MI-5 is no action b-movie classic, but it manages to weave a complex and compelling narrative knot, mix in some absorbing musings about the nature of doing right and following orders, and pack in some nail-biting shoot outs.

There are elements of The Boy And The Beast that undoubtedly reinforce the promise that Hosoda holds: it’s a treat to look at, is inventive in spots, and will probably be eaten up by younger viewers. But it ultimately proves both narratively unsatisfying and emotionally lacking.

Visual daring is nice, but it means little in the end when the ultimately safe and harmless story never rocks the boat.

There’s never too much at stake for the princesses or the audience, but it makes for a fine diversion from the realities of life and history.

The film's lack of terror might be more forgivable had it embraced its more humorous inclinations, but the script’s pedestrian liberals-vs.-conservatives, boors-vs.-yuppies conflicts rarely result in anything laugh-out-loud funny.

Illuminating and fiercely original, if you’re willing to go along on a silent, experimental, dance-based journey of a mother in the desert, Ma is well worth the ride.

Letting such a film slip into the melodramatic could have been very easy. But Garaño and Goenaga tactfully navigate the delicacies of death and the difficulties (and guilt) of life with a quiet poise that make for a film that is as enriching as it is disheartening.

Intimate, singular, and hallucinatory on all aesthetic levels, the film strips politics down to the bone, not always successful but never opportunistic.

While its ambition does show a director still aspiring for great heights, its patchy execution only partly restores the faith.

Berardini’s film follows a narrative trajectory impressive in any documentary, let alone one by a rookie filmmaker. The debut effort is commendable, both for its handling of a complex issue, as well as for its engagement factor.

There’s still that dissonance — Pixar is creating its own world, though the characters, and replicating our own, in the gorgeous vistas — but even when the combination doesn’t truly sing, it remains entrancing, and even surprising.

Deformed from the start, it confirms the very thing argued by its narrative – namely, the folly of unwarranted resurrections.

It promises a minute character study, but Franny, though embodied by a game Gere who in all fairness does visit places in his performance we have rarely seen him even stop by before, is less a person than a collection of quirks.

Ultimately, Ross hasn’t just successfully mounted an adaptation of a hot literary property, or even launched a film series that earns the right to be a franchise. He’s produced an engaging, thoughtful, populist piece of entertainment that transcends gender, genre or source material.

An unremarkable but solid genre exercise, one that shows off Jackie Earle Haley’s chops as a director.

It’s a promising premise fit for a thorny inquiry into personal and institutional priorities, and yet no sooner has Secret In Their Eyes laid its story’s groundwork than it goes off the rails

Rousing in spirit, surprisingly emotional and visually dynamic, filmmaker Ryan Coogler’s first studio movie, Creed, is a worthy successor to the best of the “Rocky” movies and proves the young director is the real deal.

Lawrence is never less than commanding in her last outing as the fiery dystopian heroine, but the most heartening liberation proffered by Part 2 is its star’s escape from this one-note fantasy series.

Always energetic like the wild whoop of a bachelor party, the lights burn brightest when The Night Before indulges in big goofs and kooky tangents.

Nielsson’s documentary portrait is a tragic look at the broken political process in Zimbabwe.

The Big Short ends up an energetic, absorbing version of these events, marked deeply by its director’s uniquely surreal vision.

Using its characters' memories, loyalties and resentments as vehicles, Return to Ithaca gently expands our understanding of life within a society that, in contrast to our own, did not even pretend to cultivate the idea that its citizens were free.

A lack of pace and illuminating insight are what keep Concussion from lasting resonance, its flaws threatening to dull the issue for drama in a way that the NFL could only appreciate.

Despite the predictability of storytelling, The 33 is an undeniably rousing picture.

For those who are coming to Codegirl looking for a fiery rebuke and exposé on the gender imbalance rampant in Silicon Valley, they've come to the wrong place.

From the outset, What Our Fathers Did doesn’t have much narrative thrust. The film makes it clear that it is more interested in the process than any end goal. But the process of what exactly is a question that gnaws unanswered for the first third of the documentary.

Elemental in construct and narrative, the picture breathes through the screen during Theeb's moments of quiet reflection at his surroundings and all the cruelty the vast, all-encompassing desert has to offer.

The film proves — in both style and attitude — a successful bridge between the old and the new, and one that, no matter its emotional slimness, ultimately never loses sight of the fretful angst with which all kids must, at some point, contend.

Jolie Pitt’s insistence on creating a piece that reflects the harsh inner state of a person suffering to understand herself as a wife and as a woman in the world is commendable, and fascinating in her growth as a filmmaker.

Seidl uses the peculiar relationship of Austrians to their basements as a way to pick away at the cracks between our public and our most private selves. But it's an idea that is elevated further by his rigorous eye for composition and cinematographic portraiture that makes the even the most bizarre images beautiful, and fashions the film, which could feel very fragmented in that it jumps from subject to subject and back again, into a deeply engrossing whole.

Lost in the Sun gets most elements right in order to put together one of those gritty and melancholic southern crime dramas, except for when it comes to producing a unique screenplay and direction that rises above mediocrity.

The Armor of Light condemns the organizations that create cultures of fear in order to line their own pockets, cultures that end up putting human life below profits.

Out 1 isn’t just exploratory in its filmmaking methods; exploration is its dramatic essence.

If you’re not too undone by agitation with Carter’s umpteenth quip about the female body, you may even work up a smile over some of these sweeter moments involving the uniformed trio.

Structuring their modern tale around the Mark Twain narratives, the sibling directors find laughs, pathos, and some surprising storytelling twists, plus have a game cast to deliver it.

What keeps The Royal Road from feeling like its trapped in amber is the genuine heartbreak that Olson clearly feels, the rawness of her emotions and her dedicated willingness to share.

A highly polished film that belies the soap opera melodrama of its plotline by having the twists and turns spring directly from well-observed human behavior, Stone's The Daughter is a quiet, immensely affecting triumph.

The problems run far deeper than craft — it is simply a film that has no reason to be made, a story without point or insight or drive.

If ‘Dying’‘s main issue was a surfeit of ideas, ’Sound’ feels like it suffers from a paucity.

Without patronizing or condescending, it’s an examination of how fame can change us and haunt us, and of the complicated relationships that survivors of something like “Star Wars” can have with it.

Jem has less in common with its neon-drenched ‘80s source material than with the real-life Internet-to-red-carpet trajectory of Justin Bieber — a similarly generic teen idol with moves dully modeled on superior artistic predecessors.

The film’s haphazard construction is made all the more frustrating because somewhere in this material is a much more resonant picture.

In general, this feels like a film patched together out of endless hastily-drafted script rewrites rather than a cohesive vision.

For the most part an assured film, confident in both the drama and the truth of the scenario it observes, this ground-level view of the immigrant experience feels both pinpoint specific and all too representative of the obstacles and attitudes that face so many illegals, in so many parts of the world.

Rarely has a mainstream comedy boasting this much talent been so structurally amateurish, to the point that the film’s lack of humor seems a secondary problem to its more pressing storytelling incoherence.

For 100 minutes, Kill Your Friends apes a myriad of styles, trying to pass off imitation as innovation.

Hanks' insightful tribute to the retailer, and chronicle of their history, is the story of the music industry, who had it all, and believed the good times would last forever, only to see it all slip away.

For some audiences, Bleeding Heart may deliver some much needed catharsis, but it’s ultimately a hollow film that isn’t concerned with consequences or the echoing cycle of violence, just vanquishing the bad guy, reclaiming a dime store sense of “freedom,” and not much more.

While the material might be the substance of a handful of reality shows you could easily watch on television, there is only one Jake "The Snake" Roberts, and his story matches the epic highs and lows of his life.

Not every joke lands and it’s not as consistently funny as it could have been, but at its best, The Final Girls evokes the offbeat silliness of David Wain’s parody films like “Wet Hot American Summer” and “They Came Together."

Bone Tomahawk is a proper Western, a proper horror movie, and by combining the two, becomes something else entirely, and proves hugely enjoyable for it.

Momentum is a confused, bland, and wholly unoriginal action/thriller that tries its best to ripoff the mid-budget international action formula of Luc Besson’s Europacorp productions.

In the end, it doesn't matter if you believe Alexandrovich's story that a $7 billion weapons system was ultimately the cause of the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown; what matters is that Alexandrovich believes it so completely. And through his eyes (which seem to bug out outside of his skull), the entire Russia/Ukraine relationship takes on a vivid, personal immediacy.

Never entirely satisfying as a drama, Crimson Peak is visually dazzling, boasting lively and at times even transfixing performances that keep the story’s blood flowing.

Miles Ahead is well-intentioned and ambitious, but ultimately uneven, as it cannot redefine the structures its so desperately wants to break down.

Steeped in a culture rarely observed on screen, Bustamante's film has the airs of a documentary. Its ensemble cast of local actors have zero trace of affectation in their performances.

Tab Hunter Confidential is fun and gossipy in the way that great documentaries about Hollywood often are, but it also speaks to a deeper truth about identity and perseverance and the large divide between one's personal and professional life.

Aptly named and drolly executed, leading to a transcendently funny, endearing and unexpected finale, The Treasure confirms Corneliu Porumboiu as the joker in the Romanian New Wave pack.

A film that assembles many of the author’s most memorable creations with noisy, tossed-off sloppiness.

Junun is Paul Thomas Anderson at his most laid back. Not bothering with instructive context, the picture finds him absorbing the energy of the musicians through their instruments and personas. A scrappy film that never feels precious about itself or its subject matter.

Too many times, Trash asks the audience to trust its characters and their words unconditionally by throwing around terms like "change," "hope," and "rights" with no basis whatsoever.

Save for a few inspired moments (usually at the expense of the city of Fresno), Jamie Babbit’s screwball comedy is cringe-inducing and unfunny. Everyone in front of the camera here deserves better, particular Judy Greer in a rare starring role.

This is a documentary that reminds you of the resiliency of the human spirit. The resourcefulness that can take place when you have nowhere else to run.

Under The Influence is ultimately much more of a listening pleasure than a viewing one. Neville's by-the-book direction makes sure of that. That said, Richards is an undeniably magnetic force of nature that keeps the attention span reined in for the swift 80-minute runtime.

Bridge Of Spies is one-third courtroom drama and two-thirds Cold War thriller, and while an engaging watch thanks to fine actors and terrific filmmaking, it’s not without its issues.

Hitchcock is essential; Truffaut is essential; the book is essential; Kent Jones' Hitchcock/Truffaut is not quite so, but it's a very enjoyable appendix.

Guzmán's essential thesis seems to be that, in turning its back on the ocean, modern Chile lost a crucial part of its identity. But he also puts forward the extraordinary idea that the water has a memory, and that if you listen closely enough, you can hear the voices of the disappeared.

Constantine captures the invigorating joy of these songs, and humorously shows that it is nearly impossible to listen and not feel the urge to dance.

Buoyed by a script brimming with authentic back-and-forth ribbing and confessional exchanges, newcomers Baquet and Dargent exhibit an alternately ribald and frank rapport that, like the film itself, taps into the volatile anxiety of finding one’s self.

Wildlike is not a traditional Hollywood feel-good buddy road movie, but a semi-slow burn experience that takes its subject matter and characters seriously while unrolling the central relationship of the story in a refreshingly deliberate pace.

The Walk is broadly written with two clunky first acts that are saved, arguably superseded entirely, by its nerve-wracking, majestic and spectacular finish.

The use of the actress’ own archival material in 'In Her Own Words' results in a tribute to both her titanic career, and to her belief in the movies’ capacity to safeguard the past, and to maintain it long after its makers are gone.

The exuberant life and liveliness that spills off the screen and the effortless sororal chemistry between these young actresses are compelling reasons to seek out Mustang.

Hirsh Bordo’s first film isn’t ambitious in its style or structure, but it is entirely effective at communicating its encouraging message to the audience.

In Western, the filmmaking philosophy remains the same, but the subject is new and different, and the storytelling is deeper, nuanced, and honed by experience.

Anxious and tightly-wound like “Citizenfour,” with similarly shocking and disturbing content, (T)error is a gripping parallel investigation of illegitimate counter-terrorist stratagems that not only considers the moral consequences of informing, and the wider troubling landscape around it, but does so from a deeply intimate and remarkable perspective.

Pan is a cacophonous assault on the senses, all computerized cinematographic mayhem and deafening noise, and its hurried pace extinguishes any genuine character development.

The highest compliment that can be made of the movie is that it is harmless: never laughably bad, never painful, just pure mediocrity, from start to finish.

In its portrait of a strong, independent woman learning to embrace her own ambition, desires, and future via the aid of an older male mentor-cum-father-figure, it colors its triumphant fantasy of female empowerment in a distinctly conservative, paternalistic shade.

The respect that the film mostly has for Aria’s personhood, even at such a young age, gives it a keener edge than many other entries in the rather overpopulated coming-of-age genre.

Unexpected and charming, “Manson Family Vacation” is one ride you’ll want to catch.

Atmosphere and feelings can only do so much when story, and its credible beats, seem to have fallen by the wayside.

Relentlessly paced, with the volatile ferocity of a rabid pitbull, Schneider vs. Bax is, above all else, pretty damn funny. That's if you're into Alex van Warmerdam's distinctive brand of humor.

Every single one of Emmerich’s moves can be seen coming from several miles away, and yet, not because they adhere to any semblance of historical fact. Somehow, Emmerich makes a severely underserved narrative feel groaningly familiar.

The pathos of this situation is clear, the stakes, which obviously involve genocide, justice and actual Nazis, are sky high and Plummer is completely extraordinary. So why on earth isn't Remember a better film?

Gitai rightly trusts in the fascination of material that needs no sensationalism or gimmickry to command our whole attention.

Buried underneath the glop are interesting notions on reality, creation, and the nature of death. And thanks to its aesthetic, it's at least a very beautiful catastrophe.

Lolo features long stretches of perhaps her most accomplished and enjoyable character-comedy yet. But as often with filmmakers for whom a certain register comes almost too easily, Delpy seems impatient with herself and her facility for spiky, verbal sparring and pithy self-deprecating put-downs.

The real war of A War is waged within Claus, with Lindholm's camera trained mercilessly on Asbæk as he delivers yet another faultlessly committed performance, within a large ensemble in which every performer feels note-perfect.

Thanks to deplorable direction by Paco Cabezas, and a childishly broad screenplay by Max Landis, Mr. Right ends up all wrong.

With his monumental control of the camera —at times staying with characters during quiet moments of anticipation, at others panning slowly 360 degrees to envelop us in the entirety of the environment— Davies directs the most refined coming-of-age story cinema has seen in recent years.

While aesthetically it doesn’t do much to break the form, it more than succeeds in presenting Joplin as a flawed, insecure, deeply brilliant woman who, unfortunately, couldn’t shake her demons.

The film’s depiction of societal breakdown remains firmly planted in the realm of real human emotion, testing the resolve of two young women and unearthing awe-inspiring reserves of strength and tenderness in the process.

In Jackson Heights serves to remind us that our worlds are full of living things, and that, being the social creatures we are, we need each other.

Vigas' grip is so tight that even if you do get to the heart of his meaning, there's a chance it will have had the life squeezed out of it.

Cloaked in a mystifying atmosphere and possessed by a transfixing, amorphous mood, Lucile Hadzihalilovic's Evolution is a beautifully strange hybrid of innocence and disturbance.

It's Arquimedes who emerges as the film's most indelible character, aided by Francella's fabulously icy performance. Lacking even the warmth of a Don Vito, Arquimedes comes across not as a man who does everything for his family, but as a man who expects his family to do everything, even damn themselves, for him and his twisted, heartless, self-centered worldview.

Alternating immense bombast with long stretches of longueur in its psychologically questionable evocation of the formative years of a future despot, the film is formally confident, stylistically inventive and intensely irritating.