This is one of Kristin Scott Thomas' most inspired performances.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan, one of Turkey's best directors, has a deep understanding of human nature. He loves his characters and empathizes with them. They deserve better than to be shuttled around in a facile plot. They deserve empathy. So do we all.

This is a writer's picture, no less than a visual experience that approaches its subject as tactfully as the messengers do. No fancy camerawork. It happens, we absorb it.

It handles a sports movie the way Billie Holiday handled a trashy song, by finding the love and pain beneath the story.

Kandahar does not provide deeply drawn characters, memorable dialogue or an exciting climax. Its traffic is in images.

Writer-director Chung and the production team have delivered a sepia-toned memory piece that never sugarcoats the culture clashes in and out of the Yi household and yet remains hopeful in tone throughout, reminding us of the power of family and of the Great American Dream.

Patton Oswalt is, in a way, the key to the film's success. Theron is flawless at playing a cringe-inducing monster and Wilson touching as a nice guy who hates to offend her, but the audience needs a point of entry, a character we can identify with, and Oswalt's Matt is human, realistic, sardonic and self-deprecating. He speaks truth to Mavis.

It’s funny, exciting, preposterous, great to look at, and made with the same level of technical expertise we’d expect from a new Bond movie itself. And all of that is very nice, but nicer still is the perfect pitch of the casting.

It walks and talks like a big budget horror film, heavy on special effects and pitched at the teenage audience, and maybe that's how it will be received. But it's more impressive if you ignore the genre and just look at what's on the screen.

A treasure of a movie because it knows so much about baseball and so little about love.

A strong and steady drama from writer-director-actor Joel Edgerton, featuring yet another effective and authentic performance by Lucas Hedges as a teenager in crisis.

This thoughtful film is designed with taste. Music is minimal. Cuing a little Nine Inch Nails at the end, Poitras enables “citizenfour” to commit an act of reverse surveillance on the NSA.

Writer-director Cooper (Crazy Heart, Out of the Furnace, Hostiles) is an enormously gifted storyteller who infuses nearly every moment of this movie with a sense of despair and hopelessness, as some genuinely goodhearted but in most cases deeply damaged souls struggle mightily to battle a mythical, flesh-eating creature from the deep woods while also dealing with real-world trauma that’s equally frightening.

Here is a satire both savage and elegant, a dagger instead of a shotgun.

The movie is successful largely because [DiCaprio] is a good enough actor to hold his own in his scenes with De Niro, so that the movie remains his story, and isn't upstaged by the loathsome but colorful Dwight.

The screenplay and the direction juggle the characters so adroitly, this is almost a wash-and-wax MASH.

It's sharp and funny--not a children's movie, but one of those hybrids that works on different levels for different ages.

As we’re enjoying the beautiful cinematography and the fine acting and the dark humor, Benjamin Dickinson is delivering a signature work announcing his arrival as a filmmaker to watch for years to come.

Leave the World Behind is a bold and tricky endeavor that pays off in just about perfect fashion. You might never think of “Friends” in the same way again.

Trainwreck is my favorite romantic comedy of the year, and despite (or maybe because of) all its sharp edges and cynical set pieces, it’s a movie you want to wrap your arms around, or at least give a high five.

It's also interesting to see how little screen time the final disco competition really has, considering how large it looms in our memories.

I loved the spirit and the heart of this film.

It’s yet another instantly immersive, richly layered and beautifully shot chapter in one of the most impressive directing careers of our time.

Chabrol as always shows a tenderness toward the lives of people who are exceptional only because crime touches them.

Even though the Chicago-born and Wheaton-raised Belushi’s life story and legacy has been examined time and again, the documentary simply titled Belushi is a work of great value.

I have only one complaint, and it is this: Every American should be as fortunate as I have been. As Moore makes clear in his film, some 50 million Americans have no insurance and no way to get it.

The key element in any action picture, I think, is a good villain. Terminator 2 has one, along with an intriguing hero and fierce heroine, and a young boy who is played by Furlong with guts and energy.

Astin's performance is so self-effacing, so focused and low-key, that we lose sight of the underdog formula and begin to focus on this dogged kid who won't quit. And the last big scene is an emotional powerhouse, just the way it's supposed to be.