There is an honesty and realism to Driver’s performances that work well in the part of a blue-collar poet who feels no need to court the spotlight.

It's a long, brutal and honest look at a shattering event some Americans would apparently prefer not to see depicted - but also a respectful, inspiring one that's in no way exploitative or emotionally manipulative.

An unforgettable and complex portrait of a nuclear family in meltdown.

American Hustle is a movie that was built backward, or inside out: It puts actors’ needs before the audience’s. There’s no heart under those polyester lapels, and what all that Aqua Net is pasting together is a few sparse strands of wispy story.

It is a vivid, at times heartbreaking, portrait of a life and a nation in crisis.

Audacious, thought-provoking and ruefully funny.

All the pieces converge in a powerful rush during the second half.

A thrilling and propulsive drama.

The skillfully acted and directed The Lives of Others is a timely warning about governments that seek to repress dissent.

The movie equivalent of a 12-course feast crammed with unforgettable images and mind-boggling stunts.

The cast is excellent, particularly Timur Magomedgadzhiev as a conscience-stricken co-worker, but it’s Cotillard who’s in nearly every scene. Desperate, downtrodden, but grasping at each shred of hope, Cotillard — who won an Oscar playing Edith Piaf in 2007’s “La Vie en Rose” — carries the whole film.

Good old reliable Marty pulls it off again, addictively unraveling a tale that’s almost too terrible to be true with panache, gusto and just the right amount of cultural respect.

Less tiring than a three-hour tramp through the halls, and considerably less expensive than a plane ticket, National Gallery gives the feeling of having seen everything there is to see.

Engrossing and exhilarating documentary.

Director Alfonso Cuaron ("A Little Princess") gets vivid, convincing performances from a fine cast, and generally keeps things going at a rapid pace.

In Raoul Walsh's potent portrayal of a criminal gang roving backroads America, Cagney permanently redefined psychopathic criminality in the movies. [22 May 2005, p.25]

Koreeda, talented director that he is, never allows the story to sink into soap-opera melodrama, and he refrains from pointing fingers.

I can't wait to see Borat, which has twice as many laughs as all of this year's other movie comedies combined, for a fourth time.

It’s one of the year’s sweetest films.

It’s cinematic Mountain Dew. You’ll be wired for the entire 2½ hours.

Some documentaries are a fervent search for truth; others are a fervent search for snickers. This one is the latter, providing via interviews and old film clips a Greatest Hits for Bush haters.

More than a thriller, Phoenix is a ghost story, made plain in an extraordinary shot of Nelly’s terror at a passing train.

The role of William is a perfect fit for Red West, a well-weathered member of Elvis Presley's Memphis Mafia who has served as a bodyguard as well as a stuntman and bit-part actor.

Mostly it's worth seeing Alien, which established Scott as an A-list director, in a theater because his brilliant and often expansive visuals have always worked better on a big screen than on video.

Literally the kind of movie they just don't make anymore, Michel Hazanavicius' French-sponsored charmer The Artist is a gorgeous black-and-white love letter to silent Hollywood with old-fashioned English intertitles and just a single line of audible (English) dialogue.

Taken together, Eastwood's masterworks - two of the best films of 2006 - may be Hollywood's last word on World War II.

There’s something strange and dreamlike and delicate and beautiful about Anomalisa, an animated film for grown-ups that takes a long while to make its point, but does so with a dark brilliance.

Veteran French star Michel Piccoli is superb as an aging actor named Gilbert Valence.

It’s a perfect flick for families, but also a jolly time for anyone with a pulse.

May not have the starry casts of the Coens' more recent films, but it has plenty of heart and soul.

A remarkably assured feature debut by Bennett Miller, a longtime director of commercials (and the documentary "The Cruise") whose no-frills style trusts that the powerful material and the uniformly excellent performances need little embellishment.

The acting and story are solid, but the real star of Tulpan is the gorgeous, never-ending landscape -- flat and arid, and home to camels, goats and lambs, and hearty people who live in tentlike yurts.

This rural drama is the best yet from playwright and filmmaker Martin McDonagh (“In Bruges,” “Seven Psychopaths”), and one of Frances McDormand’s greatest performances.

Extremely unsettling and thought- provoking.

“GBH” is a featherweight screwball comedy that, trying mightily to be cosmopolitan, feels awfully provincial, desperately touristy.

Beautiful to look at, with its burnished interiors and magnificent Turkish steppes, this long film builds to a powerful conclusion. Ceylan’s characters grind each other to a powder while hardly raising their voices.

Most thrilling are the stage sequences. Cooper often films Ally’s thousands of screaming fans from her point of view — putting us in her lucky shoes for a minute...It’s that feeling of exhilaration that makes A Star Is Born the best film of the year so far.

Looks great but moves like molasses, is more interesting than truly involving.

Julie Christie is simply astounding as a woman slipping into the ravages of Alzheimer's in Sarah Polley's deeply affecting and artfully crafted Away From Her.

Hamilton the film is just OK.

Mafioso starts out as a comedy of manners before turning into a mob thriller that brings Nino to Bergen County, N.J. When he gets there, look for a man reading The Post on a street corner.

Keeping logical track of all the comings and goings is like trying to focus on a single bird in a flock. The details, names and faces blur a little more every time a character rounds a corner, just as they would for the ailing Anthony. With its narrative boldness, however, The Father never stirs or fully satiates.

Name names, please. Or shut up.

It is not only an amazing technical accomplishment, it's also the wittiest and best-voiced animated movie to come along in years.

Old-school filmmaking at its best.

A desperado drama wrapped around a Bernie Sanders campaign speech, Hell or High Water overcomes its vapid political leanings with loads of West Texas atmosphere, smart dialogue and acutely observed relationships.

An exquisite work of cinematic art that also happens to be the funniest, most touching, most exciting and most entertaining movie released so far this year.

This freaky fairy-tale world is really a playground for Stone, whose willingness to be foolish and risky is a breath of fresh air amid all the polite Oscar-bait turns we’re handed this time of year.

Eventually turns somber, with stark depiction of mass graves and suffering refugees. The final scene will break your heart.

Toy Story had a simpler, stronger story and the advantage of being the first of its kind. But it's quickly apparent that TS2 represents a major step forward in computer-animation artistry.

Like all the best comics movies, this one’s got a villain (Michael B. Jordan) so compelling he nearly steals the show from the hero (Chadwick Boseman). And sure, the futuristic African country of Wakanda may be fictional, but it’s brimming with cultural resonance.

It’s the sweet sincerity of Brooklyn that stamps it as both refreshing and nostalgic. The film is as welcome as a photo you just discovered of your mother before you were born, in which she looks prettier than you ever imagined.

Kore-eda presents the deeply moving story in a documentary style that is both gentle and compelling.

Apollo 11 is foremost a tale of technology and humanity. It’s about a country that needed a figurative lift, and got it with a literal one.

The sequel's battle scenes -- especially the climactic assault on the Helm's Deep fortress by the armies of darkness -- easily put those of the "Star Wars" series to shame.

It's expertly directed in a low-key, naturalistic way that brings to mind French auteur Robert Bresson. It's also emotionally forceful and contains heartbreaking performances.

Poetry, which rightfully won the best-screenplay prize at Cannes, never resorts to exploitation. Under Lee's guidence, it is a mature film for mature audiences.

Jenkins is a master of cinematic portraiture, but he’s so captivated by the magic of a moment — even a single image, like cigarette smoke swirling around one of Fonny’s carved-wood sculptures — that he sometimes forgets he’s got an audience expecting a plot.

It’s perhaps the most incisive and funniest Hollywood take on Broadway since Mel Brook’s original “The Producers.”

Can You Ever Forgive Me?, based on Israel’s 2008 tell-all memoir, has a lot of laughs and a delicious setup, but it hits hardest as a drama about human desperation and survival.

Panh’s technique achieves things a conventional documentary could not, as when he pans across dozens of the clay figures jumbled in a box, in a shot that calls up both the toys of childhood, and graves.

[A] sublime drama, sprinkled with moments of lightness.

The result is a magnificent feast for the eyes and brain.

The film's disclosure that Camorra money is involved with the reconstruction of New York City's Ground Zero will give viewers something to think about.

One of the year's most engaging films.

Rapturously elegant and deeply sexy in a deliciously restrained way. One of the most romantic movies I have ever seen, right up there with "Brief Encounter"and "Casablanca."

No classic like "The Big Sleep," another famously impossible-to-follow Los Angeles thriller. But for those willing to hang on for dear life, Lynch makes it worth their while.

Writer and director Christopher McQuarrie borrows just the right amount of familiar spy tropes in his second “M:I” outing, and his film, while intelligent and witty, never becomes too self-serious or chatty. It’s the best night out at the movies so far this summer.

Herzog tries to make sense out of the blond-haired young man, who looked an awful lot like Kinski.

Watching Chadwick Boseman in his final movie, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, is pure heartbreak.

No film I’ve seen so far this year has provided the sheer moviegoing pleasure of We Are the Best!

The film, directed by Chloé Zhao, is an awards-season favorite, and it doesn’t let you forget that for a second. Beneath the veneer of prestige, however, is a prescient and affecting story of a lost American class: van dwellers.

If animated dogs were eligible for acting awards, the Oscar would go to Gromit.

About Elly shows that the ethical dilemmas of ordinary adults can, with this level of talent, become as gripping as any thriller.

Debut director Marielle Heller’s spent a lot of time with this material — she wrote and starred in an off-Broadway adaptation — and her confident direction of Powley, Skarsgård and Wiig, fused with a Polaroid-evocative palette and a glam ’70s soundtrack, makes this an indelible coming-of-age story.

It's a must-see for Daniel Day-Lewis' charismatic, subtly shaded performance as Lincoln - and an even richer one by Tommy Lee Jones.

Nadezhda Markina is splendid as Elena, who speaks little but still manages to make her thoughts and emotions crystal clear.

The film is still a gripping experience, though, with its circling sharks, its sun-dappled beauty and its agonies of shattered hope. At one point I was convinced that Sandra Bullock would splash down next to our man in her space capsule and Hanks’ Maersk ship from “Captain Phillips” would steam by to pick up both of them.

Banshees, reuniting Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell from “In Bruges,” is a scream from start to finish-erin.

The sharpest, least sentimental and possibly the best version of Austen yet.

Whether you’re a veteran Brando-phile or a newcomer, Listen to Me Marlon is a totally fascinating glimpse into the making (and unmaking, and remaking) of a legend.

It's supposed to be about a Kafkaesque experience. Instead, it IS a Kafkaesque experience. Why are we here? Is everything absurd? Is anyone in charge?

More than a ripped-from-the- headlines drug drama, Maria Full of Grace is like a horror movie made real.

If she (Paltrow) were the only good thing about Shakespeare in Love, it still would have been worth seeing; that she is the crown jewel in a glittering tiara of a film studded with writing and acting gems testifies to the deep pleasures to be found in this remarkable movie.

Profound and majestic.

An extraordinary documentary about an extraordinary man that brings to urgent life potentially dry questions of American foreign policy in the 1960s.

Perplexing but pleasing.

This is one of the best serious films about homosexuality ever made, but though it's sad and sobering it's still only a rough draft of a great movie.

In The Kid With a Bike, Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne offer a sly but finally banal update of the Italian neorealist classic "The Bicycle Thief."

The movie proves a New York teen superhero can do more than just excitedly swing around. He can move us, too. It’s the best stand-alone film to feature the iconic character so far. And it’s animated.

Caouette has used art, wit and a huge heart to forge his experiences into an unqualified masterpiece.

Fast-moving, psychologically savvy.

Roger Ebert makes an unusual candidate for a documentary: He was a writer, which isn’t cinematic, and not the swashbuckling kind. He didn’t go to war zones, just movies.

Ultimately, this is a film from a group of terrific talents that never quite comes together the way you'd hope. It's just too fluid to wholly take shape.

A deliciously elusive mystery.

The surreal images, offbeat jokes and pointed human-rights allegory make this an altogether different experience from most American animation. It’s dreamy, poetic and not to be missed.

The year's best foreign-language movie an absolute must-see.

A crowd-pleasing baseball movie for people - like me - who don't like baseball movies...Probably the finest baseball movie since "Bull Durham".