In a movie without adults, the children are spontaneous and natural. And Ms. Ronan is captivating throughout.

It’s a real pleasure to share some quality time with Mr. Caine as an old man wise enough to know there’s rarely any such thing as a second time around but brave enough to take a chance anyway. But the writing and direction by Sandra Nettelbeck barely support his forceful presence.

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

The film has a restless, nomadic quality similar to Kerouac’s lifestyle, but there’s no there there.

By the way, for reasons nobody bothers to explain, Las Vegas is played by New Orleans. Go figure.

This awful rehash, badly directed by Vincenzo Natali (Splice), reeks of stale, recycled ideas.

Big Ass Spider, lazily directed by Mike Mendez and unwisely written without a trace of necessary camp by Gregory Gieras, aims for satire and settles for stale shtick. It ends with the song “La Cucaracha,” leaving the door open for more insects to come. Cockroaches, anyone?

All Is Lost is movie magic on many levels but most importantly as the rare opportunity to watch a seasoned actor at the pinnacle of his power.

Something is missing here, like a clear perspective.

Timely but sluggish and confusing.

If the best films hold you in a captive vise, entertain you, keep you spellbound and teach you something at the same time, then 12 Years a Slave is outstanding — brave, courageous and unforgettable.

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.

Smutty and grotesque little sex parody.

A sobering, documentary-style film commemorating eyewitness accounts of what happened in the aftermath of the tragedy, some of them fresh as a new wound, all of them painful but vital to a deeper understanding of one of the darkest chapters in American history.

It’s one of the most powerful films about the Arab-Israeli conflict that has ever been attempted on the screen.

Accept Gravity as pure, popcorn-munching show business fun and nothing else, and you won’t go away disappointed.

The script, by Melissa James Gibson, is as scintillating as a dead rodent.

Sensitively written and carefully directed with keenly observed nuance by Leland Orser, who also plays the grief-stricken husband driven to the brink of madness by the sudden death of his son, it’s a film that touches the heart with the tenderness of understatement.

He (Gordon-Levitt) can act, and there’s a possibility he can also direct, but there’s no evidence in Don Jon that he can do both at the same time.

What passes for a plot has been done a thousand times before — in much better films than A Single Shot.

When it comes to thrillers, this one is as good as it gets. Not for the squeamish, but for anyone who loves movies, it’s too exhilarating to miss.

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.

Blue Caprice, a disturbingly intimate look at the Beltway sniper attacks of 2002, isn’t a horror film, but it certainly feels like one.

A Teacher is more in the vein of Michael Haneke’s brooding 2001 film, "The Piano Teacher."

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 Grandmaster offers welcome relief from a moviegoing summer spent in sensory overload.

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.

A vague and forgettable crime thriller that would have benefited from more character development or at least a grounding of the narrative in one central protagonist.