Hustlers is an absolute joy and one of the most refreshing movies you’ll see all year.

Let the Sunshine In has many pleasures for those seeking a languorous, provocative, and enchanting look at a woman who is trying to carve out something authentic.

Life of Pi, ironically, soars when it confines itself to land and sea; when it grasps for the celestial, the film goes beyond its reach.

Let Me In is by far one of the best-looking films of the year, genre or no genre. It's a nightmare, sure, but what childhood isn't?

This is Denzel Washington’s third at bat behind the camera while directing himself and, holy smokes, does he knock it out of the park with a vicious, visceral performance that fairly sets the screen ablaze.

Moments of great suspense are sometimes invested with intrinsic humor, moments of trauma can yield great compassion. Often, these seemingly conflicting tones exist all at once, while the oblique mystery never clearly identifies the correct emotion.

It's all pretty involving and sweetly ingratiating in a Charlotte's Web-by kind of way.

Keep the Lights On feels like a first-rate, late-Seventies experimental student film, or early Scorsese. But then the cycle of addiction takes over the film, and the plot about stagnancy ends up stagnating the film itself.

Fill the Void is almost more like an ethnographic film than a fictional narrative in regard to our rare observational perspective. Yet Shira also shares attitudes in common with Jane Austen heroines, whose worlds are dominated by their marital prospects and domestic matters.

The problem between Anika and Martin is the problem they had from the beginning: He is a shell of who he once was, lost in his own middle-aged melancholy. The problem is not the substance, it’s the person, and with Another Round, Vinterberg has crafted a beautiful dissection of that conundrum.

Like an early Clash number, it's by turns lovely and ugly, loud as bombs and quiet as a revolution's first-thrown stone; it acknowledges the legend while uncovering the truth.

Seligman's script will strike a sharp chord in anyone that has run into overly-complicated situations at a family gathering (i.e. just about everyone). It feels like a hurdy-gurdy that is just enough put of tune to leave you uneasy, a sensation of queasiness further unbalanced by Ariel Marx's discordant, scratchy, string-and-timpani soundtrack

This documentary does boast some bowl-you-over reveals best experienced blind.

As long as Sing Street stays on this sweet, sentimental path, the film is an agreeable toe-tapper. Scratch the surface too deeply and you’ll find some historical inconsistencies, idealized events, and a depressing environment roiling in Conor’s familial home and nation.

Lodge Kerrigan is one of the great, though largely unheralded, filmmakers of our time, and with Keane, his third feature, he finally shows himself to be in full command of his uncompromising talent.

Visually inventive cartoon is complemented by clever, whimsical narration and 11 songs from the Beatles.

Its warm humor and love for its characters ultimately wins us over to its side.

Spiritually, Official Competition’s closer point of comparison may be the films of Ruben Östlund (Force Majeure), which similarly chronicle humans at their worst (gawwww, humans really are the worst) with visual wit and from a wry remove.

Baichwal is comfortable with those moral and aesthetic ambiguities as well, and, as a result, she’s created a visual poem of devastation that makes one question one’s entire relationship to the world.

At 2 1/2 hours, the film is too long in the telling and too short on suspense.

Watching Priscilla feels much like reading a book, with images of white pills pressed into open palms and home-movie montages enhancing the text. Once again, the younger Coppola demonstrates she is as accomplished a filmmaker in her own way as her father.

Vogt brings out the ugliness of childhood (the shallow empathy, the lashing out, the selfishness, the curiosity about the disgusting) and ramps it up with endless malice that slowly builds to horrific action. It's the anti-jump scare, with a sickening catharsis that what you think is coming does, indeed, come to pass.

The rush subsides, however, the minute the movie ends, and leaves the viewer with the faint aftertaste of a processed sugar high.

This drama-horror hybrid, set within a New York ballet company, strikes a tone more along the lines of the terrifying hallucinatories of Aronofsky's breakout film, "Requiem for a Dream," revisiting, too, favorite themes of monster mommies and female hysteria.

The Painter and the Thief doggedly reminds us that vengeance cannot be the sole redress against a crime.

It is an exhilarating feat of control, and a scathing deconstruction of the sacrifices made in the name of art. You have to confront those threatening corners of the psyche. You have to embrace the black bear.

For all its knock-'em-dead acting and aggressively stylish direction, Hilary and Jackie is still best described as arthouse comfort food.

Indignation, however, is not really about sex, but rather, the cataclysms that can result from the most banal of choices.

Is nothing if not exquisitely detailed: It's like a blood orange that del Toro spends the film seductively unpeeling, revealing layer upon layer of meaning and pathos.

This biography, to our surprise, is extremely respectful and earnest and lacking Morris' usual transformational touch.

Tsai’s drama is something like a mixture of Robert Bresson and R.W. Fassbinder, as God’s bedraggled souls struggle with the desires of the damned, and nobody wants to go into that good night alone.

At its best, 32 Short Films manages to convey something of Gould’s state of mind, often using the musician’s own words.

An open, honest, and crystal-clear explanation of what it is like to live with Parkinson's: much of it painful, with no off-ramp.

While 28 Weeks Later ultimately falls shy of classic status (it's no Panic in Year Zero!), there are several hard-to-shake scenes -- nightmare visions, really -- that reveal the infected populace to be far less dangerous to the fabric of a civilized society than, perhaps, the very notion of civilization itself.

What Martelli and her co-conspirators have created with the radicalization of Carmen in Chile ‘76 – and what, incidentally, eludes so many contemporary horror films – is the palpable sense of dread.

The way Ly and cinematographer Julien Poupard choreograph the film is amazing, especially the third act, which can be breathless at times.

Nolan creates an effective thriller, although he keeps his stylistic pyrotechnics to a minimum.

The way July is able to juggle both the slyly cruel circumstances and the genuinely heartfelt transformation makes this her best work yet: a fractured mirror fable broken into perfect pieces.

Even though we're aware of the tragic trajectory of the singer's life, for a while it almost seems as if reality got it wrong and Curtis might just squeak past the reaper's scythe with no more than a shave and a haircut.

Viewers unfamiliar with Wharton's novel may have a hard time, especially at first, deciphering all the characters since Davies presents them at a steady clip while providing little background or explanatory material.

This is the ideal example of a big summer blockbuster and one of the best legacy sequels we’ve ever gotten: a movie that knows how to move along and give you what you came for.

As for Johnson's grasp of the era in tech firms, it's astoundingly accurate, so much so that you'll swear you can smell the switch from the Sprite-and-sweaty-T-shirts years to the days of chrome and corporate art.

It's too bad that Gas Food Lodging is as disconnected as it is because there's a real current of feeling here, especially in Balk's sympathetic performance and the film's unflinching depiction of a single woman trying to raise a family on her own. Rather than make a lasting impression, it makes only a passing one, as impermanent as the momentary view of a dying town on the highway.

It's also and most interestingly about the writing process itself, a difficult feat to pull off on film, which Wagner and co-screenwriter Fred Parnes manage to display with unvarnished realism.

A film for the young at heart and those who still appreciate honor, valor, love, and the earth.

In its way, Remember the Night is as full of the improbabilities of any of the more familiar Christmas movies that we ritually rewatch in this season every year. But it's also no less lacking in the affirmation it makes of the power of love, its ability to melt even the coldest of hearts, to transform our feelings for our fellow man and woman. If that's a feeling you treasure in your holiday viewing, remember the film.

As anthropology, Out of the Blue is engrossing; as a social document, it is essential; but as undiluted raw power, it is absolute. No filter.

But for all the film's griminess and doom, bad behavior and bad luck, it's hope that engines Head-On.

The spoof that launched a thousand parodies – this is the one that's 100% funny.

Writer/director Seth Worley is clearly having fun with the Amber-inspired monsters made real: They bear googly eyes and vomit sparkles before incrementally scaling up to more malevolent creatures that may test younger viewers’ mettle. But Worley is just as invested in the emotional nuance of the story, which meets each of its grieving characters at their own speed and shows them a lot of grace.

As concert films go, this is heady stuff.

Audiences wanting a more rounded discussion of the U.S. occupation of Iraq might find it too militaristic and Americentric, while flagwavers wanting raw jingoism may find its questioning too probing. But as a depiction of the futility of conflict from those who fought, Warfare is far from ambivalent.

This stirring historical re-creation depicts the experiences of America's first unit of black soldiers in the Civil War and the young Northerner who leads them.

Swinton is heartbreaking. She's not just craft; she's high art.

The entire cast is marvelous and capable of conveying continents of emotion with a furtive smile or arched brow.

A Better Tomorrow isn't his best film ever -- that title remains securely attached to The Killer -- but it is required viewing for anyone remotely interested in Hong Kong cinema. After all, there might not be any filmmaking in Hong Kong come 1997.

From the pure entertainment standpoint, ABL's nonstop action helps it avoid the slack moments that marred “Antz”. The dialogue, kiddie-accessible though it is, is plenty intelligent for adult enjoyment.

Part drama, part civics lesson, part entertainment, it sustains our deep curiosity despite the forgone knowledge of how things turn out.

It is certainly the best button-pushing movie of the year.

Funny Ha Ha is often offhandedly funny, and Bujalski has a knack for letting scenes build and then cutting out abruptly, duplicating the flow of a life in flux.

Dìdi, the debut narrative feature from award-winning documentarian Sean Wang, can be seen as a tale of code switching, but that could potentially just pigeonhole it as an immigrant story. It’s broader than that because it’s a more universal study of being a teenage boy, trying to find something like a sense of identity and working out which lies you can and can’t tell yourself.

After Yang will resonate with anyone who has absorbed such emptiness into themselves, and found some comfort there.

It’s a shame that the film never rises above a perfunctory level of hagiography, but retrospective memorial docs rarely do.

At once eerie, picaresque, evocative, and utterly alien to the reality most viewers inhabit, Into Great Silence is a daring and breathtakingly constructed documentary dream. So much so that the more restless among us may find themselves nodding off.

Gloria Bell is its own thing. Lelio inflects the film with a believably Californian vibe, all washed-out easiness, and the faint feeling that so much easiness must take an awful lot of work. And Moore can so exquisitely convey two emotions at once, the actorly equivalent of patting a head and rubbing a stomach at the same time.

A pure cinematic experience like Monos is a rare and precious gem. Colombian director Landes has created a surreal, sumptuous assault on the senses that’s as lushly beautiful as it is unforgettable.

The saga unfolds in a fairly charming fashion, and only Allen’s abrupt ending breaks the spell. Clearly, the filmmaker has no more ideas than Jasmine about how to resolve her predicament.

This weighty French/Polish production is chock-full of moral dilemmas borne from its unthinkable scenario. At times, it’s not an easy experience.

It’s a lean, mean, effective thriller that offers no explanation as to the means or method of humanity’s endgame while simultaneously focusing on the trip-wire frailty of a nuclear family trapped in the hungry, thirsty days of the dead – or is it, indeed, the dead? And if not, what are they?

It's not perfect -- thank Satan! -- but Hellboy II: The Golden Army is by far the most splendidly imaginative and creatively uncorked piece of fantastic cinema since the director's "Pan's Labyrinth" netted an Oscar trifecta in 2007.

A stroll with these characters is a refreshing break from from the usual film exercises.

As fluid and intellectually stimulating as the man himself, a tragic, heartfelt take on an event some 40 years old that feels as fresh as yesterday's Times.

Although the filmmaker’s presence in her own film is never remarked upon, I imagine she felt compelled by a feeling of kinship with the artist; Dyrschka, a first-time feature director, is the first filmmaker to profile af Klint, which is a notable achievement. But I don’t think we’ve had the definitive film portrait yet.

A devastating portrait of impoverished Calucutta children.

Even in the hail of bullets, shrieking needle drops, and blinding lighting effects, John Wick: Chapter 4 still works as a cohesive, linear film with a strangely philosophical heart.

While Enys Men may play with the trappings and symbolism of folk horror, it's ultimately more of an internal psychological drama, one driven by Woodvine's tragic and quiet embrace of the island's bleak remoteness.

In the end, Barracuda may not have the sharp teeth of the Hollywood nail-biters that have swum before in familiar waters. But if you’re attuned to its slow-burn charm, it still offers some bite.

Rather than this being some random moral crusade, Flaherty’s understated anger is about how the very rehab process that helped him so much has been perverted into a system indistinguishable from how street dealers operate. It’s his furious curiosity that informs the film, and gives it such devastating insight.

With Roadrunner, Neville is able to give the icon a send-off that’s tear-inducing and loving, a gift to those who will always be inspired by him.

A beautiful, quiet, lyrical, funny wilderness trip, a meditation on loss and picking up the pieces, and the most perfectly poignant performance of David Cross' acting career, all based on the best-selling autobiography of a leading lepidopterist (butterfly expert, to you and me).

Karam manages an incredible feat of genre-bending, as neither the comedy nor horror impairs the other. Each is built so naturally within the drama: The laughs are the result of simply having well-realized characters and the scares an existential manifestation of their contentions.

Schrader remains committed to his late-style cold moodiness, with scenes shot in a sterile plainness and lines delivered in a frank matter-of-fact tone that to some may appear stilted but effectively accompanies his main character’s harsh view of his surroundings.

A smart, creepy, violent, funny, and modern vampire movie that benefits from some wonderful performances, a stunning visual texture, and music by Tangerine Dream.

Finds a way to impart this sad history while raising our spirits at the same time.

A fascinating sight to behold.

Unconventional and idiosyncratic love story.

The performances here are irresistible, thrilling in their invention and spontaneity, as is the mind-blowing, urgent cinematography of frequent Wong collaborator Christopher Doyle, which makes the most of Hong Kong's neon-drenched streets and cramped interior spaces.

A spare and perfectly droll kinda-sorta comedy from Norwegian director Hamer.

Reiner abandons his previous movie's sense of farce and satire for much broader and more innocuous comedy.

The film stars “It Girl” Clara Bow and a very young Gary Cooper in a WWI love triangle, but the film’s real highlight is its spectacular aerial photography.

Despite this film's narrative lapses, Malick has a unique way of distilling the poetry from the commonplace -- and for that precious gift we should say amen.

For the iconoclastic film director Ken Loach and his longtime screenwriting collaborator Paul Laverty, I, Daniel Blake represents their most accessible film ever.

The Counterfeiters differs from most Holocaust movies in that the emphasis is on the personal moral choices that are made rather than the overall horror and despair.

Unfortunately, in Bier’s world, where even the most innocuous acts can result in emotional ruin, redemption is purgatorial in its own peculiar way.

I said once before that every generation gets the superhero it deserves, and Nolan's darkest of dark knights is surely ours – and no more so than in this current incarnation. (Granted, this doesn't bode well for society, but hey, things are bleak all over.)

Despite its best intentions, The Lost City of Z never finds itself, doomed to aimlessly wander to an unsatisfying conclusion of a dream that betrays the best of men.

On the mean streets, Devil is okay; but it's something special when it gets to Easy's street.

What surprised me about Petzold’s latest is how ultimately straightforward, even slight, it felt upon conclusion, even with certain questions left aggravatingly open-ended.