The story is as pure and lean as the original fable which formed in Steinbeck's mind. And because they don't try to do anything fancy -- don't try to make it anything other than exactly what it is -- they have a quiet triumph.

There’s no overreaching attempt to paint the band as anything more than they were, no roster of professors and music experts and somber social commentators weighing in.

It was a tall order to match the brilliance of “Inside Out,” but the sequel meets the challenge on every level.

Not all movies can be stark, difficult and obscure. Sometimes in a quite ordinary way a director can reach out and touch us.

A film of unusual visual beauty and enormous intrinsic interest.

So assured and perceptive in its style, so loving, so intensely right, that if you can receive on that frequency, the film is like a voluptuous feast.

That the director, Paul Greengrass, treats the material with gravity and uses good actors in well-written supporting roles elevates the movie above its genre, but not quite out of it.

A movie you cannot turn away from; it is so pitiless and uncompromising, so filled with pathos and disregarded innocence, that it is a record of those things we pray to be delivered from.

There is a lot of nudity in the film but no pornographic documentary quality; the camera does not linger, or move for the best view, or relish the spectacle of nudity. The result is some of the most poignant, almost sad, sex scenes I have ever seen - sensuous, yes, but bittersweet.

The King of Comedy is not, you may already have guessed, a fun movie. It is also not a bad movie. It is frustrating to watch, unpleasant to remember, and, in its own way, quite effective.

This is a movie about the end of youth and high romance, about death and the possibility of simple human compassion.

Loosely inspired by the Lee Majors-starring TV show from the 1980s and given a rocket-booster jolt of stardom from the pairing of Gosling and Emily Blunt, “The Fall Guy” is pure popcorn entertainment — an absolutely ludicrous yet consistently entertaining, old-fashioned action/romance combo platter that plays like a feature-length pitch to the Academy to add a best stunts category (as it should).

What makes Creed III a consistently engrossing watch is the gritty and violent back story, and the present-day tension between two former best friends whose lives were forever changed by a single confrontation that went sideways and who now have been reunited after nearly 20 years, with one man on top of the world and the other about two degrees from reaching the boiling point as he simmers with rage and resentment.

It’s sweet and lovely work, but at times lacking in the type of subtlety required for film acting, even in a musical role with as much comedy as drama. Still, Erivo and Grande have chemistry in abundance and make for a memorable duo.

It will not appeal to the impatient, but those who like long books and movies will admire the way it accumulates power and depth. It is about youthful idealism, headstrong love and fierce ambition, and is pessimistic about all of them.

A Most Wanted Man works as a crowd-pleaser and as a believable reflection of how these fictional events might well play out in the real world.

Hitchcock called his most familiar subject "The Innocent Man Wrongly Accused." Jarecki pumps up the pressure here by giving us a Guilty Man Accurately Accused, and that's what makes the film so ingeniously involving.

The Princess and the Frog inspires memories of Disney's Golden Age it doesn't quite live up to, as I've said, but it's spritely and high-spirited, and will allow kids to enjoy it without visually assaulting them.

Over the course of a brisk 86 minutes, the filmmakers do a stellar job of providing context and explaining just how the special came to be.

Enormously entertaining.

This astonishing documentary, so beautiful, so horrifying.

With Romania standing in for 1850s New York State, The World to Come feels true to its time and place, and all four main players do a spectacularly good job of sounding and acting true to the time.

The movie brings into focus how rare religion and spirituality are in American films.

Something Wild is quite a movie. Demme is a master of finding the bizarre in the ordinary.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer never hedges its bets, never takes its foot off the gas. The same can be said of the actors, from skilled veterans Farrell and Kidman to young Barry Keoghan.

Writer-director Taylor Sheridan’s Wind River is a stark and beautiful and haunting 21st century Western thriller, filled with memorable visuals and poetic dialogue — and scenes of sudden, shocking, brutal violence.

Thanks to Affleck’s sure-handed, period-piece-perfect direction, a crackling good screenplay by Alex Convery and the lively, funny, warm, passionate performances from the A-list cast, Air is as entertaining and fast-paced as an NBA Finals game that is destined for overtime.

It is a story worth telling. But Bernstein cannot bring himself to apply the same brutal honesty to his subject as Ungerer does to his.