Further proof that likable actors have to take an occasional sick day.

A brainy bio that exerts a gravitational pull on the heartstrings.

Although it doesn’t make a lick of sense as a stand-alone story, Mockingjay — Part 1 is the first “Hunger Games” movie with meat on its bones.

Bernal (“Y Tu Mama Tambien”), an actor of Mexican heritage, brings to the role a charismatic resolve. It’s an impressive and impassioned performance.

Mbatha-Raw continues to be a true revelation in a role that could be not be any more different from her star turn in “Belle” this year.

Laggies is the kind of indie film that gives the genre a bad name.

The storytelling is solid, propelled by characters that you come to care about.

This is epic cinema that begs to be compared to "2001: A Space Odyssey." But unlike Stanley Kubrick's psychedelic joyride, this journey is powered by a human heart.

In a stunning performance, Teller resists the impulse to sugarcoat Andrew’s egocentricity. Simmons is equally impressive, lending Fletcher just enough humanity to render his monstrousness all the more shocking.

Despite its intriguing premise, the film amounts to little more than tedious, clichéd melodramatics.

Most biographical docs contain a montage of old footage, but this one is especially haunting. As Campbell watches home movies, he has to ask Kim to identify the people on screen, including his ex-wives, his children and his younger self.

Gilroy vividly evokes both the LA exteriors and newsroom interiors, and the action sequences are fraught with tension.

Directed by and starring Mathieu Amalric, it’s a deceptively low-key riff on a Hitchcock whodunit. It’s both sexy and inscrutable, a cold-blooded puzzler to the very end.

Although the characters don’t lapse into stereotypes, neither are they sufficiently funny or fierce to engage us in the issues they raise.

Lots of films claim to be different. Birdman is.

Sorry, Keanu, but you stole my time and you murdered my brain cells. By the sacred oath of WHOA, there will be blood, and this time it’s personal.

Directed by Stiles White, whose credits lean more heavily in the special-effect arenas, Ouija is bland, safe horror for those who like their scares nonexistent.

The iconic actor may be too gruff for sainthood, but Murray still retains a secret stash of soul.

Sparks would be delighted if this movie were compared to his other story about reunited lovers, but compared to “The Notebook,” The Best of Me is the coffee-stained outline of a sales pitch for sleeping pills.

A flawed but intriguing new chapter in animation.

There’s a good movie to be made about the alienating effects of modern technology. In 2013, a little-seen indie called “Disconnect,” starring Jason Bateman, came closer than this well-intentioned failure, which has virtually no heart, humor, sense of place or central point of view. In trying to be a big, important movie, Men, Women & Children is about none of the above.

Fury is a guided tour through a manmade hell.

While the chronological details and social significance of the story Webb reported get shortchanged, Kill the Messenger is a vital reminder that a free press must be free to press the powerful for answers.

One one level, Pride is as fake as a lip-sync revue, yet the emotions it arouses are real.

Despite playing with a stacked deck, The Judge is guilty of exceeding expectations.

This toothless attempt is just dead on arrival.

A genuinely touching and occasionally powerful film, not least because the boys are so disinclined to pity themselves.

Ultimately what makes Gone Girl so watchable is the three-headed monster of Fincher, Pike and Affleck. The director bathes the B-movie scenario in the queasy-green hues of a morgue, while Affleck flashes his million-dollar smile like a dime-store Dracula and the beautifully inscrutable Pike absorbs the light like a wax mannequin. If it’s true that Nick and Amy were made for each other, they were made in a fiendish lab.