Erich von Stroheim might have made the definitive film about human swinishness way back in 1924 – sorry, Gordon Gekko – but Cheap Thrills cuts deeper, darker, and straight to the bone.

The drama may not be as focused as we might like, but Slattery’s outstanding gallery of actors make this an ensemble piece that commands our attention: These dead-end characters stick out like bas reliefs in the community framework.

A vast improvement over the previous two outings, but still and all, it's no "Star Wars."

For his first shot at feature filmmaking, Longo does an admirable job of keeping the story line rocketing along, though his seeming attempts to out-Blade Runner Ridley Scott in the decaying cityscape department grow wearisome and the occasional wooden drivel that Reeves spouts adds a bit of unintentional humor to the proceedings.

Overall, Clooney has provided a fine time at the movies, with engaging sports sequences, thoughtful storytelling, impactful visuals, and great performances. Its focus can get a bit fuzzy, but this doesn’t dull the film’s overall shine.

With its brief running time and revelatory story, this neat, fascinating documentary ought to be required viewing for art history students everywhere.

Van Bebber's film is tough, difficult, sporadically brilliant cinema, to be sure, and I doubt he'd have had it any other way. And as strange as it may sound, neither should the audience.

All told, it’s a likably misfit little movie, even if you can imagine it better suited as a lengthy short film or as a superior installment on one of those midcentury television playhouse series.

The abyss between the boy and the man he may become is cold, black, and unforgiving. Adapted from Jan Terlouw's 1972 novel, this is an often emotionally harrowing depiction of a young idealist running smack into the brutal reality of occupied life.

The script, partly written by an uncredited Terry George ("Some Mother's Son," "In the Name of the Father") strains mightily for insight but never quite breaks through.

Manages the neat feat of feeling sweetly inevitable rather than boilerplate predictable.

Here Hill makes his debut as a filmmaker while trying to prove himself as the voice for an entire generation. And there are even times where Hill succeeds, navigating his own missteps as a first-time filmmaker to create a promising – albeit unsatisfactory  –  story of adolescent millennial angst.

Party Girl strives only to be as fun and lighthearted as its namesake.

Ultimately, the new life in this adaptation of The Color Purple is still worth revisiting, with performances from a stacked ensemble that help the film rise above being a straightforward adaptation.

Touchback may accurately be called cornball hokum by some, but it's nevertheless a well-made film filled with heart and soul (and Snake Plissken).

A provocative documentary that shines light on a little-explored dimension of the international debate regarding homosexuality and religion: that of gays and lesbians who also wish to belong to the Orthodox and Hassidic Jewish communities.

Ultimately the film manages a warm, offbeat appeal despite its flaws, and it has real heart.

By trying to give these women happy endings, or proposing fake reasons for how they came to produce indelible works, these alternative histories only achieve the opposite. They rob them of the truth of their lives.

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

Consistently entertaining.

Damage brings to mind Last Tango in Paris, although Malle's elegant, precise direction is drastically different from Bertolucci's work, a film that celebrates the loss of inhibition and control. Although relentlessly somber, Damage offers a perverse humor in the idea of father-and-son rivalry over the same woman: it's like the Oedipus complex in reverse.

Minions: The Rise of Gru might not be sophisticated storytelling, but not all animated films have to be. Sometimes they can just be about joy.

Ultimately, Cabin Fever isn't going to win any awards for originality - it's too busy twisting the conventions of the genre back in on themselves for that - but it does provide a jarring battery of scares (often depressing ones at that) that make it severed-head-and-shoulders above the spate of recent shockers.

Ultimately, its most poignant details come from depicting a nonsexual friendship between a straight guy and a gay guy.

It’s a titillating story of social suicide worthy of Capote’s imagination, had he only dared to inscribe it with his own words.

The playful and well-meaning spirit of the film carries it through its shakier moments of awkward narration and inscrutably busy camerawork.

A quietly interesting but unusually perceptive story about love and relationships.

A fanciful spiral of mythology, madness, cynicism and salvation.