This funny and touching movie depends on two can-do actresses to scrub past the biohazard of noxious clichés that threaten to intrude. Adams and Blunt get the job done.

Bridges has a fine time playing with himself, so to speak. Add Garrett Hedlund as Flynn's son Sam, the rebel who zaps himself into the server to find his lost dad, and director Joseph Kosinski has a recipe for adventure that should delight gamers. Non-techies are on their own.

In substance and style, the movie is more than a few tears short of Jordan's "The Crying Game." But Murphy is an actor to watch. Even in heels.

This engrossing blend of humor and heartbreak only hints at the causes, from betrayal to child abuse, of this family's dysfunction. Hang on. Attention is richly rewarded.

Ron Hagen’s camera work captures the delirium of carnage that drives out rational thought. Ignore the prudes who think you shouldn’t make films about things that scare you. It’s a first line of defense. This Aussie Reservoir Dogs opens up a brutal world that needs to be understood.

The overall tone is one of melancholy rather than sci-fi wonder, and the film's cynicism is hard to shake.

Just know that Pulse possesses the dark art to make your pulse pound and your hair stand on end -- with no cheating.

Brace yourself for Thirteen -- it'll cause a commotion.

If you’re looking for an orgasmic trip to heavy-metal heaven, this is it.

A movie that offers hard speculation and harder truths. You won't be able to get it out of your head.

It scared the living crap out of me. Only at the movies is that a compliment.

A haunting and hypnotic movie, just the thing to get lost in.

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.

Ocean's 8 is a heist caper that looks gorgeous, keeps the twists coming and bounces along on a comic rhythm that's impossible to resist. What more do you want in summer escapism?

Clooney fashions a style all his own: visceral, vital and churning with off-the-wall ideas. That's what makes you want to see Clooney direct again. You can feel his joy in it.

Reeves plugs in a live wire to play Abby, the girl vampire who's been 12 for, well, a very long time. That would be Chloë Grace Moretz, an acting dynamo (see Kick-Ass) whose mesmerizing performance goes deep.

Director Paul Schrader has fashioned a film of surpassing creepiness. It's pretentious, too, and sometimes maddeningly dull. But the erotically unsettling atmosphere – exquisitely rendered by cinematographer Dante Spinotti – soon seeps in.

Forget "The Conjuring," Blackfish may be the scariest movie around.

This thriller is so gritty it could chafe your eyeballs...Miami Blues is high on its own malevolence.

Bright Star is the New Zealand writer-director's raw, sensual attempt to render Keats as experienced by a young girl who couldn't understand the genius of his verse.

As directed with grit and grace by Rodrigo García, this quietly devastating film goes bone-deep.

You cheered Jack Black in "School of Rock," now give it up for Paul Green in the real thing.

There may be nothing fresh left to find in teens coming of age, but director Jake Schreier (Robot and Frank) fakes it with genuine sincerity.

If there is such a thing as hard-core with a soft heart, this is it.

It looks the same, moves the same and sounds the same (those Alan Menken songs!) as the original. But some of the magic has gone M.I.A.

Hellboy is on fire with scares and laughs and del Toro’s visionary dazzle. It’s the tenderness that comes as an unexpected bonus.

Enjoying this wondrous wisp of a something is easy, describing it is hard. Luckily, Charlyne Yi is an enchantress.

The buildup is steadily engrossing. That's because Nolan keeps the emphasis on character, not gadgets. Gotham looks lived in, not art-directed.

Keaton, a sorceress at blending humor and heartbreak, honors the film with a grace that makes it stick in the memory.

Basing a teen film on Romeo and Juliet? It'd had been done. Replacing a Montague and a Capulet with a San Fernando Valley shopping-mall habitue (Deborah Foreman) and a sensitive Hollywood punk (Nicolas Cage)? Now we're talking.

Blast of fright and fun.

It looks like a documentary...Don't let anyone tell you more.

For a movie made from spare parts - take "The Exorcist" and attach to "The Blair Witch Project" and "Paranormal Activity" - The Last Exorcism delivers the heebie-jeebie goods.

"Sensational" is the word for Joseph Gordon-Levitt (equally striking in Mysterious Skin), who stars as Brendan, the teen outsider who becomes a budding Bogart.

Writer-director Peter Sollett takes the familiar and turns it into hot, heartfelt movie magic.

The movie goes soft in its final stages, but Rudd and Segel keep it real. "Sweet, sweet hangin'," says Peter of knowing Sydney. The same goes for the movie.

Better than Man of Steel but below the high bar set by Nolan's Dark Knight, Dawn of Justice is still a colossus, the stuff that DC Comics dreams are made of for that kid in all of us who yearns to see Batman and Superman suit up and go in for the kill.

In contrasting the sexuality and rebellion of Lucy's generation with his own, Bertolucci clearly yearns to rekindle his creative spirit.

Pitt is tremendous in the role, a conscience detectable even in Wardaddy's blinkered gaze. But it's Lerman who anchors the film with a shattering, unforgettable portrayal of corrupted innocence. Fury means to grab us hard from the first scene and never let go. Mission accomplished.

The late actor (Anton Yelchin) brings a sly wit and bruised conscience to the role that marks him again as a consummate actor and another reason that the feverishly hypnotic Thoroughbreds gets inside your head and stays there.

It's hard to turn a stoner comedy into a franchise – those require a little too much follow-through. But Cheech & Chong pulled it off with the immortal trilogy of Up in Smoke, Cheech & Chong's Next Movie and Nice Dreams. And like the Godfather and Star Wars trilogies, this one peaks with Chapter Two – with some help from Pee-wee Herman. "Man, if you had a second brain," says Cheech, "it would die of loneliness, man."

Caught in the slipstream between action and angst, Man of Steel is a bumpy ride for sure. But there's no way to stay blind to its wonders.

It makes you laugh till it hurts.

Uproarious and unexpectedly biting.

This is a generational family saga everyone can relate to, and Nair gives it her special magic.

Hotly hilarious.

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.

Emma Watson is sensational as Nicki.

A summer firecracker. It's also a tribute to outcasts -- teens, gays, minorities, even Dixie Chicks. It's not without thought or feeling, except when its mind gets bent by the gods of box office. Then it's craven and empty.

The Secret of NIMH folds a commentary on the evils of animal experimentation and a salute to the bravery of single moms into a smart, gripping action-adventure framework, becoming an underappreciated touchstone for sensitive Eighties kids.

The animation is pretty, the songs are tuneful, and Josh Gad gets big laughs as Olaf, a snowman with a sun fetish. It's the holidays, people, work with it.

This hilarious, high-kicking nonsense cost two cents and looks it -- hell, it was shot in 19 days, but you'll laugh helplessly anyway.

A Dirty Shame is Waters unleashed, and wicked, kinky fun for anyone except the twits who rated it NC-17.

In his third feature, following 2009's "Impolex" and 2011's "The Color Wheel," Perry, 30, offers a stinging portrait of writing as one of the bleeding arts. And he's bloody funny about it in the bargain.

Bruckner is an amazement, piercing the heart without begging for sympathy. This small gem of a movie is the perfect setting for her breakthrough performance.

The Village, even when its step falters, is on to something more provocative than seeing dead people. Its power, unrelated to digital monsters, comes from the tension building inside the characters.

Based on William Boyd's 1981 novel, the film has a touch of Evelyn Waugh — though the satire is served dry, it has still got a kick.

Kearns' conflict is readable in Kinnear's every word and gesture. His performance is worth cheering.

Even when you know what's coming, Crazy Heart haunts you like a classic country song. It's a mesmerizer. So is Bad Blake. This dude also abides.

Director Brad Anderson tightens the screws of suspense, but it's Bale's gripping, beyond-the-call-of-duty performance that holds you in thrall.

Though Hollywood hyperbolizes the Gregory Poirier script -- Mann is a fictional character -- John Singleton ("Boyz N the Hood") directs the film with riveting urgency.

Your reaction to Author will come down the question that haunts the film, and assuredly Albert herself: Do the widely-praised writings of LeRoy become less praiseworthy when you know they were crafted under false pretenses? It's a question worth chewing on even if the film asking it stacks the deck.

The simplicity of Michael Petroni’s script seems a drawback at first. But skilled director Brian Percival (Downton Abbey) slowly, effectively tightens the vise as evil intrudes into the life of this child.

Mamet is on his game, and that is a sight to see. No con.

James Ponsoldt's funny and touching coming-of-age tale covers old ground with disarming freshness.

Campbell Scott swings at one of the year's juiciest roles and knocks it out of the park.

An idol had fallen, and Gibney and the superb director of photography Maryse Alberti were there to capture the descent, including a confessional interview in which Armstrong blames the corruption of the game far more than himself. The movie rambles at two-plus hours, but the provocation never stops.

A surprise package of fun, fright and untamed imagination.

The film never digs deep enough into the pressures on Glass from his family, his peers and himself to achieve psychological depth. But as an inside look into the hothouse of journalism, it's dynamite.

Hamilton manifests her vision of what politics can do to individual thinking with subtlety and sophistication. Remember her name. She's a genuine find.

Hirsch opens his heart to the role. And Dorff, matching the depth of feeling he showed in Sofia Coppola's "Somewhere," excels at digging deep into Jerry Lee's pain.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is every rousing, whup-ass thing you want in an escapist adventure.

Gore keeps us riveted by being charming, literate and profoundly persuasive on a topic that's scarier than anything in a dozen Japanese horror flicks. Vote Gore on this one.

In this roaringly comic and powerfully affecting road movie, Terence Stamp gives one of the year's best performances.

With the help of Hamilton, Ross and Olmos, sublime actors who radiate grit and grace, Sayles has made Go for Sisters a movie that stays inside your head long after you see it. It's a keeper.

The filmmakers offer no commentary. We watch. And what we see is explosive, deeply moving and impossible to shake.

In Final Portrait, art achieves a permanence that trumps an evanescent feast. What holds us through all the exasperating starts and stops is Rush, a live-wire actor of such effortless charisma that we’re drawn to his every utterance and gesture. Hammer, as a stand-in for the audience, can only stare in wonder as we do.

There's a lot going on here. Maybe too much. The filmmakers can't draw coherence out of chaos. But Fey does.

Foy's performance is something you don't want to miss. Whether spewing f-bombs, kneeing a suspected assailant in the balls, or promising a blowjob to Nate for a few minutes on his secret cell phone, Foy comes on like gangbusters. Fans of her prim, proper regent on "The Crown" are in for a shock.

Comedy really is hard. So it's a kick when a filmmaker gets it right, as Noah Baumbach does in this stingingly funny take on aging.

Sex, lies, betrayal and murder set among the gods of the Beat Generation. That's Kill Your Darlings, a dark beauty of a film that gets inside your head and stays there.

There's Theron, like a force of nature, compelling us to go beyond TV-movie supposition and look Wuornos straight in the eye. Her raw and riveting performance makes Monster an experience you won't forget.

It's good fun for a while, especially the therapy sessions that feature Luis Guzman as a gay hood with a paunch he covers in Day-Glo spandex and John Turturro as Dave's "anger buddy." John C. Reilly also scores as a bully turned Buddhist monk.

Even education can't kill the demon of fun in Black. Enroll in his class and you won't stop laughing.

The movie damn near lives up to that promise. Picture the Marx brothers and the Coen boys collaborating on a valentine spiked with mirth and malice.

Melancholy and doubt may seem like gloomy qualities to blend into an amorous romp. But that shot of gravity is what makes Magic in the Moonlight memorable and distinctively Woody Allen.

The power of this Holocaust tale sneaks up and floors you.

Fueled by gripping suspense, dark humor and outraged humanity, the film is a modern horror story that means to shake you, and does.

Though The Drop covers familiar ground, it simmers with charged emotion. The image that lingers belongs to Gandolfini.

The film is rich in period flavor and refreshingly unhip.

This is Cruise's show. And he nails it. The patented smile is gone, replaced by a glower that makes Jack Reacher a dark and dazzling ride into a new kind of hell.

Shocking and indispensable viewing.

Favreau supplies the go-go-go that makes the movie stratospherically entertaining, even without 3-D. But it's the promiscuously talented Downey who adds the grace notes that make Iron Man 2 something to remember.

This is the vital city that inspired Fellini – alive and lived in. When an actor falters or a joke falls flat, Roma stays fresh and dynamic. You can't take your eyes off it.

The three actors work wonders. And Zobel, as he did in 2012's mindbending "Compliance," nails every nuance of intonation and posture.

Fiercely provocative, Paprika shames Hollywood’s use of animation as a kiddie pacifier.

Jessica Chastain is a shining star with acting skills that resonate beyond her beauty. She is at her fierce, unerring best, which is saying something, in The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby.

That's what makes This Is 40 so potently, painfully funny, even when it's gross. What other film would dare suggest rectal monitoring as a form of closeness?