Eastwood's modest approach to these momentous events shames the usual Hollywood showboating. In a rare achievement, he's made a film that truly is good for the soul.

This one's a winner. And Baymax, baby, call your agent. You're about to be a household name.

It’s a juicy subject, and it might be too big for this particular storytelling approach.

What Will & Harper is, at its heart, is a portrait of a friendship and how the fundamentals of a deep and lasting bond doesn’t change even when the people within it do. That alone makes it worth the trip.

Edward Scissorhands isn't perfect. It's something better: pure magic.

Here's the thing about Mommy: Even when Dolan gets self-indulgent and works his themes into the ground, he's a one-man fireworks display. His images jump off the screen and stick in your head.

The impression is that you’ve just seen a great New York movie, with a great star turn at the core of it, and yet still feels like something’s missing. It’s ultimately an excuse to watch Washington go HAM.

The film's secrets unfold slowly, allowing Phoenix and Paltrow -- a luminous fusion of grace and grit -- to build a relationship in full. The script, by Gray and Richard Menello, is inspired by Dostoevsky's "White Nights."

The worst thing I can say about this savage, sexy and ferociously funny screen translation of three stories from Frank Miller's Sin City series of graphic novels is that it's too much of a good thing.

Journeys, shot on the last two nights of Young's 2011 solo world tour, is essential Neil Young.

She Said doesn’t pretend that wrongs have been righted once and for all. It just wants to pay tribute to two people stood up to a Goliath and took him down not with one good shot but a million tiny cuts and a lot of hard work.

Don't let anyone spoil the surprises of this thrashing, thrilling chunk of cinematic gold. It's one for the time capsule.

Yang turns this heartwarmer into a feat of delicate magic.

Working from a tight script by Ben Ripley, Jones creates scary, hairy, high-octane tension. Disbelief? Suspended, until the logic lapses kick in later. It's a small price to pay for a ride that starts at wild and accelerates from there.

The film’s most powerful asset is Thompson (Sorry to Bother You, Thor: Ragnarok) in a performance that cuts through the script’s cliches to find the heart of a character that reflects the plight of a woman alone in a man’s world.

Sheridan, so good in "Mud" with Matthew McConaughey, excels here as a vulnerable sapling.

The whole movie is a grab-bag of insanity so off-the-chain hilarious that you stick with it even when the convoluted plot goes haywire.

Bird may be the most divisive movie of Andrea Arnold’s career, and we’re including the gloriously feral 2011 adaptation of Wuthering Heights. But like everything else she’s done to date, it’s also rewarding in unexpected ways — the sort of film that taps into endless reservoir of empathy as much as it shocks you with extremities.

As the film moves toward its painfully inevitable climax, Queen and Slim fulfills the promise made by Waithe and Matzoukas to create a new form of protest art. Their film isn’t meant to lionize these two everyday people-turned-folk heroes, but to celebrate their strength and pride.

In this steadily gripping hothouse of a thriller, it's Cooper -- funny, fierce and bug-wild -- who gives us a look into the abyss.

Tsunashima is superb, and a never-better Collette (The Sixth Sense, About a Boy, The Hours) has a radiant intensity that hits you right in the heart. She burns this movie into your memory.

Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland plumb the violence of the mind with slashing wit and shocking gravity. Happy nightmares.

Shot through with grit and grace, Novitiate is a potent provocation. It's also something special.

Come for the snickering, it seems to say. Stay for the unexpected lump in your throat.

It’s a little zany, a little blue, emotionally jagged, adventurously all over the place. If you’re a romantic, though, the movie’s inciting incident — the bomb that detonates all the problems to come — probably plays like something closer to a scene out of a horror movie.

Long before Palm Trees becomes an outright film about sex work, it establishes itself as a film about the dire social transaction that sex can be — an old story, tragic every time, and effective here.

Penn, in tandem with the superb cinematographer Eric Gautier (The Motorcycle Diaries), captures the majesty and terror of the wilderness in ways that make you catch your breath.

Fort Worth native Channing Godfrey Peoples, making a striking feature debut as director and screenwriter, knows this place in her bones. She’s crafted a keenly observant and emotionally resonant debut film that feels authentically lived in.

The laughs hurt so good, and the guests at this shindig treat each other like dartboards for 71 minutes. Yes, that's short for a movie, but your nerves couldn’t take more.

This gifted writer-director isn't out to dull the masses with cinematic opium. Embedded in the visionary headtrip of A Scanner Darkly is a hotly political call to arms.

It’s a messy movie about messy lives, occasionally in ways you wish it wasn’t. But The Iron Claw is also a story of redemption that’s less about pinning down opponents and much more about breaking cycles.

A mesmerizing mood piece.

Writer-director Jacques Audiard (A Prophet) probes the psyches of two people in crisis. His hypnotic film means to shake you, and does. Schoenaerts reveals unexpected layers in Ali. And Cotillard delivers a tour de force of unleashed emotions. She's astonishing.

This hard-hitting doc is like Summer of Soul in reverse — instead of a feel-good music celebration, it’s a long day’s journey into “Break Stuff.”

My advice, in the face of such hallucinatory brilliance, is that you hang on.

The suspense is killer as military minds in the US and the UK come together only to lock horns on a drone operation in Nairobi.

The filmmaker is walking a creative tightrope. How do you resist that? My advice is: don't. There are a few fits and starts, and a palette switch from black-and-white to color. But Ozon is onto something about nationalism, borders and a hatred of the other that's as timely as Trump.

Val is simply the reflections of an actor with a knack for self-documentation, who has seen better days but remains buoyant by the prospect of making art in one form or another.

The Fight may be cursed with a generic name. But it’s a 100-percent accurate one.

There's more palm-sweating suspense in one minute of this baby than in all of "The Omen."

What makes this documentary more than just a feature-length DVD supplement is how these peeks behind the curtain are offset by a connect-the-dots case study of obsession and devotion taken to extremes.

The British, Nigerian-born Oyelowo has proved himself an actor of extraordinary power in roles as diverse as Dr. Martin Luther King in "Selma" and the resentful son of a White House servant in "The Butler." As Robert, the actor radiates warm humor and quiet strength.

So what if nothing is revealed. Todd Haynes is a mischievous visionary who puts the music and the myth of Bob Dylan before us in I'm Not There and dares us not to revel in the troubadour's poetic, contentious, ever-changing essence. It's a feast for the eyes, the ears and the Dylanologist scratching around our minds and hearts.

This sequel knows that when you leave childish things behind, you risk leaving key parts of the child’s personality and personal growth as well. It also recognizes that young adulthood is a different game altogether.

Veering on the maudlin, the film ultimately succeeds by striking a universal chord on the subject of inconsolable loss. It's a stirring, humane testament from a surprising source.

Steadily engrossing and devilishly funny, and, o brother, does it look sharp.

If you've forgotten the kick you get from watching a globe-trotting, butt-kicking, whiplash-paced action movie done with humor, style and smarts, take a ride with The Bourne Supremacy.

The Fall Guy is at its delirious best not when it’s ginning up sound and fury and mayhem, but when it simply lets Gosling and Blunt trade screwball banter and give every scene they share a will-they-or-won’t-they tension.

Creed III is very much a boxing movie. But it’s got a gnarled, contingent conflict at its center that’s a little too knowing for the movie not to have a little more than usual on its mind.

Fans have been patiently waiting for the screen version of Wicked for decades now, and it’s safe to say that their faith will be rewarded. It’s also obvious that as much as this is still a tale of two witches, each blessed with equally beautiful voices, there’s a very clear standout here that’s lifting this occasionally leaden jazz-hands-extravaganza up to higher ground.

Every move Hoffman makes subtly rivets attention. There's the uncanny German accent, the boozing, the chain-smoking, the glances at his assistant (Nina Hoss), the secret life he keeps hidden and the betrayals even Günther can't see coming. Hoffman is simply magnificent. Face it. We won't see his like again.

We may never see the likes of something like this again, even as climate change makes the impetus behind Biosphere 2 that much more urgent. But if Spaceship Earth proves nothing else, it left behind some one hell of a stranger-than fiction yarn.

It's instructive to note what a killer actor Richard Gere can be when a movie rises to his level. Arbitrage is such a movie, a sinfully entertaining look at the sins committed in the name of money.

The World to Come is full of inversions, deviations from the usual themes, complicated as it is by interlocking contrasts, unexpected emphases. This is a movie in which love springs in winter, whereas spring beckons devastation.

The women's characters are as well drawn as the men's in a splendidly acted film that captures the confusion of love in ways that are ardent, affecting and wonderfully funny.

Even the opaque hints can drive you cuckoo with frustration. Lanthimos does not coddle his audience. His M.O. is to shock, provoke and leave you talking to the voices inside your own head. The choice is yours.

Yes, his direction hits a few tonal bumps; he could have been tougher on his screenwriter on tightening the plot twists. No matter. Wind River packs an elemental power that knocks you for a loop.

Come for the uplift of an underdog sports story centered around the guys who made you realize a shoe isn’t just a shoe, superstar foot or not. Stay for the film that Davis gives you when, standing unguarded, she’s suddenly passed the ball, effortlessly rolls it off her fingertips, and gets nothing but net.

Maguire and Dunst keep Spider-Man on a high with their sweet-sexy yearning, spinning a web of dazzle and delicacy that might just restore the good name of movie escapism.

Wick 3, starring Keanu Reeves in the role he was born to play, hits you so hard in the thrill zone that instead of feeling exhausted when director Chad Stahelski calls a halt at 130 minutes, you’re panting for Chapter 4.

Free Chol Soo Lee is not a true crime documentary. If anything, it goes out of its way to avoid becoming one.

Whether or not Casino meets your expectations, it delivers the rush you only get from an audacious gamble.

As a film about two gay men in their middle age, Supernova does all the right things, anchors its sense of conviction in rhythms and silences, in-jokes and private conflicts, that cohere into a natural portrait of being together. In a word, it’s a solid, emotive drama, all the more so for the pain at the movie’s center being equally natural, valid, inevitable.

A hilarious hodgepodge, in which De Niro gives his best comic performance to date.

There's enough plot here to sink a soap opera, but the actors prevail. Parker is a no-bull charmer. Driver leaves bite marks on her juicy role. And Mbatha-Raw, so good this year in "Belle", is dynamite.

The go-for-broke intensity and emotional layering Watts brings to her role is an acting triumph. And McGregor matches her in a performance of ferocity and feeling.

In the guise of a nerve-jangling thriller, director Gabriele Salvatores, an Oscar winner for "Mediterraneo," delivers a fierce, frightening and deeply moving study of childhood. It's a keeper.

It’s one of the blackest comedies to hit the screen since Dr. Strangelove. Spurlock proves himself a supersize talent; he makes you choke on every laugh.

An offbeat mix of typically quirky elements, and it could have easily been hard to stomach. But the author and director Lasse Hallstrom's affection for these characters shines through. Their greatest asset is the young Leo himself, in his first Oscar-nominated role, bringing great sensitivity and complexity to a part that might have come off as cloying or cynical.

The interactions between the people may seem small in comparison to the wide-open landscapes and rolling hills. In the hands of everyone involved with this moving drama, however, they echo long and loudly nonetheless.

The specter of war haunts Cold Mountain, but you remember it for the heat of its romantic yearning and the mysteries that wrap themselves around you until you're lost in another world.

It’s the old Monkees trick: If you can’t find a band, manufacture one. British director Alan Parker (Fame, Mississippi Burning) lucks out. The dozen unknowns he’s chosen — ten with no previous acting credits — make a joyful noise and rousing company. Parker, however, hasn’t made much of a movie.

What do you say about a movie that proves Zac Efron can act, introduces a master thespian in Christian McKay and launches a charm assault that is damn near irresistible? I say, see it.

Eastwood, working from a script that Jason Hall adapted from Kyle's 2012 memoir, fuses the explosive and the sorrowful as only he can. That's why his film takes a piece out of you.

This film isn’t for everyone’s tastes. Then again, neither was Sorry to Bother You‘s mix of critical commentary and absurdist comedy; and, like that film, I Love Boosters takes a wilder, big-picture swerve in its third act. Still, you have to admire the fact that Riley is weaponizing his humor and using it to brusquely jostle your brain by any means necessary.

Owen Kline’s script is boisterous, funny, and very much committed to the bit. This is a movie about junior independence, after all, about a slightly full-of-himself young talent who’s journeying out on his own for the first time. So Kline makes sure the journey is memorable.

It's a powerful and provocative achievement from a first-time filmmaker of enormous promise.

Setting it against the backdrop of a wanton city under siege, Schroeder crafts a film of whiplash urgency.

The plot is too implausible to rank with "Unforgiven," but, oh, what a fun ride.

News Flash: Tom Holland is the best movie Spider-Man ever. He finds the kid inside the famous red onesie and brings out the kid in even the most hardened filmgoer.

His singing voice and records remain the definition of acquired taste, and King for a Day won’t necessarily send you back to his songs the way other first-rate music docs can. But watching it, you feel glad that such a genuine oddball lived his particular dream and never revealed any public bitterness over the arc of his life. His legacy, it turns out, was the last thing from tiny.

Watergate is an extraordinary dossier on what remains a major black mark on the republic. It’s also a sobering reminder that just because we were able to stop it once doesn’t mean we can relegate it to our country’s back pages. Consider this a cautionary tale.

What's on screen in The Grandmaster is off-puttingly disjointed, but it's also dazzling in its startling action and ravishing romance.

A lifetime in movies runs through this prime vintage Eastwood performance. You can't take your eyes off him. The no-frills, no-bull Gran Torino made my day.

It’s a movie that knows in its bones that there are no easy answers. Just the human struggle to find connection. And it’s that vision of unadorned, no-bullshit life, played out against the background of Hollywood film fantasy, that makes a connection so strong that audiences won’t want to let go.

The Killer is slickly directed and propulsive — this is a Fincher film, after all—amplified by an eerie electronic soundtrack from regular collaborators Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

You’ll still spend close to two hours wondering whether Splitsville wants you to walk away thinking that you’ve seen something semi-sweet or almost irredeemably sour. The key is recognizing how satisfying things feel when they somehow manage to split the difference.

What Cars teaches is how to blend brash comedy with technical astonishments so that each enhances the other. I can't imagine who wouldn't want to test-drive this one. Like the promos say, "It's got that new-movie smell."

Outrageously, even shamelessly, entertaining.

Guilty-pleasure movies should not be underestimated. I had a scary-fun-house blast at Zombieland, in which studly Woody Harrelson, nerdy Jesse Eisenberg, sexy Emma Stone and sunshiny Abigail Breslin roam a near-dead world kicking zombie ass.

Almodóvar's admiration for Munro is not misplaced. Despite rough patches, Julieta morphs into a haunting and hypnotic tribute to both their talents.

Frankly, Cruz’s turn alone is worth the price of admission.

Refreshingly naughty and nice.

The Lookout is Frank's show. He's crafted a haunting and hypnotic film that transcends pulp by creating characters that get under your skin.

This movie, like Hanks and Greengrass’s Captain Philips, only excites — quite capably — when it needs to. Greengrass’ trademark efficiency as a storyteller is very much here. But more often the movie sticks to the contemplative: a moody character study with dashes of hillside danger and inner turmoil and post-war social conflict and all the rest — the allspice seasoning of the adult western genre.

The Hangover ain't art, but Phillips has shaped the hardcore hilarity into the summer party movie of all our twisted dreams.

Any cornball contrivances in the plot dissipate in watching the knockout talent of Williams, a performance artist with the exhilarating fire that only the best actors possess.

Battle of the Sexes is not an overtly political movie; it's a blast about two tennis champions going over the top to make a point.