It’s exciting filmmaking, and Cooper rarely lets up.

A terrific piece of entertainment. The financial lingo will please money wonks. But the film as a whole focuses more on the people and personalities who went into such a catastrophic failure.

Boasting terrific acting, a brilliant soundtrack, outrageous outfits and hair, and a kinda-sorta based-on-fact story of ambition and greed, it’s relentless, in the best possible way.

Although it can be harrowing and disturbing, Joachim Trier's film -- and Lie's performance -- are so masterful that the movie seems more like a searing portrait of self-discovery and realization, with the understanding that not everything you learn about yourself will be pleasant.

Room is a terrific movie, one that has two outstanding performances, confident direction and a story line that is both harrowing and moving.

If one definition of art is seeing what everyone else does, only in a different way, The Holdovers fits that bill. It’s a delight.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is everything you want in a movie: the fight scenes are bloody and exciting, the dialogue is tongue-in-cheek, every joke landed, and not one actor felt out of place.

As with First Reformed, Schrader crashes right through the boundaries separating the literal from the surreal. It is a strange journey, increasingly so, but an immensely satisfying one.

It’s a heartfelt salute from Branagh to his hometown, and what he loved there.

It takes the charred bones and ash of Argento's witches and roots them in a reality entirely familiar to our own.

What Scorsese has really made is a beautifully crafted love letter to movies, the passion of his life. What sounded like an odd pairing winds up being a perfect fit.

With attacks on diversity and inclusion more abundant and dangerous than ever, “Deaf President Now!” is more relevant than ever.

Detroit, as a movie, is all over the place, yet oddly that messiness is one of its strengths. It is also appropriate. Necessary, even. It fits.

David Fincher's meticulous direction pays off in spades. From the way he expresses the book's construction — not quite he-said/she-said, but a version of that — to the way the film looks (cold and uncaring, like its characters) to his work with actors (go Tyler Perry!), Gone Girl delivers.

Crawford's documentary celebrates the legacy of CREEM in all its dysfunctional glory, not only addressing but owning all the things about it that would never fly in 2020.

BlacKkKlansman is Spike Lee’s best movie in years, bringing together everything that makes him such a dynamic, exciting, urgent filmmaker – as well as some of what can drive you crazy about him, too.

A delightful film - gentle, playful, creative and ultimately happy - though it's a tricky journey.

The Big Short manages to entertain you while making you really, really mad.

The transition between junior high and high school is exhilarating, traumatic, funny and horrifying, and Bo Burnham's Eighth Grade captures the whole experience perfectly.

Bursts at the seams with wild creativity.

Its importance lies in Baldwin’s insistence on exposing truths, many of them uncomfortable, many of them more urgent than ever.

When every aspect of a movie comes together, it's a beautiful sight.

It’s fantastic.

It’s a terrific example of a movie that doesn’t work too hard to make you love it. It’s patient as it waits for you to come around to its considerable charms.

I love movies like The Wailing. Na Hong-jin’s film is like a genre buffet, with horror as the main course, but a hearty helping of mystery, crime drama, black comedy and family relations on the menu, as well. Don’t forget the side dishes of religion, superstition and ritual. It’s a full meal.

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl is not the first film about family secrets coming to light through grief, but it may be the most original.

To say that the film is uncomfortable to watch is an understatement. It's searing. Yet it's also invaluable.

Birbiglia, whose previous feature was the well-received “Sleepwalk with Me,” has made a tiny gem, a delightful film as surprising as it is satisfying.