The Avengers has been executed with all the reverence the super-fans demand, as well as the winking, self-referential humor that has made it palatable for filmgoers disinclined to take a bunch of grown men dressed in spangles and spandex so very seriously.

5B is ultimately about survival, and the struggle at its center is undeniably a heartbreaking one. Too often, however, the filmmakers get in the way of their own story.

This may not be Roman Polanski’s finest movie; it may not even be his best adaptation of a play. But it’s masterfully done in a way that does justice to its source material.

Like the mysterious, bound package Goodman gives Turturro (the contents are never revealed), the Coens isolate a small area of interest, bind it with psycho-atmospheric finesse, then wait for something significant to emerge. Even after a second viewing of this movie, it doesn't.

Beirut is an engaging, well-crafted thriller, offering a showcase not just for Hamm but for Rosamund Pike (playing his levelheaded handler) and an ensemble of terrific character actors, including Dean Norris, Shea Whigham and Larry Pine.

Nurse Betty is this year's "Being John Malkovich"-an utter original with a little something to say and a way of saying it that manages to be at once delightful and bilious.

But even though Marcos, in this film, provides enough material for a few hundred giggles and head-shakings, she also shows a pathetically human side.

Yes, it features some of the most rapturous footage of calving glaciers and ice floes — alternately freezing and thawing — that you’re likely to have seen (much of it captured on equipment designed and built by the filmmaker). But it is the simple glimpses of ordinary life in an extraordinary place that are the most stirring moments in the film.

Stands as a valuable chronicle of a brief and snarling musical movement.

“Eat Pray Love” this isn’t. Although Lucy is on a journey of self-discovery, she often hurts others in her quest for herself. That makes Hirayanagi’s take on the later-in-life coming-of-age story more honest than most.

Fitfully amusing and ultimately kind of heartwarming in a twisted sort of way

Does the world need another Bill Cunningham documentary? Yes, it turns out. More than ever.

Moka is a stark, moody mystery that doesn’t actually contain much mystery. Instead, it excels as a character study and a dynamic face-off between two formidable actresses: Emmanuelle Devos and Nathalie Baye.

It’s intentionally chaotic and, now and again, surprisingly funny.

Harrowing, controlled and diabolically self-assured, Joshua leaves filmgoers teetering on their own emotional precipice, wondering just where pathos ends and pathology begins.

The Piano Lesson offers a spirited if uneven testimony to the playwright’s great gifts.

The uneven tone especially undermines the ending — one that’s as tragic as it is predictable. Viewers may expect — even crave — to feel an emotional impact, but the movie hasn’t laid the groundwork.

Rumours is too slap-happy to function as the fine-tuned political satire one might want it to be, and too often the gags hit a nonsensical dead end.

More interesting for the world it evokes rather than the drama that unfolds.

A thoughtful and surprisingly affecting portrait of a screwed-up man who dared to mess with some powerful people, seen through the eyes of the idealistic kid who chooses to champion his ultimately losing cause.

Sharp, lively, funny and ultimately sobering film.

Coogan and Brydon might scoff at such sentimentality, but over the course of the Trip films, they’ve shown us that world, at its most aspirationally easeful and epicurean. Even more brilliantly — and affectingly — they’ve constructed a world between them, an airy, reality-adjacent universe conjured in billowing clouds of witticisms, idle observations, passive-aggressive feints and silent, solitary reflections. Did they ever really live there? Maybe not. But it’s been a delightful place to visit.

A few more bucks (or a little more thought) for the script would have been a better investment than faking Seattle. The characters are introduced so quickly, and their personalities are so thin, that what happens to them has little weight.

A worthy addition to the Christmas movie canon. It's funny and good-looking, with an impeccable voice cast of U.K. actors. It's also unexpectedly fresh, despite the familiar-sounding premise.

Terry Gilliam is the wit behind this lavish display of sieges, sea-creature tussles and trips to the moon. Adapting the handed-down stories of Baron Von Munchausen, an 18th-century spinner of tall tales, this modern maker of similar flights of fancy has created another brilliantly inventive epic of fantasy and satire.

The documentary offers a fascinating and heartfelt examination of history through the microcosm of one sport.

The casting for the movie is outstanding. Streep is marvelous, as always, but in this case she outdoes even herself (and the script) by bringing a degree of poignancy to her conniving character.

The film’s themes mature from adolescent pettiness to adult regret, with several epilogues set well after the main events of the story.