Finding reciprocity—in the eyes of the law, your partner, your colleagues—is the essence of this documentary, one that comes at a moment that desperately lacks it.

Cry foul, you documentary purists, but narration by Jena Malone and others pulls the gamble off. The film makes its point ingeniously.

Add to the list of actors who, beautifully and boldly, go it alone in their own survival movies the name Blake Lively. Do it without laughing, because she’s the shark here: Even though The Shallows, a tremendously entertaining bit of fluff, pits her against a computer-generated great white, the poor creature never stands a chance.

What makes Splitsville stand out? Simply put, it’s goddamn hilarious.

Mickey 17 may lack some of the political bite of his previous work – though there are Trumpian elements in Marshall – but it’s unquestionably tremendous fun: a big, strange spectacle that’s unlike most blockbuster cinema out there.

Maggie Gyllenhaal excels in a thorny indie about boundary-crossing obsession and thwarted ambition.

The movie's success lies in Huston's very sure manipulation of mood and tone, somehow connecting black comedy, tongue-in-cheek acting, heavy irony, and even high camp into a coherent story.

Make room for the modest but affecting pleasures of veteran actors tearing into the subject of golden-years resignation.

Though its title may promise a clinical procedural, Anatomy of a Murder cloaks itself in smartly tailored ambiguity and irresolution, and never altogether strips off.

The director illuminates how the town's racial and economic dynamics have changed, while simultaneously reflecting on the ethics of nonfiction filmmaking. It's a powerful testament to how far we both have and haven't come.

Like :Carnage,: it’s a bit of a minor lark until a deliciously grotesque finale pushes it into the realm of such kinkily profound Polanski films as: Cul-de-sac: (1966) and "The Tenant" (1976). By that point, you can’t help but submit to the perversity.

This is Sweeney’s film. Christy is a career-best turn, sure to draw favourable comparisons with Hilary Swank (who, funnily enough, gets a namecheck in one scene, as Million Dollar Baby was released during the movie’s timespan). She may not be a problematic dude, but she’s certainly Michôd’s most impressive lead performer yet.

It’s a human-size tragedy, one that shows how deadening it can be to remain subject to those who give us life.

The movie's poetic-realist design meshes detailed, patient observation and delectable, poignant travelling shots; it grounds us in the quotidian duties of service and dissects contemporary Vietnamese social hierarchies, yet adds up to something much more subtle and enticing: a lyrical portrait of the human spirit in work and in love. Exquisitely controlled.

As you watch these actors, you appreciate the endeavor the climbers went through all the more — and as triumph turns to tragedy, you feel the grief winding its way through your shaken nervous systems.

Exciting and tautly directed – the lengthy robbery scenes are exemplary – it’s moody to the dying frame, emphasised by Harold Rosson’s lighting of trash-filled back-alleys and half-lit clip joints and Miklós Rozsa’s haunting theme music.

The main reason to commit to this movie’s tough story of orphan loneliness is the screenplay by Céline Sciamma, herself a major French talent devoted to tales of youthful resilience. (Her 2014 film "Girlhood" is breathtaking.)

Denis O’Hare delivers a heart-stopping performance as Hunter’s unlikely father figure, but this is Bennett’s show. She is luminous and her journey from beautiful, broken housewife to clear-headed woman, grabbing handfuls of soil from a parking lot to snack on later, is thrilling. It’s a role you can imagine a young Isabelle Huppert playing, and there’s no higher praise than that.

Another gem (given his consistency in style and subject, how could it not be? ); the atypically emphatic music alone disappoints. [06 Aug 2003, p.74]

The film lacks background and cultural context, a surprising choice considering the rich history of the art form. But the interviewees are so compelling that their stories stand on their own.

It's a strikingly controlled, confident, bitingly effective display, which leaves you wondering where this film has been all our lives.

The first half of Right Now, Wrong Then fits the usual mold, but the real joke begins when the movie abruptly starts over and our hero — seemingly aware of his Groundhog Day do-over — makes subtly different (and smarter) choices the second time around in a rich and playful revision.

Inception, though, is no "Avatar"--instead, it’s the movie that many wanted "Avatar" to be. In a roaringly fast first hour, we’re introduced to a new technology that allows for the bodily invasion of another person’s dreamworld.

The Marx Brothers' second film and one of their best, satirising the rich at play as they infiltrate a society party and beome involved with a stolen painting.

The new drama, best viewed as a church movie, is a return to the kind of corner-chat indie cinema Lee revolutionized, with an emphasis on a towering performance by The Wire's Clarke Peters as a local bishop inflamed with the Word.

This analogue noir set in central China evokes satisfying memories of Bong Joon-ho’s great Korean crime thriller Memories of Murder.

Thanks to some judicious plot tweaks and a full-bodied commitment to action, director Martin Bourboulon (Eiffel) has succeeded in making the best Alexandre Dumas adaptation in decades.

Bad Milo! is sick—but it’s the right kind of sick.