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.