I cannot tell a lie. I derive great satisfaction watching John Malkovich act.

A star is born in In Good Company, which showcases Topher Grace.

Tender and often extremely funny.

A Tom Cruise action flick with a strong female heroine and a sense of humor? Edge of Tomorrow has both of those, plus a “Groundhog Day’’-style gimmick that pays big dividends. Over and over.

What puts the bonkers premise of Home Again inside the realm of possibility is the brilliant casting of Candice Bergen as Witherspoon’s mom, a former cinema siren.

It's still easily the funniest movie of the year.

Surprisingly smart and satisfying.

Although lacking the gravitas and moral conundrums of Facebook-centric “The Social Network,” Johnson’s dweebish film turns every one of these tech breakthroughs into a stirring victory worthy of “We Are The Champions.”

A poignant moment occurs in Election when a young boy sees his father brutally beat another mobster to death.

Gripping and thoughtful.

These elisions give an odd feeling to a film so long in the making. Crewdson's work ultimately begins to seem less enigmatic than he is himself.

The film has all the visual flourishes we expect of Doyle and Wong, and they're reason enough to see Ashes of Time Redux. Just don't expect to make sense of the plot.

The action is brutal, bloody and virtually nonstop in this adrenaline-packed riff on "Assault on Precinct 13.''

This isn't a mystery except in the most general sense. It's a dense, Altman-esque psychological drama centering on 10 characters whose lives become as tangled as the lantana.

A gorgeously photographed and less intermittently fascinating 2 1/2-hour film.

Think of it as the rantings of a grouchy old man (he's 71) who for half a century has resisted all efforts to dumb down his movies, insisting instead on making them HIS way and no other.

Mostly a well-acted, expertly directed comedy with characters and situations of truly universal appeal.

A family getting evicted from its home is no laughing matter, except if you're watching Cirkus Columbia, a satiric comedy from, of all places, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The image that sticks with you here is a smoky pub where the patrons are singing "You Belong to Me.''

Lush and poetic, Dolls proves once again that Kitano is one of the world's most original filmmakers.

Mainly, though, this is Nanjiani’s show. Bits of his smart, cross-culturally incisive stand-up are sprinkled throughout, in performances alongside his fellow comics (one of whom is Aidy Bryant of “SNL”).

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.

Lebanon-born director Ziad Doueiri, a camera operator on Quentin Tarantino's films, has a dreamy, fluid style he decorates with light electronic sounds -- from bands like Air -- that give this film more than a touch of youthful poetry.

Good on J.Lo for protecting the integrity of flighty rom-coms. Every movie need not be so serious and socially conscious.

Free love, vegetarianism and lack of personal property are the rule.

Eerie and utterly riveting.

Touching and unexpectedly funny moments (such as McCartney busting out the theme song from “The Monkees”) mingle with highlights from the show for an unusually compelling keepsake from what might well be the last time many of these ’60s rockers perform together.

More than just the portrait of a naive young woman. It's a frightening look at Putin's warped version of democracy.

What director Tom McCarthy’s intriguing film — which is a tad overlong — deftly explores are the cultural barriers that prevent us from achieving basic goals, such as solving a murder, and connecting with people unlike ourselves. The story is a lot more nuanced than France vs. America.

For a long while, director Benjamin Epps goes for breakneck farce; at its best, this is a batty mixture of family-values editorial and teen spoof.

“Fallen Kingdom” is a more interesting, and less obvious, story than the usual Tyrannosaurus romps, which tend to be death-defying games of hide-and-seek.

Owen Wilson turns out to be the best Woody Allen surrogate by far.

Then everything went wrong, thanks to Middle East politics -- as the moving documentary Raging Dove shows.

Outlaws and Angels isn’t perfect — Murray mumbles into his beard way too much — but Eastwood sure is at ease with a cowboy hat and revolver. Clearly, she’s studied with the best.

An intense but fairly brief battle scene near the start reminds us of the unique horrors of this war. But the hokey music played over it hints that the film is going to try too hard to touch us. And it soon does.

A fascinating, sad, sometimes quite poetic window into a grueling way of life most of us know little about.

It’s an exhilarating contrast to the weak-sauce caped crusaders who arrived at the box office last week. For a more convincing (if selectively edited) portrait in heroism, look no further than Darkest Hour.

All the past decade’s Marvel movies have been heading toward this showdown. Turns out the payoff was worth the wait.

The film seizes Lowery’s best skills as a director: his eye for innocence and nature (Pete’s Dragon) and how he uses slowness to deepen a story (The Old Man and the Gun).

If you’ve got comics-movie fatigue, with frequent fourth-wall breaks to point out lazy writing, blatant foreshadowing or heavy reliance on CGI for fight scenes, Deadpool 2 is here for you. That doesn’t mean those things aren’t there (they are) — but the eagerness of Deadpool to call out its own shortcomings earns this trash-talking franchise a lot of goodwill.

Greengrass' direction is uninspired, but there is powerful chemistry between a workmanlike Branagh and (real-life girlfriend) Bonham Carter. And her original, seductive and always believable turn as the difficult-but-lovable Jane raises the movie above all its flaws. [23 Dec. 1998, p.44]

Offers highly effective performances by a cast of real-life employees without previous acting experience, who also collaborated on the intriguing screenplay.

Not a very visually interesting documentary its simply one head talking to the audience, with no film clips, photographs or other diversions. But its awfully hard to turn away.

A gut-wrenching look at the human cost of war.

It's smart, funny, agreeably perverse and simultaneously abrupt and exhausting.

Haneke's images are so bold and riveting and the characters' emotions are so raw that the lack of a few details doesn't matter.

The story quietly builds to a rueful and fraught climax in which Campbell Scott does his usual exceptional work

As in the original “Despicable,” masterful physical comedy is what raises this animated pic so far above most of its competitors.

Director Malik Bendjelloul expertly paces this strange and moving film, half mystery and half meditation on art, fame, the music biz and the definition of a meaningful life.

It’s a quiet, slow burn but one that stays with you.

It's never dull though, and the familiar characters and stock motivations are convincingly put across. And there's always Xu, who's turned to acupuncture to suppress his empathy, as you wait for the inevitable moment when suppressing it won't be enough.

The film could have been improved if it had been less aggressively limp. But the post-adolescent, pre-adult moodiness is spot on: Everyone's favorite author is a bitter recluse, and the soundtrack heaves with the suicide sounds of Joy Division. Trier's intent is to reproduce a sweet, hazy vision of the agony of youth. Ever so elliptically, he succeeds.

Those flight sequences — first suspenseful, then euphoric — take you back to the classic “Dumbo” as much as they do to classic Burton.

More popular today than during his lifetime (his music even made it into a Volkswagen commercial), Drake once complained, "Everybody tells me I'm great, but I'm broke. Why?"

The director-producer, Nicole Opper, has known Avery's Brooklyn family for years, which no doubt accounts for the film's intimacy.

Writer-director Antonio Campos, making excellent use of the queasy rhythms of a percussive musical score, keeps piling up the dread as we wonder just how dangerous Simon can be to the women who keep taking pity on him.

I was pleased by the forthright defense in Friendly Persuasion of Iranian cinema's use of children.

Feels like an homage to the early work of Wes Anderson with its plinky soundtrack, solipsistic banter and emphasis on uniforms.

Profoundly disturbing, blood-chilling suspenser.

Doesn't quite reach the heights - though it does plumb the depths - of its hugely popular predecessor. But it will have an enormous, appreciative audience doubled over with belly-busting laughs.

Has a desolate air, but Eyre, a Native American raised by white parents, manages to infuse the rocky path to sibling reconciliation with flashes of warmth and gentle humor.

An intensity of purpose and a patient, suspenseful directing style make the B-movie Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning superior to most of the big-budget action films I've seen lately.

Honestly, it's still pretty hard to resist as a guilty pleasure: A fluffy date-night movie that wrung a tear or two from more than one hardened male critic's eyes, chick flick or no.

Stewart's intense, courageous performance as a 16-year-old New Orleans prostitute is really something special.

A rare film offering from Mongolia, is an unusual, captivating and crowd-pleasing semi-documentary about an extended family of camel herders -- and two of their flock.

Excellent performances in an entertaining if less than totally plausible story.

Comes as close as any film to explaining what the deal is with women and shopping.

Genuinely scary, exquisitely shot -- and very well-acted.

The film looks like it cost 10 cents, but a lot of the jokes are gold. Hollywood, take notice of writer-director James Westby.

Brazilian director Anna Muylaert’s deft, funny film is set in São Paulo, but the class distinctions shown have no borders.

Darker and grimmer Act 2, though, by a hair, makes a meatier movie because characters aren’t as silly — the first flick was practically a pageant — and they are actually propelling toward a satisfying conclusion.

House is a spooky fairy tale mixed with martial arts, slow motion, black-and-white flashbacks — even a little upskirt action. A demonic white cat and a people-eating piano add spice. Movies as original as this one don’t come along very often, so grab it while you can.

Has an awful title, a bland hero and a predictable story - but it also has a nice blast of English atmosphere.

Gore and supernatural comeuppances ensue in a haunted-house flick that mostly eschews jump scares for more satisfying psychological and erotic twists.

Eva Green...Gaspingly beautiful, wouldn't you say?

Funny — sometimes brutally — and surprisingly touching, it works whether you’ve seen the source material or not, though there are plentiful shout-outs to die-hard fans.

Basically, this tale of a pregnant waitress looking for a way out of an unhappy marriage is a funny and touching riff on Martin Scorsese's "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," not to mention its better-known sitcom spinoff, "Alice."

Daring and unique, La Commune makes perfect viewing for the Fourth of July, which commemorates America's own revolution.

Like his Oscar-winning “A Separation,” Iranian director Asghar Farhadi’s latest, nominated for this year’s Best Foreign Language Film, is an expertly crafted domestic thriller.

Compelling viewing, even for people who don't care a bit for the punk scene.

Heartbreaking.

Beautifully shot and often moving.

Lewis, from the TV series "Band of Brothers," gives a super performance, but the revelation here is young Breslin, who was in Garry Marshall's "Raising Helen" and M. Night Shyamalan's "Signs."

A study in intoxicants: drink, drugs, youth and Emily Ratajkowski. All four are potentially dangerous, yet nearly impossible to leave alone.

The film 12 and Holding brings you back to when you routinely said things like, "I'm going to kill you" or "We're soul mates" and meant it.

Dashing, handsome and self-deprecating, Kevin Kline was born to play Errol Flynn.

The scariest revelation in Ratliff's film is that the Texas Hell House has proved so popular that it's being copied all over the country. Heaven help us!

Never less than breezily entertaining.

Jason Statham, possibly the greatest B-movie leading man of this era, stars in a complicated and clever imagining of what might have happened in the mysterious 1971 London bank heist dubbed the "Walkie-Talkie Robbery" - in other words, it was unbelievably high-tech.

It's a sweet and light-hearted endeavor that shows Breillat isn't a one-trick pony.

Finzi's lovingly filmed movie draws viewers into the lives of its two young heroes. You don't have to be a ballet buff to be moved by Isabela's and Irlan's stories.

Writer-director Debra Granik has found a star, and wisely builds every scene around Farmiga's character.

Coming on the eve of the 9/11 anniversary, this snapshot of middle America is a worthwhile addition to the cultural conversation.

Dreamgirls may be good enough to win the Oscar for Best Picture - great costumes, sets and choreography help - but despite stellar work by erstwhile "American Idol" contestant Hudson and Murphy, it's far from a great picture.

This film loves its characters, but loves their ideals even more.

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

In a season of hyperven tilating political docu mentaries - witness Michael Moore and his imitators - Ross McElwee shows just how far subtlety can go with his latest charming effort, Bright Leaves.

Moves at a poky pace even by American indie standards. But it's worth checking out for the fine cast, which also includes Joanna Lumley as Rossellini's earthy pal, and scene-stealing Doreen Mantle as her tart-tongued but wise mother.