Although less commercially driven, “Room” is to 2015 as “Gone Girl” was to 2014: An acclaimed film based on an acclaimed book adapted for the screen by the author that takes the viewer into deep, psychologically troubling places. Obviously, “Gone Girl” is a mystery thriller with a creepy darkness to it, while “Room” is more […]

As much as “Brooklyn” is a vibrantly realized 1950s period piece, the story itself is a throwback too; it’s a reminder of a classic storytelling technique seemingly uncommon at the movies today – draw in the audience in and charm its socks off.

There are few under-the-radar writer/directors as hot as Jeff Nichols. The “Mud” and “Take Shelter” filmmaker is an extraordinary visual storyteller, and his streak continues in “Midnight Special,” a family drama dressed as a sci-fi thriller.

The J.J. Abrams Bad Robot “Mystery Box” formula has yielded lots of intriguing and successful films and television shows, perhaps none of them as cultish as 2008’s “Cloverfield,” which alongside “Paranormal Activity” put the found footage genre permanently on the map with this elusive, almost anti-Hollywood alien invasion story.

Following “War Horse” and “Lincoln,” “Bridge of Spies” rounds out Steven Spielberg’s trilogy of histories in the 2010s, each film earning a Best Picture nomination for being a superb piece of craft — and having Spielberg’s name attached.

A superhero movie has never been funnier than “Deadpool.” Or more outlandish – or obscene. That should come as quite a relief to fans of Marvel Comics’ foul-mouthed anti-hero and especially Ryan Reynolds, who labored a long time to get Deadpool’s his own solo adventure on the big screen, a process that entailed – according […]

A documentary on the life of Amy Winehouse could easily have been done in a conventional manner a long the lines of A&E’s “Biography” series and still been plenty compelling. Winehouse was an enigma whose tempestuous relationships with people and drugs made for ideal tabloid fodder as well as a fascinating character study. But Asif […]

Fresh off his Oscars for “Birdman,” Alejandro González Iñárritu makes a drastic change in scope and scale with “The Revenant,” a period survival drama set in the American frontier. But while the setting is wildly different, Iñárritu is still flexing a lot of his same filmmaking muscles. He really hones his unique cinematic stamp, thereby […]

The man behind “Anchorman” and “Step Brothers” brings you … one of the best films of the year …? Seems ridiculous, but you could make a case for it to be true. Adam McKay’s “The Big Short,” based on the book by Michael Lewis (also of “The Blinds Side” and “Moneyball”), is a comical tragedy […]

The rumors about “Spotlight” are true — a journalism film hasn’t been this effective, clean and compelling since “All the President’s Men” in 1976. Considering it is a story built largely around the investigative reporting process, it must seize its audience from start to finish and that’s exactly what director Tom McCarthy ensures that it […]

Law enforcement battles with drug cartels tend to be the focal point of bullet-ridden crime thrillers with strong “Type A” heroes and despicable villains and a handful of characters who cross the line between the two. “Sicario,” on the other hand, is good-and-evil gray area for endless miles.

The Force has indeed awakened, “Star Wars” fans. Thanks to Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm we have been gifted a new movie and all the excitement and anxiousness that comes with it. And while it has only been 10 years since the last new “Star Wars,” it has been more than 30 years of wondering what […]

I was 12 years old in 1999 when the “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace” was released. So, in many ways, I was at the perfect age for this movie – squarely in the crosshairs of the marketing’s target demographic. I had been harvested, in a way, since my true love of the original […]

“SPECTRE” is nothing and everything that you’d expect it to be. The fourth James Bond film in the Daniel Craig era continues the work of its three predecessors in rebuilding 007 for the modern era, going for grit and substance instead of the over-the-top theatrics that defined the Bond films at their worst.

“A New Hope” opened us up to a galaxy of possibilities. “The Empires Strikes Back” begins to show us just how large that scope really is. Not only that, but there is a definite sense that “Star Wars” has grown up a little bit in Episode V, including taking a much darker tone.