At 88, after nearly seven decades in show business, Ms. Stritch is sharp, funny, brittle, caustic, demanding, exaggerated, critical (especially of herself) and infuriating. She is also elaborately unique and awesomely brilliant.

Waves is a demanding and absorbing family drama that unfolds in two parts without lines of division, yet both parts are distinctively and stylistically different. The film is too long, but I was impressed and riveted throughout.

A lot of the information in The Martian will be incomprehensible to the lay audience and the climax is…well, not exactly original. But it makes for one hell of an entertaining ride.

A triumph of sensitivity, humanity and good taste that manages to admirably transcend every tendency inherent to the usual label of “tearjerker.”

By the time Wright’s somewhat exhaustive film concluded, every moment of it propelled by a high-octane geeky affection that felt like a newly discovered alternative fuel, I was in the strange duo’s thrall.

While it was a little disappointing to see the film relegate the other candidates to backup singers to Representative Ocasio-Cortez’s leading lady, that doesn’t make their contributions to the movement that elected her any less significant. Nor does it dull the emotional impact of her remarkable achievement.

This one he (Pattinson) could have skipped. Vile and repulsive, Good Time is just under two hours of pointless toxicity.

Sachs gives his actors the space to develop complex characters that make us feel their unhappiness and disillusion. The film captures the moods of relationships in transition without ever being condescending or judgmental. The sex scenes and nudity are so graphic that it’s safe to say this is not a film for everyone, but is as relentlessly moving as it is fascinating.

This is the rare sequel that packs constant surprises while still delivering on expectations.

That Bond so convincingly retains his composure and sang-froid throughout all the horrors that ensue is a testament to Mr. Craig’s abilities as an actor, and to Mr. Campbell’s astuteness as a director.

So which side of the movie finally prevails — the lackluster conventionality of its text or the breathtaking singularity of its visuals and action? The latter does, if just by the nose on Brad Pitt’s perfectly imperfect face. Combined with the film’s lavish technical achievements, his classic movie star sturdiness makes Ad Astra a memorable filmgoing experience even as the story it tells slips off into the ether.

Holofcener is a master at these microcosms, which feel like a glimpse into someone’s actual life. She show it to us with empathy and curiosity in a way that feels oddly revolutionary. There’s no VFX, no stunts—just a few people attempting to navigate the ups and downs of human existence.

The original western won John Wayne a puzzling and undeserved Oscar for finally falling off his horse. Don't expect the same miracle for Jeff Bridges. In the numbing hands of pretentious filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, history does not repeat itself in any way whatsoever.

In one of the most wrenching performances I have seen on the screen in some time, it’s thrilling to watch a young actor with passion and charisma explore so many avenues of damage control with so much depth, allowing the viewer to grapple with an unsettling variety of personal emotions.

It is infectiously delightful, even if you’re someone who might typically steer clear of chipper, pink-hued flicks. Somehow Gerwig has struck a balance between unhinged whimsy, deep humanity and comedic bliss. It’s funny, it will make you cry and it feels almost like a rebellion.

A brutal, chilling indictment of capitalist colonialism, The Settlers mixes shocking violence with acute apathy.

The movie is so carefully observed and quietly calibrated as the old man moves from one scene to the next, as unobtrusive as a lap dissolve, that you can’t tell Harry from Lucky, or vice versa, and it doesn’t take long before you stop trying.

Produced by Cameron Crowe, who interviewed Crosby as a young journalist for Rolling Stone in 1974, the film spins a powerful and enlightening fable about the ultimate cost of survival. It’s about what happens when the most reckless and bridge-burning among us ends up being rock’s Harry Potter — i.e. the boy who lives — and must sift through the guilt and wreckage of all the relationships left in his wake.

The movie moves as slowly as the oncoming fog, but Juliette Binoche is always a pleasure to watch, despite an awkward coda set in London that I found jarring.

There are moments here and there with potentially eloquent points of departure, but they dissolve in the mists of the director's ultimately aimless estheticism. [21 May 1999]

Unfortunately, it turns to be duller and infinitely more stagnant than most Hollywood dreck. But it is partially saved by very good actors who struggle valiantly to make it less monotonous than it is.

The magical chemistry between Redford and Spacek cannot be overestimated.

Senna's accomplishments are impressive, but his story seems more suited to an ESPN special than a feature-length film.

The Sessions is fascinating, informative, engaging and heartbreaking stuff. Its easygoing, matter-of-fact tone makes it subtle and rewarding, not weird. Roses all around to all and sundry for one of the year's most captivating films.

Every thing about Fincher’s film—from his resurrection of his late father Jack’s script to his exacting recreation of a Hollywood in the midst of a creative explosion that it wouldn’t experience again for another 30 years or so—is a call to arms.

Annihilation is a demented science-fiction comic book of a movie that makes less sense than a butterfly mating with a buffalo.

A joyous, well-researched and liberating film in the feel-good spirit of "Billy Elliot," "The Full Monty" and "Calendar Girls."

It's all about personality and Joan's inimitable style, which fills every second of its 84 minutes.

I Am Love fuses the past with the changing future in a marvelous traditional narrative without a shred of the sloppy trends of contemporary filmmaking.

With its stunning John Ford-like vistas of a corpse laden Sahara and a vast Mediterranean Sea empty of aid vessels to help an immigrant ship overburdened with desperate and sick North Africans, Garrone has—on the surface—made a lush and monumentally disturbing feature-length commercial for staying home.

Preposterous, illogical, senselessly over-plotted and artificial as a ceramic artichoke, David Fincher’s Gone Girl is another splatterfest disguised as a psychological thriller about the disintegration of a murderous marriage that I find one of the year’s grossest disappointments.

It’s as cheeky as it is morbid, and the two flavors play well together.

Despite reaching the conclusion of the first novel’s plot, Dune: Part Two deliberately leaves an assortment of dangling threads that will leave you either tantalized or frustrated.

These are characters so repulsive that it's hard to care what happens to them, but it's to the credit of a superb cast that you do end up caring.

Stan’s trip to the moon may fade into the ether, but his ride down the highway with his brothers and sisters, all of them unsecured on the flatbed of a pickup truck is so brimming with immediacy that it won’t even matter.

Before the carnage ends, the entire cast has been tortured, mutilated and murdered by so many weapons it’s hard to keep them straight. When the shotguns, box cutters and machetes run out, it’s time to cue the flesh-eating attack dogs.

It’s so elegant and dreamlike — such a departure from most vampire epics — that you won’t be bored. It also has a wicked sense of humor you usually don’t find in the genre.

As vital as it is, racial strife is a subject that cries out for a more volatile treatment than this. The Alabama marching sequences and resulting violence, filmed in Selma, where they actually happened, are too understated for my taste. And the home life of King and his vacillating wife Coretta are muted.

Miller is an undeniable storyteller and filmmaker, and Furiosa is an epic, world-building creation imbued with its own vast mythology and expansive scope.

Walking Out is a skillfully made thriller with a pair of very talented actors who knock themselves out, in more ways than one, to guarantee that it never becomes boring.

This works in her favor, since everything around her is trashy and forgettable. J-Lo is the only reason to see it. As a pop flick of no consequence, it’s inviting but forgettable an hour later — but the praise Lopez has received is well deserved. She’s developed nicely as an actress. Call it learning on the job.

The best ensemble work of the year

Even without its numerous rug-pulls, which occur early enough that the movie soon takes on an entirely different tone, Twinless is a masterful example of shifting cinematic POV.

While Berger’s film should be applauded for envisioning a way forward for the profoundly troubled and still deeply corrupt organization, by not more completely and honestly reckoning with the crimes of its past, its optimism for the future—while both deeply felt and dramatically conveyed—ultimately rings hollow.

Based on her one-dimensional book Elvis and Me, the movie is a superficial chronicle of minutiae in the life of a naive girl, blinded by phony illusions of glamour, longing for affection from a child-man who never grew up, and trapped behind closed doors of toxic fame from Hollywood to Graceland. In the darkness beyond the klieg lights, it wasn’t much of a life—and it’s not much of a movie, either.

This exercise in hysteria is so over the top that you don't know whether to scream or laugh. Despite an emotionally gripping performance by Natalie Portman, it's nothing more than a lavishly staged "Repulsion" in toe shoes.

In the process, Schamus creates not only a meaningful and moving snapshot of an America on the cusp of redefining itself, but also a cinematic hybrid few of us thought possible: the literary college sex comedy.

There is much violence in The Devil’s Backbone , but there is also catharsis and redemption. As ghost movies go, The Devil’s Backbone is much less self-indulgent than the wildly overrated The Others.

Although Enough Said never really surmounts its TV sitcom style and structure, the director provides a nuanced entertainment that is enjoyable. She is aided beyond measure by the charisma of her two stars — especially Mr. Gandolfini, who reveals a side of himself we’ve never seen before.

There is still something to be said for skillful, old-fashioned filmmaking, and director Joseph Kosinski has done plenty of it here. The result goes with popcorn like butter, and I liked it in spite of myself.

Compared to the crowd-pleasing Tetris or Air, BlackBerry plays a bit dour and dry, but the film is better for it. It’s not romantic or idealistic, but it is intriguing.

By centering on the start of the film and its conclusion, you realize Wang possesses not only a preternatural feel for the emotional jumble of boyhood, but also an astute understanding of both film structure and how to mine many layers of unforced truth from his troupe of talented actors.

After Yang is a beautiful film, both in how it looks and in what it evokes.

But to miss it would be a shame, because you won’t find a more spellbinding performance than the inimitable star in the title role.

Richly chronicled characters, sharp dialogue and that stupendous centerpiece performance by Cate Blanchett are contributing factors in the best summer movie of 2013 and one of the most memorable Woody Allen movies ever.

At a time when every penny counts, where do they come up with the money to finance a movie this boring?

New York, New York, it’s a wonderful town. This movie proves it like none other.

If you’re even the least bit susceptible to the spectacle of violence, then John Wick is irresistible, and Chapter 4 is its most spectacular entry.

It’s not for everybody, and it’s far from perfect, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more thrillingly necessary use of the filmmaking form this year.

One of the truly great animated films this year, one that now places Imbert alongside fellow countrymen Jérémy Clapin (I Lost My Body) and Rémi Chayé (Calamity) as part of a new generation of French animation talent that is delivering high quality animated projects in both story and style.

Halfheartedly, I give The Dark Knight Rises - the third and final Batflick in the Nolan trilogy - one star for eardrum-busting sound effects and glaucoma-inducing computerized images in blinding Imax, but talk about stretching things.

The movie has its share of flaws, but you can’t say Charlie Hunnam, who plays the lead, has no charisma, or the story lacks excitement.

It is so uncannily adroit at balancing humor and pathos that the two complement rather than detract from each other.

A carefully considered mix of humor and melancholy glows in the fragile sunshine that bathes an isolated Welsh coastline in The Ballad of Wallis Island, a wan yet affecting consideration of lost love, forgotten bands and the odd ways those entities manifest themselves in our hearts and on our turntables.

I can sympathetically and intellectually appreciate just how rare it is to see a wacky comic-book movie about growing up trans and finding yourself and your people, about coping with a repressive parent who takes your gender dysphoria as a personal affront, of struggling to build a healthy relationship when so many of your peers are similarly traumatized by a society that is hostile to their very existence.

Mostly it’s a misguided mess.

The most memorable thing about it is the profoundly understated sensitivity of Harris Dickinson, a (surprisingly) British actor to keep an eye on.

When it finally ended, I felt like I had traveled the distance in the next sleeping bag. It’s exhausting but exhilarating.

This bold new film not only shatters comedy’s cold streak, but also serves as a powerful reminder of the vitality of the genre as both social commentary and shared experience.

The intensity is overwhelming. Every war is hell, no matter when it was fought, but 1917, which is about a war far removed from contemporary reality, turns out to the best war picture since "Saving Private Ryan."

An unwatchable sci-fi creep-out by eccentric French director Claire Denis, it stars Robert Pattinson, who devotes himself these days to art films in an effort to live down his reputation as a sexy television vampire.

Few films this year have been as soulful or as quietly defiant.

It oscillates between moving and manufactured, but the movie’s honest portrayal of life on a tribal reservation and a powerful performance by Lily Gladstone keep things grounded.

With Nope, Peele aims to make viewers afraid of the sky the way Jaws made us scared of the ocean. Horror thrives when it twists the everyday into something ominous, and Nope may have you scanning the skies for suspiciously still clouds.

What one does not expect is a load of total trash full of gimmicks instead of ideas, stolen scenes from other movies instead of originality, amateurish posturing instead of professional performances, clueless meandering instead of organized screenplays, and pointless confusion instead of clear-eyed direction.

Paddington is a harmless delight that blends live action with animated technology in the manner of "Ted," but without the raunch.

It would easy to call Women Talking a #MeToo movie, but it’s a lot more than that. These aren’t trendy conversations; they’re long-held struggles that people of all genders have faced for generations. Instead, Polley asks why people are forced to endure such horrific repression and violence because they are female. The question resonates far beyond the end of the film, although there is no quick answer.

By presenting this crucial cultural phenomenon in a staid documentary form and in the reverent tone of a hushed docent, The League has the unintentional impact of making Black baseball seem like ancient rather than living history.

Written and directed with muscle and grit by Kitty Green, The Royal Hotel is loaded with grim ambiance, and there is even some suspense, mainly while the viewer waits to see if anything will ever happen.

Has moments of heart-pounding suspense and brief glimmers of greatness, thanks to fine performances by Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan and Olivia Williams, but overall feels uneven, sprawling and strangely incomplete.

For a movie that pulses with joyful expressiveness and brims with possibility, there is a tragic undertone to Ailey.

A dreary bummer.

Dallas Buyers Club represents the best of what independent film on a limited budget can achieve — powerful, enlightening and not to be missed.

As a thriller, The Imposter is gripping. As a documentary, it provokes confusion and annoyance.

When violence does befall Clare and her family, it is far more devastating than anything she could possibly have imagined. It’s also as shocking and difficult to watch as any I have seen in a lifetime of watching violent movies.

It’s a movie that knocks itself cross-eyed trying to be hip, clever and today about acerbic seniors, but instead it only makes you long for old ladies in aprons exclaiming “Land sakes alive, I smell something burning in the oven!”

It’s hard to label a film this empty, but the word “worthless” comes to mind instantly.

This remarkable movie — factual and funny, always surprising and unconventionally written, directed and acted — sets the record straight with an adrenalin rush that overwhelms the senses.

Minnelli's direction never lets the farcical aspects get out of hand, walking a perfect line between comedy and sentiment that's sometimes heartwarming without ever becoming mawkish -- a delicate balance to achieve and maintain. [28 Jun 1999]

Maestro is the movie of the year. Amendment: not to slight the amazing Oppenheimer, make that one of the two best films of the year. But Bradley Cooper’s warts-and-all biopic about volatile conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein has more passion, tenderness and heartbreaking resonance—and it’s a lot more fun.

Filmed on authentic locations in Poland by meticulous Canadian director Louise Archambault, Irena’s Vow is one of the most astounding true stories to ever emerge from the ashes of the Holocaust.

This is a feel-good comedy bordering on farce, but [Squibb] makes every scene and every line so natural that when you laugh, you’re reacting to genuine humor, not calculatedly constructed punch lines.

Love Lies Bleeding is an exhilarating ride from beginning to end. Whether that’s because of its status as a tense crime thriller, its brutal violence, its sultry central romance or a combination of all three, the pulpy, pulsing power of this movie cannot be denied.

Downbeat, depressing and heavy as lead, Calvary is nevertheless an unusual film that never bores. Impeccable performances by Chris O’Dowd, Aiden Gillen, M. Emmett Walsh and Kelly Reilly are riveting. And Mr. Gleeson is a bear-like centerpiece of conflicts and contradictions who anchors the floating pieces of the Irish puzzle in faith and doctrine, while mercifully refusing to sermonize.

It’s to the star’s immense credit that his spellbinding appeal provides a tension that the script’s funereal pace often lacks.

It’s profoundly moving and thoroughly mind provoking, but despite the poignant subject matter, I promise you will not leave Philomena depressed. I’ve seen it twice and felt exhilarated, informed, enriched, absorbed and optimistic both times.

Resonating with warmth and sardonic wit and containing a majestic performance by Robert Duvall.