Though the women could be stronger and the accents occasionally jar, cooper’s study of moral corruption enthrals. The Johnny-ssance starts here!

Initially succeeds at accounting for the formation of this unlikely family unit, but as the subject’s life starts to unravel, cut-rate cable TV techniques (trifling montages, an overactive string score) deaden the full impact of her crisis.

Ghost Bird has a bad habit of briefly taking flight and then crashing back down into NPR-like stodginess.

Adding hot naked men to a predictable narrative doesn't equal titillating or taboo; it just means you've dressed up a messy melodrama

The film strikes the right balance of outrage, hopefulness and despair, compellingly arguing the case that a profit-driven, racially motivated collusion exists between Big Pharma and the U.S. government.

It’s as pure an expression of Tarantino’s voice as he’s ever mustered—easy to savor, even if the aftertaste leaves a trace of nasty bitterness.

Director Joe Stephenson paints a beautiful portrait, but the actor’s sensitivity, storytelling and strength of character are captivating enough.

It's performed beautifully, laced with a quietly ironic wit, and quite lovely to look at.

A patently absurd and funny movie, involving a series of spectacular fight routines, often filmed in slow motion, which are highly acrobatic and exciting.

Comedy-adventure with a hit-and-miss list of Disney ingredients: street-smart (formerly 'spunky') Jodie Foster, Uncle David Niven wearing eccentric disguises, sweet Ms Hayes, winsome orphans, a slapstick climax.

Martin is his usual combination of flat cynicism and crazed childishness, indulging in some inspired Jerry Lewis-like clowning with his arms and legs hopelessly out of synch.

With superbly handled action sequences, excellent cinematography, and a Morricone score worthy of his Man With No Name efforts, it's a film to be seen.

At first glance, actor-turned-director Philip Barantini’s Villain looks like a box-ticking exercise in Laandan gangsterism. But it’s not. By playing it completely straight, it avoids campy Guy Ritchie clichés.

At 77 minutes, it's short – but it will stay with you for a long, long time.

Pakula's debut as a director, two years before making Klute, is one of those rare American films which manage to be gently observational without succumbing to the Europeanism of Mazursky or Cassavetes.

Not entirely successful, but still an imaginative and ambitious attempt to combine historical speculation, conspiracy thriller, and the world of Conan Doyle.

Kensuke’s Kingdom feels like a throwback – for better and worse. While some of its classical animation is pleasant, the story of a young boy bonding with a former Japanese soldier can feel schmaltzy and obvious.

In one of his best performances, Cushing plays on the ambiguity of the central character, so that the Baron becomes a kind of Wildean martyr, alternating between noble defiance and detached cruelty.

It’s a light diversion rather than a symphonic masterpiece, but it’s still pleasantly in-tune entertainment.

Documentarian Anailín Lucy Mulloy’s eye for the decaying textures of modern Cuba on the ground is sharp, and there are passages—as the dull characters mope and kill time and work up snits—in which you wish the movie were simply nonfiction. As it is, everything feels fake except the Centro Habana barrios themselves.

At only 72 minutes, Spring Blossom whizzes by and ends a little abruptly. Some may go away unsatisfied, but others will see in Lindon an impressive young talent to be reckoned with.

The stakes may seem low, but these high jinks resound with abstract generational import, the various episodes cohering into a moving portrait of a nation that couldn’t account for all it had lost in a war that it won.

The ending offers only a slightly clichéd vision of emancipation that leaves the picture not much clearer. After showing how hard life can be, it feels a little bit too easy.

Succeeds best as a witty, knowing commentary on the genre itself. References to lycanthropic lore, literature and cinema abound; gags are plentiful; and the whole thing casts a pleasingly skeptical glance at various social fashions and fads of the times.

It all really happened but surely with a lot more passion than writer-director Angela Robinson’s script would have it.

Disney’s frantic take on Lewis Carroll may lack much of the book’s illogical charm, but it does contain one of the great proto-psychedelic sequences in cinema: a dazzling, disturbing explosion of colour and sound.

Richard Jewell’s greatest feat is the generous emphasis it places on its Forrest Gumpian do-gooder’s complex sense of humanity; if only there were more of that to spread around to the other characters.

It’s a story of achievement against all odds, of community and kindness in the darkest places, and of the simple power of putting one foot in front of the other to reclaim a life. I challenge even the coldest of heart to not be touched by its message.

Truthfully, watching septuagenarian whores spank mildly titillated johns and test-drive sex toys has never seemed so ho-hum - or so oddly familiar.

If Last Ride leans heavily on fugitive-life lyricism, it benefits from an incredible father-son chemistry between Weaving and Russell-one that makes the movie's inexorable drive toward tragedy that much more gut-wrenching.

In a movie that deals almost exclusively in pals playing pop music and exposed penises, the boyish humor goes a long way. Call it a hit single, but don’t expect it to go platinum.

The troubling turns the story takes, which are meant as a rebuke to happily-ever-after stereotypes, are much more interesting in conception than they are in execution.

As Farhadi casts his roving, distracted eye over this unhappy community, sharing his story in a choppy, documentary style, it ends up feeling like a curiously detached exercise, more academic than wholly satisfying.

Stylish and fun, but the short story format denies Corman the stately, melancholy pace that distinguished his best work in the cycle.

Land Ho! avoids schmaltz to get at that rarest of male timber: rekindled hearts.

Thank You for Your Service is as necessary as top-flight journalism.

The film suddenly gains in power, until it fulfills the promise of its title with hard-hitting compassion and a crystal-clear sense of grace.

The sights are gorgeous—a seamless mix of archival imagery and impressively rendered digital views of our galaxy—and the science is, to layman’s eyes and ears, more than credible.

The war scenes are extraordinary, although thrown in far too liberally; even better are the daft tableaux vivants which seem to comprise Archangel's only entertainment.

The story, about a rock star with a prison background, was tougher than some of the other Presley pictures, but the musical numbers especially were shot in the MGM tradition, which was totally wrong for rock.

Writer-director Von Trotta, an icon of the New German Cinema, doesn't have the technical chops for the fireworks you desire, so she settles for wan earnestness.

It’s hard to give sibling co-directors Joe and Anthony Russo (makers of the thornier Captain America films) any credit—or blame, really—for steering a product that’s been so corporately fine-tuned. They toggle dutifully between million-dollar quips and Wrestlemania smackdowns, and when they find room for a vista of galactic stillness, it’s not out of any inspired vision so much as the need for air.

Rather than an intrusive flashback to the most challenging aspects of the pandemic, it’s a gentle reminder to recognise the hardships we’ve overcome and appreciate the merit in nonlinear progress, even if it takes time.

By the time Sorcerer gets around to its rain-soaked, rickety-bridge set piece, you’ll either be obsessed or fully checked out. Give yourself a chance to pick sides.

The two Roberts (Duvall as cop, De Niro as priest) turn in potentially great performances, but are given precious little to work with.

Stopping just short of the devastating exposé it might have been (but plenty creepy).

It’s hard to draw too much old-school romance from this world of sponsorship, celebrity and sports washing, but F1 manages it on the back of Pitt’s earthy charm. Watch it rev into the canon of great sports movies. Motion sickness tablets recommended.

John Wick feels like action manna for its cleanly designed gun-fu sequences—ones you can actually follow—and brutal takedowns. But the revenge plotting is deeply dopey and we shouldn't have to choose one or the other.

Alas, this is a film that builds to a backroom compromise on carbon emissions, not the most thrilling of dramatic structures. The serious issue of global warming won’t be minimized by a mediocre documentary, but it has yet to find a filmmaker inflamed with rage and visual passion.

Even by adolescence-is-hell standards, this poor sap is the embodiment of how ugly the so-called wonder years can be for some — a painful notion that’s as close as Faxon and Rash’s directorial debut comes to evoking an emotional response that hasn’t been sifted through dozens of nigh-identical films.

Witty despite Hiller's direction.

A meandering middle and sticky-sweet third act can be overlooked if only for the savviness with which Favreau portrays the food world.

The more substantial material, including Spitzer's feuds with vindictive New York politician Joe Bruno and financier Ken Langone, gets short shrift.

Imagine if Frederick Wiseman and David Lynch had a bastard child, and you'll get a sense of the movie's off-kilter aesthetic, a potent and pointed mix of firsthand observation and surreal flights of fancy.

Price is fun (this was the film that typed him as a horror star), the fire in the waxworks is good for a gruesome thrill, and De Toth brings off one classic sequence with Kirk fleeing through the gaslit streets pursued by a shadowy figure in a billowing cloak.

This vintage tale of camaraderie flaunts an old-fashioned innocence and some endearing defiance, exemplified by its sweet original song “Do-Dilly-Do (A Friend Like You).”

An eerie resurrection regains some good will, but we'll have to wait for Neshat to catch up with the art of storytelling.

Although several sections deal with the Ceausescu-era party apparatus, Mungiu's interest lies more in how the nation's political confusion affected the general populace. It's history told from the bottom, where what everyone thinks happened matters as much as what actually did.

Writer-director Freida Lee Mock’s concise and potent chronicle uses a wealth of archival video and numerous new interviews with its subject to properly contextualize Hill’s testimony as a landmark moment in the fight for gender equality.

This muted mobster story reminds us that the ties that bind can also gag you, garrote you and slowly deaden your soul.

Two of Hollywood's best-loved veterans deserved a far better swan song than this sticky confection.

It's a shamelessly sentimental interpretation of history, with television ushering in a generation which has lost the art of communication and the ability to care. Against this blinkered vision, even Levinson's confident direction and ability to capture the absurdities and rhythms of everyday speech fail to provide sufficient compensation.

The middle section of the story is where Rise truly takes off, perhaps in ways that will have viewers forgiving the rest.

The result, if you can get past some of its absurdities, is a slight, enjoyable, lightweight jaunt. Just don’t expect anything more.

You get why the pair would fall for each but you also get where the faultlines lie. Cullen maps it all out in an impressive, touching debut.

This lumbering, overwrought, and wildly self-indulgent adaptation of Isaac Bashevis Singer's frail short story is clearly cranked up with the full quotient of sincerity and conviction.

It’s anchored by a dangerously glum performance by 21-year-old Ross Lynch, who becomes more interesting the more you watch him.

Densely plotted by director Yuval Adler and Ali Wakad (the former Israeli, the latter Palestinian), this informant crime drama finds admirable complexity in the folds of its shifting allegiances — even if you’ve seen this dynamic done better in movies like "The Departed."

Super skilled and eminently likeable, Nyong’o is a saving grace in the eye of the storm.

It’s refreshing to see a grown-up big-screen thriller this well crafted – and one that cares for its grounded characters and their predicaments. If it comes off the road once or twice, it’s still well worth the ride.

Photographed with an alluring sheen that complements the coldly commercial wheelings and dealings of its subjects, Red Obsession fascinatingly reveals how Old World vintner artistry is being shaken up by New World supply and demand.

The 3-D process leaves the image somewhat murky, but you can discern sparks of authentic pulp poetry throughout.

For better or worse, that detour into proverbial uncharted waters ends up hipchecking a by-the-book hagiography into the realm of compellingly cracked vérité.

Often has the feel of a film-school exercise in which the object is to wring maximum suspense from rudimentary tools.

By whatever metrics you measure a Bond movie – tight plotting, gnarly villains, emotional sincerity – Craig’s final outing is a rip-roaring success.

It’s anthropology, not violence, that provides the sting in the tail – a thought-provoking coda to an often pulse-pounding survival horror.

Relaxed and leisurely, it's an effortless blend of documentary and fiction, part road movie, part sociological satire, part polemical reminiscence.

No one would claim that director Lance Daly delivers an Emerald Isle version of "The Spirit of the Beehive," though this scrappy film does have a knack for capturing the elation and confusion of late childhood in their ragged glory.

Though not as sharp or as unusual as Ritchie's earlier Smile, this is still a delightful, gentle satire on the American ideal of winning, which also takes broad but often hilarious swipes at fashionable health fads.

The film uses the CB craze as a metaphor for lack of human communication, and proceeds in a somewhat elliptical manner, but the alternation of moments of black humour and funny-sad incidents lends it a considerable charm.

The acting is intense, as you would expect from Ullmann and Josephson, working under a director who was coming to terms with his own breakdown in this film; and the nightmare imagery (washed-out backgrounds clashing vividly with stark colours) delivers a strong jolt to the subconscious.

Finally, someone has returned to The Damned United’s cunning formula for a good football movie: don’t show any football.

There's some beautiful dancing and a wealth of detail about the world of classical ballet. Interesting and entertaining.

This sub-$100,000 exploitation movie fused the sleazy intensity of the grindhouse with the piercing intelligence of an art film, and remains a brutal but rewarding experience.

Hackman takes the enlarged role by the scruff of the neck and delivers yet another fine performance of doubt and the dawning awareness of his own weakness. Frankenheimer directs in taut, pacy fashion to keep the suspense high.

Yet after the actorcentric fireworks of Cianfrance’s "Blue Valentine" (2010), it’s impressive to see him going after a wider sociopolitical scope, one that would have been better served by a less repetitive structure.

Throughout Lust for Life, Van Gogh, brilliantly portrayed by Kirk Douglas as a man forever on a knife-edge, struggles to explain himself to his family and to Anthony Quinn's Gauguin. However, Minnelli, with the colours he chooses - which follow those of the paintings - and with his dramatic counterpointing of events in Van Gogh's life with his canvases, undermines all explanations.

The falsely euphoric close is a big misstep - Pulitzers, it would seem, are the ultimate Band-Aid. What was that old adage about printing the legend?

Inoffensive as they are, humble Bernard and the aristocratic Bianca are not the studio's most memorable creations; and for all the quaintly old-fashioned romance and desperately broad comedy, this is nothing if not an adventure film.

Stylish and brutally violent, the film escapes the usual clichés of the ex-soldier fighting a war back home by virtue of Gibson's blue-eyed smile.

For all its structural ingenuity, The Five Devils is fundamentally a love story, and a surprisingly affecting one, largely due to a captivating central performance from Exarchopoulos, who, a decade after becoming the youngest ever winner of the Palme d’Or (for Blue is the Warmest Colour), gives a performance of such nuance and sophistication, the rest of the adult cast struggles to keep up.

The film gets so many exquisite details just right—the vacuous party guests, Hayek’s slightly self-righteous pose, the happy clink of the wine glasses—that it’s a letdown to realize the movie doesn’t have a proper ending. You take it home with you and argue about it.

A masterpiece.

Foregoing the special effects bonanza of its predecessor, it settles for low camp humanoid melodrama.

This could have been a true urban mosaic. Instead, we simply get a vision of Paris as the city of lite.

For Gunn, who has injected superhero movies with a winningly irreverence since his R-rated indie Super, ridding the DCEU of its bombast and self-seriousness is a step in right direction. Whether, like his alien hero, he can arrest the march of time and reinvigorate this tired genre is another matter.

Fortunately, Reich, who was Bill Clinton’s first-term Secretary of Labor, is an unflaggingly engaging speaker, and his class has higher production values than most independent films. (He has walk-off music. Walk-off music!)

Its world is weirdly familiar and yet alien. It’s also darn scary.