It achieves its humanity by connecting audiences to dynamic Muslim men who reveal so much about themselves in the silence between traumas, warmly greeting each other with affectionate kisses and hugs in sterile safe houses, or line-dancing in an upscale hotel room in a rare moment of triumph and release.

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.

Despite a frustrating fizzle of a finale, it’s a movie that enthralls the senses and engages the mind for two hours, proving no movie is too long when you’re having fun.

I prefer to think of Juniper as chamber music—muted, soft, with a certain ache that lingers.

A grand, shocking saga of a movie, The Homesman is the kind they don’t make much anymore.

Reviews might be “mixed,” but don’t let that deter you. The Chaperone is a fascinating, exquisitely made film about the early life of sultry silent-screen star Louise Brooks, who traveled from Wichita, Kan., in 1922 to New York City with a proper chaperone named Norma Carlisle.

Colin Firth is brilliant as the patient, uncompromising and introspective Max Perkins, and the explosive performance by Jude Law as the wild, unpredictable and tragic Thomas Wolfe is one of the greatest triumphs of his career. I was spellbound.

Dao, named for the Taoist belief in an unceasing motion that flows through and unites all things, is a film of anthropological self-reflection, but it is also a surprising exploration of cinematic process.

Not simply a worthy addition to David Fincher’s vastly under-appreciated "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" franchise (they’re calling it a “soft reboot,” but there’s nothing soft about it), The Girl in the Spider’s Web is also a top-shelf Batman movie. For good measure, it kicks the butt of the last few Bourne installments too.

Not since "The Straight Story," when Richard Farnsworth traveled all the way from Iowa to Wisconsin by lawn mower to see his dying brother, have the wisdom, innocence and pride of a senior citizen combined so powerfully as a metaphor for the courage to face mortality. Unforgettable.

Soars above the ordinary with a timely narrative and a magnetic performance by Glenn Close that is nothing short of miraculous.

The best of four sound versions of Dickens's wonderful novel.

Despite the danger of G-rated sentimentality, which everyone involved heroically avoids, The Penguin Lessons is a work of surprising depth and subtle, irresistible impact.

Ozu never moves his camera but invariably moves us. [05 Dec 2004, p.13]

As a bare-knuckle assault on the corruption that has come to define the creeping rot of American politics, Knife Fight is neither as satirical as Barry Levinson's "Wag the Dog" nor as incisive and wrenching as George Clooney's "The Ides of March," but it's a noble, shocking and inspired film worthy of attention.

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.

Zhao keeps these far-reaching propositions grounded through the laser-like focus of her vision and the precision of the images dreamed up by her and veteran MCU lensman Ben Davis. For once in a movie like this, ocean waves and cloudscapes carry as much weight as the ultra-choreographed battles between intergalactic interlopers.

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 touching film that entertains with warmth and humor while teaching us something about history, law and justice with enormous heart, subtlety and compassion, brilliantly acted and skillfully written. Is there anything Helen Mirren cannot do?

In the end, I recommend seeing it, but I think Killers of the Flower Moon is the kind of movie you respect and admire without much actual enjoyment. With all the evident hard work, dedication and fidelity to facts, it’s still an hour too long and not a film I would ever want to see twice.

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.

If you cherish the rare opportunity to watch magnificent actors as perfect as Blythe Danner and John Lithgow giving it all they’ve got, in a film about grown-ups, then the line starts here.

Written with wit and nuance and sensitively directed by Maya Forbes, who makes a formidable feature-film debut, this is a movie that informs and entertains, with a centerpiece performance by the great, often underrated and always surprising Mark Ruffalo.

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.

The end result of this stoned-cold picnic is both haphazardly successful and somewhat disappointing, but it’s worth seeing, thanks enormously to the tremendous charisma of Sam Rockwell.

The movie is wrenchingly slow — you know from the start that nothing is ever going to happen — but Nebraska has a charm that grows on you like a lichen, a wicked sense of humor that makes you laugh in spite of yourself, a concealed heart soft as a Hostess Twinkie, and a generous, welcome respect for the basic decency of the human race, more valuable than any lottery ticket.

The ability of Kammerer and his young castmates to convey the bone-deep dread of artillery bombardments and tanks rolling overhead is matched only by Berger’s complete command of the machinery of war and propulsion of narrative.

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