actually does have something to say. Delivered in this way, I think people are more inclined to listen.

The Testament of Ann Lee is a biographical film about a real person, though one about whom a great number of details aren’t known. It runs up against some rough patches during the telling of the story, but overall it is immensely enjoyable, an unflinching (and nonjudgmental) look at faith, no matter how bizarrely we may think it’s practiced.

It's not a short documentary, running just shy of two hours and 21 minutes. But it never quite feels like it's dragging, owing in part to the offbeat sense of humor but also the sense of discovery.

If a heartfelt summer comedy feels like something that the doctor ordered, then a healthy dose of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is just what you need.