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Dana Stevens, Slate

1. John Dies at the End 2013 John Dies at the End is joyously heterodox in its method, an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink melange of sci-fi, black comedy, and action, with disquieting body-horror sight gags that at times recall David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch. full review
2. Bachelorette 2012 A nasty little piece of work -- a phrase I use not with contempt but with grudging admiration. full review
3. Casa de mi padre 2012 I regard Casa de Mi Padre as an interesting but failed experiment. full review
4. Compliance 2012 It's a deeply moral movie about the failure of morality, as grueling to watch as it is necessary. full review
5. Cosmopolis 2012 I took a strange pleasure in submitting to this movie's stilted but weirdly poetic rhythms. But I freely acknowledge that for others, enduring Cosmopolis may be less fun than a backseat prostate exam. full review
6. The Dictator 2012 Most of The Dictator had me neither laughing nor shocked, but just staring at the screen in anxious is-that-all-there-is? silence. full review
7. Friends With Kids 2012 Pleasant but overfamiliar. full review
8. The Grey 2012 For all its macho standoffs and action set pieces and menacing off-screen howling, The Grey is at heart a simple moral fable about how true heroism consists in helping other human beings to live as long and die as well as they can. full review
9. Haywire 2012 Though Carano isn't without a certain glowering charisma, her flat line readings and apparent discomfort with dialogue-heavy exchanges make her seem like a refugee from a different, schlockier movie... full review
10. Holy Motors 2012 If nothing else, you'll come out of it feeling perceptually refreshed, as if you'd just had a ride on an aesthetic and philosophical log flume. full review
11. The Hunger Games 2012 Director Gary Ross' adaptation, co-scripted by Collins herself, isn't quite as crackingly paced as the novel, but it will more than satisfy existing fans of the trilogy and likely create many new ones. full review
12. Marley 2012 Chronologically organized and voiceover-free, the movie is a 145-minute patchwork of old concert footage and talking-head interviews -- lots and lots of them -- from people who knew, loved, and worked with the reggae giant. full review
13. Monsieur Lazhar 2012 Fellag, an Algerian comedian and humor writer, anchors the film as the ineffable Bachir, a man who's so private that even the third-act revelation of his back story doesn't fully explain his motivations to us (nor would we want it to). full review
14. Red Hook Summer 2012 A movie that's alive and spontaneous and surprising is a rare enough thing to encounter-especially one that manages to address subjects as divisive and painful as inner-city black poverty without getting maudlin or preachy. full review
15. Safety Not Guaranteed 2012 A slight, wistful comedy that, at least up to the ambitious but unsatisfying final scenes, combines sci-fi and rom-com to pleasing effect. full review
16. Take This Waltz 2012 This romantic drama, starring the always-extraordinary Michelle Williams as a restless married woman contemplating an affair with her neighbor, is chock-full of individual moments of great power and beauty, including visual beauty. full review
17. The Adventures of Tintin 2011 Even if this hyperactive movie isn't your cup of tea, there's much to admire on-screen, including Spielberg's astonishing attention to visual detail and John Williams' jaunty score. full review
18. Albert Nobbs 2011 A movie that, like its title character, never quite dares to let itself discover what it really wants to be. full review
19. The Artist 2011 This slight but enormously likable picture seems destined to be an awards magnet: A holiday release with enough formal sophistication to appeal to cinephiles and enough old-fashioned showbiz bravado to win over a general audience. full review
20. Coriolanus 2011 The questions Coriolanus poses are so timeless and urgent they could be pullquotes from today's op-ed page. full review
21. First Position 2011 First Position is an unabashedly inspirational portrait of what even very young people can accomplish with discipline and dedication. full review
22. Friends With Benefits 2011 Friends With Benefits is a dumb, by-the-numbers romantic comedy. Yet I kept finding small things to enjoy in it, mainly because of the two hard-to-hate leads. full review
23. Margin Call 2011 This may be the first post-2008 feature film to dramatize the crisis itself, rather than using it as a backdrop for an outraged harangue against the banks. full review
24. The Other Woman 2011 Natalie Portman may have the black swan and the white swan down, but she's still working on the gray. full review
25. Pearl Jam Twenty 2011 Crowe has assembled some top-drawer ephemera -- old show posters, home movies, and candid backstage footage -- but he overestimates his audience's patience for present-day talking-head interviews. full review
26. Scream 4 2011 Craven guides us expertly down a series of blind, bloody alleys, a journey that's more pleasurable than frustrating. On account of his steady hand, the last act is as good as could be expected: skillfully conceived and entertaining in its preposterousness. full review
27. Super 8 2011 This may not be a children's classic that will last for generations, but it will make for a rollicking afternoon at the multiplex for kids around Joe's age. full review
28. Transformers: Dark of the Moon 2011 Marveling at its grotesque gigantism doesn't make this two-and-a-half-hour-long movie any less dull. full review
29. Biutiful 2010 It's the kind of film that congratulates the viewer on her tolerance for the spectacle of unrelieved misery. full review
30. Blue Valentine 2010 This is a marvel of a movie, but in the interest of perpetuating the human race, I'd counsel dewy young couples embarking on life's journey to check into a sex motel instead. full review
31. Cave of Forgotten Dreams 2010 If you're interested in the history of the human race -- if you're a member of the human race -- you owe it to yourself to see this movie. full review
32. The Company Men 2010 The venerated American export that The Company Men most recalls isn't seagoing vessels -- it's hourlong dramatic television shows. full review
33. The Conspirator 2010 Once you accustom yourself to this film's unhurried rhythm and old-fashioned Hollywood stolidity, The Conspirator is not without its pleasures -- chief among them Robin Wright's quietly fierce performance. full review
34. Four Lions 2010 The very existence of Four Lions is an act of audacity; the fact that it's also smart, humane, and frequently hilarious is nothing short of a miracle. full review
35. Howl 2010 By the time this movie's over, you've spent an hour and a half just working your way through the words of "Howl" and some related source material, and that turns out to be a surprisingly satisfying thing to do. full review
36. I Am Love 2010 I Am Love isn't just a bedazzlement to the eyes and ears. It's a feast--or maybe just a small but divine dish of prawns--for the soul. full review
37. I'm Still Here 2010 The worst thing about I'm Still Here is the fact that it exists. full review
38. Nowhere Boy 2010 The story of Lennon's early years is dramatic and painful enough to survive an imperfect retelling, even if you're already familiar with the stations of the cross. full review
39. The Romantics 2010 [It] somehow skirts utter loathsomeness by dint of its elegant camerawork and a few finely tuned performances. I'm not suggesting you run out to the theater and see this, but if it comes on cable someday and you have a big pile of laundry to fold... full review
40. Senna 2010 Senna feels a touch too short to be fully realized -- but then again, so was Ayrton Senna's life. full review
41. The Switch 2010 The sadness comes from the audience's sense that inside this slick, conventional romantic comedy there's a tender, scruffy little movie struggling to get out. full review
42. Tiny Furniture 2010 For a DIY second feature from a very young director, Tiny Furniture feels surprisingly assured, even elegant. full review
43. True Grit 2010 Just saddle up and see it yourself. full review
44. 44 Inch Chest 2009 All moody buildup and no -- I mean no -- real suspense. full review
45. Antichrist 2009 After the infantile bludgeoning that is Antichrist), I feel no need to keep accompanying von Trier's career at all. full review
46. Extract 2009 Like Judge's first two live-action films, Extract seems destined to do minor business at the box office but achieve a kind of immortality as a cult DVD. full review
47. Soul Kitchen 2009 Soul Kitchen is sprawling, undisciplined, raucous, occasionally crass-and so full of life you forgive it everything. full review
48. Bottle Shock 2008 Why did I feel such affection for this scruffy, hokey little movie? Maybe it's the same logic that applies to wine-drinking itself: Sure, a great claret would be ideal, but an OK rosé is better than washing down your dinner with water. full review
49. The Business of Being Born 2008 [It's] so selective in its presentation of information that it makes Michael Moore look like a fat lady in a blindfold holding a pair of scales. full review
50. Management 2008 Despite the essential implausibility of the story, Management remains for the most part as endearing as its leads. full review
51. Encounters at the End of the World 2007 Herzog the crank is a flimsy cover for Herzog the wonderstruck little boy, marveling at everything from the viscosity of seal milk (it pours like wax) to the spiderlike crab creatures that skitter along the ocean floor beneath the Ross Sea. full review
52. Lars and the Real Girl 2007 The movie is convinced that its man-loves-mannequin premise is uplifting, when actually it's just kinda gross. full review
53. Phoebe in Wonderland 2007 [Elle Fanning is] an astonishingly natural and unmannered actress who carries this rather ungainly movie on her narrow shoulders. full review
54. Shooter 2007 Though much of the action in Shooter is beautifully photographed, the movie's force is as a blunt instrument of metaphor. full review
55. Bug 2006 This is a movie about the dangers of letting love rob you of your reason and cut you off from the world, and, bugs in the bloodstream or not, who hasn't been there? full review
56. The Ground Truth 2006 full review
57. United 93 2006 ... left me feeling curiously unmoved and even slightly resentful. full review
58. World Trade Center 2006 For all its crude effectiveness as a true-life melodrama of survival, World Trade Center doesn't do much with 9/11, except to sentimentalize it for popular consumption. full review