Western is a naturalistic, almost documentary-like feature that slowly builds.

To say 13th is stimulating and thought-provoking is the understatement of the year.

This is awareness-raising documentary cinema at its most urgent and necessary.

It’s a marvelously imaginative conceit that transforms what could have been yet another dryly informative documentary into the realm of art.

Perhaps more than anything, the doc celebrates the remarkable creative union between Cave and his chief collaborator and bandmate Warren Ellis.

I doubt any movie, especially any documentary, will make me laugh harder this year, and many of its emotional grace notes land fully. Even with my high expectations, The History of Concrete is a small triumph.

Anchored by an internalized performance from Amy Adams rich in emotional depth, this is a grownup sci-fi drama that sustains fear and tension while striking affecting chords on love and loss.

Cody's dialogue has a definite rhythm and Reitman directs his actors to deliver the words in the rapid-fire precision of a '30s screwball comedy. Indeed all scenes develop a rhythm and inner logic that bring the movie to often startling revelations and insights.

Elena is an elegiac cinematic essay that is both haunting and unforgettable.

In many ways, this is an expertly crafted chiller. . . A strong cast and an intriguing chapter structure also work in its favor. But ultimately, it’s not really about anything much.

Nothing if not true to its title, this frenetically plotted serve of stoner heaven is insanely imaginative and often a lot of fun. But at two hours-plus, it becomes unrelenting and wearisome.

Ultimately, the heavy-handed and annoyingly obvious aesthetic wears thin.

Dhont and his team know just how to turn up the emotional dials with stunning magic-hour lensing that gives golden-haired Dambrine a halo of backlit suffering as he stands in fields of nodding dahlias, that most gloriously domestic and benevolent flower.

This cannily edited selection of rare archive footage reveals the peak of the people’s mind-born terror, and it is the beginning of the end.

It’s Gay’s most emotionally direct work to date, thoroughly shedding the clever-cleverness of some of his earlier work, and also his most accessible — a clean-lined, sensitively-written and beautifully played two-hander that tackles complex issues in a refreshingly straightforward, downbeat way.

This is a documentary both tragic and poignant, not to mention maddening in that only a few underlings, and not the perpetrators, will pay for the crime committed in Istanbul. The evidence is all here for the world to see.

The epic adventure, set during the Napoleonic Wars, boasts at least two artists at the top of their respective games -- namely filmmaker Peter Weir and actor Russell Crowe.

Kells proves that in the increasingly high-tech world of feature animation, there still can be a place for old-time tradition.

It’s like watching a first-rate standup routine transformed into fiction, or in this case auto-fiction, as Rock has more on his mind than just making us laugh, offering up a witty celebrity satire that doubles as a love story set during one long and eventful New York City day.

Autobiographical but also singularly imaginative, this formally exuberant bildungsroman plays like a Gregg Araki film with a dash of Cronenbergian psychosomatic body-rebellion thrown in.

This is a highly original work that goes beyond its theological aspects to explore more universal questions of mankind and our evanescent place in the world.

The period sets, costumes and cinematography all superbly recreate the brutal era, grand illusions and everyday suffering of the Poles under both the Nazis and the Soviets.

The long, unbroken rhythm of Wang’s filmmaking somehow casts a spell, and he certainly has a good eye for characters. That’s a blessing considering how slow and considered the takes are here, watching with equally intense absorption whether the subjects are sleeping on a train or constructing seams or making food. But overall, the lack of differentiation can be wearisome.

Coming Home sinks into a conventional tragic romance rut that not even engaging performances by Gong and Chen can save.

At every imaginative juncture, the filmmakers (the screenplay is credited to Pixar veteran Molina and Matthew Aldrich) create a richly woven tapestry of comprehensively researched storytelling, fully dimensional characters, clever touches both tender and amusingly macabre, and vivid, beautifully textured visuals.

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.

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.

Co-director Starzack was one of the guiding hands behind the series version of Shaun the Sheep, and that experience in the kind of brisk, skit-based comedy that makes the series so charming shows through here in stand-alone scenes.