The ending is stunning, a brilliant and forceful reclamation that doesn’t necessarily provide answers, but does provide hard-earned satisfaction.

The acting is outstanding. And there's a lot of humor. True, we're often laughing at Philip (when we're not cringing), instead of with him. But Perry also goes for more traditional laughs.

Sneider, who keeps the tone starkly unsentimental, manages to stay fairly neutral with the couple. Both characters are wildly flawed, and you can feel your sympathies shift during their knock-down, drag-out fights.

Certainly the details have been known and written about here and there, but director Alexandra Dean assembles them in an entertaining, and at times heartbreaking and infuriating, film.

There are moments when this funny, self-consciously quirky film feels a bit like a Welsh "Napoleon Dynamite."

Yes, the latest Pixar offering involves a journey to the Land of the Dead, which by definition requires people to, you know, die. That's always sad. But there's joy here, particularly in the animation and the cinematography; the Land of the Dead is a beautiful place, which is kind of comforting

Paddington 2 is a winsome confection. More than just a movie, it’s a necessary mood corrective, a temporary escape hatch from negativity. The world does indeed feel right in the company of this kind and polite little bear.

Beautiful, baffling, poetic, pretentious, it's one big ball of moviedom. Malick tackles the whole shooting match, pondering (and showing) the creation of the universe, life itself, death and the afterlife, and everything in between.

King Richard is an inspiring story of a family beating long odds to succeed. When you find out just how long those odds were, it's hard not to cheer for them.

Any fan of acting — any fan of movies — will be thrilled.

Reality and fantasy become increasingly blurred. And if you want to enjoy Dark Horse, you're just going to have to go with it.

David Lowery’s film is about as quiet and patient as what is ostensibly a caper movie can be. Yet its engine never idles, in large part because Redford, at 82, remains a movie star, someone to whom we are drawn, even as he is politely robbing a bank with a note, a gun and a smile.

The cast is excellent, anchored by the one-two punch of Colunga and Yañez.

This is a man who knows things, and Hawke creates an inspiring platform that allows him to share (at least some of) them.

The Queen of Versailles is funny, sad, infuriating, instructive. It's the American Dream inflated to ridiculous extremes, until it bursts.

Calling Jackie, director Pablo Larrain’s absorbing film, a construction project is not to demean it but to praise it.

This is a smart movie, a treat for fans of the comics and the franchise. And it's a lot of fun.

The story Snowden tells is, of course, absorbing, disturbing and, yes, scary. Poitras' film, playing out as more and more is revealed, reported and published, comes off like a real-life spy thriller.

The lunacy begins early in The Pirates! Band of Misfits and never lets up.

It is high-spirited, buoyant and full of laughs.

Particle Fever does an excellent job of laying out what's at stake as it documents the creation and fine-tuning of the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.

Director Thomas Vinterberg and Carey Mulligan, who plays Bathsheba Everdene, bring exciting life to the story.

The movie is fun, it's smart and there's plenty of action. There are enough knowing nods to old-school fans to satisfy them, but the nods don't get in the way. In fact - and a feel for this kind of thing is what makes Abrams so good - they're perfect, nice accents that won't slow down the uninitiated.

Yes, it has a bit of the watching-races-for-the-wrecks feel to it, and by the end of the film, it's not clear Piven has a destination in mind, or whether it's important to arrive at one. But this is a performance that demands your attention. It also deserves it.

For some, it will be tempting to say The French Dispatch is easier to admire than enjoy. But if you go into it knowing what Anderson offers, you can do both.

The first word that comes to mind when watching Landscape With Invisible Hand is "weird." It’s very weird. But in the most thoughtful way possible. This sci-fi film packs originality in every scene and plot point.

It’s a heartbreaking journey with moments of real triumph, including Turner playing to a crowd of 186,000 in Rio and the audience clearly adoring her during a curtain call at the musical based on her life. But every triumph here is offset by the sense that there are scars that never fully healed.

It’s a movie as much about white privilege as it is anything else, an examination of the incredible advantages the wealthy have — advantages that don’t prevent them from cheating anyway.