With great subtlety and knowing humor, Eat Drink Man Woman emerges as one of those unforeseen treats.

Preminger strips the musical of all excess and frills. He creates an austere, depoeticized, anti-lyrical world in which nothing obstructs his camera's detached recording of the action. The great themes of Preminger's oeuvre are obsession and the conflict between freedom and repression, themes which are central to Carmen Jones.

Absolutely mandatory viewing for aspiring animators and filmmakers. (In terms of pacing, scoring, editing, and narrative, it's a film school unto itself.) For the rest of us, however, it's simply magic.

With a plot hinging on twists and turns that might not have worked as well with less electricity than Turner and Garfield generate, Postman sizzles and flares with crackling tension.

Pulsing up and down the arterial route of the B train from Brooklyn to the Bronx, Caught Stealing is a portrait of NYC at its most grimily charming.

This seminal kids movie broke new ground in terms of its realistic portrait of young people and their use of foul language.

This riveting documentary about powerhouse never-say-die Aussie yacht skipper Tracy Edwards is every bit as thrilling and emotionally grueling as "Mad Max: Fury Road." And it’s all true.

The range of characters here is daringly broad, but Sayles is able to touch on the humanity of each (with considerable help from a gifted and eminently watchable cast), and the details of the region -- the heat, the beautiful but often unforgiving landscape, and especially the pride of the residents -- are vivid and true.

This is what great dialogue -- and by extension great movies -- is made of.

Like Mumbai, Slumdog pulses and throbs with raw, unadulterated life and the hope for a better Bombay, today. It's brilliant.

With caustic wit and fantastic performances for all involved, the film is destined to be an anti-war classic.

God Help the Girl is not so perfectly crafted, but the promise – oh, the promise is irresistible.

It all comes back to the heart of the Spidey story, the old adage that "with great power comes great responsibility." It's tough doing the right thing, and sometimes it's thankless and can come with a lot of pain, but it's still the right thing, and that's why you do it. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse always comes out swinging.

It's an incisive, intriguing, and ultimately moving look at America's ongoing socioeconomic collapse: The whole "kids streaming their first slow dance" thing is just one aspect of this rich and nuanced drama.

Nick and Nora Charles are one of the screen's great couples.

There are many questions raised and answered in this film, but one that isn’t is why on Earth it’s garnered an R rating. Love Is Strange is anything but. It’s a seriocomic romance of the most genteel sort, full of heartfelt “I love yous,” brief (and definitely unerotic) snuggling, and a wealth of tremendously fine acting from all involved.

Among the many things that Baadasssss! is, it is also a movie about moviemaking. In fact, the film should be a primer for anyone about to make an independent film.

Visually inventive and offering up a complex view of family interaction, Kubo and the Two Strings is another feather in the cap for Laika, and a marvel to behold.

The Big Sick is as personal as it gets, but Gordon and Nanjiani pull no punches and steer well clear of preciousness. I laughed plenty at their film, cried my guts out, too, and went home elated.

At the very least, The Aristocrats provides a survey of some of the best comic minds in the business.

Daughters of Darkness is a superb, elegant, and sexy vampire movie; its deliberate pace only adds to its overall impact.

A moving tribute to this legendary artist's life and career.

Hearts of Darkness gives a privileged glimpse of the artist's hell, but it also says something about grace.

In the House, from the eclectic French filmmaker François Ozon (Under the Sand, 8 Women), is an almost perverse delight, an egghead thriller that slyly shell-games its truer purpose as an inquiry into the construction – and deconstruction – of fiction. Scratch deconstruction: Make that tear-the-house-down demolition.

Screenwriter Audrey Wells adapts Thomas’ YA novel with a sure hand and the supporting cast – especially Hornsby’s deeply protective and loving father, and Sabrina Carter as one of Starr’s white besties who just doesn’t get it – are pitch perfect.

A riveting piece of cinema, successfully utilizing all the things that screenwriters are supposed to avoid: voiceovers, direct address, unreliable narrators. It also looks gorgeous, thanks to cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis and production designer Jade Healy.

This is one of the major delights of Hotel Artemis: a plot that posits a damaged, Medicare-aged woman as its central figure. And that the role is executed by a two-time Oscar-winning actress delivering her best work in many years makes this a rare treat.

Like Johnson’s Kerr, The Smashing Machine is a surprisingly gentle giant.

Wu quite simply is a stunner. Best known for playing the tough-love matriarch from ABC’s "Fresh off the Boat," she betters the book version of Rachel by making her earthier, steelier, and more playful.

There's no attempt to anthropomorphize the rock and and glaciers, but they have never seemed more terrifying and alluring.

Proves to be a wonderful reality check.

Acted with such venomous restraint that it hurts to watch.

For two filmmakers best known for their comedic scripts like the Jump Street films and The Lego Movie, they know when to pull back on the humor and instead embrace the spectacle, and find their perfect proxy in Gosling.

While the evil that men do to one another in this film may well be rooted in the Cain-like enabling of original sin from one doomed brother to another, the final familial tragedy feels exactly like classic Lumet.

The three-and-a-half-hour-long movie revels in talk as this man ponders life, philosophy, the sexual revolution, the workers' revolution, love, death, and so on. He smokes, drinks, flirts, and talks –­ and the movie is exquisitely of its time.

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.

From its silent opening moments to its breathtaking double-cross conclusion, Le Samourai is the work of one of the film world's great directors working at his expressive peak.

This Stanley Kramer-produced film is the original biker movie.

Smart, uncanny, resistant to the short cuts of pop psychology, and shocking in the best since of the word, Steers' debut is a stunner.

Cast aside any preconceived expectations you might have regarding this documentary and remember simply this: Winnebago Man is one of the best films you're going to see all year.

The end result goes far beyond the simple colorization of moldering battlefield documentation. It restores the humanity of the combatants, both the British and, surprisingly, the German. Ultimately, it’s a you-are-there time capsule of enormous emotional and historical importance.

There is little in the way of narrative eventfulness in the film, but Leigh luxuriates in the moments, and provides glimpses of what it takes to be an artist amid the fray.

Looper makes a full-meal entertainment out of piecemealing genres: It boasts the kicky mental gymnastics that come with time-travel terrain, the relentless rapid heart rate of a crackerjack thriller, and the bursts of extreme violence, buttressed with black humor, of a modern actioner.

Scores its ultimate coup de grace though its interviews. Macdonald has lined up an amazing collection of interviewees.

The Disappearance of Shere Hite is an illuminating, haunting, and ruminative documentary worth watching, if not for crystalizing the history of Hite’s work on film then for a look at how much and how little things have changed for women.

Scary, funny, brutal, smart, and perverse – this is the stuff that future classic horror midnighters are made of.

A gorgeous, violent, brilliant puzzle box of a movie that relishes in how convoluted it is, and pays off every second of attention.

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).

Like the man to whom this film is dedicated, Ken Kesey, Gerry just wants to go "further."

As things turn out, Clooney’s butt is just one of the many delights to be found on a trip to Solaris.

One of the many charms of Kaurismäki’s films is the way he fuses the impassive emotions he’s subtly evoking with his characters with his absurd, hilarious signaling of the form of filmmaking itself.

By restricting the action almost exclusively to this one building, the audience is taken floor-to-floor on an adventure that stays engaging throughout. Bunny is a race against time and an exercise in controlled chaos.

At long, long last: the real thing.

Spanning three decades, Map of the Human Heart is one of those rare films that illuminates a single human story, and does it so well that you're hardly aware you're watching a movie.

Labyrinth of Cinema is a chaotic entanglement of ideas and endearing characters, a sweet departure for the luminous artist Ôbayashi was.

This is high fantasy of the best kind.

Small Engine Repair is a real American horror story, skillfully shot, perfectly cast and acted, and carrying a sorrowful message that resonates with brutal truth.

Though the story is thinly conceived, Antal throws a fantastic curveball in the second act. Kontroll is a hot ticket.

It’s a stunning debut worth seeking out, a reminder of what has passed and what is rearing its ugly head once again, and a statement about the necessity of queer joy and solidarity.

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.

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.

It’s harrowing to ponder, but a joy to watch unfold when told by someone with such distinct cinematic prowess.

A sublime mixture of dark social realism and magical fantasy – social magical realism, if such a subgenre exists.

Screamingly funny. Like I said, terrific stuff.

Attempted but abandoned by filmmakers from George A. Romero to King regular Frank Darabont, six decades after completion and 40 years after publication, now it crosses the finish line as one of the best King adaptations.

It's an audacious, affecting, and unexpectedly hilarious debut, and most definitely the most original film I've seen all year.

Pollock is that rare breed, a biopic that makes you want to learn more about its subject, as much as you can, as fast as you can.

The balance between the slight, near-mythic narrative and the eye-wateringly beautiful cinematography (courtesy of Bradford Young), as well as the aching, spare score by Daniel Hart, create a movie that’s a more lovingly crafted tone poem than anything you’re likely to see on Texas screens this summer.

This is a dream cast for both Scorsese and the viewer, and everyone is working at the peak of their craft. Nicholson's flawless performance as the increasingly unhinged crime boss is a marvel of manic, paranoid ruination.

This Romeo & Juliet is a rich visual feast, besotted with the fervor of its acrobatic camerawork and kinetic staging and its mind-bending aggregation of unrelated but resonant fragments of 20th-century iconography.

The end result is a delightful, though a smidge too long, reminder of one of the reasons we so enjoy going to the movies: perchance to dream.

The actors, as a powerful and convincing ensemble, are equally understated and just as devastating.

As good as it ever was, and improved slightly by hindsight, experience, and extra cash.

Substantive and imaginatively filmed but is not an off-putting art movie; rather, it's the kind of solid but accessible filmmaking that prevailed in Hollywood's golden age.

Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s feminist views have consistently been at the center of his work, but his latest film, No Bears, is an ambitious, powerful piece that puts himself in the center of two narratives, parallel to each other, in which two generations of women are forced into difficult situations because traditions and laws have made it almost impossible for them to be with who they love.

A big generational saga that woos the audience with its humor, spirit, style, and ability. Genius here is an evolutionary thing.

Unrelenting and inconsolable, with a smattering of compassionate moments, the superb Vortex brings to mind an observation attributed to actress Bette Davis, no less: Getting old ain’t for sissies.

We will be comparing Up with classics like "The Wizard of Oz" for years to come.

Clever, dynamic, and full of little touches of world-building that will drive science-fiction fans wild, Prospect is destined to land on every list of underrated genre films for years to come, long after it has ceased being any semblance of underrated. Stay one step ahead of the curve and see it.

Sharing some of the same talent behind last year’s microindie critic’s darling Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, Eephus is suffused with a sincere love for baseball but not overburdened with holiness about the game.

What makes Under the Skin such a mind-blower has everything to do with Johansson’s chillingly unempathetic turn as the, well, whatever she is, coupled with cinematographer Daniel Landin’s disorienting, hallucinogenic visuals.

Despite its age, The Long Riders remains quite fresh. By combining elements of classic Westerns with a modern narrative, Hill and his capable cast render a thrilling look at characters often misinterpreted by Hollywood.

No talking heads here, just Marlon in all his magnificent complexity. For any cineaste, it’s a mind-blowing experience.

It's up to cinematographer Linus Sandgren to give First Man its almost operatic sense of drama. He replaces the Technicolor glories of "La La Land" with something closer to the period graininess of his work on "American Hustle" or "Battle of the Sexes." But he adds rawness and intimacy.

As you might be able to discern, this is not an easy film, but it is a brilliant film, and one that encompasses an aspect of the contemporary world with both grace and fisticuffs.

A folksy fable defined equally by its whimsy and wistfulness.

This is the master of subversion's most subversive work.

Above everything else, this tribute is a valentine to a man you can’t help but love.

Set in some sort of post-apocalyptic Parisian deli o' the damned, this lunatic's take on the future of man is so delightfully warped that it's impossible to shake it out of your head and go get a decent night's sleep.

The movie gets goofy from time to time -- as when payola arrives in a vintage "Clash of the Titans lunchbox -- but the filmmakers and cast have the style and the swagger to back it up.

Sometimes the screen goes completely black as the film focuses solely on the audio component (Wilkerson’s voice). It has the sense of a confession, and made me wonder if this project is somehow an act of penance.

This may be the first film to examine the intricacies of the Colombia-to-U.S. drug route in any detail.

The film probably won't draw in audiences who aren't already fans of the quirky, subtitled pastoral, but it's more than worth a look.

Cue the footage of Cockettes in spangles and glitter, high-kicking and belting out show tunes at the top of their lungs. Damn, it looks grand.

Like all great screen performances, Mühe's magic comes out most in its tiniest moments: a raised eyebrow here, a slight upturn of the lips there. It's a triumph of muted grandeur; it's like watching someone being born.

Room is ultimately not something you’d readily call enjoyable, but it is a cathartic and provocative reminder that life is full of possibilities and outcomes.

It's something of a Tiananmen Square face-off, minus the overt politics, which makes it all the more spellbinding.

Shula never confirms or denies being a witch, making the title of the film a strange choice, though that affirmative defense through history has largely fallen on deaf ears and too many women have died to prove it. In short, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.