There’s little dialogue in this gem of a movie, but little is needed. Aman’s anguished face – which recalls Maria Falconetti in “The Passion of Joan of Arc” -- conveys all the information we need.

There’s a nice candor and sweetness about the players, especially Butterfield and Sally Hawkins as his mother.

Dickens was a sentimentalist, but even his happy endings are more nuanced than Polanski's brutal anti-sentimentalism.

Writer/director James Ward Byrkit, in his feature debut, achieves effective chills with only eight actors and a living room, intermixing quantum physics (shout-outs range from Schrödinger’s cat to “Sliding Doors”) with the very mundane human tendency toward bad judgment calls in a crisis.

The film looks back at “gay voice” throughout popular culture, starting with films of the 1930s and with TV icon Paul Lynde; it also plays a disheartening clip of a young Louis CK bellowing “f - - - - t!” in a routine.

Fake documentaries annoy me — why not put in the effort and deliver the real thing? — and this one is not only aimless and stiff, it also rings false.

Schwartzman is perfect as Kurt, simultaneously compelling, ridiculous and creepy.

Hanna doesn't go wrong immediately. It takes at least 2½ minutes.

There’s no shortage of brains, brawn, eye candy, wit and even some poetry in this epic battle between massive lizard-like monsters and 25-story-high robots operated by humans.

It raises tangled questions about whether it is better to live humiliated or arm yourself, yet for the most part it's dramatically inert, talky and directionless, and it ends quietly without saying much of anything.

Making mixed martial arts — described in the film as “the bloodiest and the goriest sport you’ve ever seen” — tame and lackluster is a challenge. But director Benny Safdie is up to the task.

Bennett, who’s been largely off the radar for a while, is heartbreaking and, eventually, fierce as her character begins to crave change.

It's a shame that the book "We Were Soldiers Once . . . And Young" fell into the hands of writer-director Randall Wallace ("Braveheart"), a filmmaker who wouldn't recognize subtlety and understatement if they were to attack him in the street.

At times, writer-director Cedric Klapsich seems to be trying to copy the frestyle of "Amelie," but L'Auberge achieves only a fraction of its charm.

The Warrior may be mighty of sword but he is exceedingly limp of writing. We never learn why he went bad in the first place, or what causes his sudden conversion. If the audience is expected to do most of the work, we should be paid $10.50 each.

Beautifully shot but a soulless cash machine, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 delivers no dramatic payoff, no resolution and not much fun. Hopefully we'll get that in the final installment next summer.

“First Steps” marks a slight improvement from the preceding trilogy of terror. But Marvel still can’t nail what should be one of its premiere attractions.

The Aggressives has plenty of character but no story; it would have done better to structure itself around a competition it briefly visits in which lesbians, in costume, compete to win prizes for looking masculine. That way the film would have had a direction.

It’s told in a woefully pedestrian way, with talking-head footage forming the bulk of this slow-to-develop film. Still, it’s a creepily fascinating tale.

Neil Jordan's Ondine has a split personality. It starts promisingly as a fantasy but ends disappointingly as a thriller.

Plus One is the latest evidence (see also: “Always Be My Maybe”) that the romantic comedy is making a long-awaited comeback, with some overdue modern tweaks.

Sucker-punches you. It appears to be an engagingly sweet romance, but it's really just about other movies.

The film tends to be pretentious and melodramatic; and Grant, better suited to comic roles, gives a heavy-handed performance.

Morbidly funny art-house horror tale.

Director Susanne Bier's chilly morality play is slow to get started, but once established, its three parallel stories comment provocatively on one another.

This isn't a story of Shakespearean proportions, but it's a sweet peg for this complex, carefully constructed gem.

A parable about greed. But don't let that serious-sounding description keep you away. It also is funny, knowing and immensely enjoyable.

What is Dick's excuse for outing one cable news anchor but not a rival counterpart who is far better known? The anchor isn't antigay, but Dick likes the other network's politics better. Hypocrisy? Your call.