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.