A funny and tender drawn-from-life love story.

Argo is a crackerjack political thriller told with intelligence, great period detail and a surprising amount of nutty humor for a serious look at the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-81.

Assayas makes the point that objects of fascination and affection to one generation may be far less so to the next. And he observes the role that people-friendly museums can play in keeping a nation's treasures safe with pleasing subtlety.

An eye-opener that handles its themes in a refreshingly nonexploitative manner.

It would be easy, at quick glance, to dismiss their mischief as youthful self-absorption. It’s youthful self-absorption, to be sure, but something serious, vibrant and compelling courses through the levity.

Two things stand out: the extraordinary command of cinematic technique, which alone is nearly enough to keep a connoisseur on the edge of his seat the entire time, and the tremendous portrayals by Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman of two entirely antithetical men

Slow and surprisingly talky, the three hours of the film do not exactly fly by, and the experience is similar to plunging into a long novel (the hero is a budding novelist) laced with philosophy, religion, politics and moral puzzles. The final sequences are worth the wait, though, bringing together the story’s many threads and offering the classic closure of a young man coming to terms with his identity.

Provocative and often fascinating, The Prison in Twelve Landscapes is an unsentimental look at the ways prisons shape life outside their walls, in places as disparate as Appalachia and Midtown Manhattan.

A terrific cinematic essay that will have a very, very long shelf life.

Sentimental Value is uncommonly rich in emotional rewards and contemplative in its reflections on the places where we live becoming a permanent repository for our memories, remaining there even after we move on. The movie’s poignancy accumulates gradually, every supple turn expertly modulated as the presence of generations past becomes more tangible.

Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is full of understated, melancholy poetry.

Heineman offers up a double portrait of devastation, of a truly destroyed city and of partially decimated survivors, leaving the viewer with an empathetic sense of deep sorrow.

Should please art house buffs across the board. Connoisseurs of Chinese film will be pleased to discover that Tian's meticulous talent has not withered during his enforced hiatus. Moviegoers who like their visions of China rarefied and past tense will delight in the careful period setting.

It is a work of great fantasy and charm that will delight children ages 3 to 100.

Solemn, searching and at times even poetic in its indignation, this is a sensitively crafted contemplation of corrosive grief, even if the unanswerable questions surrounding the case keep the film somewhat emotionally muted.

A delightfully old-fashioned kid’s flick with a meaningful message.

That nobody becomes a realized character with an emotional arc is just a place American Factory falls a little flat.

The movie's concerns are obvious, not subtle, and while intellectual energy abounds, laying in subtext, building underlying tension physical and creating visual dynamism are not Schrader's strong suits.

The emotional moments that push her life in new directions must be colored in by the audience. Though that never feels like much of an intellectual challenge, and the 127-minute film is in no hurry to paint its picture, something about Milla's ordinariness makes her worth getting to know.

In short, there’s no predetermined narrative at play in this concise and elegantly crafted road trip. The terrain it travels is one of open-ended questions, and the spark it ignites has a contrapuntal power.

A crime-flick love story as Pop-conscious as Wright's earlier work but unironic about its romantic core, it will delight the director's fans but requires no film-geek certification.

The emotional impact of A Little Prayer doesn’t so much detonate as unfold, a series of quiet epiphanies, well-observed and elegant in their awkward yearning.

Under Jonathan Demme's masterful cinematic surgery, we get into Lecter's twisted skull and, through this outrageous descent, we come to see this sinister in the everyday.

With the risks to both the filmmaker and his subjects on full display, it’s an impressively exciting and strikingly novel approach in chronicling a humanitarian crisis that has yet to receive its due.

It's very much an art piece, to be sure, but it feels like a genuine one that, while meditated, speaks fluently and truly for the place, people and culture it so indelibly depicts.

The doc could benefit from more information about what led up to that day.

What's most remarkable is how the primitive video footage balances the aspects of Jened that were unique — you've never seen a baseball game or swimming instruction like this — with moments that are hilarious and universal.

While there is invariably repetition and drag in [the film], it also bursts with compelling detail and extraordinary insight into an enigmatic figure about whom we come away more or less enlightened.