The movie needed great performances, and it gets them from Ryan Reynolds and Ben Mendelsohn.

It's not much of a movie. But raging bull Robert De Niro, suited up to play for humor and heart, proves he can be a world-class charmer.

The film offers few answers about Fischer's descent into derangement. But you watch Maguire and slowly, with pity and terror, you understand.

In Spanish, "sicario" means "hitman." In film terms, Sicario is sensational, the most gripping and tension-packed spin through America's covert War on Drugs since Steven Soderbergh's Traffic 15 years ago.

There's only one star in this movie: Everest. Kormákur couldn't shoot higher than base camp, around 14,000 feet, without sickening the actors. But a crew traveled to the top to get footage, while much of the climbing was shot in the Dolomites. No matter. You watch Everest and you believe.

Ice-cold. Dead eyes. Demonic laugh. His face a mask you can't read until he's up in yours. Then run. That's Johnny Depp giving everything he's got in a riveting, rattlesnake performance as South Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger in Black Mass.

It makes you laugh till it hurts.

Gere, who has shockingly never been nominated for an Oscar, gives the performance of his career, intuitive and indelible.

No spoilers, except to say that cheap thrills can still be a blast. Not enough to make up for Shyamalan's awful "After Earth," but it's a start.

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

What hurts is that filmmaker Mia Hansen-Love did it better just a few months ago in "Eden," about the French house movement since the 1990s. In this movie, James tells Cole the ideal EDM track would work up the heart-rate of the crowd to 128 beats-per-minute. We Are Your Friends never even gets us to break a sweat.

This movie really moves. But a fleet of tanks couldn’t help the brothers Dowdle push past the plot holes in this rancid mess.

The movie steps lively with buoyant humor and palpable sexual tension, but keep an eye out for the dark places.

Lily Tomlin works miracles. She's comedy royalty whose best films (Nashville, The Late Show, All of Me, I Heart Huckabees) always cut deeper than a smile. But no Oscar. Maybe Grandma will do the trick. It's a Tomlin tour de force.

Eisenberg and Stewart stay appealing to the last. The movie, not so much.

Gerwig is the mistress of all things funny and fierce, and her byplay with Kirke (Gone Girl) is killer. You won't know what hit you.

Vikander, the sexbot in "Ex Machina," is having a hell of a year. And you can see why. Gaby isn't much of a part, but Vikander makes her a live wire. Her impromptu dance with Kuryakin that ends in a wrestling match is, well, something to see.

Straight Outta Compton plays better when it's outside the box, showing us N.W.A power and the consequences of abusing it. Would the movie be better if it didn't sidestep the band's misogyny, gay-bashing and malicious infighting? No shit. But what stands is an amazement, an electrifying piece of hip-hop history that speaks urgently to right now.

The movie is a world-class winner.

Powley is sensational, expertly blending hilarity and heartbreak. Her scenes with Wiig, sublime in her hard-won gravity, are unique and unforgettable. Just like the movie.

It helps that Kevin Kline excels as Ricki's ex, and Mamie Gummer, Streep's real-life daughter, imbues the fictional version with rare grit and grace. Otherwise, too many wrong notes.

The latest reboot of the Fantastic Four — the cinematic equivalent of malware — is worse than worthless.

Nothing and everything happen in the movie. Director James Ponsoldt (The Spectacular Now), working from a fluid script by playwright Donald Margulies, does justice to the book without compromising his film.

Leslie Mann and wild-card Chris Hemsworth, as her cock-flashing hubby, get the heartiest hoots. The rest is comic history warmed over.

McQuarrie — an Oscar winner for his script for 1995's "The Usual Suspects" — has an ace to play. That's the indie sensibility he brings to the usual Hollywood FX.

Yikes! I saw Pixels as a 3D metaphor for Hollywood's digital assault on our eyes and brains. Not funny. Just relentless and exhausting.

Amazingly, Gyllenhaal never cheats on his character's sense of dignity. Against the odds, he keeps you in Billy's corner. That's a champ.

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.

Don't think you can take another Hollywood version of Sherlock Holmes? Snap out of it. Apologies to Robert Downey Jr. and Benedict Cumberbatch, but what Ian McKellen does with Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective in Mr. Holmes is nothing short of magnificent.

Allen has crafted a suspenseful mind-teaser that might feel too much like an intellectual exercise if Phoenix and Stone didn't infuse it with raw humanity. The conceptual bubble Allen creates in Irrational Man is potent provocation built to keep you up nights.

Sweet is not how Schumer wants Trainwreck to go down. She wants to explode rom-com clichés and replace them with something fierce and ready to rumble. Done.

The latest film franchise culled from Marvel's comic-book universe packs a ton of fun into a teeny package. Its low-key charm helps glide us over trouble spots in tone and pacing.

The questions is: Can the minions carry a movie all by their mischievous mini-selves? 'Fraid not. This origin story, while being utterly harmless and far from despicable, wears out its welcome way too soon.

A groundbreaking film that leaves you in stitches while quietly breaking your heart.

What makes Asif Kapadia's documentary a devastating don’t-miss dazzler — like the lady herself — is the way he lays out her story without editorializing.

We get bracing bro banter, pectoral flexing and the whole gang going wild on Molly. Good times.

Terminator Genisys fires on all action cylinders when director Alan Taylor (Thor: The Dark World) follows the model James Cameron set in the first two films, still the glory of the series.

If you're ready to go with the hit-and-miss flow, you'll laugh your ass off.

Brice, who made an impressive thriller debut with 2014's "Creep," has a knack for getting the most out of four people talking.

The movie is a small miracle, lifted by Ruffalo and these two remarkable young actresses. Refusing to soften the edges when Cam is off his meds, Ruffalo is a powerhouse. He and Forbes craft an indelibly intimate portrait of what makes a family when the roles of parent and child are reversed.

Just know that Famuyiwa keeps the action spinning with vibrant speed and rare sensitivity. He's made a comedy of social expectation that plays like an exhilarating gift.

The idea has been tried — remember TV's "Herman's Head"? — but never with the artful brilliance of filmmaker Pete Docter (Up; Monsters, Inc.).

The Wolfpack is frustrating in how much it doesn't tell us about the Angulos and the legal tangle that comes with their release. But once you've met these kids, you won't forget them — or the film that puts a hypnotic and haunting spin on movie love.

This film geek's dream of a movie pulls the ground out from under you, but stays smartass to the end. Sweet.

This state-of-the-art dino epic is also more than a blast of rumbling, roaring, "did you effing see that!" fun. It's got a wicked streak of subversive attitude that goes by the name of Colin Trevorrow.

Harington and Vikander provide the spark the film needs to get us through the tribulations and tragedies that pile on with numbing regularity. You leave Testament of Youth feeling some of the impact that Brittain’s book must have had at the time.

I'm OK with Entourage onscreen because it's really a victory lap for a cast that once earned our DVR-ready affection. To echo Perry Farrell: "Yeah! Oh, yeah!" As for the haters? Hug it out, bitches.

All the actors come up aces. And let's bottle the delicious byplay between McCarthy and Byrne, whose comic timing is bitchy perfection.

Musically, the film is a miracle, right and riveting in every detail.

It gives me no pleasure to report that Aloha is still a mess, a handful of stories struggling for a unifying tone.

There's nothing to keep the pulse alive after the first quake. Peyton throws in a second quake and a tsunami, but after a while buildings tumbling into the ocean are just a bunch of pixels turning everything into visual mush and leaving audiences in a digital stupor.

Brad Bird's Tomorrowland, a noble failure about trying to succeed, is written and directed with such open-hearted optimism that you cheer it on even as it stumbles.

Which one of these women is the most irredeemable? Coming to grips with that question is what gives the flawed but fascinating Every Secret Thing its power to haunt.

Writer-director Andrew Niccol, who worked impressively with Hawke on the topic of genetic modification in 1997's "Gattaca," puts a lot out there.

The sequel is more musically varied, though Kay Cannon's script amps the sass at the expense of structure. But the MVP here is Elizabeth Banks.

Mad Max: Fury Road kicked my ass hard. It'll kick yours. So get prepped for a new action classic. You won't know what hit you.

Screenwriters Jarrad Paul and Andrew Mogel, in an auspicious directing debut, are attempting to tackle emotional areas that can't be glibly resolved. Sure, they trip up a few times. But it's exhilarating watching them aim high.

Gore is kept to a minimum, a fact likely to disappoint audiences out for blood. It's a changed Schwarzenegger on view in Maggie, and the change becomes him.

It's all stupefyingly unfunny. Hot Pursuit is one hot mess.

Vinterberg may rush the final act, but he gets pitch-perfect performances from Schoenaerts, Sheen and Sturridge and brings out the wild side in Mulligan, who can hold a close-up like nobody's business. She's a live wire in a movie that knows how to stir up a classic for the here and now.

Byrne is sensational, finding the broken places under Justine's rebellious hot-mom surface. Nothing groundbreaking here, but there's something to be said for a fun time that won't let the laughs go down too easy.

In The Water Diviner, Crowe strives to strike a universal chord about the futility of war. Simplistic? Maybe. But in crafting a film about the pain a parent feels after losing a child in battle, Crowe transcends borders and politics. It's not war being honored here, it's sacrifice and inconsolable loss. I'd call that a substantial achievement.

A whole summer of fireworks packed into one movie. It doesn't just go to 11, it starts there.

What pulls us in are the performances of Franco and Hill, who know how to hold and reward the camera's tight scrutiny. They play a riveting game of cat-and-mouse.

What kind of a movie takes place entirely on one screwed-up teen's computer screen? That would be Unfriended, a creep-you-out experiment in terror that damn near pulls off every trick up its cyber sleeve.

Ida is an art film in the finest sense of the term — it is austere technique counterbalanced by emotions that bleed.

Recalling the best movies about actors, from "All About Eve" to "Birdman," Clouds of Sils Maria is a bonbon spiked with wit and malice. It's also a penetrating look into the female psyche, a specialty of critic-turned-filmmaker Olivier Assayas, who wrote Juliette Binoche her first starring role, as a young actress in 1985's "Rendez-vous."

Isaac's brilliant take on this bearded, buzz-cut and barefoot Dr. Frankenstein is a tour de force of shock and awe. Ex Machina springs surprises that will haunt you for a good long time.

Furious 7 is the best F&F by far, two hours of pure pow fueled by dedication and passionate heart.

Audiences forced to endure the 109 coma-inducing minutes of Serena should bring an e-book or a soft pillow.

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.

It's not easy hanging talents like Ferrell and Hart out to dry. But Get Hard gets the job done. It's one limp noodle.

The Gunman degenerates into dreary setups for guns and gore. Penn merits more. So do we.

Pacino is irresistible. Whether strutting onstage or wrestling with his drug-fueled demons, he doesn't skimp on Danny's human limits. With nine Lennon tunes on the soundtrack and a new song for Danny to express his creative reinvention, this hilarious and heartfelt movie is an exuberant gift.

Surprise is lacking. Ditto humor, though Miles Teller (Whiplash), as a thorn in Four's side, gets in a few fun licks by not staying on the film's draggy tempo. Otherwise, Insurgent stubbornly fails to surge.

The twice Oscar-nominated actor appears onscreen only briefly. Hawke knows where the spotlight belongs. Believe me, the 81 minutes spent in Bernstein's funny, touching and vital presence is something you don't want to miss.

Bad things can happen to talented people. Take Tom McCarthy, who wrote and directed "The Station Agent," "The Visitor" and "Win Win." All gems. His fourth film, The Cobbler, is a failure on every level.

Count Cinderella as a dazzling dream of a movie from director Kenneth Branagh, who can leap from the Bard (Henry V) to the boffo (Thor) with no apparent sweat.

Mitchell has his own twisted gift for letting atmosphere help define character. It Follows creeps you out big-time in that cool way that freezes the blood.

Blomkamp and his wife and co-writer, Terri Tatchell, stack the deck. Instead of awe, we get "E.T." - aww.

Dench and Nighy are class personified. The secret here is merely to luxuriate in the pleasure of their company.

As the cases mount and institutional reps succeed best by playing dumb, The Hunting Ground becomes a energizing call to action, a potent provocation that’s been too long coming.

You can laugh with Maps to the Stars, but you can't laugh it off. Prepare to be knocked for a loop.

I'm a sucker for caper movies in which impossibly clever con artists do impossibly dangerous things while looking impossibly gorgeous. I could feel Focus trying to be that caper. I'm not asking for nirvana, such as Hitchcock's "Notorious" or David O. Russell's "American Hustle," just a taste of sexy escapism. A taste is all you get in Focus, but it'll do till the whole enchilada comes along.

Demange's film, spiked by an outstanding, all-stops-out O'Connell, makes politics unnervingly personal. Too much? What else do you expect of a cinematic knockout punch that sends you reeling?

Thanks to the fleet direction of Niki Caro and no-bull performances by the boys, notably Carlos Pratts as the team's best runner and Ramiro Rodriguez as the worst. Along the way, McFarland, USA gives us a vital sense of hardscrabble lives and dreams of glory deferred. All cheers here are fully earned.

Writer-director Damián Szifron hasn't made one film — he's made six, stitched together under one title and sent out to a world that may not be ready. Screw the pussies. Wild Tales is gleefully out for blood.

Here's a vampire movie for people who don’t like vampire movies. What We Do in the Shadows is packed with laughs, almost all of them are intentional.

It's easy to overlook the failings in The Last Five Years. Let it in and it knocks you back on your heels. Just like love.

Kingsman is all over the place, sometimes to its detriment. But you won’t want to miss the surprises it delights in springing.

The true audiences for Fifty Shades of Grey are gluttons for punishment — by boredom.

This kind of pandering FX padding, unnurtured by humor or heart, is what shifts Jupiter Ascending from a shambles to a fiasco. In an effort to win back audiences by lowering their standards and their daring, the Wachowskis wind up where you never expected to find them creatively: on the ropes.

Flaws aside, Kill the Messenger inspires a moral outrage that feels disconcertingly timely.

First-time filmmaker Kate Barker-Froyland trusts the silences that occur when two people aren't talking. That's a good thing. What's not so good is when the talk grows enervating.

Writer-director Mike Binder, who worked beautifully with Costner on 2005's "The Upside of Anger," finds himself on the downside of juggling stereotypes.

The Humbling is a dark dazzler shot through with mirth and delicious malice. But be warned. It is not Roth's novel.

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.

Red Army deserves a big boo-yah from audiences for being illuminating and hugely entertaining. And if some of the talk is in Russian, live with it.