The Iceman is a vivid evocation of a remorseless sociopath sustaining a double life as a contract killer and devoted family man. Gritty, gripping and unrelentingly intense, Ariel Vromen’s film boasts richly detailed character work from an ideal cast.

Dave Grohl has more than clout in his corner in his terrifically entertaining documentary Sound City. He brings elements that can't be faked -- passion and heart -- to this lovingly assembled insider account of what it feels like to make real handcrafted rock music.

The extra weight that the actor has packed on gives him an air of vulnerability that makes his character's ultimate emergence from his seemingly impenetrable emotional shell all the more moving.

Despite knowingly blank performances and a heavily ironic tone, the story ultimately accumulates emotional gravity, ending with a sardonic refection on the seasonal cycle of life that is worthy of a Kurt Vonnegut or Joseph Heller novel. Tragedy is comedy. Comedy is tragedy. So it goes.

Anchored by an admirably measured performance from Gael Garcia Bernal as the maverick advertising ace who spearheaded the winning campaign, the quietly impassioned film seems a natural for intelligent arthouse audiences.

Although marred by a couple of too-convenient plot contrivances, this often humorous drama lands firmly in the plus column among the Woodman's recent works.

The opportunity to see the stunning footage on the big screen is not to be missed, and the narration by Daniel Craig, delivered with James Bond-style drollness, makes it as much fun to listen to as to watch.

Batmanglij balances emotional tension with practical danger nicely, a must in a story whose activist protagonists can make no distinction between the personal and the political.

Lent distinguishing heft by its roster of screen veterans, this gripping drama provides an absorbing reflection on the courage and cost of dissent.

A character-driven take on true-crime fare, Alex Karpovsky's Rubberneck marks a solid dramatic turn for a filmmaker best known for playing comedic parts in indie films like "Tiny Furniture."

The fitful development of the script aside, the movie is dominated entirely by Freeman and Tandy, who manage to retain individual star-quality while acknowledging the other's presence.

An exuberant celebration of Aboriginality that fizzes with humor and heart; its soulfulness goes beyond the embrace of a jukebox full of Motown, Stax and Atlantic Records hits.

Throughout, the film's subjects convince us they're doing nothing more than being themselves, so much so that a cynical advisor told Sutton he should market his film as a documentary. That label would prepare potential viewers for Pavilion's lack of story, but it would make a lie of the movie's patient, finely drawn loveliness.

Ordinary in some ways and extraordinary in others, The Spectacular Now benefits from an exceptional feel for its main characters on the parts of the director and lead actors.

Nearly as extravagant as the characters it depicts, Martin Scorsese's comic, operatically-scaled film is, on a moment-by-moment basis, often madly entertaining due to its live-wire energy, exuberant performances and the irresistible appeal of watching naughty boys doing very naughty things.

The spare, tightly wound narrative ultimately turns on the hard-eyed, relentless efficacy of the plot, as well as the certainty of Reyes’ performance.

As Oscar, Jordan at moments gives off vibes of a very young Denzel Washington in the way he combines gentleness and toughness; he effortlessly draws the viewer in toward him.

Mandela is straightforward storytelling of a type that’s somewhat out of fashion, but ultimately no less stirring for it.

This playfully complex and gently slippery analysis of memory and personal narrative manages to engage us in what's essentially the private business, some might even say the dirty laundry, of total strangers.

Costa's inquiry into that life offers a deeply felt angle on the broader realities of life in Paraguay during the '80s; while the intimate film is unlikely to expand beyond niche theatrical bookings, it will affect many who see it.

This grandly conceived and executed epic tries to give equal weight to intimate human emotions and speculation about the cosmos, with mixed results, but is never less than engrossing, and sometimes more than that.

[A Hijacking] illuminatingly and sensitively dramatizes an easily-overlooked global crime phenomenon.

While on the surface, this is a variation on boyz-in-the-‘hood dramatic staples, the film is rooted in anglicized Arab culture yet universally accessible in its reflections on identity issues. It’s a very promising debut – slick, muscular, entertaining and emotionally satisfying.

Unfolding like an espionage thriller but with a methodical journalistic skill at organizing a mountain of facts, the film raises stimulating questions about transparency and freedom of information in a world in which governments and corporations have plenty to hide.

A pitch-black and sometimes gorily violent laugh-riot.

Kim Ki-duk is back in fighting form in Pieta, an intense and, for the first hour, sickeningly violent film that unexpectedly segues into a moving psychological study.

While the core elements of this reluctant buddy movie could almost constitute a pared-down theater piece, the film breathes with real cinematic expansiveness. Green’s poetic observation skills are the key to that seeming contradiction.

A taut, efficient and ultimately evocative small-scale Western that benefits from tight scripting and proficient performances.

A lively, sometimes very funny comedy.

[A] wryly poignant and potent comic drama about the bereft state of things in America’s oft-vaunted heartland.

It's laugh-packed, self-aware in a manner that lets everyone in on the joke, and goofily satisfying in the action department.

In the meaty bad guy role, Harrelson entertainingly goes all the way, putting him way out there on the ledge with any of your favorite loonies, psychos and unhinged nutjobs.

Fury is a good, solid World War II movie, nothing more and nothing less.

It is never boring and does provoke and stimulate, although not as a turn-on, not remotely.

The basic story has been told many times before, but it’s intriguingly retold by screenwriter Philip Gelatt and director Sebastian Cordero in this low-budget, bare-bones rendering of a familiar theme.

The film is an important step toward repairing the broken links and resurrecting almost a century of music and the women who made it.

Augustine's script is a coherent and valid artistic reinterpretation of the case, told against an unfussily atmospheric evocation of late 19-century Paris - persuasive even though the dialogue seldom sounds particularly old-fashioned.

Von Trotta seems to borrow some of her subject’s haughty disdain for compromise in a serviceable script that does the job of telling us who Hannah Arendt was like a good pair of solid, gray walking shoes; there’s nothing fancy or modern to distract from the portrait of one of the most important thinkers of the century.

Acted with smart restraint and shot with corresponding composure, this is a somber, slow-moving drama built out of small but acutely observed moments of naturalistic human behavior.

This striking cinematic collage provides a hauntingly personal perspective on a country that has been wracked by strife from its very beginnings.

The film repays patient viewing as it evolves into an engrossing, nuanced, philosophical drama.

Toback does a great job introducing the non-initiated to the sticky job of getting a film funded outside the studio system.

This subtly engrossing psychological thriller plays like an intellectual version of Fatal Attraction, minus the sex and the dead bunny. And that’s meant as a compliment.

A Field in England is a rich, strange, hauntingly intense work from a highly original writer-director team.

Narrated in unobtrusive fashion by Forest Whitaker and featuring a jaunty Afropop soundtrack, the film is crisp and economical, with the filmmaker carefully avoiding extraneous melodramatics. They are, after all, hardly necessary in a tale that already contains such inherently powerful drama.

Though Sorrentino’s vision of moral chaos and disorder, spiritual and emotional emptiness at this moment in time is even darker than Fellini’s...he describes it all in a pleasingly creative way that pulls audiences in through humor and excess.

[A] solidly effective addition to Britain's social realism tradition, elevated by excellent performances by the young leads and some unexpectedly poetic touches.

There’s a masterfully light touch at work, both from the director and his two wonderful actors. They make this chamber piece lip-smacking entertainment, giving the dense text the semblance of more intellectual heft or sexual transgression than it ultimately contains.

La Camioneta: The Journey of One American School Bus is just what the title indicates — and that turns out be an intimate and vivid report on a surprising connection between North and Central America.

A deeply dispiriting portrait of the systemic persecution of the LGBT community in Uganda, the country that seems to be ground zero for homophobia.

A vital, gripping film.

The visual style and the natural, unaffected performances by a talented cast help create an atmosphere of verisimilitude that makes the story all the more powerful. [23 Oct. 1996]

Christopher Nolan's noirish thriller is an uncommonly polished and assured feature debut, highly clever textually and supremely accomplished technically. This ultra low-budget exercise marks the emergence of a significant directorial talent. [13 April 1999]

This twisty fairy-tale mash-up shows an appreciation for the virtues of old-fashioned storytelling, along with a welcome dash of subversive wit. It benefits from respect for the source material, enticing production values and a populous gallery of sharp character portraits from a delightful cast.

With a keen sense of the thrills of snowboarding, a cultivated understanding of the demands of the pro circuit and genuine compassion for the casualties of the sport, Walker’s particular talent in this film is in making the general more specific.

Baird can be forgiven for a handful of careless and ham-fisted touches. Filth is still a hugely entertaining breath of foul air fueled by McAvoy’s impressively ugly star performance.

Pure joy for Beatles fans and, one guesses, charming enough to seduce some viewers who wouldn't mind never hearing "She Loves You" ever again.

Snowpiercer is an ambitious piece with a universally comprehensible theme and accessible aesthetics.

This is an illuminating close-up on a vital cog in the moviemaking machine and a fresh perspective on key episodes in the birth of the New Hollywood.

Whether one is pro-life, pro-choice or without an opinion on the issue, After Tiller provides personal insight into a heart-wrenching, complex reality. The film does not pretend to be an answer to the abortion controversy but rather a presentation of the people who are demonized, correctly or incorrectly, for their actions.

This is Holofcener’s sweet spot, the depiction of the emotional confusions, self-deceptions, uncertainties and misguided decisions that can cloud and get the better of otherwise bright, aware people, especially the female characters she tends to specialize in.

Reteaming to play a duo similar to the one in A Prophet, Rahim and Arestrup maintain the film’s tense and sinister tone – the former providing a convincing mix of fragility and machismo, and the latter looking and acting more and more like Brando in the latter half of his career.

Engrossing, quietly revelatory, and often profoundly moving as it retells a story we only thought we knew.

A riveting and often hilarious demonstration of the Slovenian philosopher’s uncanny ability to turn movies inside out and accepted notions on their head.

What makes the film work is that this potentially lurid material is treated at all times with sensitivity and probing psychological seriousness.

Very funny at the outset and escalating steadily for most of its brisk running time, the film represents a big win for neophyte screenwriters Andrew J. Cohen and Brendan O'Brien.

A trove of great stills and movie footage accompanies the colorful anecdotes, but the film's most consistent pleasure is the way interviewees recall the moments before the tape rolled on an immortal recording.

The filmmaker documents the proceedings in refreshingly matter-of fact-fashion, thankfully avoiding the temptation to overly sentimentalize or mine cheap humor and contrived suspense from the proceedings.

After a terrific first hour that crescendos in an extended sequence of quiet yet potent white-knuckle suspense, the film loses some traction in the more challengingly paced second half. But it remains an engrossing reflection on radical violence and its fallout.

The film is a textured portrait of human beings and the jobs they do, offering scant commentary but much to chew on, not to mention plenty of laughs -- no small feat in a movie dedicated to something as dry sounding as “public radio.”

This intense drama co-starring Jeanne Tripplehorn and writer-director Leland Orser is at times too minimalistic for its own good, but it has a powerful emotional immediacy that fully grips the viewer by the time it reaches its wrenching conclusion.

In Mayer’s assured hands, a drama that could easily have become schematic instead pulses with urgency, longing and raw feeling, morphing smoothly in its final third into a lean thriller.

Van Dormael's intriguing script is more than matched in his flamboyant direction of this 2-hour-plus tale, heroically edited by Matyas Veress and Susan Shipton into a fluid, generally understandable narrative.

Choosing it for his debut as director, Bateman demonstrates the same knack for timing and fine shadings of attitude as he does onscreen.

The film’s quiet pleasures creep up on you.

Stranger by the Lake invites you into its alluring and peaceful world, only to gradually uncover the darkness beneath it.

American Promise shows the emotional toll that each boy endures, not only from the image that their privileged peers have of minority males but, accordingly, their own lack of confidence.

The best feature film directed by someone named Coppola in a number of years.

The director’s austere minimalism has always been suspended between the mesmerizing and the distancing, and in his latest feature, the concentration on elliptical observation, mood and texture signals an almost complete rejection of narrative.

Gianfranco Rosi (Below Sea Level, El Sicario: Room 164) brings humor and sensitivity to his filming of the strange denizens who live and work around the Grande Raccordo Anulare, Rome’s huge ring road.

Like in all of the director’s work, psychologically reductive readings of the characters are absent, though intriguing performances give audiences a way into the material.

The good-looking, easygoing doc settles in with its two subjects, offering not just an intimate perspective on the playwright's biography but some touching reflections on the comforts and perils of long-term friendship.

Screenwriter Chris Weitz embraces both the magic and the humanity of the classic fairy tale. He underlines the virtues of kindness and courage in a heroine right out of the pages of a traditional storybook, who gradually reveals the qualities of a self-possessed modern girl.

The film is imbued with an engaging mix of warmth and prickliness by the lovely, lived-in performances of Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan.

At times fascinating, at times not, its in-depth look at the administration, campus, students and faculty offers an insider's view into the way American academia functions.

Williams is to be commended not only for his filmmaking skill, but also for pulling back the curtain on a most disturbing situation.

A thrill-stuffed sports doc whose daredevil subject will quickly endear himself even to viewers who've never heard his name.

Addressing the heartrending issue of children living with HIV and AIDS is enormously complex, but Blood Brother accomplishes the challenge with sufficient grace and empathy to give hope to anyone concerned with this global affliction.

The arc and uplift of the story might be familiar, but thanks to DaSilva’s magnetism and skillful direction, this is way more than a conventional weeper.

A sharply made, perfectly cast and unfailingly absorbing melodrama. But, like the director's adaptation of another publishing phenomenon, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, three years ago, it leaves you with a quietly lingering feeling of: “Is that all there is?”

Directors Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine have fashioned an informative, emotionally uplifting saga of the powers of optimism and persistence in the face of the cruelest odds.

[A] small-scale but deeply moving documentary.

Sparkling dialogue would count for little without two actors to deliver it expertly. Garcia (who is also one of the producers of the film) is generally cast in more serious roles, but he revealed a gift for comedy in "City Island" a few years ago, and he revisits that terrain rewardingly here. Farmiga is marvelous.

A pleasing walk in the park for all involved, not exactly profound, but appealing to both long term fans of the franchise and accessible to newcomers.

A mournful testament to a vibrant piece of global film history almost entirely wiped out of existence.

Sweet Dreams delivers a rare uplifting story from a country that has seen more than its share of brutality and heartache.

This is far from a dull, academic work and the fast-paced talk is matched by swiftly changing scenes full of vibrant visuals. Life bubbles out of each frame in a grungy, foul-smelling rush.

There’s uncustomary warmth here and a sensitivity to the characters’ vulnerabilities that often is missing from this director’s work.