Comedy is most effective when it’s taking a risk. Here, the directors took a big risk, and managed to finesse something shocking and novel out of the familiar Franco-Rogen dynamic without overplaying their hand.

It'll pass a couple of hours on a rainy afternoon without too much trouble. But whether as an adventure tale, a thriller, or a morality play, Black Sea never quite makes a compelling enough case for its existence when better examples of the submarine genre are already out there.

An irreproachably tasteful, easily digestible but an unsurprising, undemanding watch.

The Salt of The Earth is a mesmeric and unforgettable look at the world and it sufferings through the eyes of a remarkably insightful and honorable artist.

As compelling as R100 is in spurts, it's ultimately an exercise in excessiveness that only a niche audience will be able to fully stomach.

This is a film that should, at the very least, make one appreciate the all-encompassing breadth of cinema, and, at most, provoke deeper thought of transcendental existence in correlation with nature and The Idea of Man.

If you have the patience to play the role of silent witness for the full two hours, Maidan is a rewarding experience and an alarmingly important wake-up call for those still in the dark about one of today's most critical situations.

Wisely, Broomfield doesn’t harp on alleged police incompetence, beyond letting a handful of activists and locals repeatedly raise it as an issue; Tales is far from overbearing as far as agitprop goes, letting the outrage quietly seep in.

Time Out Of Mind is a film of tremendous patience and pace, as it wants you to inhabit every minute, day, hour and year of homelessness. But it's through that considered approach that the reveal of George's deep self-hatred and low self-esteem carries an extraordinary power; time has worn his sense of self to the point of despair that's deeply moving.

As a director, Colangelo has a firm if cautious grasp on the material, but as a writer her grip is less sure.

It's a found footage movie that feels instantly dated, even with its supposed political undertones. It's creaky, laborious, and not, in the least bit, scary.

Ullmann’s version of Miss Julie exists in a special cinematic category; it’s toxic, it’s hypnotic, and passionately translates Strindberg’s genius instinct for enlightening the multi-layered psychological spectrums of human desire for lust and power. It’s unforgettable in every sense of the word.

Respectfully presented, Unbroken is competently made and even has a sequence or two that’s impressive, but it’s ultimately very familiar and eventually draining.

Meticulously crafted and investigated (and no doubt heavily vetted by lawyers), Berg brings a sobering solemnity to a very grave matter, but also lends a dignity to its subjects without pandering.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is easily the best film of the new trilogy, more entertaining and energetic and tonally in sync with Jackson's earlier, edgier work, shifting from berserker comedy to abject horror at a moment's notice (and then back again).

The Dying Of The Light is forgettable, anonymous and at times almost amateur, and the product of a director searching for a new method of storytelling.

Exodus: Gods and Kings is a creaky, sometimes painfully boring Old Testament slog, and finds the visionary director unable to successfully wrangle a human story out of a tale of gods and kings.

Paddington is totally delightful.

Tremendously evocative and inherently enchanting, Horse Money is one of the year’s most profound films and an essential step forward for both Ventura the Cape Verdean, and Pedro Costa the artist.

With her underdeveloped, dismissive, screenplay and myopic direction, Rondòn is as delicate with her theme as Michael Bay is with his American flag shots or Tim Burton with his kitschy quirkiness. That hers is a serious context makes it that much more disappointing.

Isn't a bad freshman effort, but it doesn't offer anything to set it apart from dozens of other indie dramedies.

A film which for the most part is enervatingly classic in format: stately, reverential despite the conflicting accounts the various narrators give of Hong's motivations, and often quite dull, despite its focus not on her work or talent but on the more salacious and controversial aspects of her personal life.

Death Metal Angola is deeply involving and, in its own way, completely and refreshingly unusual.

In zany set piece after zany set piece, the movie sets itself apart as willing to try anything, do anything for laugh, and it succeeds more often than it fails, even when falling back on some creaky wordplay and the occasional over-emphasis on both fart gags and pop culture references.

The fact that the sequel is a messy, dull, instantly forgettable trifle somehow makes it the perfect follow-up to the original -- it's just as horrible.

Not only a searing look at Europe's painful involvement in participating, encouraging and backing regimes of oppression, Concerning Violence makes it clear that not much has changed in the fifty years since Fanon's powerful words were first printed.

Avery can't commit to whether he's making a gritty "Animal Kingdom"-style crime picture, or a light caper film, and the final result is wonky in the extreme, particularly in the conclusion, which feels particularly muddled.

Mahony and Sampson certainly know how to lay out a crime/thriller/comedy structurally, but unfortunately, they mishandle the tone and momentum this sort of movie needs to work.