Wise beyond its years, like the teenage protag Gelsomina, Le Meraviglie (The Wonders) is a wistful but no-tears swan song recounting the disappearance of traditional rural life-style in Italy.

An intensely compelling work.

Creepy, suspenseful and sustained, this skillfully made lo-fi horror movie plays knowingly with genre tropes and yet never winks at the audience, giving it a refreshing face-value earnestness that makes it all the more gripping.

The final half-hour is a joy to watch, as turning points follow in rapid succession.

The film’s methods are boldly unorthodox and its constantly alternating moods and shifts in tone from drama to humor, joy to tragedy can be disconcerting. It’s not a film for all audiences, but despite its eccentricities it is always watchable, thanks to strongly drawn characters and the soul-stirring poetry of its imagery.

What’s finally tragic about their destiny of choice is not that the couple succeeded in becoming immortal together but that everything leading up to their death was the result of very banal actions and shot through with an extreme sense of loneliness.

While this may be the actor-director’s most polished feature yet, it’s far from a traditional suspense movie.

Dolan's fifth feature feels like a strong step forward, striking his most considered balance yet between style and substance, drama-queen posturing and real heartfelt depth.

This is another solid and provocative feature from Ostlund.

Foodstuffs, metaphysics and a heap of raunchy action add up to something surprisingly hilarious.

Endlessly stimulating and provoking, Ivory Tower presents a solid overview of an urgent problem that some claim is about to implode and others believe can be worked through with the intelligent application of fresh ideas.

What moviegoers do get is a film both thoughtful and convincing, sympathetic but not flattering to a man who had just three years after this period's end to make himself immortal.

A deluxe multi-character drama that blends real history with semi-fictionalized spy thriller and soap opera elements, Burning Bush feels in places like an extended Czech remake of the Cold War-themed German Oscar-winner The Lives of Others.

Beautifully shot with an acute eye for crisp composition, this intimate mood piece explores the subtle intricacies and low-level power struggles of long-term love in forensic detail.

In telling their remarkable story, filmmaker Leslie Zemeckis has not only etched a heart-wrenching portrait of their individual and dual misfortunes, she has subtly illuminated on the general public's dark fascination with “freaks.”

Chan varies the film’s stylistic veneer of naturalism with occasional, lyrical scenes of the lush woodsy environs surrounding the family home and flashbacks to the kids’ childhoods, as well as moments of low-key visual humor, as the pair stumble about searching for clues to their mother’s secret life.

The Good Lie is a touching, generous-hearted movie, sensitively directed by Philippe Falardeau (Monsieur Lazhar) working with a smart, sly, long-gestated script by Margaret Nagle (Boardwalk Empire).

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.

An impressive debut driven by a timeline-blurring narrative and nuanced performances.

Director Overbay, working from an effective screenplay by his wife Ginny Lee Overbay, slowly ratchets up the tension in quietly compelling fashion.

The Battered Bastards of Baseball is not just about baseball. It transcends the game and is a charming anti-establishment yarn.

Gerard Johnstone, a first-time writer-director from New Zealand, demonstrates a sly command of deadpan humor along with an assured grasp of seasoned horror tropes.

It’s an impressive debut, an ambitious project pulled off with confidence.

The director and screenwriter downplay the conventional melodrama inherent in the situation in favor of emphasizing how practical problems should be addressed with rational responses rather than hysteria, knee-jerk patriotism or selfish expedience.

A taut, vivid and sad account of the brief life of the most accomplished marksman in American military annals, American Sniper feels very much like a companion piece—in subject, theme and quality—to The Hurt Locker.

Though some plot elements are pushily therapeutic, they're offset by others whose novelty distinguishes Rudderless from movies of its sort.

Visually ravishing, thought-provoking and benefitting from just enough playfulness to set it apart from the nature-doc herd, the film is eco-relevant without being at all dominated by climate change, which is only one of many subjects discussed.

The film is funny, warm-hearted and enormously satisfying.