Despite its inspiring real-life tale and its laudable message, Godspeed is too flimsily constructed and crudely amateurish to have much of an impact.

Step Up All In and Into the Storm writer John Swetnam’s debut is just as derivative as his earlier films, but also demonstrates that his dearth of imagination extends to directing as well.

A solid example of low-key, well-observed, humanistically sympathetic ethnography.

Solid and informative... the affectionate film benefits from plenty of face time with its frank, amiably plain-vanilla subject.

This example of the rape-revenge film genre (who knew?) serves up its raw meat for its target audience with reasonable efficiency, although the surplus of ultraviolent fantasy sequences quickly proves wearisome.

The abstraction of the approach perhaps limits the scope of Miles Ahead as an acting showcase, though in Cheadle's fully inhabited characterization, he nails the subject's soft, nicotine-scratched rasp and his eccentric irritability and paranoia with discerning understatement.

In Porumboiu’s movies, what you see is never what you get, and there are riches to be had if you just keep looking.

There's a beautiful, multi-tiered exchange among artists happening in Junun.

Mustang fanatics will be thrilled by the level of access that Ford provided the filmmakers to shoot at the company’s Dearborn, Mich., headquarters and interview the Mustang design team headed by chief engineer Dave Pericak. Even so, it may be difficult to escape a sense that the film sometimes plays like an extended product promo.

Although the film might have benefited from a deeper investigation of the background to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the vivid scenes of protest in the capital city of Kiev supply undeniable power.

There’s a decidedly campy side to the proceedings that Koutras effectively juxtaposes with the hard-edged realities of contemporary Greece, a beautiful but hostile nation wrecked by the ongoing economic crisis and a place in which xenophobia, racism and homophobia seem to fester freely.

Dukhtar (Daughter) may not be 127 Hours, but Afia Nathaniel’s feature directing debut generates enough tension to fuel a harrowing real-life story while adding another unforgettable heroine to cinema from the region with Samiya Mumtaz’s measured portrayal of a Muslim woman taking charge of her life.

Featuring a stellar cast apparently seeking to prove that they're interested in being popular in red states as well as blue, Big Stone Gap goes down relatively easy, but it contains lots of empty calories.

Prabhudheva and frequent collaborator Shiraz Ahmed have slapped together a cacophonous pastiche of toilet jokes, high energy brawls and half-hearted love scenes, and their wafer-thin screenplay manages to conjure up a reason to include a heroine who doesn’t speak Hindi.

A pretty straightforward coming-of-age story that’s well-observed and manages to be intimate and explicit without becoming exploitative.

A film that flirts and flirts with explanations for its action without ever delivering.

Guilty (Talvar) is a gripping thriller and police procedural.

Ultimately little more than an extended commercial for his new album. That said, it is an effortless pleasure to watch

Keeping the creepy/kooky mix entertainingly intact, Goosebumps translates R.L. Stine’s frighteningly successful young adult horror fiction series to the big screen with lively, teen Ghostbusters-type results.

A feel-good Cold War melodrama, Bridge of Spies is an absorbing true-life espionage tale very smoothly handled by old pros who know what they're doing.

Rarely are documentaries as powerfully polemic and jaw-gapingly spectacular as Sherpa.

Hitchcock/Truffaut is a resourceful, illuminating and very welcome documentation both of filmmaking and the making of film history.

Though the film stretches out long enough to impress us with the difficulty of their journey, the four actors ensure that the two hours or so we spend in their company aren't dull.

An intriguing, offbeat surprise.

Despite its late shortcomings, Going Away demonstrates Garcia’s ability to coax strong performances out of a relatively young cast.

What comes out of this unlikely comparison between astronomy and history is a totally new perspective, something broader, with glimpses into deeper meanings.

It is the director’s extraordinary intuition about the synchronicity of history, geography and the physical universe – a mysterious relationship that has nothing to do with cause and effect – that gives the film and its predecessor their undeniable power.

Constantine’s skills as a first-time dramatist are a serious weakness here. Though the subject matter is rich and the soundtrack terrific, character and plot take a back seat.