David Edelstein

John Michael McDonagh's new movie stars Brendan Gleeson as a priest who must eventually face off against a killer. It's excruciatingly obvious and inept, but Gleeson brings it alive.

The newest Marvel comic adaptation features five motley warriors, including a raccoon and a tree, against an armada of space villains. The big-budget effects-laden movie is light and funny.

The late actor hit his peak in the adaptation of John le Carre's 2008 novel. The movie isn't a clean piece of storytelling, but Hoffman connects with viewers on a level most actors never approach.

Boyhood is about a boy in Texas whose parents have separated. Filmed over 12 years, audiences watch him grow up — and his worldview evolve. The cumulative power of the movie is tremendous.

Keira Knightley plays a heartbroken singer-songwriter who teams up with a drunken producer in Begin Again. Irish director John Carney, who had a surprise hit with the musical Once, hit his mark again.

Film critic David Edelstein says Snowpiercer — a dystopian film based on a French graphic novel — is far more invigorating and potent than Transformers 4: Age of Extinction.

Two veteran directors adapted the Broadway shows to film. And while many such translations are too stage-bound, critic David Edelstein says Clint Eastwood and Roman Polanski got the balance right.

The indie film depicts a standup comic who decides to have an abortion after a one-night stand. David Edelstein lauds director Gillian Robespierre's courage.

The adaptation of John Green's bestselling young adult novel The Fault in Our Stars — about two teens with cancer — is among the year's most anticipated films, but David Edelstein wasn't impressed.

In the director's latest film, Marion Cotillard plays a Polish woman trying to free her sister from the island's infirmary and Joaquin Phoenix co-stars as a shady businessman.

In the Japanese original, he was a thinly disguised symbol of the atom bomb, but in later films he fought other giant monsters and even space aliens. The latest Godzilla is directed by Gareth Edwards.

Many people will find God's Pocket depressing, but once you get past the despair and carnage it's full of life. In one of his last film roles, Philip Seymour Hoffman stars as hapless Mickey Scarpato.

Polish-born director Pawel Pawlikowski's new film centers on an orphan who learns the secret of her past when she's on the brink of becoming a nun.

Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy) is the only person the audience sees in this daring film by Steven Knight. Viewers spend an hour and a half in the car with him, on a solo drive from Birmingham to London.

Every so often an arthouse director dips a toe into the horror genre and you realize vampires and space aliens are subjects too rich to be the property of schlockmeisters, says critic David Edelstein.

Darren Aronofsky's latest film is a big-budget Bible story called, simply, Noah. Russell Crowe plays the title character, and the movie also features Jennifer Connelly and Emma Watson.

Charlotte Gainsbourg and newcomer Stacy Martin anchor Lars von Trier's four-hour inquiry into the nature of impulse and desire.

Wes Anderson's new feature takes place at a resort hotel, between World Wars I and II. Fresh Air's critic says the visuals are so witty they transcend camp, but the dialogue isn't quite at that level.

Neeson became a bankable action hero in 2008 after the thriller Taken. Now almost 62, he's still getting out of tight corners with his fists. His new film unfolds on a transatlantic flight.

The new film from the acclaimed Japanese animator spans 30 years and centers on a young man who dreams of designing the perfect airplane in the early 1930s. (Recommended)