Let’s just say that morally, The Killer is all over the place, which may alienate some viewers. Others may delight in both the protagonist and the film’s puckish, zero-fucks-given attitude, one that seems entirely, atheistically uninhibited by fear of a punitive deity or higher moral purpose.

The sequential, numbers-heavy structure can make for plodding viewing, especially in the film’s first half. But the doc is ultimately a thoughtful and sensitive tribute to a luminary who should be a household name.

Wrenching to watch, but told with clarity and guts.

What is admirable about Ivory Game is that it recognizes the complexity of the issues.

Modest but funny, it makes a fine calling card for a performer deserving of bigger things.

Few who see the picture will fail to be charmed.

The movie captivates early on with several scenes of physical and mental mayhem, before settling into a more classic comic formula — albeit one with plenty of twists to come.

Folktales is an easily embraceable coming-of-age documentary that makes up for what it lacks in depth with its surplus of wise, vaguely anthropomorphized canine companions.

Something You Said Last Night testifies to its director’s dexterity with constructing subtly meaningful moments, but without more insight into its protagonist, the film can feel unintentionally impenetrable at times.

A perfectly chosen cast sells this unhurried comedy, which flows unconventionally but is still, by a long stretch, the most mainstream-friendly picture Bujalski has made.

It might not be way up there in "The Incredibles"/"Finding Nemo"/"Toy Story" stratosphere, but the charming Cars is nevertheless a thoroughly pleasant way to mark Pixar Animation Studios' 20th anniversary.

Sifting the pieces of a broken lesbian relationship, the slender, seemingly autobiographical film has its share of neurotic charms and funny one-liners, but it’s too tentative about digging into its identity conflicts -- sexual or cultural.

Day's debut succeeds in part thanks to its modest scope, viewing the street-art phenomenon through an attempt to rescue one of its highly perishable creations for the public good.

Its surge of final-act feeling will speak to any audience that has ever experienced the startling reckoning that comes with grief.

Most will learn something here, in a film that both follows the practice to its natural, dire conclusions and champions the ordinary citizens who have stepped up to fight against it.

Julia Roberts marches through Erin Brockovich like a force of nature. Granted, the movie gives her all of the best lines — to say nothing of its most eye-catching wardrobe. But the actress seizes the film's eponymous role with fire-in-her-eyes possessiveness and injects the character with all the energy and drive she can muster.

Falling closer in tone to "Shaun of the Dead" than "28 Days Later" or the George Romero movies, Zombieland has its tongue planted firmly in its rancid cheek while still delivering the visceral goodies.

Expanding her premise into a reflection on an artist's challenge in portraying reality, the director's By the Time It Gets Dark is a magical, melancholic ode to the intellectual's struggle against the forces of history.

The film is notable more for its unusual conceit than as a serious exploration of grief and familial relationships.

There is a decorousness at play here that adds an odd new flavor to the Almodovar repertoire, a politeness that’s quite unlike the lusty vulgarity of the past.

Ferrari is unlikely to go down as canonical Mann, lacking the glimmering, hard-edged stylishness of his best work. But admirers of the director’s high-intensity, muscular filmmaking will not go unrewarded.

Essentially a two-hander though enlivened by incisive secondary character turns along the way, it's a drama made with tremendous feeling, an unhurried, contemplative tale peppered with nail-biting set-pieces.

Although one need not have graduated from a weekend screenwriting seminar to tell where the story is headed, Big is just plain funny and wonderfully goofy throughout. Again, while certainly not a new story or even a new theme, Big is done refreshingly well.

Good Boy works well enough on its own terms, managing to sustain sufficient tension throughout the course of its smartly concise 73-minute running time.

A disability-centric documentary that moves viewers without resorting to trite devices, Seung-Jun Yi's Planet of Snail takes a condition most of us would find unbearable and demystifies it while finding room for poetry.

This intriguing debut feature from Flemish director Lukas Dhont, in a completely natural mix of Dutch and French, looks terrific, is not afraid to tackle a number of difficult subjects and features a star-making performance from acting and dancing talent Victor Polster.

A piercingly funny, twisted "whatever-happens-in-Vegas" caper.

What’s perhaps most impressive about Ostlund’s evolving style as a filmmaker and social commentator is his compulsion to enrich every scene he creates with a multitude of tones and nuances across the serio-comic spectrum. He’s like a virtuoso chef driven to try increasingly wild combinations of spices and ingredients; often the result is terrific, once in a while it’s too much.