Don't miss this one. A brave and inspired antidote to time-wasting mainstream movies, it is unlike anything you've seen before or will likely ever see again. In short, it is unforgettable.

In small ways, Hansen-Løve allows One Fine Morning to break the viewer’s heart, but overall the film is unexpectedly hopeful. Anyone who has guided a parent through a debilitating disease will find the story especially heartbreaking, particularly as Sandra begins to crack under the weight of her father’s suffering. But One Fine Morning is also about starting again and finding joy in the midst of sadness.

From its gentle introduction to its jarring final scene—a lifelike anticlimax that makes sense spiritually more than logistically—My Father’s Shadow acts as both a retrospective and a soulful reconstruction, breathing life into the past while distinguishing the personal and pragmatic details that inform the complexity of a person—even one who exists entirely in memory.

Admittedly, A Real Pain is an acquired taste; like a top-flight IPA, it is at once overly aggressive and serenely balanced.

Wake in Fright is the closest a movie can get to a primal scream.

Despite The Green Knight‘s opaque obscurity and scattered whims, there’s a clear beginning, middle and end structure that crescendos with a scintillating third Act.

The awesome effects take over where the plot used to be, and although this is the end, my guess is that it will fire the imagination for years to come. What fun to feel like a kid again. I had a marvelous time.

Unrehearsed, spontaneous and off-the-cuff, they don’t hold back, their fearless charm is relaxed and effortless, and the relentless candor is enchanting. The result is 83 minutes of bliss spent with four Dames who know the difference between truth and illusion, and generously give a great deal of both. In Tea with the Dames, boredom is not an option.

Both Hosseini and Alidoosti underplay their parts with an apparent naturalism. And, yet, Farhadi constantly reminds the audience that they are watching a movie, that these handsome folks are actors playing actors in a film.

This is a West Side Story for both the past and present, as pleasing as the best movie musicals used to be, and as relevant as today’s headlines. It makes you feel like you are actually on the turbulent streets of New York’s west side, not a sound stage.

Never failed to hold me spellbound, even when I saw obvious spots where easy cutting would reduce the agony to a much more comfortable running time.

How refreshing it is when a small film with a big heart comes along unannounced and captures your affection.

Like the book, Chris Sanders’ onscreen adaptation is compassionate, funny and filled with unexpectedly poignant moments.

The Asphalt Jungle is the greatest, most influential heist movie, and has a superb performance from Sam Jaffe as the middle-aged German-born criminal mastermind behind a million-dollar jewel robbery in an unidentified American city. [12 Feb 2006, p.17]

Do not see The Taste of Things on an empty stomach. It’s a French film about gourmet French cuisine, magnificently photographed and meticulously prepared for both the camera and the palate, and raised to the status of art as only the French can.

So skillfully directed, photographed and acted that it sucks you into its powerful emotional storyline from the start and holds interest to the finish. Despite its length and intricacy, you can’t call this one boring.

Despite the title, which relates to a song by Van Halen, it is never clear what everybody wants some of, but the film does feature a cast of obviously talented, charismatic unknowns.

Black Bag is light, unpretentious entertainment for grown-ups, a solid 90 minutes of pure, mostly bloodless fun.

Content to make movies for himself (Malick) that nobody else wants to see as long as he can find someone to foot the bill, he's also an iconoclast searching for significance. So am I, but not 138 minutes worth. Anyone seeking symmetry in this cinematic taffy pull risks emerging from it with a pretzel for a brain.

More than anything, Daughters—along with Greg Kwedar’s remarkable current release Sing Sing—speaks to the absolute societal and spiritual imperative of investing in rehabilitation, within prisons and outside their walls.

In my opinion, Mr. Spielberg’s life story is always slickly directed, professionally written (a collaborative effort by the director and prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner) and admirably acted by an appealing cast, but only intermittently interesting and less than what I’d call mesmerizing.

A documentary so real and unflinching (and at times deeply frightening) that it's hard to watch, but it is one of those film experiences that you'll feel glad about getting through.

Remarkable film.

Who goes to the movies for 104 minutes of punishment? Where is John Wayne, now that we need him?

Fruitvale Station lacks the same global impact as Milk, but it’s still a harrowing film worth seeing and honoring for boldness and insight. It’s one of the most sobering must-see movies of the summer.

EO is a successful attempt by 84-year-old Polish filmmaker and sometimes actor Jerzy Skolimowski to both update and add color to the cinematic conversation about despair, purpose, and braying that Bresson started more than a half century ago.

The strength of Judas and the Black Messiah is that it moves well beyond rhetoric, or even historic reconstruction for that matter. Letting his talented cast lead the way, King has made a film centered on roiled emotions and relationships that are at once fractured and loving.

Rancid, preposterous and hysterically over the top in ideas and execution, “once upon a time” perfectly describes writer-director Quentin Tarantino’s ninth film. Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is indeed another hopped-up fairy tale like every other Tarantino epic.

The result, in the case of Moonrise Kingdom, is what I call transcendentally brainless - an after school special aimed at asinine adolescents over the age of 40.

What is the meaning of life? When that question is posited in a deeply moving post-credits scene, the answer is like the film you just watched: incredibly funny and devastatingly true.

The result is a brutal and haunting meditation on violence and power in the music industry — and whose careers have been derailed in the aftermath.

Make no mistake, this is a musical turned into a blockbuster, as Chu treats the wide shots of the dozens of background dancers with the same eye you could see Christopher Nolan apply to Tenet, or the Russo brothers apply to Endgame.

Is it all too cute? Almost, but not quite. Fire of Love is saved by the joy of film craft that pours forth both from the Kraffts and Dosa.

The stunning visuals and beautifully conceived milieu distract the viewer from the fact that the quest structure of the story is McGuffin-like and the conclusion emotionally muddled.

I wish I could have enjoyed Widows half as much as the critics who are salivating over it with rapturous praise, but Steve McQueen, Oscar-winning director of 12 Years a Slave, directs movies with a jackhammer. Turning his methodic violence with a camera from the brutality of slavery to a commercially driven feminist heist movie, he does not enhance the old Hollywood genre. He pulverizes it.

The Descendants is a soap opera with Hawaiian shirts.

The distinguished British actress Claire Foy’s task of making the supportive but long-suffering wife is also a bit of a slog. Disciplined, focused and more in love with outer space than the human race, Neil Armstrong remains something of an enigma.

An upscale, high-concept $40 million futuristic epic by the visionary South Korean director Bong Joon-ho. It’s too gruesome to recommend to everyone without reservation, but if you love movies, you can’t afford to miss it.

Baby Doll doesn't go as deep as A Streetcar Named Desire or even On the Waterfront. But it's the most seamless melding of Kazan's abilities as an actor's director and a filmmaker. [12 Jun 2006]

Prison has long been seen as fertile soil for drama, but no movie has engaged with that idea quite like Sing Sing. This isn’t a legal drama or an escape thriller, but an exploration of what storytelling and artistic expression can do for a person who dearly needs an outlet.

This is a deeply personal film, which may feel unexpected in a Pixar movie. But the pains of growing up and feeling stuck between youthful adventure and the tradition of your family are resonant for any viewer, regardless of their own experience with puberty.

Among the most gripping, well-paced, acted and directed, and generally thrilling of anything that I've seen (yet) this year.

There are moments of beauty and simplicity, but not nearly enough to sustain a feature. There’s meaning to be wrung out of extended shots of trees, lumberjacking, and deer skulls, sure, but the movie’s ambivalence gets old quick.

While it is good that a director as versed on the subject of consent as Schwartzman is bringing her unwavering eye to the problem, it makes it all the more painful that we seem even further away from solving the issue then we were on that fateful August night in Ohio seven years ago.

While the film proudly remains a chamber piece very much in keeping with its roots in the theater, King opens it up in ways that show an innate knack for visual storytelling.

As much as there is to wonder at in Belle, the film is weighed down by its convoluted narrative.

It’s a little long and leisurely. However, fueled by Rachel and Richard’s baby mania, it never drags.

We may never completely know the answers to all of Cavett’s questions, but Morgen’s film shows definitively that the sound and vision Bowie left behind, when writ large and loud on the silver screen, makes for an otherworldly journey of beauty, mystery, and transformation.

I certainly wish Ms. Johansson hadn’t shown up at all. She’s never less than interesting to watch, but Under the Skin is a big waste of her time.

They have made a film absent of time that could not possibly be more of the moment.

Heading toward his destination as a decent man facing ruin by doing the right thing, Mr. Hardy does a great job acting out the phases of anxiety frustration, confusion, exasperation and ultimate resolve — while working overtime to save a movie that takes place entirely on a cell phone from getting boring.

For a story about a man who cannot move, the ordeal unfolds at a pace that keeps you breathless.

A true masterpiece of visual enchantment. One of the most original and unique geniuses in cinema today, Mr. Chomet directed, wrote, illustrated and composed the music for this holiday jewel, an homage to the sweet, sad melancholia of the legendary French comic Jacques Tati.

An equally dreamlike and urgent act of radical archiving, Sierra Pettengill’s Riotsville, USA traces the origin of America’s militarized dismantling of social justice movements to a specific time and place.

It is quirky, dark, much maligned by feminists and too slow for some tastes, but it's a work worth seeing again, and Ms. Weisz is wonderful in it.

War for the Planet of the Apes marks the apex of what has been a bludgeoning season of spectacle cinema.

It doesn’t happen all at once, nor does the film imply that coming to terms with one’s past is any kind of panacea. Grace’s problems are long term, but, like her adolescent charges, one has the sense she’ll get by.

By shining the light on Stone, Agrelo’s movie rightfully makes a national hero out of a historical footnote.

Intentional or not, this alleged thriller is more of a comedy, and maybe I’m just jaded, but to me, there isn’t a genuine thrill in sight.

Thankfully, refreshingly, The Spectacular Now never once feels like a cautionary tale.

Loud, long, a little messy and very sweaty, Challengers may not be as sexy as its explosive first trailer implied, but it’s still a hell of a movie.

It does provide a welcome antidote to the usual surfeit of formulaic Hollywood junk.

There’s no humanity in this grave disappointment that justifies the passion his fans feel for the father of the iMac. Steve Jobs and all of the characters around him fail to come to life in any absorbing fashion. They’re not real people; they’re all hashtags.

When it’s over, the chill it leaves in your spine is destined to last nearly as long as the smile on your face.

The movie is very much in the German expressionist manner and contains the seeds of Hitch's subsequent work (the fascination with technique and problem-solving, the obsession with blondes, the fear of authority, the ambivalence towards homosexuality), and there's a brief personal appearance, though such traits were not to be obligatory until after Rebecca. [12 Aug 2012, p.22]

What results is a messy, ambitious, deeply emotional film that sometimes falls victim to the tropes of the genres it attempts to remix but never loses its power to move us.

Comprising three separate, unrelated and thoroughly inconsequential short stories about lonely, miserable women in the isolated landscape of Montana, Certain Women is the latest thumping bore from Kelly Reichardt, a writer-director-editor who makes bland, low-budget films about various hidden aspects of women’s lives they are reluctant to reveal, then take forever to do so.

The most striking thing about the love between Ben and George, the two men the movie focuses on, is how natural it seems.

Mr. Hanks, in yet another in a long line of diverse character studies, does a beautiful job as the voice of reason and logic, trying to inspire bravery and maintain order amid the noise and panic. In the big emotional scenes, as well as the small, nerve-jangling scenes, he is an artist at the top of his skill.

The Northman is a big-budget epic, but it retains those indie roots, with Eggers bringing in all of the elements that have made his past films so aesthetically successful.

Driven by four challenging, nuanced and completely distinct performances, Mass is an emotional razor-wire.

Perhaps even more powerfully, the film informs us of stories we don’t know but should.

"Enemy" and "Sicario" were unspeakable disasters, and Arrival, the director’s latest exercise in pretentious poopery, gives me every reason to believe I have parted company with Denis Villeneuve for good.

Written and directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, collectively known as Daniels, the movie is an explosion of creative weirdness that is equal parts exhilarating and overwhelming.

Blue Valentine is about real life, warts and all, over narrative conventions like action and plot mechanics. It is brutal, compassionate, beautiful in its ugliness and one of the bravest films of the year.

Belgian writer-director Lukas Dhont sustains the balance of mood and physical beauty with a thrilling eloquence and Eden Dambrine as Leo and Gustav DeWaele as Remi are stunning young discoveries who will not easily be forgotten.

This time, Godzilla is a powerful symbol of the addictive pull of destruction, and how once unleashed, weapons of mass destruction can never again be contained.

Elegant and wrenching, Coming Home is a quiet, haunting masterpiece.

While the subject of her film used his flamboyant nature, church-rooted vocals, and percussive piano to invent something completely fresh, Cortés has stuck to the tried and true.

It’s a riveting film and I understood every word.

It’s an amalgam of dramatic all-American themes including ambition, paranoia, greed and the ice cubes in the blood that fuel the ruthless pursuit of success in the competitive world of sports. Color it hair-raising.

The best thing about Beginners is the way it accepts every character in a nonjudgmental way.

Never embroidered or rehearsed, the way so many biopics are, this is a wonderful movie that feels freshly observed, like an uninvited peek through some forbidden White House keyhole, at the woman we called Jackie.

Word to the wise: Start saving the vomit bags from your airplane flights. With movies like this, you’re gonna need them.

While it is done well enough, the more complicated family story it eschews feels rarer and more valuable.

Exactly what you might expect from the fearless, controversial director of "Pulp Fiction" - it's overlong, raunchy, shocking, grim, exaggerated, self-indulgently over-the-top and so politically incorrect it demands a new definition of the term. It is also bold, original, mesmerizing, stylish and one hell of a piece of entertainment.

Bond is back, and so is high-octane entertainment.

The cast is uniformly excellent, with Francisco Reyes a particularly likable beam of strength and light as the unfortunate Orlando, but the film’s great triumph is Daniela Vega, a transgender actress and singer, who makes an indelible impression in the leading role.

Melancholia is his latest pile of undiluted drivel, nauseatingly filmed by a wonky hand-held camera and featuring a crazy, mismatched ensemble headed by Kirsten Dunst, who won an acting award in Cannes last year for looking totally catatonic.

Fortunately, it is a nuanced, intense and utterly involving look at how racist policies shape judicial and economic outcomes for families like the Carters, and it doesn’t dumb things down one bit.

This is the sort of riotous good time you want to watch in a crowd with shared laughs and gasps.

Overwhelmed by bad country-western ballads, Two Step is flawed but it makes you laugh and cringe at the same time, and passes 90 minutes painlessly.

In a film so ripe with temptations for posturing, exaggeration and satirical overacting, nobody is anything less than natural, unpretentious and funny as hell.

This time around, super-spy Ethan Hunt feels overshadowed by star and producer Tom Cruise and his own unquenchable desire to climb buildings, cling to airplanes, and sprint across rooftops. It makes for a great theatergoing experience, but not necessarily a great film.

Beautifully designed and photographed, sensitively written and directed by England’s acclaimed Terence Davies, and impeccably acted by a distinguished cast that turns life into art, Benediction is one gorgeous motion picture.

Despite a too-long third act, dragging action sequences and an epilogue that would have been better left on the cutting room floor, the wordy wit and ingenuity of The World’s End is a sloppy triumph over this summer’s other alien/robot hybrid flick, "Pacific Rim."

The film ends up getting stuck in a no man’s land between fiction and documentary, never quite coming together as a complete narrative.

The real issue undermining Durkin’s sophomore effort is central to the weaving of the film’s conceit. It looks like a horror movie, swims like a horror movie, and quacks like a horror movie, but it isn’t a horror movie. So then what the hell is it? Good question. After a long, slow build-up, The Nest winds up being as vacant as the Surrey country house of the title, and leaves the viewers feeling every bit as empty.