Working from a script by Paul Webb and aided by stark, beautiful, sometimes startlingly realistic cinematography by Bradford Young, DuVernay has delivered a powerful and moving portrait of Martin Luther King Jr.

The Interview sticks to the anything-for-a-laugh plan for nearly the entire journey, with far too many jokes about things going in and coming out of rear ends.

Mr. Turner is far more than merely an explosion of color and toned nuance for the eye. The real reason to make this a must-see of this holiday season is to wallow in the Oscar-worthy acting talent of Leigh’s veteran player Timothy Spall.

Wahlberg has grown so much as an actor we can pretty much buy him as a college professor/author. There’s just not enough depth to the character of Jim, and not much of a story arc.

As eccentric as his subjects are, Burton plays things relatively straightforward. This is one of the most mainstream movies he’s ever done. It’s also one of the more entertaining movies of the year.

Into the Woods rumbles on for too long and has some dry patches here and there — but just when we’re growing fidgety, we get another rousing musical number or another dark plot twist, and we’re back in business.

Unbroken is an ambitious, sometimes moving film that suffers from a little too much self-conscious nobility, and far too many scenes of sadistic brutality.

This is the scariest movie of the year.

The dialogue is schmaltzy and often painfully unfunny. The special effects are often so 1980s-bad... Time and again, terrific actors sink in the equivalent of cinematic quicksand, helpless against the sucking sound of this movie.

Musical theater versions often seem dated, so moving the story into the 21st century does make sense (as does the multicultural casting), but in the process Gluck and his all-star cast create a chaotic film that tries too hard and fails to capture the charm and heart of the musical.

Fighting — presented with Jackson’s usual double helpings of visual splendor, emotional oomph and low-key comedy — is what Battle of the Five Armies is all about.

A paean to creative impulses, this work channels the vision of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi.

The film works as well as it does due to the genius of Benedict Cumberbatch and the way he has inhabited Alan Turing’s persona.

This is a smart, savvy film with sabre-sharp one-liners, a half-dozen terrific supporting turns, one of the best scores of the year, a winning romance and a heartfelt and authentic performance from Rock.

As a fictional, big-budget, 3-D, epic interpretation of Moses’ journey, Exodus: Gods and Kings is spectacular.

The point of the exercise, it seems, is to trap four seemingly decent people, all more or less friends, in a dark, claustrophobic, pressure-cooker environment to see how they respond to the threat of imminent death — or worse. Spoiler alert: human nature doesn’t get a thumbs-up in this one.

It’s the beautiful and breathtaking animation that gives The Tale of the Princess Kaguya a luster that is both simple and sophisticated. Once again the visionary Takahata and Studio Ghibli prove that great animation is not just for kids, but can be universal in its reach.

As for Witherspoon, there’s not a shred of her America’s Sweetheart persona in this work. She strips naked, literally and otherwise, in a raw, brave performance.

While Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain, an earnest account of the world’s worst industrial accident, certainly has its heart in the right place, it’s not good that the closing titles about the cold, brutal facts of the aftermath stir more outrage than the preceding docudrama.

Every once in a while there’s an inspired montage, or a one-liner that made me laugh out loud. But how can you have the great Christoph Waltz playing a villain in a comedy, and you get almost nothing out of it?

From the opening frame right up to the whirlwind finale, you will be treated to non-stop action, clever dialogue and quite a bit of zany energy. If I’d fault anything about this fun romp, it’s that the filmmakers tried to jam-pack too much into one movie.

This whole movie is crazy, with all sorts of well-known folks stumbling and bumbling about in search of a character. At times Reach Me is undeniably intriguing, mostly because it’s just so weird and disconnected. Eventually, though, it just becomes tiresome.

This is one of the most irritating movies of the year.

The Homesman is not an easy, comfortable viewing experience. That’s part of what makes it unique.

Foxcatcher is a disturbing and memorable film.

Ultimately, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1 serves as solid if unspectacular first lap around the track of a two-lap race.

Volker Schlondorff’s talky drama...is less than persuasive.

If the stream-of-consciousness, imagery-trumps-everything films of Terrence Malick tend to try your patience, this beautifully, beatifically boring imitation by a Malick protégé might be more than the better angels of your nature can endure.