Never less than dazzling to look at, and the scorching humor keeps it alive from scene to scene.

Charming and imaginative.

A deliciously romantic story, in all senses of the word.

Puts the Bond film series (this one makes number 19)-- back on track by stressing the fundamentals and applying a bit of authentic drama for a change.

Borgman‘s crafty, trickster-ish screenplay, always two steps ahead of you, keeps you rooting for clues, enough to put your ethics on temporary hold.

Morris seduces us into stepping into Leuchter's world of delusion and ego.

A very small film, as they say in the movie business, but its stylish suspensefulness is nicely leavened by Connell's obvious, and welcome, love for his hapless characters.

Bateman could have been much more interesting if he'd been played by someone who wouldn't need to work quite so hard (Charlie Sheen or Rob Lowe might have been fascinating here).

Human Resources resonates because it restores the humanity to that dehumanizing title phrase.

Carrey is an actor possessed. He's brilliant.

May be Hitchcock on holiday, but that's a perfectly enjoyable vacation.

A.C.O.D. proves to be both a solid debut for Zicherman and a worthy vehicle for Scott and company, one that provides plenty of awkward laughs and generally gives the American farce a good name again.

[Ritchie] cranks up the laughs and tension with equal aplomb, throwing wrenches in the plot so that the audience has no idea what to expect next -- and that's part of the film's thrill.

This mordant, macabre look at the American obsession with fast food, television and murder is icily funny.

A Hijacking isn’t boring, but it is not an adventure film – it is a frustratingly realistic take on the unfortunate modern threat of piracy, and a bit of an emotional workout.

Kate Hudson's accent is spot-on, and she brings her megawattage to good use on the Gershwin standard, "The Man I Love."

This long, sometimes hard-to-watch movie is a challenge, but it has authority and raw power.

It's a pleasant surprise to note how good Scream 3 really is.

The risk pays off for Clooney and the Coens, as O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a nicely off-kilter exploration of American gumption.

Every bit as reverent as "Schindler's List," and no less successful.

This is a movie that proposes a genuine, intelligent solution, both for the main character and for us. It comes at you kinda quickly (and economically, in about three wordless shots), but it hit me like a bag of dumpster-dived apples to the gut.

It's provocative and very moving, filled with some of the strongest performances of the year.

Over the course of two-and-a-half hours, the film not only gets up on wobbly legs but learns to dance by the closing credits.

Ferociously inventive.

Fascinating noir, which will long be remembered for its extraordinary lead performance by Catherine Deneuve.

The result is a movie that turns the financial phenomenon of Web startups -- the crazy kids with ideas, and the crazier bankers with more money than sense -- into a moving human drama.

What makes A Simple Plan an exciting, thoughtful thriller isn't the plot twists, but the twists and turns of Hank's tortured conscience as one lie leads to bigger and deadlier deceits.

The most exuberantly funny and smartest teen movie this summer, which is something to cheer about.

All of it is vital and involving, and some of it is hilarious...I've rarely seen a group of people in a darkened theater react as viscerally as they do to Reservoir Dogs.

What ensues is never exactly unpredictable, but always witty, fresh and fun.

A completely different order of cinematic existence than any other film you're likely to see in the near or distant future.

It's very funny and - at times - even witty in a crude, drunken frat-boy-with-an-epiphany kind of way.

I liked this film better the second time around.

A kicky little comedy that shows Quentin Tarantino's influence is alive and well in Japan.

The film version of this civilized beauty, captures the amusing gloss of the story but not the sense that something grave is going on beneath it all.

Hanks gives possibly the most compelling performance of his career.

(Cusack)'s genius, however, is in his continual ability to be the most likeable of everymen.

A pulsing, wooshing, visceral experience that amounts to great fun and an entirely disposable movie.

Typically low-key and lovely.

If Unforgiven occasionally overstates its case, this is the best work Eastwood has done as a director since The Outlaw Josey Wales 16 years ago.

By turns amusing, touching and horrifying, A Room For Romeo Brass is a film that defies expectation at every turn.

It's a sweet and wise film - neither groundbreaking nor revolutionary save for the fact that it places narrative and character arc at the center of its concerns.

A bawdy and belligerent comedy, meant mostly for folks looking for nothing more than to enjoy a few laughs.

The Trip to Italy is plenty enjoyable for fans of the first one and these two, but by the end, it also has the consistency of reheated comfort food.

The film has enough charm and humor to keep it appealing to a wide audience, and dumbing things down doesn’t feel particularly smart or canny, and proves to be a minor distraction to an otherwise majorly entertaining feature.

In a season stuffed with empty eye candy, 2 Guns comes along as something of a welcome burrito — plenty satisfying and hardly nutritious.

An emotionally punishing experience.

There’s charm and delight here, to be sure, but it is occasionally obscured by attempts to make it somehow darker, deeper, and more dramatic.

Steady-handed action is enough to elevate this film above its predecessor.

The most gut-wrenching 'making of' documentary ever made.

Swanberg’s most mature and satisfying film yet.

Occupies an odd middle ground between their Apatow-produced bromances, the giddy gruesomeness of the recent “Aftershock” and the confined social abrasiveness of “It’s a Disaster.”

Might be the single most beautiful documentary of the year.

Fiennes and writer Abi Morgan mercifully forsake the gee-golly traditions of similar fame-minded fare...in constructing a narrative as emotionally repressed as its subjects must have been, with each character existing within their own arena of personal and social compromise.

An efficient and effectively exciting globe-spanning zombie thriller.

Philomena honors its namesake by valuing potent understatement over potential hysterics.

The Double taps into a deep reservoir of psychic turmoil even as it navigates the script’s abundant jokes, and the nightmare of the heart of the film is doubtless universal.

In the House is crafty and juicy and ought to delight anyone whose ever thumped their chest about being a storyteller. I must confess, however, that somewhere in the third act the air started to leak from the balloon.

Strong, stirring, triumphant and tragic, The Imitation Game may be about a man who changed the world, but it’s also about the world that destroyed a man.

Irresistibly entertaining and beautiful to look at it, the film is pleasant at worst, and – at best – wisely defies its slapped-on American title, a warm reminder that love isn’t a solution so much as it’s a brilliant way of embracing life’s problems.

The franchise is sent off in style, a reminder of why it earned such praise and affection in the first place, the wolfpack giving us one final howl at the moon.

Not as touching or boldly transgressive as its ultra-violent peers.

It isn’t surprising how warm and enjoyable Life Itself is – James is a singularly talented documentarian who literally owes his career to Ebert, and Ebert approached the facts of being filmed the same way he faced films, or for that matter faced anything: With honesty and good humor.

If Tom at the Farm is occasionally impenetrable as a drama, it’s seldom less than gripping as an exercise in suspense, especially when Dolan’s precise sense of timing revitalizes otherwise familiar moments.

Gambardella’s world-weary look back at his sweet life, eclipsed by his turning sixty-five, is a dizzying fantasia of flash and filigree, and what it lacks in direct narrative is well patched-over with frenetic and emotion-rich sequences. This movie is a sight and sound workout.

Jason Reitman’s adaptation of Joyce Maynard’s Labor Day is as consistently assured a piece of filmmaking as any we’ve seen from the filmmaker and very much in keeping with the decreasingly glib nature of his output.

An essential entry in the cinematic canon of Spider-Man, complete with new villains, new questions, and new heartaches.

A closer, richer examination of a slice of time as specific as it is short.

A more than worthy (and weird) holiday diversion for the whole family.

If the Favreau-written “Swingers” concerned itself with the pursuit of meaningful romance and the Favreau-directed “Made” tackled the pursuit of a better living, then the slight if continually amusing Chef is clearly his paean to rekindling one’s passions, whether as an artist, a husband or a father.

This tiny friends-and-family production has the vibe of a project done on weekends and after school. That’s no knock. It is vibrant and bubbly and just clever enough to engage people who wouldn’t normally watch a black-and-white micro-budget Shakespeare adaptation without any big movie stars.

The humor and drama don’t neutralize each other; in what’s perhaps Stewart’s most successful achievement as a director, the changes in tone work in a harmony, not at cross-purposes.

Far-fetched, absurd and hopelessly schticky, but if you can get past its boring initial set-up, it’s actually quite funny.

Despite being clever and crafty it can’t break out of the curiosity shop. It’s the finest diorama in there, but something to admire, linger over then move past.

Despite its apparent compromises to noble finger-wagging (initially) and requisite fist-pumping (eventually), Waugh has fashioned a sturdy character-first entertainment out of Snitch at a time of year when those are all too rare to behold.

The downright gnarliest mainstream horror release in recent memory, Evil Dead is certainly a considerable and occasionally commendable dose of the ol’ ultra-violence, but Fede Alvarez’ Raimi-sanctioned update of 1981’s cult favorite only really has that demented determination going for it.

This film could have gone horribly wrong, but the characters and chemistry are strong, and as such Beautiful Creatures should be lauded for elegantly delivering a tale that at least feels fresh and vibrant.

John Dies at the End is easily funnier than it is scary, and much like the drug at the center of the story, it offers one hell of a trip.

Lengthy passages are unrelated to any discernible narrative, and seem to exist in that interzone your mind travels through just before it goes to sleep.

The Purge: Anarchy expands on its predecessor, but the excellent news is that the sequel isn’t just bigger and badder and bleaker; it’s also better, smarter, stranger and tougher.

S-VHS isn’t as pants-pooping scary as the first, but it is funnier, tighter and slicker.

Wrong is more absurd and more laugh-out-loud silly than “Rubber;” it’s also less focused and more pointless.

It is a rather sly affair, slipping in some genuine food for thought amongst its snickering.

There is true beauty in the despair that pervades The Place Beyond the Pines, a film plotted out in triptych, a treatise on the moral compromises we all make to protect and provide for our loved ones.

A kind and decent film, but doesn't add to Robinson's legacy.

The beats and trappings are all standard-issue, but the gags are funny enough, often enough, to offset such routine proceedings.

This Chris Sanders fellow knows how to craft a heart-warming animation, and if not for a few minor problems this would have had a legitimate shot at the best animated movie of 2013.

Faxon and Rush’s screenplay doesn’t deviate too far from formula, but their sturdy direction, bolstered by handsome production values, evokes a wistful sense of carefree summers and conjures up a potent amount of simmering teenage angst beneath the frequent chuckles.

The remarkable storytelling that eventually emerges in Eden is something you should see, providing you feel that you can stomach it.

A funny, sly directorial debut

Raimi manages to keep things engaging, which is a very real act of wizardry in and of itself.

This funny and touching film could do with a bit of editing. It tends to drag a bit, especially near the end, and though we’re privy to the thoughts and feelings of Polley’s family, we’re given scant verbalized insight into her own thinking.

It never quite elevates itself above something like a really well produced behind-the-scenes featurette on a high end Blu-ray. But if you’ve got that Jodorowsky T-shirt aping the Judas Priest logo, you may as well start lining up now.

Snowpiercer is bold and brutal and committed, but no setting, no matter how inventive or beautiful, can compensate for storytelling that strains plausibility even as it batters your senses and sensibilities.

Two Buckleys for the price of one, but the real star here is Penn Badgley.

This portrait of the actor winds up being a parable about all of us.

It’s not exceedingly original, it is well-made and a solid entry into the subgenre.

While hardly insightful as a character study, Tracks can’t help but flourish as an Aussie travelogue, with cinematographer Mandy Walker doing justice to these vast and harsh environments.