While A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is charmingly filmed (I loved the animated depictions of the toy Neighborhood, and the way Heller switches camera formats to give a more old-school portrayal of Rogers’ TV show), it didn’t quite have the emotional wallop I expected.

The redemption here — if there may, please, please, be some — is in the celebration of his life, and in the fact that all the love for him clearly cannot do anything but continue on.

With a ruthlessly pared-down approach and compelling performer in Dynevor, who carries the film effortlessly, “Inheritance” is a throwback thriller that hearkens to the retro days of the Y2K era. And while its style eclipses its substance, it’s the style that makes this cinematic curio worth watching.

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale is as good as it needs to be, though like the other movies it’s probably a complete puzzlement to anyone not already familiar with the franchise, and creator/writer Julian Fellowes can’t resist having someone earnestly intone something about Things Change And We Must Change With Them every two minutes.

Novitiate is a fascinating, unblinking yet respectful look at a time and place — a women’s community where a visiting archbishop (Denis O’Hare) can act like he owns the place.

Damage is the kind of movie that risks unintended laughter for the simple reason that reckless passion almost always looks ludicrous from the outside. The filmmakers must establish just the right tone, which Malle, Irons and Binoche do for the most part, although occasionally they falter. It's hard to buy the final revelations about Binoche's character, which are meant to explain something that's probably best left alone. [22 Jan 1993, p.20]

Along with the kids’ sorrow, Barras works uplift and lightness into the story, and there are moments of great joy. In the end, it’s positivity that prevails.

Sky, despite its Hitchcockian beginning, is no thriller; instead, it’s a character study of a woman seeking a second act, and of a landscape that gradually transforms from foreign to welcoming.

It’s an artful, moving and often beautiful film, but be careful about showing it to young children; nightmares could ensue. (It haunted me, and I’m quite grown.)

With its well-drawn characters (a Linklater trademark) and mood of quiet restraint, Last Flag Flying touches the heart at a deep level.

Compelling epic filmmaking.

The result is a stylish, inventive film that kept me intrigued, even as its story twisted so mightily I feared it might snap.

The essence of the London story is retained, with stouthearted Buck being annealed by adversity, overcoming brutality, confusion and loneliness and then responding to the kindness of Thornton to become the leader of the pack. And all that is accomplished with a soft touch. What we have here is the call of the mild

What rescues “Diaries” and its grimy, cracked-glass look is its firm grip on Stephen’s incremental awareness that he and his misery are not the center of the universe.

What makes "Fly Away Home" worth seeing is Ballard and Deschanel's beguiling imagery: the geese devotedly following Paquin around the farm as she tries to speak their language; a wry shot of Kinney dozing off in front of a televised wrestling match as Amy sneaks off to tend her eggs; and those spectacular flying episodes, which are quite unlike anything else on the horizon. [13 Sep 1996]

It’s a film that effectively combines two distinct — and very different — pleasures.

You can see clearly in the final scenes where “Creed IV” might be headed; you can also see that Jordan as a director shows promise well beyond this film. “Creed III” works as well as it needs to, and for the umpteenth film in a franchise, that’s more than enough.

Shyamalan’s latest cinematic confrontation with mortality and meaning, Knock at the Cabin, is among his best work.

Spirals into a twisted, unsettling finale that'll have you either rewinding several times or relinquishing your deposit to stomp on the tape. [31 Oct 1999]

In this, his feature directorial debut, Möller makes a whole lot out of very little: a whole lot of dramatic forcefulness out of the most simple and basic of elements, a solitary man struggling to do the right thing.

Not a perfect movie, but a truly moving one.

For the most part, the movie finds a family-friendly balance between stunning scenery, hold-your-breath action and animals having goofy conversations with each other.

Sollima’s style is cool and observational. There also are several stunts combined with camera movements that are genuinely jaw-dropping.

It's sweet and funny one moment, melodramatic and contrived the next. Blending the moods, and often holding the film together through sheer force of personality, Ryder gives her most affecting performance to date. [14 Dec 1990, p.26]

You watch “Glass Onion” relaxed, feeling like you’re in good hands; everyone on-screen is clearly having a wonderful time, so you can’t help but join right in. The plot’s a clever, multilayered caper, echoing the elaborate structure the movie is named for, and Johnson fills the script with funny name-dropping . . . and lets the cast happily ham it up.

If “Fast Six” is as much guilty-pleasure fun as this edition, directed within an inch of its life by Justin Lin (even the occasional subtitles are excitable), it’ll do just fine.

The most enjoyable mainstream comedy since "Sister Act." It's slim, it's superficial and it hedges every commercial bet in the book. But for some reason, none of this prevents it from being a whole lotta fun. [1 Oct 1993, p.D16]

Filmed in sepia tones to give it period flavor, infused with a sense of unrelieved tension and paranoia, and climaxing with a furious gunbattle, Anthropoid is a gripping picture.