Undefeated is filled with wonderful narratives, which impressed academy voters enough to garner an Academy Award this week. It's a credit to directors Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Daniels that the personal stories of the kids and coaches resonate more than the wins and losses.

The role of Arielle was originally supposed to go to Diane Kruger, whose tough-minded realism would have been interesting here. But Marlohe, earthier yet more ethereal, is ideal.

Sets off depth charges of the psyche.

An affable comedy (with some serious notes).

The film finally gets into gear around the midpoint and zooms to a satisfying finish.

As the documentary was produced by National Geographic with the cooperation of the Cousteau Society, Garbus has access to some fabulous, colorfully restored footage, some of it never before seen, that makes this an eye-popping experience — in theaters especially.

If all the laughs come from Depp, who gives Willy the mannerisms of a classic Hollywood diva, the film's heart comes from Highmore, a gifted young performer who had a leading role in "Finding Neverland." His performance is sincere, deep and unforced in a way that's rare in a child actor.

Tremors gets its characters into a series of hopeless situations and then resolves these situations in unexpected ways. I tried to out-guess the movie and couldn't. The movie might be nothing more than light entertainment, but care and thinking clearly went into it. [19 Jan 1990, p.E1]

A comedy of interracial wariness and misunderstanding marked by a refreshing lack of sappiness.

A proper labor of love profiling many of the principles involved in the making of the films, peppered with a generous helping of wonderful clips.

It’s an intricate thriller about a con game, but so loaded with wicked humor and sensual appeal — ravishing cinematography, high-temperature eroticism — that for long stretches viewers might forget there’s any plot at all.

Affleck is magnificent, but the movie is something less than that, because it can’t completely overcome some built-in challenges.

A compelling, sympathetic portrait.

Writer-director Peter Landesman has a fascinating and appalling story to tell here, and that cuts through the layers of corniness.

Using footage mostly from the cameras of various passengers and crew, the documentary takes us inside the experience of being stuck inside a floating prison, unwanted by any port, as COVID cases and fears mount. It’s an experience you would not want to have directly, but it’s fascinating to watch.

The film is cleanly made and moves quickly, which enhances its effectiveness. It raises moral issues that simply can’t be addressed too often.

A haunting elegy on the unpredictability of life. Never knowing what the next minute might bring is the elephant in all our lives.

Elliptical, sweeping, lovely and thoroughly confusing.

Sure, it’s overly simplistic and not altogether historically accurate but if anyone is looking for a well-made, action-fueled popcorn movie, “The Woman King” sure beats a Wikipedia page every day of the week.

The darker this visionary film gets -- and it gets very dark -- the less comic and the more chilling it becomes. At the same time, it grows more brilliant as a view of modern society poisoned by a battering incivility or cruel exploitation that, in Leigh's view, is played out most profoundly in gender conflict. When ''Naked'' isn't beaning your brain, it's twisting a screwdriver between the wires of your nerves. [28 Jan. 1994, p.C1]

Solid if unspectacular.

In the end, what makes Equity an intelligent and honest movie keeps it from being a total crowd-pleaser.

As thrillers go, Rapt is long on intellect and short on action, a virtue to some degree, though not entirely.

It’s slam-bang action adventure that pretty much answers the question, “What if Christopher Nolan made a James Bond film?”

Aquarius has a lot of things on its mind, and sometimes the plot machinations in the last third seem a tad heavy-handed, almost as if they’re being piled upon a delicate character sketch.

What’s fascinating about Kirby here is that even when she appears to be doing nothing, she’s worth watching.

A potent and disturbing experience. Fortunately it’s much more, offering sharp performances and genuine drama.

Writer-director Harry Macqueen puts the fate of his film on the shoulders of his two leads — Colin Firth as Sam, Stanley Tucci as Tusker — and both actors deliver some of the best work of their careers.

Needless to say, if “Inglourious Basterds” and “Django Unchained” were too much for you, The Hateful Eight won’t be any easier. This is a big step beyond.

What sounded like an embarrassing blunder -- the romantic pairing of Richard Gere and Jodie Foster -- turns out to be surprisingly entertaining and persuasive.

It’s a deliriously demented LGBTQ+ riff on “The Parent Trap” about accepting love in all forms, repairing broken families and finding your true self, but it accomplishes all of that in the raunchiest way possible.

Snyder served as his own director of photography for the first time and, aided by terrific effects makeup and digital production design, he’s created a sprawling graveyard Vegas of detailed, decaying awesomeness.

More important is to be in a silly mood yourself. Without that - without a complete suspension of disbelief - Chandni Chowk to China is a drag to sit through.

Megamind, it turns out, is a villain to root for.

It's funny, broad and never stops moving. It's made to please, and succeeds.

In a way it’s just another well-made thriller, but there are things here — currents captured, ideas frozen in time — that might make it more interesting as the years pass. For the time being, it’s good entertainment and deserves to be seen now.

As fresh as today’s newspaper — or a blog post — or a tweet from a minute ago. It’s a response to what is going on right now, and it feels like it, not only in content, but in form.

So while The Fanatic isn’t doing anything particularly new, it knows exactly the movie it wants to be. There’s a trashy, pulp energy powering us through the efficient 88-minute run time — long enough to invest us in the stakes, short enough not to wear out its welcome.

The movie is as interesting as spying on your neighbors during the most interesting 85 minutes of their lives.

Most interesting, to me, is what happened at New York City's Cooper Union, which has charged no tuition since its founding in 1859. Due in part to mismanagement of funds, the school has announced it will start charging tuition, prompting the students to form their own Occupy Movement. This alone deserves a 90-minute documentary.

A rare film about the class and educational divide that can happen even within families.

What matters most in this sad, sobering movie is not what anyone says; it's what goes unsaid for most of the running time.

Charming family story.

My Old Lady is affecting, even if many of the revelations and high-voltage speeches occur at predictable moments. But if you can look past this formulaic side, it's a movie worth seeing.

Lawrence's take on pop music success is exactly right, satiric without being absurdist, and therefore a prize worth the effort.

All of it works. All of it holds together, guided by the sure hand of director Simon Stone, who subtly imparts his sense of the story. His idea is that everyone involved mattered, and so we come away with an impression of an entire moment of time.

While it is a spectacle of animatronics, digital graphics and other special effects, the actors are never overwhelmed by them as personalities.

This is a movie that has lots of magic, in more ways than one.

So the situation is fraught, without being clear-cut; in other words, interesting.

Features a superb performance in the lead role, a strong supporting cast, very good cinematography and, most of all, emotional authenticity.

Sam Garbarski's use of slow-motion shots is pretentious, and he paces the film too slowly. But he captures the seedy side of London, giving you a feel for Soho during the day when sunshine exposes a cheap gaudiness.

Neither resting on formula nor audience goodwill, the “X-Men” series is going deeper and getting better as it goes along.

I'm not quite sure what David Cronenberg is trying to say in Crash, but whatever it is, he deserves a lot of credit for having the nerve to put it on screen and face the consequences.

It’s a good sign for the intelligence of your science fiction movie, when it’s easy to imagine the story working as a stage play with just two actors.

Call it Buñuel meets Blumhouse, a film that is flawed but so full of ideas that it doesn’t matter.

Continuing to explore themes of looking past stereotypes to find our shared, ahem, humanity, Zootopia 2 ventures into new territory without losing its emotional footing. It shows us how trust and cooperation often hinge on small, brave choices made over and over again.

The Skeleton Twins suffers from a glaring deficit. Suicide is ever present throughout the film, yet Johnson never seriously examines it.

The pace of Master Gardener is measured, but there’s nothing relaxing about it.

The result is a deeply moving experience, alternately funny and sad.

Nomadland is too singular a film to dismiss on technicalities. It’s very much its own thing, very much an original experience, and must be counted as some odd kind of good movie.

The Shape of Water is brilliant, but sick — or maybe it’s sick, but brilliant. In any case, it’s something to see.

Absolutely the best single moment, beautifully presented, comes when the orphaned Harry looks in a mirror and sees his parents there. It is brilliant in its simplicity and very moving.

It's one of the least scary films that he's made - but still entertaining, and very, very gory.

Surprisingly lighthearted, thanks to Israeli director Eytan Fox's deft touch with comedy and old- fashioned romance.

The film pays off eventually with a lovely story of friendship between two lonely men.

It's rare that we have a screen character as well-rounded, as recognizably human or as brilliantly played as Sonny Dewey.

Spitzer was undone by his zipper, but as Client 9 makes clear, he was also undone by his refusal - or inability - to make nice with some of the state's most powerful characters.

The documentary takes Tower through his much publicized recent stint as the chef at New York’s Tavern on the Green, a rather hopeless assignment for a perfectionist.

The film is far from perfect but has enough going on to compensate for its excessive length and some sentimentality.

It would really help to get into the right frame of mind before seeing The Time Traveler's Wife, because viewed from some angles - maybe most angles - the movie is ridiculous.

If you want to know years in advance what old-age nostalgia is going to look like for Baby Boomers, look no further than Pirate Radio, in which the sun always shines, the music is great and the sex is available, guilt-free and glorious.

Presenting Princess Shaw looks and feels like a DIY project, which is fine because the documentary is really a hymn to self-reliance — although bolstered with a modest amount of plain old luck.

Because Living is all about unexpressed emotion — and an unexpressed life — there are times when we’ll feel impatient with the characters; we’ll want them to throw off their restraints and say everything they’re thinking. Just don’t be in a hurry. Living gets where it needs to go, and gets its characters where they need to be, in its own good time.

Hamm perfectly plays Walter as a sort of suave, GQ version of HAL 9000, and Davis and Robbins have their most satisfying feature film roles in years. Along with the pitch-perfect Smith, they provide the humanity to Almereyda’s vision of a species in danger of slipping into the void of selective memory and loss.

Calaizzo’s script is sharp, funny and honest, and nicely avoids movie cliches about obesity. Bell’s performance is very good, both physically — the actress herself lost 40 pounds for the role — and emotionally.

It is a spellbinding hour and 45 minutes of pure music, Latin jazz to be specific.

It's not much of a comedy - even Steve Carell, as the therapist, plays it straight here. But it's very effective as a cautionary tale.

Blake Edwards' moody suspense thriller captures San Francisco from unexpected perspectives, starting with a dark drive with a perfect noirish Henry Mancini score across the Bay Bridge, and ending with then-new Candlestick Park. [08 Feb 2015, p.D6]

Overall Freedom Writers is a noble effort. At a time when New Year's resolutions to change already are falling by the wayside, you can't help but be moved by a group of young people who followed through on their resolve.

Armie Hammer’s performance is a brilliant exercise in subtlety, suggesting a genial yet inappropriate space-taking, the carelessness of the beautiful.

It’s a good film, very unlike most “disease of the week” pictures, in that it’s often quite funny, and it tells a fascinating story about something that remains mysterious to most people.

Serendipity is a throwback to a more innocent era in American life, 25 days ago.

An unexpected pleasure that’s heartfelt at times and humorous throughout. Yes, the plot is ridiculous and often coarse. Yes, the story is predictable. Yes, a condom stuck to a women’s jacket is played for laughs. But it’s a very steep uphill climb from there.

A picture so infectious it almost seems original.

Cleaner is a good-not-great thriller in the “Die Hard” mold that gets an extra lift from Campbell’s skillful direction and from Ridley, who is slowly but surely showing herself to be a performer of wide range and appeal.

Elba's performance is commanding and physically meticulous. As he ages through the film, he takes on the stiff gracefulness of the elderly Mandela, so familiar to us from news footage.

Death Becomes Her may be crude and tasteless, but it's also irresistibly funny and very well played by Streep, Hawn and Willis -- each of whom suffered career disappointments of late, and each of whom shines in a role that casts them against type. [31 July 1992, p.D1]

A warmhearted and surprisingly ambitious sequel.

Director Breathnach is in no hurry to pump up the action in this easygoing, episodic on-the-road adventure, and the slow pace may wear thin for some viewers. More than anything, I Went Down is a cleverly observed character study of two losers who find they suddenly stand a chance at winning.

Much of the movie has a structureless, documentary feeling to it, which is good and should have been pushed further.

The documentary is eye-opening and very much worth seeing, even though it can’t help but be disheartening.

Narrow Margin has a couple of moments of unabashed hokeyness and some predictable turns of plot, but considering that it's designed to do nothing more than provide escapist fare for 97 minutes, and that there are a dozen surprise twists, it hardly seems to matter. Like a train ride itself, you get into the swaying swing of things, and to hell with credibility. [21 Sep 1990, p.E3]

After shooting lots of people and cutting lots of throats, Deadpool tries blowing himself up, something he probably should have done first. And with that, the movie shifts. Deadpool 2 becomes less violent and a lot funnier. It becomes a much better movie than the original “Deadpool,” not an action bloodbath with laughs, but a knowing spoof of the superhero genre.

The best thing about Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things, other than the music, is the way it evokes an era and reminds us that its subject was one of the great voices of the 20th century.

It’s not for kids, however; though not rated, it has some nudity and violence that would veer into R territory.

Rao avoids high drama, and while there is humor, the film's tone is one of melancholy.

If you were ever wondering what "Die Hard" would have been like if Neil LaBute directed it as an art film, prepare to enjoy Lovers of Hate.

Though it never runs out of gas or even shows signs of sluggishness, del Toro’s “Nightmare Alley” runs out of importance about a half hour before the finish. But it’s still an entertaining movie by a distinctive filmmaker.