James Franco has kept himself busy directing movies, specifically movies based on unadaptable classics of American literature. He tries in vain to crack a Cormac McCarthy novel about an antisocial killer from rural Tennessee. 

In an atmospheric study of life on the fringes of a small Missouri town, Tracy Droz Tragos and Andrew Droz Palermo let viewers draw their own conclusions.

The third entry in the gross-out horror series goes back to the original outbreak, but otherwise features another set of blandly attractive party people infecting each other. 

Lawrence Kasdan’s Baby Boomer touchstone isn’t quite the myopic nostalgia piece its reputation suggests, finding subtle ways to criticize its characters’ self-involvement. 

A new box set spans the career of Jacques Demy, director of The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg and other moving flights of fancy.

The third entry in the gross-out horror series goes back to the original outbreak, but otherwise features another set of blandly attractive party people infecting each other. 

In an atmospheric study of life on the fringes of a small Missouri town, Tracy Droz Tragos and Andrew Droz Palermo let viewers draw their own conclusions.

James Franco has kept himself busy directing movies, specifically movies based on unadaptable classics of American literature. He tries in vain to crack a Cormac McCarthy novel about an antisocial killer from rural Tennessee. 

John Stamos stars in a relationship comedy of the sort that’s been done many times before, but rarely this badly.

Stand-up star Gabriel Iglesias stars in a concert film of considerable depth and feeling.

The damnably prolific Joe Swanberg gathers Anna Kendrick, Melanie Lynskey, Mark Webber, and Lena Dunham for a winning Yuletide hangout movie that’s a big leap forward from his previous work.

Screenwriter Naomi Foner (Bee Season) makes a late directorial debut with a generic coming-of-age movie about two virginal friends (Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen) pursuing the same generic hunk.

The stigma surrounding Bronies—overwhelmingly male, overwhelmingly heterosexual adult fans of the animated show My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic—gets debunked in this documentary about their equine passion.

Ari Folman’s half-animated follow-up to Waltz With Bashir combines science fiction and satire in telling the story of an aging actress (Robin Wright) who sells Hollywood the rights to her digital likeness. 

Based on the Nick Hornby novel, Pascal Chaumeil’s comedy-drama stars Toni Collette, Pierce Brosnan, Imogen Poots, and Aaron Paul as sad characters who form an impromptu support group after trying to commit suicide off the same tower block. 

Lawrence Kasdan’s Baby Boomer touchstone isn’t quite the myopic nostalgia piece its reputation suggests, finding subtle ways to criticize its characters’ self-involvement. 

A new box set spans the career of Jacques Demy, director of The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg and other moving flights of fancy.

In adapting stories by Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, director Billy Wilder married the slanginess and gusto of Hollywood films with the sophistication of his European roots.

Controversial radio humorist Henry Morgan made his debut and his swan song in this fizzy adaptation of Ring Lardner’s The Big Town, which follows the big-city adventures of money-hungry Midwesterners.

Park Chan-wook kicked off his Vengeance trilogy with a morally murky, blood-soaked tale of love and reprisal.

With nominees that included Mercedes McCambridge and famed theater actress Ethel Barrymore, the competition offered a fascinating cross-section of what late-1940s Hollywood valued in roles for women, and what it overlooked.

Judd Apatow’s directorial debut showcases his ability for defining characters quickly and affectionately, but also his skill at showing the limits of their world.

Critics are complaining about Lucy’s underdeveloped, inaccessible protagonist, and everyone’s complaining about its junky “humans only use 10 percent of their brains” pseudoscience. But neither issue gets to the core of what the film is about.

The director of The French Connection and The Exorcist has a filmography filled with films at their best when throwing viewers into the messy middle of the action.

From Blood Simple to Inside Llewyn Davis, the Coens have offered an often funny, but always bleak, view of how the world works.

An exhaustive look at Bill Murray’s career traces his journey from comedy star to respected actor—and finds his two talents have long been intertwined.

Back in January, we discussed the new releases we were most looking forward to seeing in theaters this year. But since most of those promising films have already come and gone, we went back to the coming-soon lists to consider what the rest of the year holds.

Melissa McCarthy’s Tammy has taken major flak from critics, but they’re overlooking how its daring use of women continues to push the growing idea that comedy benefits from a broader range of voices and perspectives.

The brainy, brawny science fiction action movie Edge Of Tomorrow got us talking about why it works so well, from the central gimmick to a committed Tom Cruise.

After a lifetime of playing good guys, Ronald Reagan ended his acting career with a villainous turn in Don Siegel’s The Killers. Was the performance revelatory, or an aberration?

Warren Beatty’s 1998 film Bulworth attempted to give a charge to Clinton-era liberal frustration by pairing it with a frankness inspired by hip-hop. The result was stranger than expected, but also truer to Beatty’s past than it seemed.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s canny casting of the 1970s icon in a film set during his heyday gave Reynolds the best reviews of his career. But it ended up being an outlier in a filmography dominated by popcorn and junk.

A 1991 Top Gun parody directed by one third of the team behind Airplane!, Hot Shots! leans hard on easy references, just like the sorry work of parody’s modern heirs

When Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell teamed up for a 1989 buddy-cop movie, the troubled production yielded a strange sort of magic.

Blake Edwards’  surprisingly perceptive, sad 10 briefly popularized Bo Derek (and cornrows on white women), but don’t hold that against it.

An alternate poster for Her uses a blurred image to see the film more clearly.

Cristian Mungiu’s Beyond The Hills gets a poster inspired by rolling landscapes, a Belgian illustrator, and ambiguity.

Graphic designer Sam Smith creates a new image for his favorite film of 2013 and lists this year’s 10 best movie posters.

Some of the most arresting takes on science fiction in the late 1960s and early 1970s came from people who were just briefly visiting the genre, including such disparate figures as Alain Resnais and Sun Ra.

Day Of The Dolphin, A Boy And His Dog, and Phase IV turned to the relationship between man and super-intelligent animals to comment on politics, men and women, and civilization at large. 

What does it mean when machines and humans look the same? A handful of films in the 1960 and 1970s offered strikingly different takes on the notion.

Judd Apatow’s directorial debut showcases his ability for defining characters quickly and affectionately, but also his skill at showing the limits of their world.

Needing to reinvent the bad guy for Terminator 2, James Cameron imagined him as someone who could look like anyone, even someone we trusted. In doing so, he tapped into an anxiety about the police that was about to erupt.

Movie Of The Week Blockbuster Month continues into the 1990s, as we dig into the exploitation roots, groundbreaking action, and clunky dialogue of James Cameron’s $100 million Terminator sequel.

With nominees that included Mercedes McCambridge and famed theater actress Ethel Barrymore, the competition offered a fascinating cross-section of what late-1940s Hollywood valued in roles for women, and what it overlooked.

The 2008 Best Supporting Actor race included Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker. He took the award posthumously, but unlike with some posthumous awards, his disturbing performance seems like one that likely would have won anyway.

Faye Dunaway fast-talked her way into an Oscar in a year that also featured edgy work from other quarters—including two actors portraying put-upon teens.

Soon to be rebooted, the original Left Behind film series ended with the story of a badass, detective-like president battling the Antichrist.

The Sham-Wow Guy’s inAPPropriate Comedy is like Movie 43, minus the class and laughs. Also, it’s crazy racist. 

In this late-career feature, Seagal tries to find his son’s murderer, matches wits with Eddie Griffin, engages in an epic curse-off, and kills a lot of black people.

This week, we look back at the Planet Of The Apes franchise—from the 1970s to the present and all points in between—wonder why sex comedies for and about adults are such a rare species, and test our retro-trailer knowledge.

This week’s podcast considers the state of the spoof, the art of withholding information from viewers, and the consensus-shattering reviews of Roger Ebert. 

Can you spot the common theme linking this week’s segments on stage-to-screen musicals and hyperlink movies?

This week, we examine the respective draws and pitfalls of “feel-bad” cinema and the modern theater experience, and cry our way through a tear-jerking game.

This week, we look back at the Planet Of The Apes franchise—from the 1970s to the present and all points in between—wonder why sex comedies for and about adults are such a rare species, and test our retro-trailer knowledge.

This week’s podcast considers the state of the spoof, the art of withholding information from viewers, and the consensus-shattering reviews of Roger Ebert. 

Can you spot the common theme linking this week’s segments on stage-to-screen musicals and hyperlink movies?

This week, we examine the respective draws and pitfalls of “feel-bad” cinema and the modern theater experience, and cry our way through a tear-jerking game.