Fascinating not only for its portrait of an emergent--and endearing--superstar, but for the evolution of three teammates the young LeBron came to love, and the hard-driving coach who evolved with them.

Once Lisbeth has her day in court, though, the buildup pays off and then some.

The taste with which one is left is not savory, exactly, but it certainly lingers.

Where the movie is at its best is in the comically laconic, straight-to-the-camera remarks offered by Carthage's residents. (They're played by a mix of local actors and real townspeople doing partially scripted versions of themselves.)

Lucy the Human Chimp is a creative assemblage of sundry parts: The archival footage, of which there is a wealth; the news coverage given Lucy when she was a celebrity; and extensive restagings and re-enactments, a device that in many documentaries is either stiff or profoundly unreal but under Alex Parkinson’s direction—and with Lorna Nickson Brown in the role of Janis Carter—rings true.

It's a genre film, not great art, though there's a good joke about art - a pricey piece of action painting, appropriately enough - but it's a thoroughly satisfying entertainment, and, in this season of lowered expectations, a nice surprise.

Ken Loach better watch out. From the start of his illustrious career his name has been synonymous with left-wing politics expressed in remarkably fine, consistently serious social-realist dramas, most of them set in England or Scotland. Now he has gone and directed a comedy from a script by his longtime collaborator Paul Laverty, and it's so delightful that his fans will be clamoring for more.

The film is thin and mannered, even though many of the mannerisms are intrinsic to its shrewd vision of cult behavior. There's no arguing, though - and who would want to? - Ms. Marling's extraordinary gift for taking the camera and weaving a spell.

Many have observed that the first “Avatar,” despite its outsize box-office, didn’t leave much of a cultural footprint. The second is more of the same. It may be a visual buffet, but the pickings are merely eye candy.

It is the year’s sweetest cinematic surprise so far, containing much of the childlike tenderness and dry whimsy of a Wes Anderson film, minus that director’s sometimes-suffocating obsession with surfaces.

Unfrosted is a bonbon, a truffle, a trifle and a distraction from dispiriting news and disappointing drama upon which one can gorge as if it were a package of Fig Newtons. No, too healthy: Honey Smacks.

Bears no resemblance to the smarmy fraud that Roberto Benigni perpetrated in "Life Is Beautiful."

Father Mother Sister Brother is no doubt true enough to many a family gathering this Christmas—awkward, amusing, a bit dissatisfying, but not a disaster. Sometimes that’s reason enough to call for a toast.

The conclusion, grim and swift, makes the meaning of what preceded it wither slightly in the rear view, but there are some cinematic seductions along the way.

Master of Light is a film not just about art and redemption but a character sorting out his life, and what he truly believes about art.

This poetic, laconic and ineffably beautiful drama has an unerring feel for its subject, a young cowboy struggling against his implacable fate in the American West. That’s notable in itself, and all the more so since the film was written and directed by Chloé Zhao, a Chinese woman born in Beijing.

Isn't the best romantic comedy one might wish for, but it's more than good enough.

An affecting coming-of-age drama based on a superb book and directed by an exceptional actor in his directorial debut.

This is a movie about longing, desire, desperation and the abandonment of principle - quite a collection of themes, all universal.

Mr. Hunnam is a charismatic center of attention, Ms. Baccarin perhaps more so for some of us, and Mr. Gibson, though doled out sparingly, is deftly funny.

Don’t write it off. You know about good things and small packages; this is a dark and startling thing in a brightly wrapped package, and the brightness is all the more misleading because the action takes place during Iceland’s radiant summer.

The Man Nobody Knew is packed with knowledge of another sort. It amounts to an absorbing, sometimes appalling course in how U.S. foreign policy evolved and functioned following World War II.

To his latest picture, Giacomo Abbruzzese’s Disco Boy, Mr. Rogowski brings his typically deep interiority—one that tends to break out into the world in unpredictable ways. The film isn’t equal to his talents, but it gets by on style, vigor and some big ideas.

The best thing, though, is the movie’s modest scale. It’s a good-natured epic, dedicated to the nontech principle of dispensing plain old pleasure.

The film is almost distractingly beautiful to look at, something that accentuates the tension between the film's conflicting quantities, i.e., the glories of the physical world, and the corrupted humanity it hosts.

Nothing to write home about, though nothing to stay home about either, especially if you're a dyed-in-the-polyester Powers fan.

The almost nonstop fighting and Mr. Quaid’s low-key charm are enough to make the movie a serviceable action offering. Moreover, the script, though focused on wacky spasms of violence, has a strong human element at its core.

It’s a bloody comedy that’s also a buddy comedy.