|
36%
|
LUV (2013)
|
"Saved from its predictable plotline by a strong cast and a central relationship written and performed with sensitivity, LUV reveals the stakes of trusting in a role model and the costs when that person turns out to be human."
|
Joel Arnold
|
|
59%
|
The Last Stand (2013)
|
"By the end, even Schwarzenegger looks worn out. Maybe being governor wasn't such a hard job after all."
|
Stephanie Zacharek
|
|
66%
|
Mama (2013)
|
"Surprisingly, this patchwork pastiche often works."
|
Ian Buckwalter
|
|
30%
|
Broken City (2013)
|
"As an opportunity for hard-boiled types to trade threats, blows and caustic banter, this modern-day noir works reasonably well."
|
Mark Jenkins
|
|
76%
|
Hors Satan (2013)
|
"Hors Satan is stark, strange and uncompromisingly personal. It's also vivid and unforgettable."
|
Mark Jenkins
|
|
43%
|
Storage 24 (2013)
|
"Derivative and dorky, Storage 24 still entertains more often than it exasperates."
|
Jeannette Catsoulis
|
|
19%
|
The Baytown Outlaws (2013)
|
"Although artistically slight and thematically haphazard, it's enjoyably flashy."
|
Mark Jenkins
|
|
29%
|
Let My People Go! (2013)
|
"The result is late Woody Allen, when early might have done the trick."
|
Ella Taylor
|
|
24%
|
Struck by Lightning (2013)
|
"There isn't much to say about Struck by Lightning, except that it's one of those interchangeable teen movies that lands in theaters in early January, the morgue for films nobody knows what to do with."
|
Ella Taylor
|
|
98%
|
56 Up (2013)
|
"It offers a few insights, and fascinating updates on the most compelling characters."
|
Mark Jenkins
|
|
95%
|
West of Memphis (2012)
|
"It took way too long, but the crowd finally bested the mob."
|
Mark Jenkins
|
|
86%
|
Tabu (2012)
|
"Few films are this smart about subtly couching their allegorical aspirations within more straightforward narratives; fewer still are able to do so with such energetically inventive virtuoso style."
|
Ian Buckwalter
|
|
51%
|
Promised Land (2013)
|
"Though the film eventually caves to sentiment and stereotype, its alert performances and muted rhythms offer much to enjoy in the interim."
|
Jeannette Catsoulis
|
|
88%
|
Django Unchained (2012)
|
"Django Unchained is by turns exhilarating, hilarious, horrifying and poetic."
|
Stephanie Zacharek
|
|
69%
|
Les Misérables (2012)
|
"The music and the magnetic performances make many of the directorial missteps fade into the background."
|
Ian Buckwalter
|
|
81%
|
The Impossible (2012)
|
"Visually stunning but manipulative in the extreme - try not to roll your eyes as the various family members miss one another by inches - The Impossible nevertheless contains two of the year's best performances."
|
Jeannette Catsoulis
|
|
69%
|
Not Fade Away (2012)
|
"Alas, Not Fade Away is far less pungent than the period it attempts to evoke."
|
Mark Jenkins
|
|
52%
|
This is 40 (2012)
|
"With This Is 40, Apatow turns his audience into fitfully chuckling therapists, dealing with a raft of problems that aren't entirely sorted out."
|
Scott Tobias
|
|
93%
|
Barbara (2012)
|
"Lit from within, like a lantern; Petzold has made a nighttime movie that ends right on the edge of dawn."
|
Stephanie Zacharek
|
|
61%
|
Jack Reacher (2012)
|
"The picture is joyless and perfunctory. Call it Mission: Possible."
|
Stephanie Zacharek
|
|
93%
|
Zero Dark Thirty (2013)
|
"This is not a triumphant story in [the] telling, but it is one uncommonly freighted with the weight of history."
|
Bob Mondello
|
|
93%
|
Amour (2012)
|
"If you've seen someone you love through their dying, it may burn you up - but in an illuminating way."
|
Ella Taylor
|
|
44%
|
Save The Date (2012)
|
"A merely adequate addition to the raft of romantic comedies for those pushing 30 without adult lives to call their own."
|
Ella Taylor
|
|
53%
|
The Girl (2013)
|
"A patient chamber piece about the emotional bruises left by poverty and neglect."
|
Jeannette Catsoulis
|
|
56%
|
Love, Marilyn (2012)
|
"A heartfelt and well-intentioned love letter to an already deeply beloved star, and for anyone who's still not convinced, the picture works hard to make the case for Monroe's gifts as an actress."
|
Stephanie Zacharek
|
|
40%
|
Yelling to the Sky (2012)
|
"Mahoney barely explains her characters' circumstances, which makes the movie obliquely intriguing. But whenever the story comes into focus, it's revealed as fairly conventional."
|
Mark Jenkins
|
|
77%
|
Any Day Now (2012)
|
"It would take a heart of stone - or zero tolerance for soap - to resist Any Day Now, a full-throttle weepie about a West Hollywood gay couple trying to adopt a neglected boy with Down syndrome."
|
Ella Taylor
|
|
65%
|
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
|
"Between its lighter tone and a decade's worth of improvements in digital film techniques, there should be enough of a novelty factor to delight most fans."
|
Bob Mondello
|
|
89%
|
Consuming Spirits (2012)
|
"The effect is that of disjointed, haunted reverie, of alternate realities colliding, soundtracked by mumbled asides and an uneasy murmur of background noise."
|
Ian Buckwalter
|
|
38%
|
Hyde Park on Hudson (2012)
|
"In Hyde Park, actor and character share an evasive cunning beneath the hail-fellow-well-met charm that made Roosevelt such a hit with the press and the public."
|
Ella Taylor
|
|
80%
|
Wagner & Me (2012)
|
"An exuberant and deeply personal documentary about the allure and the legacy of the German composer's work."
|
Stephanie Zacharek
|
|
19%
|
Lay the Favorite (2012)
|
"A listless comedy built around a vivacious protagonist."
|
Scott Tobias
|
|
64%
|
The Fitzgerald Family Christmas (2012)
|
"The Fitzgerald Family Christmas is extremely perceptive about certain angles on life in a big family."
|
Stephanie Zacharek
|
|
4%
|
Playing for Keeps (2012)
|
"Is it a heartwarming romantic drama? Or a cynical sex and sports comedy? There is no wrong answer, dear ticket buyer."
|
Mark Jenkins
|
|
35%
|
Cheerful Weather For The Wedding (2012)
|
"The dominance of the madcap side of the film's split personality lays an airy veneer over Dolly and Joseph's woes, making them seem inconsequential - as unsubstantial as an observation about wedding-day weather."
|
Ian Buckwalter
|
|
32%
|
Deadfall (2012)
|
"For Ruzowitzky, Deadfall seems nothing more than work for hire."
|
Mark Jenkins
|
|
79%
|
Quartet (2013)
|
"A big-hearted and veddy English chamber piece, never mind that it was directed - respectfully and with love - by famous Yank Dustin Hoffman."
|
Ella Taylor
|
|
67%
|
Otelo Burning (2012)
|
"A heavy-handed but forceful coming-of-age story set circa 1989, against the backdrop of the violent beginning of apartheid's end ..."
|
Joel Arnold
|
|
67%
|
California Solo (2012)
|
"It treats its themes of guilt and responsibility with delicate tact and a precise eye for the neglected commitments that stubbornly dog a man trying his damnedest to efface himself from the world."
|
Ella Taylor
|
|
36%
|
The Collection (2012)
|
"Genre aficionados are likely to revel in every crunched bone, gratuitous decapitation and slow-motion iron-maiden impaling."
|
Ian Buckwalter
|
|
84%
|
Dragon (2012)
|
"The widescreen cinematography and mountain rain-forest locations retain their interest, as does the deftly incongruous score, which ranges from samba to hard rock."
|
Mark Jenkins
|
|
75%
|
Killing Them Softly (2012)
|
"It's the characters, and their words, that drive the story here, and Dominik preserves all their scruffy colors ..."
|
Stephanie Zacharek
|
|
82%
|
De rouille et d'os (Rust and Bone) (2012)
|
"Audiard isn't afraid to be a little sentimental, and that's what distinguishes Rust and Bone from so many other contemporary dramas or romances."
|
Stephanie Zacharek
|
|
94%
|
The Central Park Five (2012)
|
"In addition to recent interviews with the five, the filmmakers deftly marshal news footage, clips from the supposed confessions, and trenchant analysis."
|
Mark Jenkins
|
|
74%
|
Rise of the Guardians (2012)
|
"Too cluttered and manic to bring real pleasure."
|
Stephanie Zacharek
|
|
63%
|
Hitchcock (2012)
|
"Trying to carve out a space between black comedy and straight evocation of a difficult but rewarding marriage, the movie never settles on a tone."
|
Ella Taylor
|
|
59%
|
La Rafle (2012)
|
"It's a mainstream, sentimental drama because it needs to be. It announces in a clear voice that this happened."
|
Joel Arnold
|
|
13%
|
Red Dawn (2012)
|
"[Its] portrayal of violence derives more from video games than from history."
|
Mark Jenkins
|
|
88%
|
Life of Pi (2012)
|
"An adventure yarn that is gloriously old-fashioned - and often just glorious."
|
Bob Mondello
|
|
64%
|
Anna Karenina (2012)
|
"The best that can be said of Knightley is that she's puppy-eyed eye candy, in vibrant reds and blacks with fur trims to die for."
|
Ella Taylor
|
76%
29%
83%
85%
45%
40%
