If you’re looking for a smart, insightful, slightly cynical yet warmhearted and consistently smile-inducing slice of life reminiscent of the best character-driven films of the 1970s, punch your ticket right here.

Lion is a beautifully told, uplifting story of courage and determination.

Someone like Petey Greene made a difference and made a mark, and broadcasting is better because of his transparent honesty. He helped transform African-American stations more, probably, than their mostly white owners desired. And talk talents like Howard Stern, whether they know who he was, owe him something.

With the chilling, creepy, bold and sometimes bat-bleep absurd Split, the 46-year-old Shyamalan serves notice he’s still got some nifty plot tricks up his sleeve and he hasn’t lost his masterful touch as a director.

Companion is darkly funny and has some great jump scares, but it’s also a meditation on how some men have a default switch that makes it far too easy for them to be manipulative and abusive.

It evokes Saturday afternoon serials in an age when most of the audience will never have seen one. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed myself.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is not only about Germany during the war, although the story it tells is heartbreaking in more than one way. It is about a value system that survives like a virus.

The Tracker is one of those rare films that deserves to be called haunting. It tells the sort of story we might find in an action Western, but transforms it into a fable or parable.

Renier’s performance is the best thing in the movie, although all the actors, cast partly for their faces, are part of creating this desperate world.

Movies like Hard Eight remind me of what original, compelling characters the movies can sometimes give us.

What makes the film involving is that it doesn't depend on the mechanical resolution of the plot, but on the close observation of its effects on these distinctive characters.

Director Steven Frears deserves special mention. A lesser filmmaker could so easily have turned this project into mushy, sentimental junk. The tear-jerking moments here are heartfelt and real. It’s the kind of filmmaking we see too little of today.

Rips up the postcards of American history and reassembles them into a violent, blood-soaked story of our bare-knuckled past.

It leaves you wondering, how was it that so many people liked this man who does not seem to have liked himself?

The Rewrite is hardly shattering new ground, but the familiar path is strewn with a steady stream of smile-inducing moments, two terrific performances from the leads and a first-rate supporting cast.

Captain America: Civil War is a classic example of what the big-ticket summer movie experience is all about.

The real reasons to see An American in Paris are for the Kelly dance sequences, the closing ballet, the Gershwin songs, the bright locations, and a few moments of the ineffable, always curiously sad charm of Oscar Levant.

Made against all odds into a funny and charming movie that understands the charm of the original, and preserves it.

This is one of the most fascinating of all true crime stories.

For all its sobering reporting and imagery, Fin also has moments of pure beauty, as when Roth literally swims among sharks, who greet him with mild curiosity and a benign approach. Despite the handful of stories every year about a shark attacking a human, we know the truth: We’re the predators, and they’re the prey.

An assured and very serious love story that allows neither humor nor romance to get in the way of its deeper and darker subject.

The movie is not so much about romance as about goodheartedness, which is a rarer quality, and not so selfish. And Cage has a certain gentleness that brings out nice soft smiles on Fonda's face.

Writer-director Nichols does a skillful job of paying homage to the glamour and bad-boy appeal of motorcycles and motorcycle movies, but also illustrating that while these guys are the stuff of feature films, in real life you’d most likely grow tired of their company after yet another day of drinking and petty crime.

These are fellow human beings who suffer, who are limited in their freedom to imagine greater happiness for themselves, and yet in their very misery they embody human striving. There is more of humanity in a prostitute trying to truly love, if only for a moment, than in all of the slow-motion romantic fantasies in the world.

For a time this movie will probably be best known for the behind-the-scenes drama. But the work itself deserves to endure as one of the better films of 2017.

Kate Mara delivers one of the best performances of her career in the title role.

If a movie like this had a neat ending, the ending would be a lie. We do not want answers, but questions and observations.

In this world, it seems as if every moment of happiness, every glimpse of a better future, is fraught with dangerous consequences.... But redemption and hope eventually shine through here and there, and when that happens, it’s a beautiful thing.