Arguably the darkest episode in the entire series (and the first to carry a PG-13 rating) the visually stunning "Sith" is also the fastest-paced and most accessible.

The tales mostly drift along and wrap up unresolved. If this is an accurate slice of Paris life, I'll take the relative excitement of Topeka.

Mildly diverting, but lacks humor and pathos.

Nonprofessional actors and convincingly dingy details give Fratricide a harsh documentary quality, and its "Midnight Cowboy"-style ending is bitterly powerful. Devotees of seamy '70s cinema should give this little film a look.

For a change of pace, you leave the entertaining “Superman” not confused or clobbered, but feeling good.

A gorgeous snooze, somewhere between imitation Terrence Malick and a feature version of star Brad Pitt's notorious Vanity Fair layout with Angelina Jolie and their faux kids.

This is a slickly entertaining package, beautifully photographed on well-chosen locations with an unerring sense of pace by Gregory Hoblit.

Takita could easily trim 30 minutes of flab and oceans of tears from Departures. It still wouldn't merit an Oscar, but it would be a lot more watchable.

A cinematic listicle of misleading economic talking points.

Nature films don’t come any more spectacular than the BBC’s One Life.

There's not enough good material to fill the film's overlong 105 minutes. Is there an editor in the house?

As always in Veber's films, the predictability is part of the fun.

Filled with arch wit, the film is sweet and sorrowful at the same time. Like many indies, it lacks much of a conclusion, though writer-director James C. Strouse shows that simple ideas, ably executed, can make an endearing film.

The premise is so sad it's impossible to chuckle at the often heavy-handed humor.

Accurately described as an Icelandic version of Pedro Almodovar's gender-bending black comedies -- but it's also reminiscent of early Woody Allen movies.

Watching The Italian Job in a theater makes you long for a fast-forward button - to skip past 90 eyeball-glazing minutes of generic caper plotting and cut to the chase, as it were.

One of those French films whose makers won't lower themselves to tell a story in a way that is entertaining or compelling.

The Inheritance has a promising start but soon becomes preachy and melodramatic.

The film quickly ceases to be of interest to anyone but dedicated fans. The novelty of the deliberate ugliness wears off after a song or two.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work. None of the talking heads is as interesting as Yu thinks they are; and it's difficult to build sympathy for any of them.

The New Black often feels like a polished but uninspired op-ed.

A central problem: Efron isn’t funny.

Even in support of the noblest of causes, manipulation is manipulation.

Holy ship! Crowe’s grumpy Noah and his dysfunctional clan help God reboot the too-wicked world in this imaginative (but hardly sacrilegious) and visually spectacular elaboration on Genesis.

At Crimes, you gag a lot more than you giggle.

It might sound like a gimmick, but it’s as good as any action-comedy you’re likely to see. Cage heightens his already big personality just the right amount to ensure that the film rises above a skit. We care a great deal about fictional Nicolas Cage.

How unfortunate that we have two Ant-Man films and soon will have a pair of Doctor Strange flicks, but in all likelihood just a single Black Widow — a much deeper, more fascinating, more exciting character than either of those two duds, sorry, dudes.

Sweet without being sticky and funny without getting silly, Whip It introduces Barrymore as a director with a keen eye, a good ear for tone and an inspired touch with actors.

Even an engaging performance by Margot Robbie as the proverbial last woman on Earth isn’t enough to save Z for Zachariah from becoming yet another ploddingly pretentious Sundance dud.

It is beautifully shot, with impeccable acting and visual detail.

Take the real-life 1979 assassination of Park Chung-hee, the despotic, hedonistic, seal-testicle-loving president of South Korea, and stage it as if the Marx Brothers were running the country, and you might get The President's Last Bang.

A real head-scratcher that somehow won the grand jury prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival.

Belgian actress Émilie Dequenne gives a smoldering performance as Jeanne.

If all terrorists were like these idiots, the US would have nothing to worry about.

Madsen interviews experts galore, but few seem to know what's going to happen with this project in the next decade -- let alone 100,000 years.

So smooth and satisfying it makes the similar "Ocean's Eleven" look like a game of three-card monte.

An exhilarating, sweeping epic that begs to be seen on the largest possible screen.

Freaked-out funky weirdness starts to happen all around him (Rockwell).

I tried squinting. Didn’t work. I turned my head slightly to the side. Uh-uh. No matter what I tried, I could not, cannot and never will be able to see Ewan McGregor as Jesus Christ.

This film is so funny it may be beside the point to complain that, as in many Apatow productions, the writing and direction are still in something of a state of arrested development.

In this season of Hollywood blockbusters, small movies can get lost in the hype. Don't let that happen to Home.

It’s a baggy movie, with some things (such as whether Idris taking Ritalin in high school improved his performance) unexplained, and it may appeal most to those raising kids themselves.

Harp’s mix of old-school masculinity, love of animals and innate paternal instincts suits Elba perfectly. And unlike Nomadland, which also brought together real citizens with a Hollywood star (Frances McDormand), Elba fits easily and naturally into this group and their environment. It’s like a rider meeting the perfect horse.

Spending more than a decade pining for Pandora was worth it. Cameron has delivered the grandest movie since, well, “Avatar,” and with an over-three-hour runtime that never sags. What better way for struggling cinemas to regain their footing than with a gargantuan film that so celebrates the glory of the big screen?

Hoogendijk ends the movie just before the museum reopens; but her last, soaring image is a stirring vision of what made all the agita worthwhile.

Deeply personal screenwriting and a superlative performance by Molly Shannon as a dying mom lift Other People above the level of many similar tragedy-inflected indie comedies.

Plays like a very good TV movie. Short on visual flair and starpower, Thirteen Days is not the definitive story of the Cuban missile crisis, but it's an engrossing historical lesson nonetheless.

May well be the first film ever to show people having sex while wearing gas masks.

An enthralling 3-D IMAX documentary.

Presumably, Deville wants to show life returning to normal after WWII, but in the context of this inert movie, "normal" equals "tedious."

It wouldn't be right to say that, half an hour after Kung Fu Panda 2 ended, I was starving for laughs again. In truth, I was starving pretty much all the way through.

A beautiful nature film, with gorgeous, multicolored shots of bees and flowers. It also is a well-made documentary about the troubles of the honeybee.

The feature directorial debut of Jake Schreier, has a smart script by C.D. Ford and an impressive supporting cast.

This is one horror film that could make the syllabus at Bob Jones U. The way the squid blasts its tentacles into doe-eyed girls seems designed to steer your daughters away from sex until they're about 40.

Natalie Portman is captivating as a damaged electro-pop star known as Celeste in Vox Lux, a flawed, flashy drama from actor/director Brady Corbet (“The Childhood of a Leader”).

One way to judge a filmmaker is by the way he or she directs children. Take Tze Chun and his impressive first feature, Children of Invention.

As formulaic in its own way as anything mainstream Hollywood turns out, In Bruges is also a fish-out-of-water comedy.

The film is generic and uninspired, better suited to public TV than the big screen.

I’d love to tell you Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals is a cinematic masterpiece, and for most of its running time, that’s what I was planning to do. You must see it. But a great movie requires a great ending, and Nocturnal Animals doesn’t have one.

Russian Dolls is itself a delightful mini-trip to Europe. Its overly cute bits are like cinematic tourist traps, but it's the beauty that stays with you.

Sporadically entertaining, occasionally quite funny.

Like Provence itself, Auteuil is in no hurry to get anywhere, reveling instead in the southern region's brilliant light and whispering crickets. His tangy accent and evident fondness for his character make the picture enjoyable enough as it plods along, and the final act wraps things up on a fulfilling note.

Yes, we remember one of the best movies of the 1990s, but the sequel is like the moment at the party when someone raises the shades and you realize that it’s blinding broad daylight, well past time to go home.

There is stuff in This Is the End that had me laughing so hard, I sensed new body parts joining in to help out — my pancreas was heaving, my bile ducts ripped.

Rogers gives a brave performance, but there isn't much chemistry between Bridges and Basinger, who were teamed to better effect in 1987's "Nadine."

Holds your attention for a while, but fails to build much suspense as it races toward a predictable climax. It probably would have worked better as a series of Webisodes, which reportedly was the original plan.

You don't have to have ever seen any of their movies to enjoy It Came From Kuchar, directed by one of George's former students, Jennifer M. Kroot. But you'll probably want to catch up with their work afterward.

Excellent performances by a good cast and a fairly authentic look at working-class struggles go only so far.

Moves at a leisurely pace, and it cries out for a narrator or even just an organizing principle.

The newly found footage of Fellini and actor Marcello Mastroianni on the set of "La Dolce Vita" made me want to run out and see that wonderful film yet again.

Studded with potent fright scenes and built on a rock-solid performance by the ever-dependable Kevin Bacon.

Basically a two-hour argument for regime change that isn't half as incendiary or persuasive as its maker would have you believe.

An intoxicating attack on the homogenization of wines around the world - a "Fahrenheit 9/11" for the oneophile set.

The Wall winds up as a captivating fable, an end-times scenario that’s more about the survival of the spirit than the body.

If this documentary is swift and witty, that’s in part because it relies heavily on clips of Orson Welles talking. And oh, how Welles could talk, that beautiful voice wrapping itself around tall tales and wine commercials with equal grace.

Most importantly, Halloween recovers its long-lost gravitas and self-respect. It makes us remember why we loved Carpenter’s original in the first place: It was artful, frightening and supremely well-acted — not “Scream 4.”

It's got more imagination than half a dozen movies combined; there's nothing else out there like this, and to me that's a very good thing.

This is first and foremost a farce, not unlike Nichols' "The Birdcage."

Harden and Pantoliano (especially) can be two of the most over-the-top performers in the business, but they don't strike a false note in Canvas - and neither does this heartbreaking movie.

Leguizamo knocks it out of the park as an armored car driver in The Take.

In the words of Al Gore, "Garbage Dreams makes a compelling case that modernization does not always equal progress."

The piéce de résistance is a "Rocky"-ish battle between bare-fisted Ip (Donnie Yen) and a racist Brit who uses boxing gloves and goes by the name Twister.

The film spirals steadily downward through humanity’s worst impulses as the guards, led by Angarano’s character, explore the free rein they’re given to torment the powerless.

The upper-crust British characters in The Little Stranger, the new horror film from “Room” director Lenny Abrahamson, are so rigid they make the Crawleys of “Downton Abbey” look like the Osbournes. The effect is occasionally spooky, but more often snoozy.

Overall, Gibney does a fine job documenting the timeless nature of Armstrong’s fall from grace. It’s undeniably satisfying to see the man himself lay it out: “It’s very hard to control the truth forever,” he says, awkwardly. “This has been my downfall.”

Picture Graham Greene crossed with James Bond, with a splash of Sacha Baron Cohen, and you'll start to imagine the nervy talents of Mads Brügger, the fearless Danish filmmaker who has for a second time come up with a stunning, funny, and vital piece of guerilla cinema.

Directed by Michael Showalter without too much sentimentality or cheese, the guilty-pleasure rom-com (emphasis on rom) is elevated by Hathaway’s layered performance as a swept-off-her-feet California mother that goes well beyond the confines of its supermarket pulp storyline.

1994 plays more like television than a theatrical film. The more limited scope isn’t bothersome, though, because you can only watch it on your TV, after all, and two more films/episodes are soon on the way.

An achingly beautiful look at the most tragic victims of the longtime war in Chechnya: children.

Yet merely “playing with concepts” doesn’t quite add up to a film, and The Family Fang, adapted from Kevin Wilson’s novel, feels like an extended therapy session.

Degreasing a stove is a more enjoyable way to spend your Saturday night.

The movie is just a situation salad, at least until the end, when things start to pull together a bit.

The bottom line of Last Days seems to be, fame's a bitch. Yes, Gus - now start making movies again that tell stories, please.

Self-righteous, economically illiterate and sometimes flatly dishonest.

A tour de force that is weird, wacky and wonderful.

Bracing and stylish thriller.

The decade under discussion in this enjoyable documentary is the 1970s, a period that changed Hollywood forever.

Besides terrific performances, it boasts terrific cinematography by Giles Nuttgens that contrasts stunningly beautiful and grimly ugly Scottish landscapes - complementing the hunky Joe's ugly soul, which manifests itself in a truly nasty sex scene involving pudding, catsup and Cathie.