How to Blow Up a Pipeline is a thriller, but it’s not just a thriller. It’s also aiming to be a Gen Z radicalization manifesto in the same spirit as the book, if not with the same rigor.

Pop-culture escapism can be thrilling when dished out by experts. Katniss is a character worth a handful of sequels. And Lawrence lights up the screen. You'll follow her anywhere.

Ayoade, the British comic making a remarkable feature debut with his adaptation of Joe Dunthorne's 2008 novel, blends mirth and malice with deadpan brilliance.

Nouvelle Vague is as much a testament to being young, idealistic and a cinephile — full of opinions, drunk on your own taste, and madly in love with the movies — as it is a making-of recounting.

It helps that the fun doesn't stop. It helps even more that the pitch-perfect script doesn’t step out of character for a joke.

It’s the essential conflict between mother and daughter that brings The Truth into Kore-eda territory, where life is always a delicate balance. He’s lucky to have Deneuve and Binoche tempering the verbal fireworks with a tenderness that that allows for pain, regret and the hard-won knowledge that they must both face the truth to move on.

Whatever cause you pick, the idea of representing or recreating sex as a narrative device now feels like a relic of the distant past. No one seems to have informed French director Jacques Audiard of this demise, however, and there are moments when you watch Paris, 13th District and wonder if he’s singlehandedly trying to resuscitate the concept of old-fashioned screen shtupping.

If there were an ounce of taste left in Hollywood, the magnificent Vera Farmiga would be a front-runner for the Best Actress Oscar.

The talented Mr. Minghella has made an imperfect movie but not an impersonal one. His morality tale means to get under the skin, and does.

This riveting film is marred by compromises -- such as a switch of assassins to create an unpersuasive upbeat ending -- that keep it in the shadow of its predecessor.

A meandering but altogether mesmerizing film from writer-director Azazel Jacobs that finds buoyant comedy and touching gravity in the ashes of a relationship.

An oral history of a once-broken, brainwashed nation, Final Account is the end result of Holland’s efforts to collect testimonies on the unthinkable before those who were there are gone.

The film’s genius is the way it applies the lessons of Sound City to any job. “The human element,” says Grohl, “that’s what makes the magic.” In his directing debut, Grohl shows the instincts of a real filmmaker. Sound City hits you like a shot in the heart.

See this darkly comic character study unburdened by preconceptions.

This dynamite thriller shivers with suspense. So if you ignore The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) because it's in Swedish with English subtitles, you probably deserve the remake Hollywood will surely screw up.

This PG-rated movie feels safe and constricted in a way the story never does on the page. It leaves out the deep magic of a good movie, or a good sermon: the feeling that something vital is at stake.

Aside from Alyosha, there's no one to root for here, and Zvyagintsev paints the bleakest of picture. But his filmmaking has a driving force that hurtles you along, and like his 2014 masterpiece "Leviathan," this micro-focused drama allows the director to turn the story of one family into an X-ray of a nation's bruised soul.

A spellbinder that features Richard Gere in one of his best performances ever.

You may want to revisit this profanely hilarious Hollywood satire. . .just to catch the zingers the audience often drowns out with laughter. Hollywood corrupts absolutely, and Mamet turns the toxic process into the year's best and smartest comedy.

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.

Rango is like nothing you've ever seen.

As a social tract, Emily the Criminal is more impassioned than wise. As a thriller, it fares better — in that case, no one’s asking for wisdom.

You're in for something funny, touching and vital. Director Lenny Abrahamson knows his way around eccentrics; just see "Adam & Paul" or "Garage" or "What Richard Did." And he makes an ideal guide into a bizarro world where music is made on the margins.

Easily among the greatest remakes ever made, Philip Kaufman updates Don Siegel's McCarthy-era classic to 1978 San Francisco. Kaufman proves singularly adept at keeping multiple genres and tones in play, from noirish mystery to heady paranormal thriller to face-squishing sci-fi horror. There's truly no recovering from the film's final the enemy-is-us parting shot.

The art that The Kindergarten Teacher is scanning can be found in Gyllenhaal’s eyes, hungry for a life of the mind and one starved of meaning. Jimmy is not the only one who has something to say. For the filmmaker and her star, this movie is their poem.

For the first half hour, Neeson’s reboot of The Naked Gun series is easily one of the most hilarious things to hit theaters in ages.

That’s the real Boss Battle of Bodied: Major Rush vs. Missed Opportunity. Whether you pick a winner here or think they fight it out to a draw is your call.

Ruben Brandt, Collector is always a feast for the eyes, but it’s the intellectual curiosity on display that raises the bar.