Weekend Film Reviews
664 episodes - English - Latest episode: 13 days ago - ★★★★ - 149 ratingsThe best film reviewers in the business give you recommendations on what to see and what to skip each week.
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Episodes
The Lady in the Van; Youth
December 05, 2015 00:44 - 3 minutesThe Lady in the Van is wonderfully funny, terribly touching and a vehicle -- with comically dilapidated vehicles -- for the boundless gifts of Maggie Smith. Like Paolo Sorrentino's previous film, The Great Beauty, Youth is full of Fellini-esque flourishes, plus glib existentialism juxtaposed with synthetic optimism.
The Good Dinosaur
November 28, 2015 00:44 - 3 minutesIn Pixar's newest feature, the Old West is a home where the dinosaurs still roam.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2
November 21, 2015 00:44 - 3 minutesThe Hunger Games series has come to a sporadically stirring climax with Mockingjay, Part 2.
By the Sea
November 14, 2015 00:44 - 3 minutesWEB EXCLUSIVE: By the Sea takes place sometime during the mid-1970's in a coastal village in the south of France.
Spotlight
November 07, 2015 00:44 - 3 minutesSpotlight is the year's best movie so far, and a rarity among all those dramatizations that claim to be based on actual events. Remarkably, the movie and its flawless ensemble cast have captured their subject in all its richness and complexity.
Our Brand Is Crisis
October 30, 2015 23:44 - 3 minutesOur Brand Is Crisis is meant to be a fictional version of Rachel Boynton's 2005 documentary of the same name...
Nasty Baby; Rock the Kasbah
October 23, 2015 23:44 - 3 minutesNasty Baby is alive with random energy that sets up a surprise ending without blowing the surprise. Rock the Kasbah is a two-bit Ishtar that might play better on a phone.
Room
October 16, 2015 23:44 - 3 minutesAlthough its derivations are anything but poetic -- notorious cases of real-life imprisonment and abuse, Room is as beautifully wrought as any film that's come our way in a very long while.
The Martian
October 02, 2015 23:44 - 3 minutesKnowing the premise of The Martian won't prepare you for the remarkable variety and complexity of Ridley Scott's sci-fi extravaganza.
99 Homes
September 25, 2015 23:44 - 3 minutes99 Homes is a relatively small, tough-minded drama about pitiless people doing unprincipled things. And it turns out to be one of the most interesting, elegantly crafted and improbably entertaining films to come along in quite a while.
Black Mass
September 18, 2015 23:44 - 3 minutesJohnny Depp creates a seethingly evil portrait of James "Whitey" Bulger, one of the pre-eminent -- and pre-eminently violent -- criminals of recent times.
A Taste of Telluride
September 11, 2015 23:44 - 3 minutesJust back from the Telluride Film Festival, Joe Morgenstern introduces us to a couple of stand-outs.
Z for Zachariah
August 29, 2015 01:44 - 3 minutesIn Z for Zachariah the post-apocalyptic thriller gets a renovation, if not re-invention -- as a love triangle in a valley that has somehow been spared from whatever it was that brought an end to civilization.
Top Spin
August 22, 2015 01:44 - 3 minutesTop Spin starts ultra-slowly, then picks up speed. The subject of this documentary is table tennis -- or ping pong, for those of us who play it just for fun.
Straight Outta Compton
August 15, 2015 01:44 - 3 minutesStraight Outta Compton is notable for its omissions as well as its strengths, but that shouldn't be surprising.
The Gift
August 07, 2015 13:44 - 3 minutesOne of the many gifts conferred by the new movie The Gift is the pleasure of feeling like putty in the hands of a first-rate storyteller.
Best of Enemies
August 01, 2015 01:44 - 3 minutesBest of Enemies is a must-view film for our media-besotted age, a serious film about a serious failure to communicate ideas.
Southpaw
July 25, 2015 01:44 - 3 minutesSouthpaw stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a boxer in desperate need of redemption.
Trainwreck
July 18, 2015 01:44 - 3 minutesAmerican comedy doesn't get much better than Trainwreck at its best. Amy Schumer is a fearless artist without borders.
Minions
July 11, 2015 01:44 - 3 minutesMinions are mischievous sidekicks who keep getting into trouble of their own making.
Amy
July 04, 2015 01:44 - 3 minutesAmy Winehouse was unlucky and unwise in life, but her story fell into the right hands after she died.
Ted 2
June 27, 2015 01:44 - 3 minutesSeth MacFarlane's raunch-rich comedy is a sequel to his 2012 hit about an amiable guy from Boston and the foul-mouthed womanizer of a teddy bear who's been his best friend since childhood.
Inside Out
June 20, 2015 01:44 - 3 minutesActors use their faces, voices and bodies to convey what their characters are feeling, but the new Pixar film Inside Out takes a more direct approach.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
June 13, 2015 01:44 - 3 minutesMe and Earl and the Dying Girl is a fresh take on contemporary adolescence as a journey from ironic detachment to open-hearted feeling.
Entourage
June 06, 2015 01:44 - 3 minutesCharm has curdled into smarm in the big-screen version of Entourage.
Mad Max: Fury Road
May 16, 2015 01:44 - 3 minutesGeorge Miller, whose Mad Max gave the movie medium a new genre almost four decades ago, is back with Mad Max: Fury Road.
Unfriended
April 18, 2015 01:44 - 3 minutesUnfriended is a micro-budget horror film played out entirely one high school girl's laptop.
Ex Machina
April 11, 2015 01:44 - 3 minutesAlex Garland's Ex Machina is an elegant sci-fi fantasy about artificial intelligence.
White God
April 04, 2015 01:44 - 3 minutesCute dogs doing cute tricks have become stars of the social networks, but White God offers a different take on man's best friend.
Cinderella
March 14, 2015 01:44 - 3 minutesCall it bias if you choose, but any Cinderella with Cate Blanchett as the wicked stepmother couldn't be bad.
Merchants of Doubt; An Honest Liar
March 07, 2015 02:44 - 3 minutesIn its advocacy of skeptical thinking, An Honest Liar dovetails neatly, if accidentally, with Merchants of Doubt.
Queen and Country
February 28, 2015 02:44 - 3 minutesQueen and Country, the sequel to Hope and Glory that took John Boorman almost three decades to make, is worth the wait.
What We Do in the Shadows
February 21, 2015 02:44 - 3 minutesMarketing campaigns can bring movie goers into theaters to see what the fuss is all about, but they can't generate the excitement of those rare occasions when audiences discover a movie on their own. A charming curiosity from New Zealand. One more riff on mythical bloodsuckers.
50 Shades of Grey
February 14, 2015 02:44 - 3 minutesReasonable minds may differ on what the playroom is all about in 50 Shades of Grey.
Jupiter Ascending
February 07, 2015 02:44 - 3 minutesIn a momentous conjunction of events, Jupiter Ascending -- the mega-budget sci-fi extravaganza -- is opening around the nation and the world on the very day that Jupiter, the mega-planet, is at its annual opposition to Earth.
Timbuktu
January 31, 2015 02:44 - 3 minutesTimbuktu takes a deadly aim at Islamic fundamentalism by playing its own game of deft ridicule.
Red Army
January 24, 2015 02:44 - 3 minutesThe opening of Red Army is good news if you're a hockey fan, a history buff or just an admirer of first-rate documentaries.
Paddington
January 17, 2015 02:44 - 3 minutesPaddington is the comic chronicle of a Peruvian bear's adventures in London, and it turns out to be a total charmer...
Wild
December 06, 2014 02:44 - 3 minutesReese Witherspoon is the angry, wounded soul of Wild. She commands the screen throughout her heroine's 1,100-mile journey of self-discovery and self-repair, on foot and mostly alone, from the Mojave desert to northern Oregon along the Pacific Crest Trail.
The Imitation Game
November 29, 2014 02:44 - 3 minutesThe Imitation Game, with Benedict Cumberbatch in full cry, summons up a life that changed modern history.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1
November 22, 2014 02:44 - 3 minutesThe Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 is a rare bird in its genre, an action adventure with an interesting mind and a resonant spirit.
Interstellar
November 08, 2014 02:44 - 3 minutesJoe Morgenstern reviews Christopher Nolan's 168-minute odyssey through the space-time continuum...
Nightcrawler
November 01, 2014 01:44 - 3 minutesDan Gilroy's Nightcrawler is a dark dream of a thriller.
Gone Girl
September 27, 2014 01:44 - 3 minutesRather than let nuance intrude, Gone Girl doubles down on perversity, and its stars follow suit.
The Skeleton Twins
September 13, 2014 01:44 - 3 minutesTwo luminaries of Saturday Night Live are reunited in The Skeleton Twins — Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader. It’s hard to say if they give wonderful comic performances with a tragic dimension, or wonderful dramatic performances with a comic dimension.
If I Stay; The Trip in Italy
August 23, 2014 01:44 - 3 minutesJoe Morgenstern reviews the new Chloe Grace Moretz film If I Stay, and the new comedy The Trip to Italy from Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon.