Wild Indian is a horrifying and thought-provoking thrill ride that packs quite a punch when it hits right.

The most remarkable aspect of Lemon Tree, however, and the one that's most likely to land this film on many year-end Best Foreign Film lists, is Abbass' devastating and marvelously restrained performance.

Queen & Slim artfully weaves together a lovers-on-the-lam crime story with very trenchant Black Lives Matter thematic content. It is a perfect movie for our times. It grabs you by the scruff during its flawless opening sequences and never lets go, despite some episodic contrivances that occasionally cause it to feel overplotted.

These days it's going to take a pretty exceptional political thriller to top our political reality for sheer suspense and treachery, and though director Ray (Shattered Glass) provides a few choice moments of psychological tension, nothing in his film can hope to outpace the anxiety caused by the appearance of former Attorney General John Ashcroft in its opening scene.

Burrus has a face that does all the talking for him -- deep creases, sad eyes, and a gray hue that hangs over him like a rain cloud. It's a remarkable performance.

This is not a conventional love story but a philosophical one.

If this is Scorsese's bid for the commercial big time, then let the cash registers ring.

There’s gore, all right, although the real terror lies in the tease, and the often dark, herky-jerky DV format ratchets up the tension to an almost unbearable degree.

Gross-out funny, over-the-top offensive, and just as amusing -- or idiotic -- as you find that Comedy Central sitcom.

Director Margaret Betts’ superb debut feature arrives in theatres at perhaps just the right moment.

Some Kind of Heaven effortlessly blends humor and pathos into a memorable and at times unsettling study on where life’s trajectory might land us, and that is a concept that deserves more than mild contemplation.

A new film that takes an unflinching look at a nation’s anti-Semitism that led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews.

On the Rocks is light-hearted and, ultimately, more a story about a girl and her father. The good and the bad of that parental legacy and the task of disentangling from it forms the subtext of On the Rocks.

A mortal movie about an immortal subject and the very fact that it succeeds as well as it does is a testament to Lee's skills as a filmmaker.

Ultimately, Facing Nolan paints its picture of a baseball great with broad strokes, but they cohere into a warmhearted image that baseball fans and their uninitiated families can enjoy together.

Watching Bloodlines is like watching a nature documentary where a woodland creature is ripped to shreds in graphic detail. If you’re someone who roots for the prey over the predators, this might not be the movie for you. Otherwise? Cut loose, friend.

The character never really comes alive, and I walked away from Into the Wild feeling that Penn was too in love with the idea of Christopher McCandless the free-spirited hero to excavate the soul of Christopher McCandless the lost man.

In her remarkable, warm, and sometimes delicately sad debut feature, writer/director Channing Godfrey Peoples sees both sides of this intergenerational struggle. What's truly special is that she avoids any histrionics. Ever since James Dean screamed "You're tearing me apart," filmmakers have craved that emotional explosion, but Peoples paints life in this Black working class Fort Worth neighborhood in softer tones.

The peerless crew of actors playing the party guests present stinging dialogue and reactions with the precision of expert marksmen.

As a whole, the film has too little character and/or plot development to sustain narrative interest. What A Scanner Darkly excels at is mood and tone.

By far the freakiest and most unnerving shocker in theatres this season.

A laugh-aloud film that exemplifies the snap-crackle-pop of exquisite comic timing.

The deep emotional success of The Iron Claw all relies on a remarkable cast – most especially the four brothers, at ease with each other but fatally at odds with themselves.

You may have the biggest flat-screen DLP monitor in the city, but Red Cliff will never look half as spectacular as it will on the big – and I mean really big – screen.

The work of a fine craftsman and artist.

So full of good stuff that it's impossible not to fall in love with it.

By turns beautiful and ugly, occasionally infuriating in its obfuscation and disconnect, always slow and intriguing, King Crab is powered by the wild-eyed and soft-spoken charisma of Silli as the instinctually rebellious and disdainful Luciano.

The filmmaker has created a haunting movie, one that connects on a visceral level that defies easy explication. The unembellished performances by Cotillard and Schoenaerts exude a raw authenticity that anchor the film's grander melodrama and embed the characters in the viewer's memory.

The simplest thing to say about Who We Are is that it should be part of the standard curriculum in every school in America.

Eye in the Sky maintains nerve-racking suspense throughout its running time and explicates some of the unknown nuances of drone warfare. Plus, you know, Alan Rickman is reason enough to see it.

Down in the Delta, like a gratingly platitudinous self-help tape, sugarcoats the complex one-step-back, two-steps-forward nature of personal and social progress. And like the drugs and booze it condemns, it provides a warm rush of euphoria, but no real answers.

The film sucks you in with its exquisite cinematography (shot in lush black-and-white, with a handful of carefully curated moments in color), and a heavy influence of Thirties and Forties Classic Hollywood filming techniques.

Val, while often tragic, is also a deeply spiritual film: a benediction of forgiveness for those that wronged him, and a mea culpa to those he has harmed (most especially, it seems, ex-wife Joanne Walley).

The Fight is an endlessly engaging look into the often labyrinthine legal apparatus, and the film seamlessly moves between the cases with such incredible skill that the team of editors deserve all the accolades afforded to them.

The fact that Wordplay works as a film at all is a testament to its skill. The New York Times may never find a better marketing tool.

It proves that value of the journalist as record keeper of horrors.

This Japanese film by that country’s preeminent surveyor of contemporary familial relationships explores humanity’s ambivalence regarding the matter.

What Zierra is really exploring is the fine line between maverick genius and manipulative bully. The cult of Kubrick is such that no one still dare broach the idea that what he did to his actors, to his crew, and especially to Vitali, was cruel.

It’s an ugly place to be stuck for two hours: a credible depiction of human nature at its worst, sure, but not an especially illuminating one. Still, there’s nerviness here, and undeniable skill. I’d like to see what Domont does next.

Rises above the usual underdog sports cliches to become something quite affecting and distinctive.

In many ways, A Field in England is a funhouse mirror of audience expectations and something of a filmic Rorschach test.

There’s an undeniable thrill to watching something so experimental and yet totally accessible to those of us who speak only layman’s Dylanese, and it’s Haynes’ warmest film yet.

When combined with Sinise's solid work in front of the camera (as George) and behind it, this Of Mice and Men makes for an unassuming but well-made movie which, unlike so many adaptations of literary works, does not go awry.

Despite perpetual rumors of its demise as a genre, the Western is alive and well in the Australian outback.

It's the tortoise and the hare, Nepalese-style, and it's surprisingly dramatic.

The film's closing may be less than conclusive, yet The Son's Room must be admired, at least, for its unsentimentality.

For those unfamiliar with the notoriously camera-averse philosopher and his thoughts, Derrida will most probably prove to be an unenlightening bore.

It's the best-looking film of the year, hands down, and Thornton is dazzling, a dull diamond in the gutter rough.

All herky-jerky camera movements and no pussyfooting around with the interior lives of these characters.

Ultimately Hill of Freedom is surprisingly satisfying in its sheer — albeit abjectly disjointed – fish-out-of-water ordinariness.

If nothing else, the performances of Connery and Hepburn are welcome delights.

Bouncy with enthusiasm and freely tapping their generous reserves of movie-star charisma, Gosling and Blunt perfectly embody the rhetorical question at the heart of this genuinely tender ode to the industry and its undersung practitioners: Aren’t movies the best?

The screenplay by Keenan Coogler and Zach Baylin springboards off these ideas to make a no-frills sports melodrama that excels because of everyone’s commitment to making a great one.

If the film’s conclusion reads a touch too much like a sales pitch, I didn’t mind; the Chesters’ thoughtful approach to living in harmony with nature is one we should all buy into.

Director Ben Young’s first narrative feature is loosely based on actual events, which makes watching this psychological horror show all the more harrowing.

Forget divining who’s predator and who’s prey. Everybody’s chum here.

There are some frustrating gaps, but only because Wolf has so much to cram in. The second round of biospherians are completely erased, while the sudden appearance of Steve Bannon (yes, that Steve Bannon) poses more questions than it answers. Yet even those dead-ends cannot overcome the fascinating story of compromised idealism and hardheaded optimism that underlies it all.

The film shines when we get to see Barkan as a fully formed figure.

There's a touch of Hitchcockian flavor to the Arbitrage's cat-and-mouse thrills, yet the film clearly announces that there's now a third gifted Jarecki brother (in addition to Eugene and Andrew) to contend with in the moviemaking business.

Cornish, in her first film seen stateside, is astonishing.

It's Disney's best traditionally animated outing in ages.

Modestly scoped, sometimes sweetly dopey, and sincerely moving, Jane Austen Wrecked My Life is a charmer.

The movie doesn't quite add up beyond its performances.

While the story may be a common one (for the action genre, at least), Rodriguez, who wrote, produced, shot and edited the entire film himself, has a uniquely straightforward wit that makes what might otherwise have been just another shoot-'em-up something more than that.

In her sophomore film, director Fastvold, assisted by painterly cinematographer André Chemetoff, has envisioned a softer version of the American frontier, still untamed but capable of hope. It’s a befitting vision of a world to come, one in which forbidden love will one day finally find its name.

It is a rare treat of a film.

Leaves you scratching your head a bit, wondering what just happened, and worrying if maybe it could happen to you too.

One of the most brutally innovative horrors of the last few years, and all done through windows on a computer screen.

Along the way, you’ll wonder if you’re watching a classic tragedy or a comedy.

Sheridan’s screenplay, despite some very nice touches and his typically laconic dialogue, is the weakest of his recent trilogy in terms of building tension and mystery. Nevertheless, it succeeds well enough on its own terms.

As always, Affleck remains one of the directors who can disguise a powerful parable as giddy, crowd-pleasing entertainment.

Farcical mayhem. A convoluted plot that's easy to follow but hard to describe.

For my money, this Freudian tale about a beautiful kleptomaniac and liar is one of Hitchcock's best accomplishments, certainly one of his most perverse.

With centrifugal force on his side, Spider-Man dips, weaves, and whooshes past, up, and around the camera -- it's a rush, and it plasters a grin on your face even after you've left the theatre.

Achingly gorgeous in almost all respects, the film soars in its period depiction of turn-of-the-century London (and later in Venice, as well), from costuming to cinematography on down.

A fatalistic fantasy that positively bleeds, bruises, and blows holes in its stoic antihero even as the odds consistently favor his imminent demise.

The Raid: Redemption definitely delivers everything that international action fans want. The question I have is whether the laws of supply and demand are adequate tools for evaluating a movie's worth.

If you feel hostile toward art that not only confuses you but then also suggests that your confusion is precisely the point, you'll probably want to pass on Sonatine. But if disciplined, minimalist storytelling, formal innovation, and contemplation of mystery for its own sake appeals to you, a real feast awaits you in the films of Takeshi Kitano.

A remarkable movie: touching, honest, and unassuming, without a hint of irony or false motive.

Brooks’ early reputation as a film director rests with the success of this raunchy Western spoof. A great cast is eclipsed by the hilarious performances of Korman and Kahn, who plays a Marlene Dietrich-like chanteuse.

Sunset Song is not one of Davies’ most expressive or artistically successful films, but I’m very glad for the opportunity to have made the acquaintance of Chris Guthrie.

As documentary Free Chol Soo Lee shows, it's wisdom that seems to evade what are supposed to be the mechanisms of that justice.

The movie is tightly wound and expertly unraveled, resulting in a thriller that you'll remember – unlike the hitman Ledda.

All three leads bring the goods, but it is Luna, carrying much of the emotional weight of the film, who shines the brightest, showing a depth and countenance well beyond his years.

With these two actors in command, Supernova doesn’t just dare to speak the name of a love between two deeply committed men facing an untenable situation. It shouts it from the rooftops.

The film is a deeply compelling portrait of how intense loss shapes our behavior, our perspective, and most importantly, ourselves.

In its strange and successful mixing of genres, Dust Bunny is arguably everything that Mockingbird Lane, Fuller’s misguided attempt at an edgy take on The Munsters, was not.

Ultimately passable movie entertainment, but like most future in-laws leaves a feeling of something still desired.

The relative restraint of Beyond the Lights is practically a godsend, presenting audiences with a fairy tale grounded in something resembling reality and fractured by external circumstance as much as internal doubts.

Doesn't just raise the bar on sci-fi and action films, it rips that sucker off and sends it spiraling into the sun.

Guilt, shame, and regret are all frequent topics of discussion, as the family comes to terms with this impending event in wildly different ways. But however acutely intimate and emotionally formidable Last Flight Home can be (it is relentlessly both), it is thankfully tempered by the human being at the center of it.

First, to dispel the two talking points attending The Impossible, Juan Antonio Bayona's dramatization of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami: No, it's not racist, and no, you don't have to be a parent to feel the film in your bones.

By far the most gorgeous slice of sunlit sadism so far this summer, I’m Not Scared also manages to be oddly sweet: a boy’s life, with treachery.

Although Super Size Me benefits from a number of interviews with nutritionists, lobbyists, lawyers, and the like, the film inevitably (but not unenjoyably) is dominated by Spurlock, who offers his sober-minded statistics and cheeky asides without ever devolving into an off-putting Michael Moore-like moralizing.

Second Skin might just be the most accurate and entertaining glimpse of the economy and psychology of technology since Tron.

Provocative and prodding, but apart from its queen bee Ellen (the marvelous Rampling), the characters are representational types instead of fleshed-out human beings.

Director Roger Michell and his frequent writer Hanif Kureishi (their last film together was Venus) regularly dance to the very cliff’s edge of despair, and only for the grace of good casting do you not wish they’d just jump and get it over with.