Like Emerald Fennell’s shapeshifting mystery, “Challengers” is, at once, artful, addictive and deceptive. The salivating viewer believes it’s one thing, becomes sure it’s another and then leaves with a different theory altogether.

It’s my favorite Cage performance in some time, after overly bizarre turns in recent years as a murderous parent in Mom and Dad and an inmate on a mission in the Japanese film Prisoners of the Ghostland. When he goes back to basics, it’s as rich and juicy as a delicious ham steak.

Steve Jobs is a tale of two men, not one: A more accurate, not to say wittier, title would have been “Steve Jobs and Aaron Sorkin.”

The movie has enormous force - because it's about a genius, yes, but even more so because of the intelligence, passion and wit of the people who knew Marley.

A stunning achievement, every bit the equal of the classic moun taineering book which inspired it.

The Agronomist uses archival footage and music to tell a moving story that's all too common in the Third World.

Le Havre is warm-hearted and uplifting, without being schmaltzy or preachy. And, with its illegal-alien theme, it's dead-on timely.

There are a couple plot threads I found weird — particularly in the final push — that don’t land as powerfully as they intend to. But the resolution is immensely satisfying regardless of a few blips. It’s Payne’s finest work in years.

A sudden lurch into trippy abstraction at the end simply doesn’t work, but for the vast majority of the time this is a strong and original film.

Good for Lee for being a director of many ideas in a heartless Hollywood of sequels and franchises.

Side by Side is an eye-opening, comprehensive look at the biggest technological revolution in Hollywood history. One huge irony is that digital formats are evolving so rapidly that the only foolproof way to archive and preserve a movie shot on video for future generations is . . . to transfer it to film.

Days of Glory has good intentions and a well-executed combat scene, but it could do with more originality.

Far from earthshaking, but it's fun while it lasts.

Anderson’s gorgeous stop-motion animated film is much more than just a transdermal patch for America’s cuteness addiction. Instead, he’s crafted a wicked smart satire of moronic local politicians that fits in snuggly with his eclectic oeuvre.

Isn't just scary, charming and delightfully unpredictable - it's also smarter and subtler than any new movie out there.

Vladimir Garin and Ivan Dobronravov are amazingly natural as the boys, and Konstantin Lavronenko impresses as the taciturn father.

The news footage, so powerful on its own, needs no enhancement. The dramatized scenes only slow the film's momentum.

Working from a well-thought-out script co-written by director Stéphane Brizé, the two stars deliver impressive, understated performances.

There is no shortage of indie movies about economically challenged women. This one is different, in that the women actually do something besides just talk about it.

Love is Strange is very well worth seeing for its two stars, who acutely convey the pain their characters feel over their separation as well as displaying their considerable comic chops to keep things from getting too grim.

To paraphrase that old quip about slow-paced art films, it literally is watching paint dry.

Kosashvili's clear-eyed approach to the cultural tradition of arranged marriage balances respect and scorn, and he reconciles the comedy and tragedy inherent in Zaza's tug-of-love with finesse.

A gripping reminder of a brutal chapter of 20th-century history.

The stylish flick harkens back to the work of old masters like Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu.

Anybody who's ever seen a movie about exorcism knows that, in cases like this, the first thing to do is call 1-800-PRIEST, which the family does.

It falls to Hanks and his movie-star presence to anchor this ambitious enterprise, and he does some of his most impressive acting without saying a word.

An extraordinary experience: an original and brilliant combination of comedy, action and sophisticated political comment -- the best American movie of the year thus far.

Pablo Berger’s Blancanieves is the purest, boldest re-imagining of silent cinema yet.

Patient viewers will be rewarded, as long as they pay attention. Lots of what at first seems inconsequential is actually of great import - but Ceylan isn't letting on. And yes, the cinematography is impressive.

Jokes about flatulence, human excrement and the size of someone's manhood also come into play, but they never cheapen this lush and enjoyable film.

Fonteyne doesn't have much use for words. He prefers to tell his story via facial expressions and body language, much as filmmakers did in the silent era.

Silva's script has the ring of truth, not surprising since he based it on real-life experiences. He even shot most of the scenes in his own family's house.

This bizarre, original and brilliantly crafted documentary about the Sex Pistols is funny and at times moving -- despite all the ugliness and stupidity it depicts.

Sicario, which combines dizzying action scenes with a taut script, ravishing photography and an otherwordly musical score, is a knockout.

Balibar's dreamy voice (I'm reminded of Billie Holiday) is complemented by Costa's hypnotic camera work. The result is a visual and aural delight.

For those willing to work a bit at it, this is the sort of artistry many American independent movies aspire to - but rarely achieve.

So powerful is Stranded that when the lucky few finally make their way back to civilization, you feel as thrilled as if they were your own loved ones.

Getting a small cohort of humanity dead right is an impressive artistic achievement, but Mike Leigh's beautifully modulated English drama Another Year advances even farther.

At Berkeley casts a nonjudgmental eye on everyone from cement layers to students discussing Thoreau to administrators complaining about budgeting. If only everything were interesting.

If you have two X chromosomes, or know and like someone who does, Blade Runner 2049 may not be the movie for you.

Ethical objections to Milgram’s work are presented as killing the messenger; well-known issues with his methodology appear not at all. The movie’s an intellectual shock tactic, but it succeeds.

A fascinating front-row seat for what could be history's shortest-lived coup.

A hilarious, pitch-perfect comedy.

As the two coaches head for a faceoff in a climactic live TV interview, writer Morgan starts to seem like a rip-off -- of himself.

What makes the movie so delightful is that Wadjda isn’t trying to make trouble; she’s just being herself. A shot of the system of wire hangers attached to her radio so she can pick up Western music stations sums up her can-do attitude.

It's a slow, exhaustive and exhausting process that takes a toll on the viewer, despite the intrinsic power of the underlying material.

Director Lisandro Alonso is content to leave much to viewers' imagination. That he is able to do so and still hold our attention is a tribute to his talent as a filmmaker and an authentic performance by nonprofessional actor Argentino Vargas as the ex-con.

Arrival makes a moving case that we’ve only scratched the surface of what we think is possible — and what we define as intelligence.

Hollywood's Woman of the Year is a pregnant 16-year-old, the incredibly hip, smart-mouthed and totally endearing heroine of the wise and witty Juno.

The experience is akin to being blindfolded and thrown into a trunk — except fun!

A small but shattering film that marks its writer-director, Derek Cianfrance, as an artist of real depth, observes relationship dynamics at a molecular level, welling with as much understanding as Ingmar Bergman's "Scenes from a Marriage."

A thoughtful, rousing and beautifully crafted epic.

Quite unlike anything I've ever seen before.

If Top Five doesn’t go deep, though, it is intermittently very funny.

Wajda, who lost his father in the purge, gives the film an awful silence and mystery at its core.

In Zhang’s capable hands, their love story — in which Yanshi masquerades as various workmen in order to see his wife and attempt to jog her memory — is elegantly touching, as is the slow repair of the relationship between father and daughter.

Thompson and Shea both dig into their intelligent, flawed characters with zeal.

Coco is packed with terrific original tunes such as “Remember Me” (by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez of “Frozen”) and “Proud Corazón” (co-written by Adrian Molina, the film’s co-director). But it’s not your average musical, in which characters wail their wants and feelings. That’s a refreshing change.

Bridge of Spies, Steven Spielberg’s best film since “Saving Private Ryan,” stars a flawless Tom Hanks in the smart, old-school thriller as James Donovan.

Short, sweet, charming and often very funny, Shaun the Sheep Movie has essentially no intelligible dialogue and doesn’t need any.

The result is as impressive as one would expect.

[McCarthy] marries beautifully spare compositions with comically abbreviated dialogue to craft something magnificent from a vaguely precious premise that could easily be the foundation for a parody.

Mesmerizing, eerie and unpredictably weird.

Somnolent, draggy but occasionally warm-hearted.

Credit Sissako for entertainingly blending serious international issues with the daily comings and goings of village life. A bit more Glover wouldn't have hurt - but you can't have everything.

This superbly acted and ultimately disarming dual coming-out comedy-drama -- which turns out to be semi-autobiographical -- certainly grows on you, despite all of the twee touches.

Catnip for the art-house crowd.

Clipped, controlled and composed, Jackie Kennedy was a woman of her times, but since composure doesn’t win you Oscar nominations, Natalie Portman opts to play the part with a sort of emotional incontinence.

If you enjoy intelligent, challenging filmmaking, Tropical Malady is for you.

Weekend is a gay riff on "Before Sunrise" (1995), in which a man (Ethan Hawke) and woman (Julie Delpy) meet and fall in love in one night, before going their separate ways in the morning for what could be forever.

Pigeon, in its deadpan, hyper-composed way, is often paralyzingly funny, and there is compassion for the gray-faced souls wandering through it.

Inherent Vice, meandering even by Anderson’s standards, is easily the worst of his movies, a soporific 2½-hour endurance test.

Hollywood has been yukking it up over North Korea and its comical-looking leader for some years now. There’s nothing funny about either, and Mansky shows why.

The film doesn’t wallow in grief; it’s a thoughtful and nuanced portrait of a stage of life we often choose not to see.

The highly stylized, often outrageously funny biopic is anchored by a devastating performance by Toni Servillo as Andreotti, brilliantly capturing the gnomic politician's trademark slouch and inexpressive face.

The adventurous souls who stick with it, however, will find head-spinning images and a cumulative impact that does, in fact, amount to a story.

Fish Tank is grim, to be sure, but it leaves us with a feeling of hopefulness.

No, which has been nominated for this year’s Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, is largely a gimmick picture: At all times, it looks like hastily assembled news footage shot on grainy videotape in 1988. That means light flaring up to spoil the image, bumpy camerawork, a nearly square picture and all-around grubbiness.

The result is an immensely enjoyable portrait of a strange-looking, non-comforming genius who loved women as much as designing masterpieces but was never able to commit to them. In other words: great architect, lousy family man.

A real actioner, generous with the bullets and blood and chase scenes, that simultaneously mocks shoot-'em-ups.

Meier's tight focus on her primary characters pays off: Seydoux brings a strong array of emotions to a highly unsympathetic part. And Klein, whether plugging his ears with cigarette filters or suddenly embracing a woman he barely knows, is heartbreaking.

Django Unchained might have been a revelation in 2005. But after Quentin Tarantino and others have spent years spoofing '60s and '70s genre movies, this mock spaghetti Western tastes like it came out of the microwave.

Us is more expansive and messier, a Rorschach blot of a movie, riffing on primal fears and a raft of ’80s references. Is it a pointed cultural take or just a gleeful scare-fest? It depends on what you choose to take from it.

A remarkable 179-minute meditation on the nature of revolution.

At the end of it all comes McKay’s big angry harrumph about the meaning of the crisis — a sign of failed, frustrated satire. If you can make your message clear through comedy, there’s no need to say, “Here’s my moral.” A funnyman can’t afford to get caught wagging his finger.

Guaranteed to leave you outraged at the way children - and, for that matter, adults - are exploited by mining companies.

The film fragments into an emotionally devastating parable about what enforced silence does to an artist.

Moana stands head and shoulders above this year’s earlier aquatic animated hit, “Finding Dory”; it’s so transporting it will have your kids begging you to book the next flight to the islands.

An affecting and beautifully realized documentary.

At stark odds with the director’s earlier work is the color palette of this one — that is to say, the film is nearly devoid of it, a haunting wash of multilayered grays. This is one Shadow that deserves to be in the spotlight.

The young, novice actors are charming, but they haven’t completely mastered the art of natural-sounding dialogue.

Premature doesn’t break much new ground. But it sure breaks hearts.

Writer-director Imamura's film seems as deceptively simple as the eel, and yet generates deep emotional ripples. [21 Aug 1998, p.064]

It only seems plotless. Momentous things happen, one of them tele­graphed in a single heartbreaking shot. The sense of time and place is so intense that Jules’ way of life seems to be disappearing even as we watch him.

In the utterly routine effort Skyfall, we're actually expected to cheer each chord we've heard so many times (here's a martini shaker! Look, it's a Walther PPK! And there's an Aston Martin!) We've been turned into wretched Pavlovian dogs, salivating at the bell instead of the snack. The highlight, by far, is a classic animated credit sequence: Adele, you are the new Shirley Bassey.

Not everyone will be in tune with the movie's sick sense of humor, although it's sometimes hilarious.

Nutty Danish provocateur Lars von Trier -- long one of the most annoying filmmakers on the planet -- turns out one of the year's most emotionally resonant art movies.

Andersson has a one-of-a-kind style that not all viewers will appreciate. His humor is not at all like Hollywood’s. His is leisurely and cerebral — two words never heard in La La Land.