The shared energy created by audience and performer that is so restorative to Garland is where the movie finds life.

The idea of knowing your place may be offensive, but the idea of having a place is appealing.

There is honest sentiment in the arc of this story, aided by the chemistry between Gottsagen and LaBeouf, and by the warm mood of the film.

The movie sometimes seems (like its title character) to drag its feet. It’s messy, but with the untidiness of real life.

Part of its appeal lies in the truth and specificity behind the clunky presentation.

Like many a good documentary, Honeyland takes us to a faraway land and culture in a way that reveals what is distinctive and what is universal about people.

Its purpose is to make the lives of the oppressed seem real by making their suffering real.

Jump scares are the film’s most-used horror device, but it does feel like Øvredal and del Toro are pushing the envelope of the film’s PG-13 rating with how creepy some of the stories get.

Despite the movie’s emphasis on physical action, it’s this chemistry that keeps the movie going.

There is a lot to like here, a few things to love. Like the fact that someone in Hollywood can still assemble a cast this large and impressive — someone who does not work for Marvel.

The new King is competent, reasonably entertaining, faithful to the original, wholesome, sometimes even enjoyable.

Stuber and Shaft are the kind of movies Hollywood made every month back in the ’80s and ’90s, until audiences — after a half dozen or so Lethal Weapons — grew tired of them. Stuber serves to remind us of why we liked them, and also that they wore out their welcome.

The script is shrewd about the problems that money can and can’t solve. Wild Rose also threads the needle between the genre expectations and its own brand of realism, grounded in the very palpable heartache Rose feels as she tries to survive in the space between her family obligations and her artistic ambitions.

A movie as atmospheric as Hereditary, narratively more satisfying, but much, much longer.

The value and uses of spectacle become part of the story in Far From Home, which can be read as a bit of playful in-house MCU criticism of CGI fatigue.

The movie simply has the best use of music (Talbot is also a musician) that I’ve seen this year, starting with a gorgeous score by Daniel Herskedal , and embellished with the smart, eclectic use of songs that speak to the city’s cultural history.

A funny, freaky, often profound animated adventure that is certainly the best movie ever made about a spork.

Rosamund Pike is adorable, if a little too ethereal and flighty.

The story is simple, illogical, mysterious, strange, and, of course, very, very sparse.

I’m Not Your Negro is an unforgettable work. Baldwin’s words – eloquently spoken by Samuel Jackson – will haunt you.

At its satirical best, Things to Come takes aim at some of the sacred cows of French academia, showing how the posturing of today’s radical kids seems to repeat the attitudes their parents had in the '60s.

An immensely rich, deeply felt exploration of human relationships that draws you in and holds you fast for nearly three hours.

Gold never settles on a coherent point of view. Is the film supposed to be a critique of capitalism or is it a Horatio Alger story about a self-made man preyed upon by wall street?

Michael Keaton has this incredible, I’m-at-the-edge-of-the-abyss look that should be taught as "the hangdog" in drama school.

A remarkably weird and wonderful exercise in psychological terror featuring a virtuoso performance by Scottish actor James McAvoy.

Paterson is easily one of Jarmusch’s most accomplished films. He portrays the life of the mind and the workings of the creative soul as a kind of secret love affair, a deep, hidden well inside the most ordinary, mundane existence.

If you’re looking for great, realistic action, it’s just the thing. Berg is a masterful action director, and his Patriots Day is every bit as engaging and exciting as "Lone Survivor" and "Deepwater Horizon."

Scorsese’s adaptation is overlong and at times insufferably self-indulgent, but contains sublime moments of transcendent beauty and a wealth of beautiful performances.

A Monster Calls is an engrossing tragic fantasy, sustained by genuine sentiment.

Child actor Pawar is extraordinary as Saroo during his terrifying odyssey, and Davis portrays the streets of Calcutta, teeming with homeless children and adults, as if they were one of the rings of hell from "Dante's Inferno."

An enjoyable (but long) romcom that's like "Meet the Parents" on LSD, laced with rat poison.

It's a small, intimate chamber piece with beautiful camerawork and gorgeous art direction ... until it loses its way in a wrongheaded bid for sci-fi greatness.

Fences is also very much an actors' movie, with breathtaking performances from Washington and his costars, including Davis, Stephen Henderson, Jovan Adepo, Russell Hornsby, and Mykelti Williamson.

Its positive message about education, the value of hard work, and the power of social commitment make it a must-see for parents and kids alike.

It also has great momentum, good set pieces, and so much frothy nihilism it’s just plain fun.

It is a fever dream of a movie, tracking its subject as she tries to maintain control, maintain her composure and her sanity, and as she tries — shellshocked, quaking with grief, but also fiercely determined — to shape and secure her husband’s legacy.

Lean, mean, and utterly compelling, Ma’s beautifully paced and remarkably understated 80-minute thriller Old Stone is a Kafkaesque satire about the soul-crushing effects of bureaucracy.

At 120 minutes, The Love Witch is too long. Biller has too much material on her hands and too many non sequitur scenes.

The film is too formulaic and far too prone to melodrama, with outsize emotions as ridiculous as its comic-book villains.

Most of the footage is stunning, yet the film is more about observation than visual stimulation.

Strictly speaking, Elle is a comedy, a blacker-than-death social satire about bourgeois values, set in contemporary Paris. It’s viciously, demonically funny in parts.

At turns elegiac, absurdist, and gently satirical, Lonergan’s drama is a deeply affecting chamber piece that features an outstanding performance by Casey Affleck.

Moana 's great heart and great humor actively subvert the violent, egocentric, macho mind-set that dominates so many popular stories. It can hardly be expected to change prevailing attitudes on its own. But it’s a start.

The Edge of Seventeen is funny and tragic, but most of all it feels real in the same way John Hughes movies felt real. It's not a candy-coated version of teenagedom. It's harsh, and awkward, and funny, just like being a teenager.

Yates and Rowling skillfully weave their bleak – and very blunt-edged – message into the fabric of the story. It might be wildly out of place in a fantasy aimed at tweens, but it’s a welcome change from the usual vapid blockbuster.

His pictures cover familiar territory. Yet Nichols is blessed with a talent for telling stories from fresh, surprising perspectives.

A richly observed coming-of-age drama about two teenage boys who are drawn to each other with a complicated mix of attraction, repulsion, tenderness, and aggression.

With its icy symphonic score (courtesy of Iceland’s Johan Johansson) and a palette of rainy-day colors, Arrival is at once majestic and melancholy. It’s a grand endeavor, and Adams, at the center of it all, brings pluck and smarts and a deep-seated sorrow to her role. This is her movie, no doubt.

Garfield melts into his Doss character in a performance that seems impossibly still and tranquil. He’s mesmerizing. It’s almost impossible to imagine he ever played Spider-Man.

Jarmusch’s movie serves both as a fine intro to one of rock’s great bands and as a window for longtime fans into what makes Iggy tick.

It’s a true American masterpiece and one of the best films of the decade.

Far too good to be watched in one sitting.

The film is surprisingly engaging. It’s fun.

Set against the backdrop of Montana's stunning wilderness, Certain Women portrays women at work and women in desire with the quiet confidence, simplicity, and directness of a true artist.

Rebecca Hall is wondrous as Christine, delivering a sly performance that brings out her character's extraordinary intelligence. Her Christine has a peculiar brand of dry, subversive humor that takes aim at various absurdities of modern life and mass media.

It would have been better to nix the drama completely and keep Madea's Halloween outing strictly about the laughs.

Some of it is wistful, some of it whimsical, but it's all wonderful, impossibly so.

While it's not entirely successful, this stylish shocker is a big step up from the earlier film.

Somehow, Reacher gets under your skin with his mordant wit, razor-sharp intelligence, and existentialist intensity.

Part of the problem lies with the venue. When it comes to standup, bigger is not better. One-man shows work better in smaller spaces. In his bid to proclaim his giant stature as an entertainer, Hart loses himself.

On the whole, it's a mess of action clichés built on top of a shaky premise that's so out-of-this-world that it'll either enrage you - or make you laugh. I chose the latter. I'm not ashamed to admit that I had a lot of fun at this movie.

A charming, warm-hearted Swedish dramedy about the redemptive power of neighborly love.

A startling, powerful biopic.

With its female heroines and its uncertain, constantly shifting view of reality, The Girl on the Train is a bit like a cubist, feminist episode of "Law & Order." But not much more.

It's the stuff of nightmares.

Tries - far too hard - to replicate the Alice effect and falls short.

Masterminds is filled with the sort of idiotic bathroom humor that has become standard in big-screen comedies, but it is enlivened by the surreal slapstick touches that made Napoleon Dynamite so good. Even though it isn't the sharpest comedy, it had me in stitches.

I've rarely encountered such pure poetry of action as in the opening minutes of Deepwater Horizon, director Peter Berg's exciting and emotionally wrenching thriller.

This terrific film and its inspirational message have been filtered through an individualistic, American point of view, suggesting that anyone can make a better life for themselves if they are willing to work. And that's not the case everywhere.

At once a shocking, baroque freak-out and a finely tuned, brilliantly paced surrealist black comedy.

Chilling - and very chatty. Snowden is a seriously talky film. Yet it never feels tedious, thanks to Stone's tremendous sense of story construction, the film's razor-sharp editing - and Gordon-Levitt's masterful performance.

The movie's greatest misstep - other than Dempsey's boring romantic foil - is that, at one point, Bridget flashes back to events from the first movie. It's a reminder of how much fun the first film was, and it'll make you want to run out and watch that rather than the finish the one you bought a ticket for.

In Order of Disappearance has an utterly unique feel, a certain Scandinavian crispness that's impossible to duplicate.

The movie is a winner. One of the commuter ferry men declares, as he starts plucking people out of the water, "No one dies today." And no one does. If that isn't hopeful, I don't know what is.

There's a playlike quality to Complete Unknown (Marston's cowriter, Julian Sheppard, has extensive credits in the theater). That's not a bad thing: The talk is smart. The actors doing the talking are easy to like.

Moretti knows how to orchestrate a good laugh when it's needed, but he can plumb more soulful, sorrowful depths, too. In Mia Madre, with its self-doubting director and wild-card American interloper, Moretti works a palette of shifting moods. Triumphantly.

You know how some kids just connect? Jake and Tony connect. And the adults in their lives, without really meaning to do so, make it difficult for that connection to hold. It is a measure of Sachs' talent and skills that such a seemingly small story can resonate in such big ways.

Anya Taylor-Joy, who delivered a heartrending breakout performance in "The Witch," is entrancing as this exotic being, Morgan.

With its clever structure and pacing, its range of emotional notes, and its remarkable use of magic realism, The 9th Life of Louis Drax makes for an absorbing and memorable mystery.

A Tale of Love and Darkness loses itself in dreamy imagery, in its studiously crafted aesthetic. But there are times when Portman lets the toughness, the tenacity, the emotional heart of Oz's story shine through.

Relative newcomer Parker Sawyers (Zero Dark Thirty, Survivor) is terrific as Barack, embodying the character in each line and gesture without mimicking the real Obama.

One of the most suspenseful, terrifying, and devilishly original horror pics in recent memory.

An elegant survey of the origins of the information revolution and a shrewd analysis of how the internet has reshaped the world. It's one of the director's best docs.

Moving within its wild and wacky and improbably true scenarios (some of them, anyway) are people you don't really want to know. Stop the presses: War makes people rich. Stop the movie: These people, who cares?

If you want to expose your children to a work of art with real soul, you could do a lot worse than Kubo and the Two Strings.

And Bridges? What's there to say about a man who makes it look so easy, and who - in one breathless, pivotal scene - runs through a range of emotion like a wild pony running across the land. Genius, any way you look at it.

An intensely intelligent, well-written, and mature exploration of the unwritten rules women have to follow if they want to succeed in high finance.

Directed with tremendous style and vibrant, buoyant energy.

A violent, sexy, crazy actioner about supermarket products that rebel against their human consumers, Sausage Party is one of the funniest and most deeply offensive movies of the year (it's obscenely funny), which lambastes America's most sacred of sacred cows: religion.

An extremely delicate, quiet, and stunningly understated chamber piece.

An immensely enjoyable, warmhearted, and gentle showbiz dramedy.

Suicide Squad does have quite a few tremendously entertaining sequences of high action and low comedy. It's a shame it never rises beyond that.

Our Little Sister zooms in close, observing everyday rituals, the commonplace that suddenly turns significant.

Kunis, rebounding from the disastrous Jupiter Ascending (an unintentional comedy if ever there was one), demonstrates an easygoing comic flair.

Phantom Boy will appeal to children who have the patience and imagination to immerse themselves in the film's wiggly animation.

The tradecraft is there, the film craft is there, but the craftiness of a great concept is gone. Any way Bourne can go through Treadstone again?

Nerve gives moviegoers everything they'd want from a teen romance. It's a little less successful as a critique of life in the age of Instagram.

A well-shot, gore-free psychological thriller about our elemental fear of darkness, Lights Out has a good deal in common with "The Babadook." While it can't touch Jennifer Kent's masterpiece, it does mark the arrival of a major new talent.