Adams gives her best performance as a lonely woman who has to make a decision that will haunt her – though perhaps in a good way – for the rest of her life.

Comedy comes from an exaggeration of reality, not reality itself -- and on that score, Diablo Cody's first screenplay gets high marks.

After 30 minutes, I wondered why I was watching a drama about a quarrelsome couple who seemed so obviously wrong for each other. After 60 minutes, I knew. After 90 minutes, I cared. By the end, I was riveted.

They've made a thrilling traditional nautical picture from untraditional books.

The slender story seems overextended at times, with Lu finding new ways each week to insinuate himself into Yu’s life. Zhang doesn’t make a point once if he can make it twice, and the characters don’t change much over the middle hour.

Hanks gives one of his least showy and most credible performances.

His height didn't stop independent writer-director Thomas McCarthy from casting his friend in The Station Agent, scoring a triumph for both.

If you see Hot Fuzz, you'll never again watch a Michael Bay film without howling with disrespectful laughter.

The Big Short, which he directed and wrote with Charles Randolph from the book by Michael Lewis, jumps off the screen in every scene and pins an elusive subject firmly in place.

Cravalho shows spunk and a generically lovely voice, though she’s saddled with assembly-line anthems Disney has done better elsewhere. Johnson has exuberance, deft timing and a passable singing voice.

Best of all, we finally learn something about Bond's origins: The movie takes its title from his ancestral home in Scotland. (A nod to Connery, perhaps?)

The best thing about the picture is Harry's new maturity: For the first time, he dominates a picture named for him.

The film's an irresistible time capsule of that Camelot summer, blending girrrrrl power, social consciousness and faux-'60s pop with the fizz of a soda jerk whipping up a root beer float.

The usually quiet Zellweger is the revelation: Like her character, the actress seems happily amazed to find herself crossing a polished dance floor, sheathed in silk and diamonds, having the naughty, self-glorifying time of her life.

King Kong, a labor of love that's visually stunning and moving in its best moments, is also bloated, shallow, clunky, full of illogical scenes and at least an hour too long.

A hymn to that beautiful city, is among his least consequential efforts. It's attractive and easy to slip into, but he didn't put enough thought into the design, and it soon falls apart.

A peaceful, unforced film, and it inspires a feeling of relief and joy that's hard to describe.

South African director Neill Blomkamp set and shot the film around his native Johannesburg, so parallels to apartheid leap to mind. Yet the script he wrote with Terri Tatchell applies to any culture that bluntly excludes another.

These aren't people whose problems can be solved quickly or easily. They'll need medication, therapy, patience, self-awareness and willingness to compromise to conquer troubles, and Russell makes us root for them as they stumble along.

The Martian celebrates both the indomitable human spirit and the belief that our species can, with patience and common sense, think its way out of almost any problem. If the film occasionally preaches, its message strikes home.

The film's a little more accessible than "Requiem for a Dream" and a lot easier to understand than "The Fountain," but its low-key grunginess may restrict its appeal to people who have liked professional wrestling and/or Rourke.

Brilliantly interweaves stories that take place decades apart, and features stellar work by three of the best English-speaking actresses: Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep.

To call it a masterpiece is premature: That's a title to be earned only in retrospect. But I've seen it twice now and can't imagine what I would change. It fits together tightly as a suspenseful puzzle, yet it's also emotionally rewarding and sardonically funny.

The story might have worked as well without that stick-in-the-craw coincidence, which was inserted to maximize the horrors of Nawal's past.

Has more twists than the Pacific Coast Highway and more layers than a stack of silver-dollar pancakes. If you can wrap your mind around one unlikely condition, the picture provides unalloyed pleasure for connoisseurs of cinematic con artists.

For the first time in memory, the film ends not just with the promise of more Bonds but without a firm conclusion.

Those of us who admire Charles Portis' novel have waited 40 years for a screen version that's as literal as possible – and the Coen brothers just about deliver it.

If Hollywood’s going to extend the most famous movie myth of the past 40 years, The Force Awakens seems a worthwhile way to do so.