instantwatcher.com

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

1. 5 Broken Cameras 2012 Takes the rough material of one man's life and transforms it into a story that is universal and urgent, offering firsthand witness to events that are too often portrayed as distant and impossible to understand. full review
2. Beauty Is Embarrassing 2012 Neil Berkeley's infectiously affectionate portrait of artist, puppeteer and genially profane provocateur Wayne White. full review
3. Bernie 2012 "Bernie" unfolds into many equally rich narrative strands: love story, southern Gothic slice-of-life and, finally tragedy and legal thriller... full review
4. The Cabin in the Woods 2012 A pulpy, deceivingly insightful send-up of horror movies that elicits just as many knowing chuckles as horrified gasps. full review
5. Compliance 2012 Fails its first test, which is that the audience believe every word of it. full review
6. Dark Horse 2012 It would be unfair and patronizing to say that Solondz needs to grow up, but "Dark Horse" suggests that it's time for the bard of bourgeois hypocrisy to consider moving on. full review
7. Detropia 2012 Grady and Ewing are exceptionally skilled and sensitive visual storytellers, adroit at recognizing decisive moments and smart enough to let viewers make of them what they will. full review
8. Friends With Kids 2012 Too many sequences feel generic, from the unexamined privilege that serves as the movie's cultural backdrop to the now-requisite scene of a man changing a diaper while covered in baby poop. full review
9. Haywire 2012 "Haywire" stays true to its low-rent B-movie principles, right down to the fast, strong and quietly competent heroine at its center. full review
10. How to Survive a Plague 2012 "How to Survive a Plague" captures a saddening, maddening era that seems like far too many lifetimes ago. full review
11. The Invisible War 2012 Dick, whose films include a revealing expose about the movie industry's film ratings board, has created yet another galvanizing call to action with "The Invisible War." full review
12. The Island President 2012 Shenk expertly weaves Nasheed's extraordinary personal story together with the Maldives' breathtaking natural beauty and a Capra-esque tale of dogged idealism and political courage to create wonderfully vivid cinematic portraiture. full review
13. Monsieur Lazhar 2012 "Monsieur Lazhar" is good. Really good. full review
14. Oslo, August 31st 2012 Trier proves that he's no one-hit wonder. full review
15. Pink Ribbons, Inc. 2012 It's a well-argued polemic that, despite being one-sided, has loads of useful information to share, if only to begin a crucial argument about health care, allocation and coordination of research dollars, consumerism and the privatization of philanthropy. full review
16. The Queen of Versailles 2012 "The Queen of Versailles" turns out to be a portrait -- appalling, absorbing and improbably affecting -- of how, even within a system seemingly designed to ensure that the rich get richer, sometimes the rich get poorer. full review
17. Red Hook Summer 2012 This coming-of-age portrait provides one more instance of Lee as one of this country's finest cinematic regionalists. full review
18. A Royal Affair 2012 Even appreciated simply as a little-known chapter of European history, it proves consistently engrossing, edifying and affecting. full review
19. Sleepwalk With Me 2012 Birbiglia proves to be as engaging a presence on the screen as he has been all these years onstage and over the radio waves. full review
20. The Woman in the Fifth 2012 It's a curio, ripe with dreamy atmospherics and intriguing mysteries, but little else. full review
21. Albert Nobbs 2011 [It] sneaks up on the audience with the quiet discretion of the enigmatic protagonist at its center. And, like him, it contains multitudes beneath its prim surface. full review
22. The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 2011 A film that suffers from a surfeit of credulity. full review
23. Footloose 2011 Brewer has delivered a largely unobjectionable note-for-note facsimile of Herbert Ross's ode to teenage rebellion, young love and the unfettered joy of movement. full review
24. Friends With Benefits 2011 If "Friends With Benefits" ultimately succumbs to the very sins it so cleverly deconstructs, it still commits those infractions with a welcome degree of wit and, when it slows down enough, spirited flair. full review
25. Hugo 2011 If ever the movie gods were to smile on an adaptation, it would be Scorsese's take on Selznick's bestselling book, a valentine to the cinematic artists whose work the filmmaker has toiled so tirelessly to champion and preserve. full review
26. Into The Abyss 2011 What could have been a well-aimed examination of the most troubling contradictions of capital punishment instead becomes a maudlin, unrestrained wallow. full review
27. Keep the Lights On 2011 Such is the stuff of high drama, but "Keep the Lights On" maintains an oddly distant air. full review
28. The Kid with a Bike 2011 Cyril is one of the most inspiringly resilient, self-aware young characters to arrive on-screen in recent memory... full review
29. Like Crazy 2011 A serious, deeply felt romance for an audience Hollywood most often bombards with raunchy sex comedies and video-game adaptations. full review
30. Rango 2011 A sun-baked symphony of rust and dust, Rango has a spiky, unsentimental appeal, sending out slightly risque jokes to parents while staying safely out of the danger zone for kids. full review
31. The Swell Season 2011 A documentary that is every bit as intimate and disarming as the movie that made them famous... full review
32. Trishna 2011 A rare unsatisfying swerve from an otherwise reliably provocative career. full review
33. Undefeated 2011 [A] stirring, emotional portrait of a high school football team in the impoverished neighborhood of North Memphis, Tenn. full review
34. We Were Here 2011 "We Were Here" pays eloquent homage to men and women who deserve to be celebrated and remembered as heroes. full review
35. Zeitgeist: Moving Forward 2011 full review
36. All Good Things 2010 As absorbing and detailed as "All Good Things" is, it never manages to levitate beyond tawdry movie-of-the-week voyeurism. full review
37. Blue Valentine 2010 Almost unbearably harrowing but also deeply cathartic, as viewers create their own meanings within Dean and Cindy's singular downward spiral. full review
38. Cave of Forgotten Dreams 2010 To call "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" a great movie isn't just an understatement, it's a wildly inaccurate way to describe an experience that, in its immersive sensory pleasures and climactic journey of discovery, more closely resembles an ecstatic trance. full review
39. Centurion 2010 Centurion wraps itself in talk of duty and honor, but really it's just another cinematic death-trip. full review
40. Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer 2010 It leaves the unmistakable impression that there's more to this iteration of a story that, animated by hubris, lust, self-deception and love of power, is sure to play out again. full review
41. The Conspirator 2010 With her hair darkened and severely pulled back, her face a mask of stony implacability, Wright delivers a simple, unshowy performance that never begs for the audience's sympathy. full review
42. Countdown to Zero 2010 Alternately edifying and alarming.
43. Exit Through The Gift Shop 2010 Exit Through the Gift Shop offers an absorbing glimpse of a bracingly subversive slice of the culture, as well as some tantalizing images of Banksy at work. full review
44. Howl 2010 What could have been a trivial exercise in nostalgia instead becomes a powerful case for the cathartic power of art. full review
45. I Am Love 2010 I Am Love is such a lush, deeply textured banquet of sights and sounds that it deserves more than a movie review. full review
46. The King's Speech 2010 Go! Enjoy! full review
47. Marwencol 2010 A fine, delicately nuanced portrait of an artist compelled by mysterious forces to create something utterly unique. full review
48. Morning Glory 2010 Precious little rings true.
49. Nostalgia for the Light 2010 The filmmaker's masterpiece, an exquisitely filmed, poetically written meditation on how past and present fuse in humanity's most unresolved questions. full review
50. Nowhere Boy 2010 The movie succumbs to maudlin sentiment and melodrama that Lennon himself might have dismissed with one of his signature cutting remarks. full review
51. Rabbit Hole 2010 What on the surface seems to possess all the melodrama and photogenic suffering of a banal prime-time weepie instead becomes a lucid, tough, deeply sensitive examination of emotional fortitude. full review
52. Senna 2010 What makes "Senna" essential viewing is the propulsive education it provides in one of the world's most popular sports, and the introduction it provides to an extraordinary athlete and human being. full review
53. South of the Border 2010 A personal, maddeningly blinkered travelogue through Latin America that, for all its willful naivete, offers a valuable glimpse of historical and social change. full review
54. The Switch 2010 A warm, quirkily observant film, strengthened by some appealing performances and a low-key, easygoing vibe. full review
55. Tiny Furniture 2010 Dunham's dramatic comedy (comic drama?) renders the artist's life with candor, wit and 360-degree clarity. More, please. full review
56. The Woodmans 2010 The Woodmans tells the compelling, if slightly disturbing, story of a family coming to grips with love, ego, resentment and loss. full review
57. The Proposal 2009 Just looking at the poster for The Proposal, a by-the-numbers romantic comedy starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, tells you exactly how it's all gonna go down. full review
58. 44 Inch Chest 2009 It's sometimes difficult to discern whether the filmmakers are dissecting male bonding, ritualized aggression and sexual anxiety or celebrating it. full review
59. The Art Of The Steal 2009 The Art of the Steal ultimately gets mired in the legal weeds, a snare made all the more frustrating by the fact that the move is a fait accompli. full review
60. Cairo Time 2009 Clarkson proves what her fans have known forever: She's ready for the spotlight. With luck she'll stay there for a while. full review
61. Creation 2009 For a movie that clearly seeks to bring Darwin to life, Creation spends an awful lot of time wallowing in death. full review
62. Crossing Over 2009 Maybe if he [director Wayne Kramer] had kept Crossing Over simpler, he would have made a less simplistic movie. full review
63. The Eclipse 2009 McPherson has managed a rare hat trick in genre mash-up, fashioning a deeply absorbing movie that balances horror, romance, comedy and observant humanism with surprising finesse. full review
64. Fish Tank 2009 Jarvis, whom the director reportedly discovered at an Essex train station, is nothing less than a revelation in a performance that is tender, spiky and utterly fearless in its physical and emotional range. full review
65. Hunger 2009 McQueen has taken the raw materials of filmmaking and committed an act of great art. full review
66. The Secret of Kells 2009 If filmgoers ultimately feel bogged down in its densely layered fable and allegory, it's a spectacular thicket to get lost in. full review
67. What's the Matter with Kansas? 2009 Funny? Scary? Entirely logical? It all depends on your point of view, of course, and What's the Matter With Kansas? isn't likely to move viewers one way or another. full review
68. Defiance 2008 Craig and Schreiber are terrific as the slightly thuggish Bielskis, and they're joined by an able supporting cast that includes Jamie Bell and the wonderful Mia Wasikowska. full review
69. Happy-Go-Lucky 2008 The British actress Sally Hawkins delivers a nervy, utterly captivating tour de force performance in Happy-Go-Lucky, Mike Leigh's transporting new film. full review
70. Man on Wire 2008 It all makes for an absorbing, mischievously amusing yarn, whose climax unfolds with unexpected emotional force. full review
71. What Just Happened? 2008 Sometimes silly, often scathingly funny, What Just Happened? finally possesses a winning mix of toughness and heart. full review
72. The Babysitters 2007 It's bad enough that writer-director David Ross indulges in the very perverse kind of Lolita-tinged titillation the film pretends to lament, but then he ties everything up with an oh-well shrug. full review
73. Broken English 2007 A welcome chance to see Posey at her flighty, edgy best. Is there an actress alive better able to convey the neuroses and self-doubts of the typical over-educated, under-challenged American woman? full review
74. Chris & Don: A Love Story 2007 With delectable-looking home movies of the couple's travels in California and Europe, Chris and Don offers an intimate portrayal of a passionate, enduring association, as well as a social history of postwar life. full review
75. Day Watch 2007 Day Watch may not suit everyone, but it opens a big can of Russian whoop-de-whoop on anyone willing to take it. full review
76. King Corn 2007 It should be required viewing before going into a supermarket, McDonald's or your very own refrigerator. full review
77. Lars and the Real Girl 2007 Gosling's performance is a small miracle, not only because he's so completely open as a man who's essentially shut off, but because he changes and grows so imperceptibly before our eyes. full review
78. Paranoid Park 2007 Even something as modest as Paranoid Park manages to reflect Van Sant's greatest strengths as an artist: his seemingly limitless fluency with his chosen medium and his willingness to tell even the oldest stories in bold new ways. full review
79. The Ten 2007 The Ten never breaks out of jejune noodling and into something truly provocative. full review
80. Golden Door 2006 Italian director Emanuele Crialese has infused the age-old plot with dazzling visual style, dollops of magical realism and profound emotional truth that infuse what we think we know with new verve and resonance. full review
81. Maxed Out 2006 A film all high school seniors should see. And their parents. And their siblings, neighbors, best friends and acquaintances. You should see it, too. full review
82. Mission: Impossible III 2006 Director J.J. Abrams, creator of such TV hits as Alias and Lost, makes a reasonably impressive feature debut with the best installment of the series. full review
83. Sherrybaby 2006 full review
84. Unknown 2006 A nifty little psychological crime thriller that suggests a Treasure of the Sierra Madre for the postindustrial age. full review
85. Brokeback Mountain 2005 A sweeping, solemn, self-serious chronicle of their relationship over several decades. full review
86. Broken Flowers 2005 It takes someone with Murray's reservoir of audience goodwill to make such a maddeningly passive character even worth watching. full review
87. Conversations With Other Women 2005 The film ultimately becomes too contrived to be anything but a fleeting diversion, but kudos to these emerging filmmakers for daring to make something a little bit different and, for the most part, intriguing. full review
88. Factotum 2005 Wins you over even as it dares you to keep watching. full review
89. Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man 2005 Bloodless where it should be bold, precious where it should be perceptive and irritating where it should be inspiring. full review
90. The Longest Yard 2005 Whether it's the sight of Reynolds squeezed painfully into a football uniform or the endless footballs-to-the-crotch and tired gay jokes, The Longest Yard has the feeling of mutton dressed as lamb. full review
91. Nine Lives 2005 The moments that Garcia has chosen to observe are unforgettable, the women -- played by an ensemble of actresses at the top of their respective games -- indelible. full review
92. Eat This New York 2004 This lively, absorbing documentary about best friends who open a tiny cafe in the heart of Brooklyn is full of such mouth-watering shots of cooking and eating that a jumbo-sized popcorn and pallid soda simply won't do. full review
93. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind 2004 The perfect movie about love's inevitable imperfections. full review
94. Following Sean 2004 full review
95. The Forgotten 2004 An uneasy mix between Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the The X-Files, and one not nearly as smart as either. full review
96. Hotel Rwanda 2004 The great strength of Hotel Rwanda is that it's not about superhuman heroism but simply about human decency. full review
97. Me and You and Everyone We Know 2004 Delightfully light on its feet, suffused with a knowing humor that is more sweetly careworn than cynical. full review
98. The Passion of the Christ 2004 May have succeeded in exploiting Jesus's death for its most highly pitched emotion and drama. But in the process, for many believers, it may have served only to trivialize and further obscure the story's most central and sacred mysteries.
99. The Puffy Chair 2004 A charming, if limited, romantic comedy that examines post-collegiate angst with easy, unself-conscious humor. full review
100. Word Wars 2004 A welcome fix to audiences for whom today's Jumble game just isn't enough. full review
101. CSA: Confederate States of America 2003 A piece of well-crafted righteous indignation. full review
102. Darkness Falls 2003 Oy, how it falls. full review
103. In the Cut 2003 Belabored and muddled movie, whose dreamy visual style and daring sexual material can't elide glaring inconsistencies in tone, plot and logic. full review
104. The Missing 2003 The Missing hews in every way to the conventions of its genre.
105. Once Upon a Time in Mexico 2003 A whiz-bang kick in the pants.
106. Bowling for Columbine 2002 Even Moore's detractors, should they be inclined to see the film, will admit that he takes a refreshingly nuanced view of the issue. full review
107. Changing Lanes 2002 The movie goes for the throat and keeps squeezing. full review
108. The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys 2002 Sharp, lively, funny and ultimately sobering film.
109. The New Guy 2002 A particularly loathsome piece of cultural detritus.
110. Punch-Drunk Love 2002 A weird, arresting little ride.
111. Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams 2002 Manages to be wholesome and subversive at the same time.
112. Stuart Little 2 2002 The world of Stuart Little is a wonderful thing to snuggle into, as full of heart and pep and innocence as the title character himself.
113. The Sum of All Fears 2002 Has something to disappoint nearly every constituency to which it appeals.
114. The Trials of Henry Kissinger 2002 Not everyone will welcome or accept The Trials of Henry Kissinger as faithful portraiture, but few can argue that the debate it joins is a necessary and timely one.
115. Baran 2001 Further solidifies [Majidi's] growing reputation as one of the cinema's most gifted humanist filmmakers. full review
116. No Such Thing 2001 By the end of No Such Thing the audience, like Beatrice, has a watchful affection for the monster.
117. True Grit 1969 full review