Powerful, engaging and, by the finale, moving. And in the end, At Any Price is certainly one of the most impressive reactions to the recent economic crisis (because that’s exactly what it is) that cinema has produced so far.

A brilliant, towering picture, The Place Beyond The Pines is a cinematic accomplishment of extraordinary grace and insight.

It's enjoyable and toe-tapping for what it is, but it's also extremely lightweight stuff.

A beautiful, hearfelt and raw piece of work.

Some good laughs and a passable air of bonhomie do nothing to cover up the fact that The Angels’ Share is totally lightweight and distractingly underdone.

While far from perfect, Welcome To Pine Hill works more often than it doesn’t and is an intimate and existential character study of a man out of place with his past, himself, and his surroundings, and the push and pull of former and future worlds beckoning him.

With the help of a talented cast, The Brass Teapot is able to coast on charm for the first hour, but then the fairytale idea that powers the film runs out of juice, and the last forty-five minutes hurtle toward a wrap-up that feels both awkward and overwrought, needlessly portentous and arriving much too late.

For a movie that tries to create and sustain a sensation of wild unpredictability, it's a huge failure. It's not shocking if we've all seen it a thousand times before. With 21 and Over, it's all been there, drank that.

A valiant attempt to build on the magic of “The Wizard Of Oz,” and while it certainly doesn’t diminish the standing of that movie, Sam Raimi’s film provides proof that the more we know about the mysteries of our favorite stories, the less interesting they become.

The experience of Leviathan is wholly singular, without context, enveloping and immersive. In some ways, it might very well be the most terrifying picture of the year.

It’s the kind of garbage that does a disservice to the fearless possibilities of the horror genre and its knack for sly social commentary.

Blending a surrealist perspective of battle-tinged faith with the harrowing tale of one girl's resilience, the film is a laser-focused fable threatened occasionally by its drifts into character shorthand, but equaled by a wrenching lead performance by Rachel Mwanza that results in one of the finest of the year.

The Spectacular Now is wise beyond its years, charismatic, measured and authentic in its depiction of the pains, confusions and insecurities of the teenage experience, and while its deliberate rhythm may prove to be a harder sell among the teen crowd, it’s a valuable and honest film that’s worth the investment.

Ultimately, it’s hard and a bit pointless to nitpick Jack The Giant Slayer because it never sets out to be or presents itself as anything more than a slightly beefed up fairy tale.

Comedy is hard all on its own, but comedy that resonates is a rare thing indeed. So it’s admirable that Rash and Faxon are continuing to head down that path they started with “The Descendants,” even if this film isn’t quite as refined.

Mud is as unmoving as it is because it doesn’t aspire to be anything other than a competent anti-fairy tale in which the paint-by-number morals are enforced by equally obvious main protagonists.

The End of Love is hardly a work of revelation. At the same time, it's surprisingly well-executed, nicely performed and manages to combine a warm and gentle sense of the rhythms of life with a cold and bright-eyed look at the world and its lead's flaws and character.

Beautiful, yet dark and moving, unsparing, but told with a sympathetic eye, Ginger & Rosa is sometimes relentless in its examination of emotional pain.

Rubberneck is a thriller too drab and self-obsessed to ever be truly thrilling.

Alien abductions are a truly terrifying idea, and building an alien abduction movie on the template of "Poltergeist" is a great idea. But "Poltergeist" had one thing Dark Skies is sorely in need of: follow-through.

Deceivingly complex, with an emotional center that peels away like an onion the longer it unfolds, this is a powerful effort from Mungiu in which love and faith are both different kinds of poison.

Snitch is just a big, dumb, ugly-looking waste of time, one that turns one of cinema's most charismatic heroes into a restless drone. As they say in the joint: snitches get stitches. But Snitch deserves to be put down for good.

It’s a fun, laugh-out-loud dark comedy, and proves that Alex Karpovsky and crew have made their mark.

Loose, limber and driven by a fierce energy and staccato/pause rhythm we haven't seen previously from this filmmaker, Noah Baumbach's sublime Frances Ha is a fresh and vivacious near-reinvention of the director/writer's comedic milieu.

Midnight movie programmers of the future will undoubtedly give it a long life years after it’s gone from first-run theaters.

Quite frankly, The Jeffrey Dahmer Files would have been better if it had a little more meat on its bones.

At its worst, the film is a panoply of ersatz camera placement and terrible scene blocking, actors having no clue how to interact with their surroundings as they rifle through dialogue that stands as a series of historical checkpoints rather than a cohesive story.

A Good Day To Die Hard isn’t dead on arrival because that would suggest it has a pulse.

Writer/director Richard LaGravenese tries his damnedest to deftly navigate the clunky plot, and while it's not exactly a home run, it's still an incredibly stylish, evocative, edgy (was that an incest reference?) and frequently funny (there's even a Nancy Reagan joke) Southern Gothic romance.

A noir-tinged, noose-tightening ordeal [that] confirms Antonio Campos, if not the entire Borderline Films outfit, as a filmmaker/team to be reckoned with.

Unique and at times profound, it's a reminder of how much Kubrick left for us to appreciate in his work, and how the greatest films always leave something more to be discovered with each viewing.

All of Wong's undeniable visual flair can't conceal the haphazard nature of the story.

Richard Linklater's Before Midnight isn't the most digestible picture, but its challenging, funny, painful, very present and alive depiction of relationships at 40 is so honest and real that we wouldn't have it any other way.

The film is undeniably moving at times, and there are moments of metatextual elegance that feel as though they tremble on the brink of genuine insight.

Unfortunately, Would You Rather is content with being a risible borderline torture porn horror film.

There is a fine line between meeting an audience halfway and witholding enough without falling into self-indulgence, but Kiarostami can't make that balance here. Enigmatic and dull to a maddening degree, Like Someone In Love finds Kiarostami spinning his wheels.

Perhaps hardcore Jet Li fans will be able to get some joy out of it, but we'd suspect that even they will struggle with this one.

While a film of great craft, strongly performed by the cast across the board, and particulary by the lead, newcomer Saskia Rosendahl, Lore never lets the audience in close enough for it to be a truly embraceable picture.

With long stretches (we're talking 20-30 minutes) without a single guffaw, Identity Thief is aggressively dull, and will joylessly steal two hours of your life that you will never get back.

A film of surface pleasures, even joys, but those joys seem to be longing for a central idea around which to coalesce.

You may not be able to figure it out, but that's part of the point of this sensually-directed, sensory-laden experiential (and experimental) piece of art that washes over you like a sonorous bath of beguiling visuals, ambient sounds and corporeal textures.

The risible Stoker is a brutally empty, deeply unfortunate movie, and Park Chan-wook's jackhammer of a tool he calls a brush is, on this evidence, something that should be locked away.

The picture's conspiratorial late-night tone and fleshy after hours luridness was practically built for watching at night, when our parents think we've gone off to bed (think '80s films directed by folks like Adrian Lyne).

Each scene is a brisk vignette of deadpan reversal, often involving a running theme of miscommunication.

This film feels like one you discover late at night and watch for ten minutes before remembering you've already seen it, and yet we still kinda loved it.

A vibrant and vital tribute to a piece of recording and rock history that could have been lost to the ether, and Grohl packages the story of this little studio with a detailed celebration of the craft and skill necessary to this kind of recording, all with a killer soundtrack (which should go without saying).

It's like stocking a team with proven performers and hoping that everything else will work itself out at the end, including a rickety script, indifferent direction, and a plot that pretends its final act is anything other than a cliché-hugging inevitability.

Playing with genre is fine, but if you're going to create new rules, you have to play by them too, but unfortunately Warm Bodies continually subverts its own internal logic and basic, believable character motivation to keep pushing the movie along.

This newest film is an undercooked potboiler, one so tastelessly bland and visually indistinguishable that you wonder if anyone associated with the project realized what makes cheapo crime fiction so fun to consume.

Not only is not even a single character more than one-dimensional, but every line falls flatter than a witch dispatched with a Gatling gun.

There is a lived-in quality to Supporting Characters that comes from either a strong cast or days of rehearsal – unclear as to whether they had the latter, though they definitely have the former.

A gloriously decadent, gorgeously photographed melodrama – a movie where people burst into tears and act very badly towards each other, all while wearing really fabulous clothes.

An oddity recommended for only the most fervent, undemanding comedy junkies.

For those of you who felt "Ides Of March" was entirely too cerebral and challenging, here comes the dunderheaded Knife Fight. A political satire that treads no new ground, this name-heavy comedy wastes an engaging central performance by Rob Lowe.

There are filmmakers who are able to weave social commentary through the arena of big budget entertainment, without having it come across as lopsided or boring; Allen Hughes, it turns out, is not one of these filmmakers.

By the time the ridiculous child psychologist character encounters a government employee with a convenient bounty of useful information, Mama just becomes laughable, then annoying.

The Last Stand delivers -- up to a point. Keep those expectations reasonable and try not to be disappointed.

The film similarly boxes itself in when it feels the need to mimic the third-act occurrences of "Paranormal Activity" when it's obvious that improv had the film going in an entirely less predictable direction, clearly pointing out the fallacy of A Haunted House: you can't parody something and also try to emulate it as well.

In lieu of any sharp insight into the period and its notorious figures, the film's brash, ultraviolent encounters instead build a showy exterior with nothing of import left standing.

Quartet is a hard film to dislike entirely, thanks principally to the charms of its cast.

Charming, witty, beautifully shot and inexplicably captivating.

Overall, there is a fundamental lack of excitement or energy; it's a 95-minute movie that feels twice as long as "The Hobbit."

The Impossible strikes an insincere tone, one that doesn't let the obviously powerful moments stand on their own, but instead follows the beautiful Hollywood stars to safety, while the real story is left on the ground.

Though not a poor effort per se -- David Chase's Not Fade Away does authentically captures the heart and soul of the music of the era and the intoxicating/naive dream of making it big -- the picture isn't exactly a remarkable one either.

Amour is nevertheless the work of a filmmaker who isn't afraid to ask the big questions about human nature, and coming out of Amour it seems the director has hope for us yet.

If there's one thing that wounds On the Road, it's that the film is full of things -- having sex, doing drugs, being free -- that are far more enjoyably experienced by one's self as opposed to watching other people enjoy them on screen.

Though maybe a bit too stiff and straight-laced, Barbara is a frequently subtle, moderately interesting character study set in a grievous East Germany during the 1980s.

Anyone who finds this conclusion a humanistic or socially reprehensible dealbreaker can hardly be faulted. Before these questionable issues come to a head and then falter in the finale, there is a lot of value in The Girl.

In terms of pure pop entertainment value, you'll be hard-pressed to find a more smartly constructed, beautifully shot, pulse-pounding movie this holiday season.

Apatow indulges in his freeform tendencies to a particularly destructive degree with This is 40, resulting in a movie in which the ambitions are only equaled by the shortcomings.

Like another Tribeca hit given a quiet release, last year's "Puncture," Any Day Now feels the need to take its compelling true story and stack the deck in favor of what we know is the outcome, presenting all obstacles as engineered by sneering, callous villains with disdain for those who would trumpet a more progressive cause.

It's not particularly funny or moving and it's terribly self-indulgent. Flamboyance and cartoonishness rule, there's hardly a moment of genuine emotion, and most overtures in that direction are superficial. As a picture ostensibly about love, revenge and the ugliness of slavery, Django Unchained has almost zero subtext and is a largely soulless bloodbath, in which the history of pain and retribution is coupled carelessly with a cool soundtrack and some verbose dialogue. Though it might just entertain the sh.t out of the less discerning.

The movie is basically The Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Mad Man, but don't be shocked if you find yourself asking just what art he was practicing in the first place.

As prophetic as it is provocative, exploring dysfunction, in a recognizable but no less satisfying way.

While 'Les Mis' ends terrifically, it cannot make up for the largely uneven experience that comes before it. There is no doubt an abundance of passion and commitment in Les Miserables but when the musical isn't connecting emotionally -- which is at least half the time -- it's a lot of blustering sound and fury that could either use a dialogue break or an edit.

The film may help "Downton Abbey" fanatics looking to kill a little time in that era but holds little cinematic appeal for the rest of us.

Watching Deadfall really is like being trapped in a blizzard – the cinematography is so muddy you can barely make out what's going on on screen (besides the bright splashes of blood) – you're antsy to be anywhere else but where you are.

It's Middle America vs. big bad corporate America, and while the (not so) "bad guy" predictably finds salvation in salt-of-the-earth people, Promised Land often leaves a sour taste in your mouth.

Largely harmless and tame, but also shallow and uninvolving.

By the end of the film it seems that even Frears has given up. Lay The Favorite places a bet but comes up empty with a comedy that won't make you smirk, with a gaggle of characters and actors who bounce and riff with very little rhyme or reason.

What Addicted To Fame lacks in nuance, it makes up for in insight and honesty.

As epic, grandiose, and emotionally appealing as the previous pictures, The Hobbit doesn't stray far from the mold, but it's a thrilling ride that's one of the most enjoyable, exciting and engaging tentpoles of the year.

The combination of compelling subject with an exciting and expert approach to documentary form achieves that transcendence you hope for in this genre: a melding of subject and text that is its own beast but also perfectly reflect each other.

It may very well be the best action movie of the year.

An electric, sprawling and ambitious effort that's easy to become absorbed by, and a picture that should impress those keen on the director's intelligent, composed and determined brand of filmmaking.

By the picture's knotty finale, in which Audiard navigates a late-stage twist with ease and emotion, you know you are in the hands of a master who is directing with the confidence and command that few possess.

It's fascinating, warm and immensely watchable stuff, and fans of both Jackson and pop music in general will surely eat the film up.

That feeling of utter disposability pervades throughout the film, underlining the missteps of Gervasi by aiming for breezy entertainment while forgetting to pause and inject some genuine emotion in there as well.

Stumbles out of the gate with a pacing that suggests a stern history lesson, despite warm performances from the cast and a polished look.

By turns moving, absorbing and downright rage-inducing.

Price Check never successfully makes the shift into a higher-stakes scenario, and the chief culprit is a detour to Los Angeles. The tension between Susan and Pete suddenly lapses into a far more conventional direction.

There's something deeply poetic about Lincoln making his way through a changed nation to meet his demise. Such poetry is nowhere to be found in Lincoln.

Nature Calls demonstrates yet again that the real question for any bad script is not "Who wrote this garbage?" but, rather, "Who read this garbage and thought it would make a viable way to spend time?"

Citadel, which won the Midnight award at the fest, further explores the fears and anxieties of urban Britain (and Ireland), and the results are sometimes scary, sometimes silly, and always politically questionable.

Starlet is an interesting effort from indie filmmaker Sean Baker (this is his fourth feature), and signals the arrival of Dree Hemingway as one to watch.

You wonder if Hollywood is trying to make a point: sex is joyless, and best experienced by recognizable, and recognizably obnoxious people.

It's a meaty film, filled with ideas unobscured by any generic narrative string, a move that shows not only the confidence of the director but his respect of the audience. This is one that'll have people talking.

A fascinating look at the juggling act of a man who is succeeding in public, but still trying to find the answers in private.