Soderbergh does his best with limited time, but his biggest success may be in pushing viewers home, to watch Gray's films in full.

The movie adds up to one of the smartest and most ambitious political thrillers in years. But if you find a more difficult movie to follow this year, it will be in Mandarin without subtitles.

Yektapanah's stripped-down methods --remote setting, a cast of locals, the sparest of scripts -- are used so effectively, it quickly becomes clear that he's most concerned with the similarities rather than the differences between people.

As stripped down as its title, this gentle Argentinian road movie makes much out of very little.

Hudson, taking over the role of Effie played on stage by Jennifer Holliday, is in charge of Dreamgirls from her opening scene, blowing away Grammy-winner Beyoncé Knowles, Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx and anyone else who gets in her way.

In keeping with the unrefined spirit of the '70s, the movie is deliberately haphazard and proudly retains all its mistakes, including narrator Sean Penn going up on his lines.

Peter Pan has been done in the style for which Disney is noted. It is one of his best productions and, I believe, is closer to the author's idea than any other presentation of the story, as the Disney medium is ideally adapted to the fantasy.

It has comedy, drama, thrills, melodrama, tragedy and great heart. [11 Jan 1952, p.54]

Urgent as a heart attack and as timely as the headlines, 99 Homes is one of those films that make other "topical" dramas look tinny. This astute, intense drama boasts sharp performances and belongs in the same company as films like "Margin Call" and "Michael Clayton" -- contemporary stories whose of-the-moment nature only makes their great parts better.

Sensational...as authentic as news footage, and far more intimate.

Even without nudity, the sex scene between Meg and Auster is one of the most uncomfortable on film. Not just because of the actors' age difference (Strathairn is 54, Bruckner 17), but because of Meg's inexperience and misplaced trust.

Among the many skills required by a documentary maker is the ability to make reticent people blossom. Michael Almereyda has done that in This So-Called Disaster with several of the film industry's most notorious iconoclasts.

There are many ways to say that war is hell, but few filmmakers have said it with as much imagination, humor, intrigue and humanity as Jean-Pierre Jeunet in A Very Long Engagement.

A reverse male-bonding tale unlike anything you've ever seen. And it's not the easiest good movie to sit through.

Jagger is often shot straight-on, veiny arms outstretched, white-hot lights illuminating his skinny form (and, um, bared belly). Suddenly, Scorsese turns what seemed familiar into genuinely iconic. From then on, the movie is on fire.

There’s politics involved, along with personal stories, extraordinary tense standoffs and down-and-dirty drug business.

Anyone awed by 1996's "When We Were Kings" - and really, that should be anyone who's seen it - will consider this vivid companion piece essential viewing.

And always there’s Wojtowicz himself, who died in 2006. His patter and persona must be seen to be believed. This guy was a piece of work, and so is The Dog.

The vastly divergent paths of Assange and Manning make up the most fascinating aspects of this relentlessly compelling film.

A masterful collection of cinematic essays.

Without excessive emotion or drama, director Javier Fuentes-León's film - and Mercado's performance - gently captures the power of emotions whose silent rattle is even stronger than reality.

Seen through Demy's eyes (and Raoul Coutard's shimmering black-and-white photography), their extravagance is so effortlessly cool, you feel somehow lucky just to be there with them.

Tough going for most audiences and should be considered more of a rough draft full of lofty ideas unevenly executed.

After lulling us into a neartorpor, Jia sneaks in one of the most gut-punching endings in recent memory.

Tapping into the basest fears of war while subverting all expectations, director Susanne Bier deftly reads between the headlines.

Though it feels at first like a musty edition of "Masterpiece Theatre," Michael Hoffman's adaptation of a novel by Jay Parini holds enough surprises to make a memorable impact.

While Spacey, Tucci, and Bettany are the standouts, every cast member locates disturbing notes of villainy or humanity.

Schwartzman and Pryce are compelling in their self-regard. But it’s no coincidence that the lovely, empathetic Moss is who we root for.

Still witty and eloquent, these cerebral boys became the haunted men who do their best to share their experiences with us, even as they know we'll never truly understand.

We get it, and DC finally should, too: Superhero movies can be fun. And Wonder Woman is a movie that'd send even the Suicide Squad home smiling.

Desplechin's film sustains its running time by continually revealing new aspects to its characters that reverse our initial judgments.

Both epic and intimate, this impassioned samurai drama is for anyone who's ever watched a movie and muttered, "They just don't make 'em like they used to."

A romantic comedy that feels like real life.

A vanity project by a moderately talented artist that has moments of real brilliance in it.

Ultimately, it's a compassionate view of marriage and its stressors. But the filmmaker and actors do their jobs only too well. Watching "Secret Lives" can be as uncomfortable as sitting in the dentist's chair.

That grim realism sometimes makes The Revenant about as appetizing as a three-course meal of turkey jerky — but also serious enough to remind you of classics like "Jeremiah Johnson" and "Little Big Man." It's a gruesome adventure story that rarely lets up.

In Wide Blue Road, his (Montand) character and the wages of desperation are much more complex. Here is the real lost Atlantis.

Classical dance great Jacques d’Amboise calls Tanaquil LeClercq’s style a “path to heaven.” And this lovely documentary by Nancy Buirski makes clear that he’s right.

Jodorowsky turns his own youth into an odd, hypnotic mishmash.

It’s a pleasure, all too rare, to watch two splendid actors pitted against each other with equal force such as Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger in the exceptional murder mystery, In the Heat of the Night. Over the years I remember a few extraordinary cases of this kind - Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable in “San Francisco.” Alec Guinness and Jack Hawkins in “The Prisoner,” Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole in “Becket.”

What's cool and always kicky is seeing a country's irreverent movie trash being treated with such, well, reverence.

Laughter may be the best medicine, but in Obvious Child, it’s also a helluva cure for dealing with a serious topic.

A delicately upbeat, even humorous celebration of love and sacrifice.

Frustratingly, though, and not a little ironically, Justman chooses to focus on the new stars when they sing, rather than on the Funk Brothers playing in the background. Just as curiously, he paints a remarkably rosy picture of the old days, overlooking the racism and exploitation the Brothers surely experienced.

The result is cool and semi-comical, but also serious.

There is enough here — including the gifted Arena’s barely believable backstory — to keep your head spinning.

Writer-director Julia Loktev sustains the tension for long, Antonioni-esque passages that portend something momentous. The film delivers in unexpected ways, and then ponders what it means.

It is the devastating testimony from survivors themselves that leaves the most indelible impression.

Buscemi wittily captures the desperation of lives gone downhill in prettified surroundings although, like the Trees Lounge patron who suddenly stops breathing, the audience feels the life force slowly being sucked out. [11 Oct 1996, p.70]

Tractenberg, evidently a fan of lingering close-ups, lets the audience marinate in a claustrophobic vibe.

A Dangerous Method concerns itself primarily with sex, but what's most shocking is how conservative it turns out to be.

Kidman is able to draw you in even as the movie's solemn, morbid obviousness wears you out.

A small miracle of comic social portraiture, a sometimes affectionate, sometimes ironic study of a specific group at a specific moment. His work is deeply evocative and enjoyable.

The problem is that the movie spends as much time on the boring detective chasing Lucas as on the drug lord himself.

The performances are all terrific, but Gene Hackman is close to a career best as the family patriarch Royal, the most useless man you can't help loving.

Stripped of his former pretty-boy image, the Texas-born actor is snarly and gnarled, and understands what Nichols is aiming for. That’s crucial, as Mud needs something to stick to.

It’s a pleasure to see Russo back on screen (she’s married to Gilroy). But Nina’s eager complicity is far too easy and every social critique flashes as bright as the neon guiding Lou around back-alley L.A.

Rarely do adaptations of stage plays work on screen, and almost never do they work as well as this one does. Most remarkably, the dryly comic "Moon" is virtually a one-man show.

The good news is it comes very close, and does it without sacrificing its soul. Despite its sense of been-here-slayed-that, director Francis Lawrence expertly delivers thrills, ideas and spectacle.

A charming indie that combines dreamy aspiration with mucky, hilarious reality.

There is a hint of sentimentality among the pals at the end, but not enough to offset the film's harmless combination of camaraderie and wished-for - oh, how they wish for it - debauchery.

Sophie Scholl is the subject of a feature film that has earned an Oscar nomination for a Germany she would have loved to live in.

This Asian-flavored Hitchcock is a complicated tale with no easy answers.

Matt Damon's performance isn't bad, but it pales in comparison with Law's.

The performance of the movie is Liev Schreiber as Shaw, a man howlingly uncomfortable in his own skin.

Farmiga is excellent as a woman who is like the mouse she feeds to her son's pet snake - trapped and about to be eaten alive by ordinary circumstance.

Despite visual nods to dozens of classic Westerns, the film cannot break through with its own vision.

Grohl has a longstanding reputation as one of the nicest guys in rock. So it should come as no surprise that this may be the most positive music documentary you'll ever see.

The movie may wear its shagginess on its sleeve, but Stiller knows exactly what he’s doing.

A terrific, quirky New York-set character piece.

Director Niels Arden Oplev keeps the action relatively tight. But he revels in the story’s sadism to an uncomfortable degree, especially in a needlessly vile rape scene. Two more sequels are coming. Here’s hoping there’s just a little less hate in each.

A generation-spanning journey that feels both comfortingly familiar and excitingly original.

It’s worth seeing Robert May’s vital judicial expose — not only to learn about the titular scandal, but also to appreciate both the highs and lows of human resilience.

Kempner demonstrates how the star's success and dignified bearing inspired a generation of Jews to fight through the ethnic barriers in all fields.

Impressionistic and open to interpretation, which is a kind way of saying that there's no way to figure out the ending.

Surely no other has done it quite like this group.

Gently hilarious comedy.

Full of smarts, sly insight and New York personality. As a feather in its jaunty hat, the movie also reinvigorates the art of screwball comedy.

One of the most delightful movies to come along this year.

The latest collaboration between Verbinski ("Pirates of the Caribbean") and Johnny Depp is sharp-edged, surreal, and often astonishing in its giddy creativity. What it is not, however, is a family film.

Argott treats Barnes' story as an intellectual crime thriller, uncovering each new surprise -- and a seemingly endless parade of villains -- with a deadpan flourish.

Though he's working with an unavoidably sentimental story, Kon embraces the dark underside of his characters' lives, giving this animated film a satisfyingly three-dimensional feel.

A marvelous cross between "Secretary" and "Lost in Translation."

One of the small pleasures of the movie is likely to escape American audiences. The bank robber is played by Johnny Hallyday, a pop icon of great magnitude in France, and the old man is played by Jean Rochefort, an acting staple of that country's cinema. The mere juxtaposition of these two personalities forms a comic set of expectations.

To Devlin's great credit, he keeps us rapt throughout.

This heartbreaking documentary should be shown in every high school and college — and everywhere intolerance is suspected.

If Hitchcock had done a coming-of-age drama, it might have resembled this haunting, nervous, sad movie about an early twentysomething.

Coogan and Brydon make terrific companions for us partially because, at least as they appear onscreen, they’re so amusingly incompatible themselves.

By turns cheerful, funny and melancholy, and at all times honest, Nicole Holofcener's Lovely and Amazing stands out in the current run of ensemble women's films.

Joy Ride is plenty spooky but there's also plenty of comic relief -- mostly from the perennially goofy Zahn.

Bergman and his gifted cast do an excellent job portraying the wounded, but still vital, connections that help these people heal even as they fervently believe it's time to give up.

Thomas does an excellent job exploring the incendiary environment that shaped the band in the late 1960s. His primary interest, however, is simply to express and explain the thrill the MC5 still inspires.

Many great docs have been made about The Who (including the ecstatic “The Kids Are All Right”), but Lambert & Stamp gets closest to the band’s fragility and unlikely story. It captures the real-life mania that surrounded a group whose music came to embody it.

The cast is splendid, the script quick-witted and the action satisfying.

A delirious, manic, push-the-limits comedy of gaudy amorality that tests the audience’s taste. But it’s a gamble that works, since you leave this adrenaline trip wasted, but invigorated.

While I understand Vergès' oft-repeated claim that he wants to use these sensational cases to point out that the French were no better than the Nazis in their treatment of colonial subjects, it's impossible to overlook his glib dismissal of his clients' crimes and the smug righteousness that rests in the smirk constantly on his face.

Selim's script doesn't hit new territory, but beautiful cinematography takes it just far enough.

While Kim is unable to keep us riveted on her near-silent performance, the script and direction have a gentle sensitivity.