Jafar Panahi's Taxi looks onto a world where the social order and the spiritual order are at odds, in flux, where the conversations are sometimes cutting, sometimes comic, sometimes troubled, sometimes profound.

It's business as usual, even if that business is pulled off with brilliant precision, ingeniously choreographed action, and an itinerary boasting some of the most photogenic spots on Earth.

If we now take a woman's right to vote and to hold public office for granted, Suffragette reminds us that it wasn't that long ago when things were different.

Amazingly - and this movie is amazing - Room is a story of hope, of possibility. Sure, your stomach will be in knots, your fingers clenched, your heart racing. But it will also fill that heart with a sense of the goodness, the courage, the enduring love that is out there to be discovered - and to be held onto with the fierceness of life itself.

The Assassin is not "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", and it is certainly not "Kill Bill". But Hou - a linchpin of Taiwan's New Wave movement, the director of "A City of Sadness" and "The Puppetmaster" - evokes the magic, the majesty, the artistry of the martial-arts movie tradition, and brings a Zen-like sense of observation to the proceedings

Singular and stunning.

Some projects are just too misguided for the star to mug and shrug his way out of. Consider Rock the Kasbah at the top, or the bottom, of that list.

Is Steve Jobs a great film? I don't think so. It's an achievement, certainly, full of Sorkin flourishes, breathtaking and brilliant one-liners that reveal a lot about the characters who deliver them.

Despite its visual beauty and Rahim's extraordinary, and silent, performance, the film never quite manages to connect on an emotional level.

Goosebumps fulfills its purpose, and that's what matters.

The country goes unnamed, the warring factions aren't always clear, but the nightmarish exploitation of children is made specific in the most vivid, visceral ways.

Using a screenplay polished and honed by the Coen Brothers, Spielberg dips into John le Carré territory (you can't help but think of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold when Donovan looks onto the newly erected Berlin Wall, in the searchlights, in the snow).

What makes Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead feel particularly vibrant is how the Lampoon's specific art direction is put to use.

While its message is a little simplistic, Knock Knock is shot through with a brilliant, gleefully anarchic dark humor that's equally fun and disturbing.

A polished piece of advocacy filmmaking, He Named Me Malala begins - and is intercut with - beautiful animated sequences featuring Malala's 19th-century namesake, Malalai of Maiwand, an Afghani Pashtun poet who inspired her countrymen to rally against an onslaught of British troops.

The plot itself has little momentum, and what should feel dramatic instead feels inert.

The movie is a snapshot collage of flyover America, but also, perhaps, an homage to the soon-to-be-lost world of brick-and-mortar gambling.

In an extraordinarily inward and moving performance, Gere sheds every vestige of his silver-screen persona.

I'm not sure if leavening is the right word, but Brolin, as an enigmatic U.S. agent with a world-weary cynicism and a black-ops vibe, provides at least a dose of (very) dark humor to the proceedings.

The Keeping Room looks at the brutality of humanity.

As a celebration of agility, ability, and outlandish human behavior, The Walk is a winning thing. It may not get inside the head of its pole-balancing protagonist - it doesn't really even try - but Zemeckis' movie takes you skyward.

The Martian is never less than engaging, and often much more than that.

Velásquez is a remarkable individual, and her message should not go unheeded.

Overall, the effect is closer to a Monty Python skit or a Village People music vid than a serious film about civil rights.

There'd be a lot less strife and starvation, disease and dread, if Nancy Meyers ruled the world.

What could have been an amusing and entertaining zombie flick is, instead, a slog.

Exceptionally graceful and accomplished, Ozon's film challenges our received notions of normalcy, intimacy, and love.

Black Mass, a down and dirty crime drama based on the exploits of Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger, is thrilling for a number of reasons.