If there are any heroic figures in this sad tale, it’s the women of Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders, a grassroots activists organization that took notice of the killings back in the ‘80s and spent decades trying to bring official and media attention to them.

Visually splendid, but generically flat-footed, Song of the Sea is an animated fantasy that comes close to greatness, but is rarely as clever as it is comforting.

Annie is light on its feet, frothy, and always insistently, at times provocatively kind, determined to melt grumpy hearts like marshmallows.

This movie struck me as both Ceylan’s plainest, and perhaps his finest.

The adult viewer, reflecting on the idea that this is “just” a kid’s movie, might conclude that kids deserve a little better.

There’s a lot of good awkward fun to be had as the viewer simultaneously laughs at Otto’s expense and hopefully commiserates a bit with him.

Much of the film's appeal lies in watching the two lead actors enact subtle, honest moments of observed behavior.

There are some wonderful sequences in Battle of the Five Armies, and the attention to detail is breathtaking (each different space rendered with thrilling complexity), but the film feels more like a long drawn-out closing paragraph rather than (like "The Desolation of Smaug") a vibrant stand-alone piece of the story.

A numbing and soulless spectacle of 3-D, computer-generated imagery run amok, Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings presents an enduring tale by pummeling us over the head with it.

The Color of Time has considerable ambition, but no inner life.

The Captive may appear to bite off a little more than it can chew but it's one of the most satisfyingly baroque thrillers of the year, and thanks to a perfectly judged performance by Ryan Reynolds, it's quietly heartbreaking, too.

There’s a rather disturbing sense of privilege in After the Fall. It can’t help but justify Ben’s actions by stacking the deck against the victims.

Whatever its shortcomings, “Magician” accomplishes quite a bit as a corrective, and it also gives one an hour and a half in the company of Orson Welles. That in and of itself is worth at least a three-star rating.

Most filmmakers barely know how to capitalize on Dawson’s talents other than to fill up the screen with her goddess-like beauty. But Rock treats her single mom who boasts a checkered romantic past along with strong opinions as an equal sparring partner.

Inherent Vice is a film about a stoner which itself seems stoned. This is just one small part of what makes it distinctive.

The film commendably gives us vivid and memorable people whose personal stories strikingly illuminate their peoples’ struggles.

In news that will probably not startle too many of you, The Pyramid is pretty much junk from start to finish.

On both levels of the film, the archival and the textual, there’s much that’s fascinating and worthwhile. What’s regrettable is the refusal to contextualize and explore the ongoing ramifications of what we see and hear.

While much of it is quite funny, the film ends up feeling like a good comedy sketch stretched out unnecessarily to a feature-length.

Even if you can accept that there's nothing inherently wrong with being a little misanthropic in the right context, you'll probably find that Murder of a Cat's mean streak isn't wide enough.

The moments of believability in the surprisingly entertaining Life Partners have greater resonance.

What exerts an odd fascination here is that each character heartily embodies a different variety of solipsistic creep; you start feeling sorry for the creators of the movie for having to live among such awful people. Then it dawns on you that the film’s creators don’t find these people awful at all — they find them normal. Terrifying, really.

Remember this name: Aksel Hennie. If Pioneer, a mixed bag of a conspiracy thriller, works at all, it largely does so because of him. Hennie, now into his second decade as an actor in Norwegian film (he’s also written and directed a feature) gives a spectacular performance as Petter.

Miss Julie is a rather strange experience, with its consistently static medium shots of the three actors, as they roar their lines at one another. But it has an undeniable power.

If only Dying of the Light had broken Schrader's recent close-but-no-cigar streak.

It features career-best work by Long and Rossum, both eagerly devouring Esmail’s witty script. Yes, some of it is overwritten and a bit too clever for its own good, but more often it’s an engaging character piece.

Remote Area Medical is a rare contemporary documentary that is determined to tell by showing.

With a combination of power and grace, Julianne Moore elevates Still Alice above its made-for-cable-television trappings, and delivers one of the more memorable performances of her career.