Hall has crafted a masterpiece of nostalgic filmmaking.

I highly recommend this decades-spanning, engrossing, hilarious, sad, and informative documentary to all music fans, whether you liked Davis beforehand or not.

Rian Johnson’s Wake Up, Dead Man is more than a clever whodunnit. It’s a meditation on belief, guilt, and the stories we tell ourselves to stay righteous. What begins as a murder investigation becomes a battle between truth and faith.

The title subject in Maya and the Wave is so graceful and elegant that you can almost forget the Herculean struggle that made it possible.

Waititi masterfully balances the film’s comedy with the seriousness of the subject. He plays with your emotions to heighten the impact of the story’s message. Nothing in this film feels gratuitous and the tonal shift in the film will hit you like a ton of bricks.

Travel Ban: Make America Laugh Again is frustrating to watch. Not because it is poorly made; it is not, quite the opposite in fact. Instead, it is frustrating that in this day and age, a person still has to fight for their right to be considered a human being. As this film proves though, comedy can combat bigotry.

An uber-modern romance story that's powered with raw honesty and coated with wild imagination.

Eastwood once again takes a sharp stab at America’s penchant for attacking first, asking questions later.

The film effortlessly examines hefty themes like freedom, toxic masculinity, privilege, familial bonds (and the need to escape them).

The film is fast and tight and hits all the beats perfectly.

Instead of stitching together interviews and footage into a chronological plot, Wharton goes with the proverbial flow.

The most critical element of Winter’s documentary is not the scandal itself, but the fact that hundreds of journalists from around the world were able to work together to expose this corruption, despite the consequences, and their egos.

After We Leave is a shining example of indie filmmaking at its finest.

The documentary may make you angry at times (or throughout), but that’s actually a good thing.

Instant Dreams makes a strong case for the necessity of instant photography. Its three main subjects are compelling and well spoken. The film’s powerful, hypnotic images, and the mesmerizing score only add to the dream-like atmosphere being conveyed.

Soft and Quiet is the most unsettling real-life horror movie since Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. The seemingly uninterrupted single take with a handheld camera fits the production perfectly.

The Dark Knight may not be a masterpiece, but it easily vaults to the top of any list of "best superhero movies."

It is an intimate, somber, uncompromising cinematic portrait of a desperate soul in the vein of Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler, if it were cross-bred with Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. The film will haunt you long after the lights fade.

Roman Polanski’s J’Accuse, released internationally as An Officer and a Spy, is a brilliant exercise in controlled storytelling, visual discipline, and moral searching.

Writing with Fire accomplishes what any good documentary should—it allows the viewer a visit a world that they might never even have known to exist.

Give Me Liberty, is one of the most sensitive, compassionate, and poignant movies of the year. Although it is officially classified as a comedy, as it is filled with hilarious and entertaining moments, it is so much more and will make you feel a whole spectrum of emotions. Give Me Liberty is a humanist film at heart with a bona fide independent spirit.

Neither the meals depicted nor the viewing experience should be rushed. Time is needed for the ingredients of the film to achieve a simmered state of perfection. Your patience will be rewarded.

A welcome return to the raunchy hey-day of comedy, a true guy's film.

The acting in the film is grade-A, with Stallone bringing the more mumbled Rocky from the first film spliced with some rousing inspirational monologues when the moment is right (not forced, not preachy… just perfect).

LaBute rewards patient viewers with two amazing lead performances, crackling dialogue, and genuine suspense. While the film might be flawed, it is imminently watchable.

World War I was a new kind of war, because of its use of planes, tanks, and artillery for the first time. Add in the impossible conditions of trench warfare, where men lived in their own filth and alongside piles of decomposing dead comrades—all brought to you in glorious 3D. Even more haunting is the fact that this is real.

Visually tight but engrossing, The Girl in the Trunk is a worthy thriller, especially thanks to the slam-bang conclusion.

The film is able to be a thriller, a political statement and a haunting romance all at once.