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

It's intriguing enough to suck you in, but confusing, fragmentary, frustrating.

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.

Rogue One is a minor little story with a likable cast and familiar Star Wars themes. But it tries so hard to be an epic masterpiece – with self-important speeches and an insanely outsize orchestral score – that it ends up a laughable parody of itself.

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.

A disquieting and ultimately disappointing political thriller.

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.

Allied comes off like a highlight reel that mimics the look and feel of a whole school of great films, from "Casablanca" to Hitchcock's "Suspicion" and "Notorious."

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.

Like Clint Eastwood’s masterful 2006 WWII drama "Flags of Our Fathers," Lee’s film is as much about how we spin war stories as it is about war itself. Both involve a group of heroic soldiers sent home by the Pentagon to help drum up popular support. Both are made by filmmakers keenly aware that stories have the power to justify a war or turn the public against it.

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.