A vibrant crime story filled to overflowing with crackling situations, taut dialogue and a heightened, even operatic sense of reality, A Most Violent Year captures us and doesn't let go.

A biting, whip-smart satire on the thorny subject of organized religion, the Bollywood musical "PK" enlightens and provokes through outrageous slapstick.

A charming supporting cast fails to invigorate Goodbye to All That, a relentlessly flat seriocomic take on contemporary relationships.

Director and star Lina Esco keeps this compact film moving with enjoyable buoyancy until it bids adieu with a showy climax that needs a serious postscript.

This portrait of a woman on the verge — of success, of suppression, of submission, of rebellion — is never fully realized.

What makes Into the Woods so entertaining is the cleverness of the tale itself and the way specific characters match the talents of its storytellers.

American Sniper is at its best when it deals with the assembly-line-of-death relentlessness of combat for Kyle, how it simultaneously consumes him and wears him down, and how, to his wife's distress, it turns the civilian life he returns to between tours of duty into the aberration, not the norm.

With what we see on screen weighted too much toward pain and too little toward redemption, this is a film we respect more than love, and that is something of a wasted opportunity.

Wyatt, Monahan and Wahlberg never seem quite settled on what they want to say with the character or the story, so the film feels marked not by ambiguity but uncertainty.

As well done as much of Selma is, it periodically falls from grace with moments that are either emotionally flat or excessively agitprop in nature. Consistently the most ineffective scenes are those that involve powerful but obstructionist white people, especially the unhelpful trio of Johnson, Alabama Gov. George Wallace (Tim Roth) and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (Dylan Baker). The deftness with acting and character that can be this film’s strength simply deserts it here.

The edgy coming-of-age tale Ask Me Anything begins with a snarky, bubble-gum vibe that gives way to something far deeper and meaningful.

The basic story's narrative and psychological simplicity — characters stating their beliefs over and over again — becomes an increasing burden.

Francis has a few moments of inspiration, nonchalantly deploying visual gags. If he were going for cult status, perhaps gonzo is the way to go. The rest of his stylistic flaunts, plot twists and contrivances are joyless.

Although Reynolds rises above the rest as a father consumed by sadness and anger, The Captive quickly devolves into scenes that feel like stilted dramatic re-creations demanding a noirish voice-over by "Cold Case Files" host Bill Kurtis.

Just as Turner's expressive, enthralling work changed the nature of painting, Mr. Turner, anchored in the rock of Timothy Spall's astonishing, Cannes prize-winning performance, pushes hard against the strictures of conventional narrative and ends up pulling us into its world and capturing us completely.

Though billed as a 3-D experience, Leonardo is flat in more ways than one.

Marvelously colorful, casually inventive and completely wacky, The King and the Mockingbird just might be the best animated film of the year.

The theatrical acting style doesn't translate here, and the film feels overdone yet amateurish. The cinematography is dim and dingy, and some shots don't make any sense. There's no reason for this story to be a musical and no reason to watch it unless you're a die-hard musical theater completist.

Director Will Gluck's glam, grim re-imagining of the Depression-era musical about the hard-hearted rich man and the little girl who melts him, is truly depressing.

A poignant documentary about the transformative power of art.

A richly absorbing historical docudrama.

Although formulaic to a fault, this French film directed by Nicolas Cuche packs a charming effervescence thanks to the easy chemistry of appealing leads Max Boublil and Aïssa Maïga.

The finale is not an all-out disappointment. It should satisfy the franchise's fans, and it does wrap up any loose ends you might be wondering about.

She's Beautiful When She's Angry, director Mary Dore's incisive portrait of so-called second-wave feminism of the late 1960s, is an exceptional chronicle, its mix of archival material and new interviews bristling with the energy and insight of one of the most important social movements of the 20th century.

One of Difret's strengths is the care it takes to present many of Ethiopia's traditions in a respectful way.

Director Henry Chan, working off a script by Megi Hsu (based on a story by producer Weiko Lin), lets things get overly broad at times but otherwise wrings genial humor and gentle emotion from the familiar setup.

The age-old search for the fountain of youth is engagingly appraised in The Immortalists, a lively documentary focusing on a pair of very different biomedical scientists who are equally obsessed with eradicating the ravages of time.

An actors' piece, director Michael Patrick Kelly's first narrative feature registers low on the cinematic-oomph scale, the production's low budget sometimes all too evident. Its aim is true, though, and Kathleen Chalfant infuses the lead role with an elegant ferocity.