I tried to imagine what it would be like watching this movie if I were unfamiliar with the source material. The story may be a bit strange, but certainly no less touching. That’s the thing about classics: Each reiteration, if done properly, puts us closer to the story at heart.

Everywhere in America these days, people pay lip service to the idea of conducting open and honest conversations about race. Due to a fluke of timing and its entertaining quality, Top Five should help get the ball rolling.

The Shrouds is arguably Cronenberg’s most introspective film. His earlier work was driven by fascination, fetishization, and a puckish humor. All those elements are present here, but muted, restrained, and ultimately under an overwhelming sense of futility, as Karsh uses the shroud tech to retain a detachment from his grief.

There's not as much bombast here as there was in Parker's Commitments, but then Frears is an entirely different kind of director. He prefers the ensemble to the character study, and here he does a wonderful job of it.

Is it classic cinema? Perhaps not, but then again, American shores and citizens have never been lacerated by atomic weapons. What do we know?

Civil War’s main battle sequence is so effective because it’s six-on-six, and we’ve spent the past decade getting to know the combatants.

Nearly a decade before the supper-table racial detente of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Kramer mined the subject matter of racial divisiveness in the groundbreaking The Defiant Ones, which paired Curtis and Poitier as hunky prison escapees unhappily bonded to each other by means of metal chains and the mutual need to survive.

Summer 1993 reveals itself to us as if it were a scrapbook of memories tumbling forth. Some are clearer than others, yet the movie retains a subjective, childlike point of view.

There's still too much punching down, but especially too much peddling in stereotypes and xenophobic clichés.

Wonderstruck’s portrayal of deaf experiences and its adult treatment of childhood mysteries are original, and the way Haynes weaves it all together with gossamer strands gives this movie wings.

"They have their Mardi Gras; we have ours," the explanation goes on both sides, but everyone seems to realize it's just a rationalization aimed at covering over Mobile's docile perpetuation of segregation.

"The Cross and the Switchblade" it’s not; this is the reality of Ukraine today, and Crocodile Gennadiy is a badass man on a mission … from God.

A hilariously silly comedy based on an absurd true story.

The provocatively titled indie film Gook is both incendiary and lyrical.

And yet, it works, so much so that after two and a quarter hours, I was startled – and not a little disappointed – when the closing credits kicked in.

Wild lands some hard punches, but it can’t sustain the impact. Some of that lies in its inherited arc: Strayed found some peace – the whole point of the trek – but arriving-at-peace is less provocative than the struggle, at least in a movie.

A spirited and eye-popping stealth charmer.

Lively’s performance grows more engaging as her facade finally begins to crack, and Huisman serves as a sufficiently handsome foil throughout, but if anyone rises to the occasion, it’s Harrison Ford as a former flame reunited with Adaline through a perverse twist of fate.

Richardson also lends authenticity to her character, a mother adept at playing the victim (even in this situation). There’s a complexity to the family dynamic that couldn’t be more true-to-life.

Brie Larson is a revelation as the linchpin of Short Term 12. An industrious young actress, her performance here is remarkably natural and understated.

Schizophrenia never looked so good or so mesmerizing as it does here, and Paprika, while certainly not suitable for kids, manages to capture the childlike, helter-skelter chaos and curiosity of the human mind better than any other animated film.

In a finely realized and multi-layered first film, writer-director Peter Howitt treats us to a clever and urbane exploration of the monumental repercussions of tiny twists of fate.

Carter Burwell’s score is particularly thunderous, mirroring the onscreen action, and the 3-D really is – for once – superb, making for a rather breathtaking two hours. Well done.

Full of period locations, costumes, and one very clever Lana Turner gag, it's easy to see why Ellroy is so pleased with the film.

It takes a bit to get going, but once it does, Fresh never lets up.

This film is an example of a Western that ought to appeal to a healthy-sized contemporary audience, and is also a remake of the 1957 film of the same name, which is a hallmark of the type of psychological Western.

Even in its disassociation, The Great Beauty ingratiates itself as a witty and compelling companion – much like Jep Gambardella.

Anyone can come up with jokes about incestuous rednecks or pubic hair that "looks like Osama bin Laden's beard," but it takes guts to make a comedy in which the Indian-American hero accuses an African-American TSA agent of racial profiling, all so he won't get caught smuggling weed onto a plane.