All the backing-and-forthing between olden and modern days intensifies the emotional impact of a compelling story, and underlines the enduring power of narrative itself.

Martius comes to a bad end, while Mr. Fiennes achieves a great beginning. As a director, his grasp exceeds his daring reach, and his performance stands as a chilling exemplar of psychomartial ferocity.

The movie about his life and legend, written and directed by Sean Mullin, has two purposes and succeeds delightfully at both.

It’s a delicate and memorable performance by Mr. Jackman. Ms. Janney does the whole Long Island thing as well as anyone ever has. The most resonant character, though, might be Rachel, whom Ms. Viswanathan imbues with the indignation of youth—something the rest of the characters have long outgrown, but which the story was always going to need.

While inseparable from Ukraine and its echoes, the film argues quietly but convincingly that its story is not specific to its time and place, necessarily, but is rather about how traumatized children everywhere might respond, react and/or rebel.

Mr. Garrone seems so desperate to create a powerful humanist plea that he has neglected to provide his movie with the detail and artistry that would give it force, and he conspicuously concludes his story just before it would have started to become more contentious—and more interesting.

The movie, with some of the trappings of a murder mystery, makes its points with blunt force. Fun seldom figures in this adaptation, which is overlong and mysteriously unaffecting. Still, Mr. Fincher's film has many fascinations.

It's a different city today, in a country that sees its racial and social divides with more clarity than it did back then. But the most troubling question the film raises is how clearly we may see even now.

Liam Neeson has never had a richer character to play on screen -- including his landmark role in "Schindler's List" -- and has never displayed such formidable energy and virtuosity.

Appeal lies on the bright, shiny surface of its ostensibly simple plot, and in its rat-a-tat-tat language, which often sounds like Mamet-visits-Spyne.

Jarmusch's uncharacteristically mainstream -- wonderful -- road trip movie.

The most daring part of this wonderful film, which was written and directed by Jeff Nichols, is its calmness. Momentous events move at a human pace while Richard and Mildred Loving — a matchless pair of performances by Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga — try with varying success to comprehend what’s happening to them.

The Christophers is zingy fun. Whichever world Mr. Soderbergh decides to visit, he invariably makes the trip worthwhile.

This is filmmaking as an act of devotion, and exploration — not just of the nature of faith but of faith’s obverse, abject doubt. The production is physically beautiful, and evokes the beauties of classic Japanese films, but the substance makes few concessions to conventional notions of entertainment.

Philippe Claudel gives his heroine unusual depth, which Kristin Scott Thomas reveals with unusual passion.

This superb film, by Kent Jones, adds three more layers to the book’s alluvial wisdom: stunning clips from Hitchcock features, audio clips from the original conversations and fascinating comments by contemporary directors.

The cheap perfume of sentimentality wafts through the closing moments of Flags of Our Fathers. It's all the more noticeable for having been avoided so well and so long. Mr. Eastwood knows that sort of thing doesn't mix with the stench of war.

Anders Danielsen Lie, gives a performance that's as distinctive as any in recent memory -- casually witty, remarkably graceful and yet terrifying in its explosiveness.

Based on the Le Carré memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel allows Mr. Morris to exercise his extraordinary gift for making the interview format irresistibly cinematic, and feels like a collaboration of kindred spirits.

The latest in a series of stiletto-sharp social comedies by the French filmmakers Jean-Pierre Bacri and Agnès Jaoui.

Instead of a theme park, it’s more of a cathedral—solemn, sober, beautiful and forbidding. Greig Fraser’s photography and Hans Zimmer’s score are full of majesty.

If you believe that the much-loved, much-banned Judy Blume has corrupted several decades of impressionable youth, Judy Blume Forever is probably not the film for you—it’s a salute, celebration and round of applause all rolled into one.

Few actors working today could make emotional sense of such a protean character, but Ryan Gosling does so with calm authority. He's a formidable presence in a film that grabs your gaze and won't let go except for moments when you can't help but look away.

I have minor misgivings about the use of a few Disney-esque sound effects, as well as some conventionally garish voicings in the score by Danny Elfman, Hollywood's current master of the macabre. But none of that diminishes the educational value of Deep Sea 3-D, which was directed by Howard Hall, or the sometimes ethereal, sometimes fearsome beauty of its cast of trillions.

While the film handles itself well in the ring, it's brilliant in the arena of a blue-collar family that brutalizes its younger son and best hope for worldly success in the name of sustaining him.

The made movie — i.e. Mr. Pavich's documentary — makes for a great seminar on creativity. Its star is Mr. Jodorowsky, outrageously handsome and dynamic at the age of 84.

This is a harrowing film to watch. In spite of the vibrant jungle greens and the searing sun, it’s as bleak a vision of modern warfare as has ever been put on screen.

Ms. Wilson may put a viewer off balance with a lack of concrete detail, but it is a seduction technique that works, to satisfying effect.