Nicolas Winding Refn’s Bronson is a striking but strangely aloof film that would have been better served had the director shown a little restraint
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a much tighter, carefully constructed, leisurely-but-fluidly paced adaptation of the J.K. Rowling books
The Hangover is a near-classic old-school comedy that recalls Animal House or Caddyshack
Coraline marks director Henry Selick’s return to feature-length animation following a decade-plus absence
There’s only one problem with Tony Gilroy’s otherwise excellent Duplicity: the tone is all wrong, and it threatens to ruin the film
Gran Torino is a somewhat simplistic film content to tell its own isolated story rather than reaching for something greater
There are a lot of good things about The Visitor, but one of the best may be the emergence of Jenkins
John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt is thought-provoking and refreshingly ambiguous
Watchmen painstakingly lays it all out on the screen, daring viewers to accept or reject it on sight
Slumdog Millionaire is a stylized, energetic, crowd-pleasing picture that almost everyone can enjoy
Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon fleshes out the famous 1977 TV interview between British talk-show host David Frost and former US president Richard Nixon
Bryan Singer’s Valkyrie is suspenseful and exciting and works well enough on popcorn terms to warrant a recommendation
Revolutionary Road is a real downer of a film buoyed by some phenomenal acting
Burn After Reading is a goofy spy comedy that has to live up to last year’s Oscar-winning drama No Country for Old Men.
Vicky Christina Barcelona is lightweight, lighthearted, and liberal, but also surprisingly thoughtful
Taken is the kind of movie you might expect to see from a Bruce Willis or Jet Li. But no, here’s Liam Neeson
An exhilarating return to form for Peter Greenaway, Nightwatching is easily the cult director’s best film since 1989’s The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
Tropic Thunder is the kind of outrageous no-holds-barred comedy that really works because it manages to keep its smarts while being so dumb
Hellboy II: The Golden Army compensates for what was missing in the first film and then some
The Orphanage is a first-rate thriller/ghost story that survives a plodding midsection by providing an eerie, Hitchcockian atmosphere
Martin Scorsese’s Shine a Light is the next best thing to seeing the Rolling Stones live in concert
Forgetting Sarah Marshall hits every note right – except for one unfortunately crucial one
Ignore the cynics: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a film for pulp lovers, a throwback to old Republic serials and Errol Flynn adventures
Paris je t’aime (Paris, I Love You) is about as good as this kind of thing can get