The director is unflinching in his portrayal of the horrors that occurred, and nearly all the characters, from Voight's Wright to Rhames' Mann, are wonderfully nuanced, desperately believable creations.

Something is terribly amiss when the American actors sound like English is their second language.

Cotillard doesn't look part Native American or sound like a Thirties Chicago moll, but damned if she isn't a sight and sound to behold. Whatever her technical limitations, she rises above them to breathe a flesh, blood, and battered verisimilitude into the part. You can't tear your eyes off her, any more than you can Mann's flawed but still engrossing picture.

Even as Aatami survives completely ridiculous and clearly life-ending assaults, the magic of bloody-mindedness keeps the action … if not plausible, then never less than hilarious and gruesome.

Resurrection nearly nails it – it’s masterful in its body horror elements and its creeping anxiety is crafted effortlessly – but the film’s final moments pull the rug, failing to twist the knife in the gut, sticking the kill.

What Tsotsi fails to explain is how the mere introduction of a baby can melt the cruel cycle of criminality and disregard for others.

Recounting the history of nukes, mankind's seeming inability to render them obsolete, and the many nightmare scenarios that are cropping up with almost daily frequency in this grim new age of terror-on-demand,Countdown to Zero is less a documentary in the traditional sense than a scathing piece of advocacy journalism.

The magic of the film lies in Tucci’s eye for a sense of place – Paris in the Sixties.

Yet the genius of Her Smell is that it's not about Becky. It's about the chaos she causes. Moss and Perry could let her dominate the frame as she does the room, but each sequence is about how everyone else deals with the damage she leaves behind.

This documentary is the sort of film that will leave both young and old(er) film fans grinning like the boys (and one girl) who dreamed the whole fantastic, mad scheme up in the first place.

I’m not sure I’ve laughed harder all year than at Gosling in a bathroom stall, accidentally dropping a lit cigarette down his pants leg.

This Tim Robbins-helmed political satire about demogougery makes for an appropriate election-season re-release.

Once the rodeo's over, where do the sweethearts go? Beesley, thankfully, doesn't end the film with the end of the rodeo, but there's a potentially more interesting follow-up doc ghosting right behind this one.

The director avoids turning this into some form of misery tourism, which would be a real risk in less adept hands: yet the story is told with such a uniform tone that it’s hard to remain emotionally engaged.

What's most memorable about Wilde is Fry's near-perfect encapsulation of the artist. It's a performance equal to the legend it portrays.

Even compared to his last film, the bifurcated dual character studies of In Our Day, A Traveler’s Needs feels less like a completed movie and more like an acting exercise.

Everything that was sharp in the original text has been rounded and buffed.

Knockout ensemble performances like these don't come around all that often, though, and when they do they ought to be savored.

The situation is not too far removed from that of Jayson Blair and The New York Times. The corporate oversight in place to catch deceptions is lulled into becoming part of the deception. Mahowny wanders through this film as if waiting to get caught, forced into deeper gambling debt because no one applies any brakes.

A rousing, girl-positive, indie success story whose dynamic rhythms deliver a connecting punch.

Sometimes the most thrilling thing a film can do is shake the shackles of its own preordained genre as you're watching it. The result might turn out to be a deal-breaking tonal trainwreck, but when such a hybrid works – and Spring, the second feature from directing team Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson, does work – it can make for an improbably lovely experience.

Eccentricities, though they are essential to the story, nevertheless come across as too pat and planned in Unstrung Heroes. Despite my inability to dismiss the film's uncomfortable flaws, these were not so distracting that I had anything other than an enjoyable experience while watching the movie and was awash in a small puddle of tears at the end.

Rodeo is engaging and gritty, but what makes the whole film hold together overall is Ledru. She gives gives Julia a real presence and believability that isn’t always made explicit through the narrative.

Teetering toward made-for-TV in its facile depiction of Walter’s many wives and veering tonally from too broad to totally mawkish (the score wants to arm-wrestle tears out of you), The Friend is all soft edges.

Hathaway and Sudeikis totally nail their respective roles (kudos to the great Tim Blake Nelson, to boot), and while Colossal falls shy of perfection, so does real life.

Citizen Jane: Battle for the City presents little to augment the knowledge of people already versed in this debate. However, it’s a fine introductory lesson for those who are not.

My advice: Go; see; laugh yourself silly.

What it lacks in charm, it compensates for with audacity and single-mindedness of vision.

This is one time Texas can't keep its weird political landscape to itself: What happens in Texas doesn't stay in Texas. When it comes to textbooks, what happens in this state is of national concern. Nothing less than the education of our nation's next generation of citizens is at stake.

Like every good musical, Emilia Pérez is a movie with big feelings, even if the feelings sometimes (often) outpace the logic.

For a comedy about an old weapon with a dulled blade, Sword of Truth is razor sharp in just about every way.

Dev Patel’s directorial debut Monkey Man is a gritty, nasty piece of work.

If there's a depressing note to Piketty's circular view of history, it's his belief that egalitarianism often springs from catastrophic disaster ("everyone is equal in death" becomes a refrain), and that it's the slow grind of extreme wealth and extreme poverty that breeds those disasters.

One thing Siegel got absolutely right in this film is the casting.

Yes, the action sequences are hilarious, and yes, the design department gets to cut gloriously loose with the kaleidoscopic, shifting microverse of the Quantum Realm, but this is first and foremost about family.

The House of Sand is a more transparently ambitious, prestigious "woman's picture" than Waddington's previous feature, 2000's "Me You Them."

For truly affecting, there is Margherita’s teen daughter, Livia (Mancini). I don’t know if Moretti cares about catharsis, but Livia’s silent sob broke me, in the best way.

Maijidi’s latest was Iran’s submission for the most recent Oscars, a film that’s gentle, packed with all the familiar beats you find in these City of God-like child POV gritty fairy tales.

Director Porter has done an excellent job assembling archival footage and interviews to tell Lewis’ story; she has the markings of a great storyteller.

At over two hours, The Winter Soldier could have easily been trimmed by a good 20 minutes, but if it’s spectacular imagery and duplicitous goings-on that you crave, the film will not disappoint.

It never really rollicks like a good political satire.

Suffers from a surplus of interviews and information that imbue it with a vague sense of overkill.

Millennium Actress has more layers to it than the proverbial onion, but Kon’s sure hand keeps things moving right along and into the next historical period.

Raises fascinating question within a compelling narrative framework, and is also intriguing for the glimpse it provides into the inner workings of Orthodox Judaism.

Suffers from a persistent case of narrative backsliding that only serves to make older members of the audience long for the days of the dwarves, beauties, and poisoned apples of Disney-yore, and younger ones squirm in their seats.

Junger has a deft touch with light comedy such as this; he manages to keep the film's convoluted plot spinning without resorting to too much gimmickry or descending to the level of so many teen comedies.

There’s enough intelligence and wit here to sustain your interest, especially when Curtis and Lohan are in peak form. They put the freak in this Freaky Friday.

Just plain unforgettable.

The movie isn't perfect – Spielberg-slick, its power is sometimes dampened by melodrama that overstates its message – but it is compelling and thought-provoking and topical as hell.

As he proves again, few directors have Jarecki's skill for pulling a massive stack of disparate themes – race, celebrity, power, wealth, drug addiction, poverty, militarism – into one coherent narrative.

Watching Matt and Anna discover the parameters of their friendship, and the impact they have on each other’s lives, is quite rewarding. Both Helms and Harrison nail the fluid nature of the tonal shifts as their bond tightens, loosens, and tightens once more.

Wonderfully fun, albeit markedly chaotic and incoherent.

In the game of eXistenZ it's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game.

With so many soldiers interviewed, some only fleetingly, it's impossible to keep track of them all.

Banderas, taking time off from voicing kids' films and appearing in Robert Rodriguez outings, plays Ledgard with just the right amount of borderline-freaky, intensity, and Anaya is another of Almodovar's terrifically talented and shockingly beautiful female leads.

To question that this movie is a visual feast would be an act of real cynicism. But as the old Chinese proverb goes, "Gold and jade on the outside, rot and decay on the inside."

Painfully dunderheaded about the proclivities of the human heart.

Sunshine Superman is at times a bit too reverent with the material, and there are distracting reenactments (à la The Jinx and Man on Wire), some of which seem extraneous, but overall, the film is a sun-kissed tribute to a singular individual.

The plot is gripping and relatively fast-paced, and Winger and Russell are excellent counterpoints to each other -- Winger is earthy and likable, and Russell is sexy and sinister.

I think it's a mess, but - and this is a major caveat - an endearing, beautiful, hopelessly honest mess that's supported by a pair of performances so unnaturally natural that they draw you in and clutch you, struggling, to their flipping, flopping hearts.

It's a cuckoo's nest that's nicely feathered.

Wisely, a lot like the real event. No answers are given, barely any questions are asked, and the film unfolds at a leisurely, inexorable pace that stymies the traditional filmmaking tropes of tension and release.

Honestly, if it weren't for Denis' striking visual sense, the producers could make a small fortune marketing Nénette and Boni as a sleep aid. Granted, Colin and Houri are both delightful actors. The bond they create between these onscreen siblings is terrifically realized and fully developed, but it's far too little to sustain a film in which virtually nothing happens, despite the fact that it all looks so very good.

Though the movie delivers its chuckles and elicits its sighs in a calibrated narrative arc that softens the hard edges of its late bloomer’s life, it would be shortsighted to hastily dismiss Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris as sentimental escapist fare that quickly evaporates into the ether of silly romanticism.

While the film's depiction of bureaucratic frustrations and familial woe are universal, the characters themselves can be difficult to warm up to and often seem as arid as their surroundings.

A life-affirming documentary if ever there was one, A Brave Heart is a litmus test for gauging compassion, one I would recommend everyone take immediately.

Unfortunately, the actors don't all behave as though they're performing in the same movie.

The last ten minutes or so are heartwarming to the point of schmaltz. Even the adept Lassgård, as the old fogey version of Ove, can’t make this increasingly feel-good schtick stick.

This film is both too formulaic and too much a one-man vehicle to rate as a true masterpiece. But God strike me dead if I'm lying, this is one gut-busting funny movie.

Modigliani's fly-on-the-wall documentary verges toward the hagiographic, but that's not the most damning criticism, because he makes the case of O'Rourke's quiet charisma.

Rebuilding Paradise speaks to the resiliency of human beings, and maybe something about the American can-do spirit.

Thanks largely to the raw bravery and intensity of the two leads' performances, Happy Together takes a quantum leap forward in terms of visceral power.

Where drag is concerned, though, the film does anything but drag; Elliott has no compunction about restraint, and Priscilla gushes with bitchy repartee, campy comedy, sappy Seventies pop (Abba! “Billy, Don't Be a Hero”! “Take a Letter, Maria”!), and production numbers so outrageous, they make the Divine Miss M's excess look like the efforts of a Baptist boys' camp.

What Soul Food lacks in narrative originality and flourish it nicely makes up for with wonderful performances by a large ensemble cast.

All said, Nightmare Alley is something to be admired, rather than treasured. It’s big, classic moviemaking with a moral in the end. And there can be a lot to be said for that.

The Hoax isn't Gere’s best movie (that honor will always and forever belong to "Days of Heaven"), but it might feature his best performance.

For those up for an adventure into the LSD-influenced world of counterculture animation, Belladonna of Sadness is a curious artifact that, after 43 years, remains a glorious mindf--k.

You’ll leave the film wondering why you've never seen a TV ad for an electric car, or why GM is all about selling Hummers these days.

Its head may be in the sand, but Outsourced is a good-spirited idyll, an escape from reality, naive to a fault, and all but unconcerned with the troubles of the world but almost -- almost -- convincing in its innocence.

A popular Vietnamese fable that bookends this first-time filmmaker's movie may have the effect of distancing more Americans than it draws in, but once the film gets going there is no turning your back on it.

A small-scale pleasure, a movie that truly stops and smells the roses.

Audition's take on the war between the sexes is bleak and almost entirely devoid of hope. --It's enough to make you give up dating altogether.

Butler's film hopes to confront our national battle fatigue so that we may move on.

It feels like a veiled apology for Babs Johnson and other exercises in bad taste. In my book, the filthiest person alive will always win the prize.

It’s a tantalizing offer that’s stuffed with celebrity, scandal, hedonism, and riches and all the sex, drugs, and disco that money could buy.

If the storytelling technique is a little prosaic, the subject matter is more than sufficiently engrossing.

A devastating and weighty picture.

Regardless of one’s personal beliefs, it’s tough to respect a movie that ultimately invites viewers to question every case of propaganda except its own.

It may not sound like much of a storyline, but there’s a subtle beauty in the ability of human compassion to cure one’s shortcomings.

The first-time feature director, co-writer, and star of Caramel, Labaki, can be forgiven the commonness of her dramatic setting because of the gracefulness of her storytelling and the strength of her vision.

It should come as little surprise that James Ellroy, the master of corrupt L.A. cop stories (L.A. Confidential), authored the Rampart screenplay along with director Moverman.

LaBute's narrative structure and visual strategies are rigorously crafted, bespeaking an almost mathematical calculation that, in compellingly contradictory ways, both enhances the dramatic experience while undermining its very authenticity.

A vibrant, outspoken, and incredibly talented artist, this doc is both a biography of a life and a document of a person living on her own terms, just trying to figure things out like the rest of us.

The sense of true wilderness is amplified by sound mixers Morgan Hobart and Brian Mazzola, who deploy bug rattles and rain splatters like weapons, building in the diegetic sound of nature so that the odd moments of silence are truly oppressive and menacing.

Thompson and Kaling spark, while still leaving space for the rest of the cast to deliver blissful, blistering one-liners (I, Tonya's Hauser predictably steals the show there as the dopey gag writer Mancuso) and moments of true pathos (most especially from Lithgow as Katherine's ever-supportive husband).

Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blurry is like an epic emo video diary entry. It’s sentimental, reflective, and is layered with great music (and great music shirts – shout out to Eilish’s father’s incredible Phoebe Bridgers tee collection.)

Although City Slickers lacks incisive wisdom, its well-honed witticisms should make this a refreshing summer crowd-pleaser.

For all the accurate comparisons to Brian De Palma and Italian giallo films – particularly in the murder scenes and M83’s synthy score, though it’s much more narratively cohesive – I see lots of other potential influences as well. There’s a seedy glamour and a noir sensibility that owes as much to Eighties films Vortex and Variety.