I, Tonya is funny as hell, but the pain is just as real. You'll laugh till it hurts.

An absolute stunner of a movie.

Nunez finds a striking lyricism in simple lives that inspires an uncommonly fine cast and ranks him as a world-class filmmaker.

It's a haunting, hypnotic film that exerts an escalating grip on the heart and the conscience.

By stooping low without selling out, this babes-and-bullets tour de force gets you high on movies again.

Maestro is every bit Felicia’s story as it is Bernstein’s, and all the better for it. Through her, we see how convivial, how magnetic, how cold he could be.

The film’s title doubles as its own description. And the fact that they damn near pull it off is enough to make you feel you’ve also been awakened from a long, deep sleep in which you were forced to settle for large, loud, cine-extravaganzas that forgot there’s supposed to be a human factor in any of it. Rise and shine, folks. You’ve got something to actually see here.

Relic marks an auspicious debut for Japanese-Australian director Natalie Erika James, who wants her slow-building thriller to seep into your bones rather than pound you with cheap scares.

If Alex Wheatle proves less powerful than the other films in this series, that’s in large part because of the strengths of the series. Every entry in Small Axe is a study in expansive miniatures. None of these films flexes its muscle by way of length. They burrow. Alex Wheatle’s primary imperfection is that it almost doesn’t burrow enough. The intricacies of Wheatle’s inner life feel almost rushed through or limited in their illustration. I wanted to know more about this young man — which is also a sign that the film is doing something right.

Nunez is a major filmmaker who thrives working in a minor key. He makes Ruby a romantic fable with a tough core of intelligence and wit. It’s a real beauty.

Here's Spike Lee at his ballsiest. Who else would take Aristophanes' Lysistrata, set in ancient Greece, and prop it up in present-day Englewood, Chicago, where violence is so prevalent the locals call it Chi-Raq, a mash-up of "Chicago" and "Iraq."

You won’t see the title character engage in Krav Maga with a gang of thugs or sprint across rooftops in Marrakesh (we’re assuming they’re saving that for the sequel). But you will witness Squibb step into the spotlight of leading what is technically an action movie and totally own it.

Roaring into the microphone with all the passion he can't put into his life, Slater gives this movie what it otherwise so desperately lacks: a reason for being.

Love Lies Bleeding doesn’t have time for a slow burn. It’s a movie that comes in hot and leaves in a molten blaze of glory.

Like the young women who we spend nearly two hours with, we also emerge feeling both tinges of empowerment and a palpable sense of deflation.

Coppola is a virtuoso of image and sound. but don't mistake her delicate touch for weakness. The Beguiled is a hothouse flower of startling power and intimacy. You can't shake it.

Red herrings, rabbit holes and oddball detours lurk around every corner. It’s a film that can’t decide whether it wants to be a comedy or a nightmare, so it splits the difference. Even by 1979 standards, it’s a seriously warped film.

Clermont-Tonnerre comes from a place of defiance, and her fearless instincts surge through every frame. Each time you think you have this movie pegged, it’ll knock you for a loop.

Wilson is flat-out hilarious, playing this cowboy like a surfer dude zapped back in time.

It's Dench, showing how faith and hellraising can reside in the same woman, who makes Philomena moving and memorable.

Funny, touching and acutely observed film.

What sounds like undiluted melodrama with the hounds forever nipping at Ewa's heels is transformed by Gray into a mesmerizing meditation on the broken American promise.

Sam Peckinpah lives! The rampaging spirit of the late filmmaker, known as Bloody Sam for films such as "The Wild Bunch" and "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia," is all over this blistering modern Western from first-time director Tommy Lee Jones.

August keeps a discreet distance from the harsher realities, making The Best Intentions must viewing only if you find diluted Bergman better than no Bergman at all.

It's a hardcore masterpiece that digs into our violent past to hold up a dark mirror to the systemic racism that still rages in the here and now.

If nothing else, The Edge of Seventeen should make Steinfeld a shoo-in for the teen movie young-restless-and-hilarious Hall of Fame. At the very least, the humanity she gives this young woman on the verge helps the movie teeter on the edge of being an instant classic.

If Jackman and Stewart are serious about this being their mutual X-Men swan song, they could not have crafted a more heartfelt valedictory.

Kelson ushers in a more meditative tone for this entry, which reveals that it is, among other things, a coming-of-age story. Yet this swerve into more emotional territory doesn’t dampen the tension or the terror that Boyle remains an expert at conjuring up; if anything, it acts as a countermelody to the genre aspects.