16 Blocks

2006 PG-13

Bruce Willis trades Die Hard dignity for a combover and pickled liver, stumbling through a chase movie that wraps up its gritty noir in a Hallmark ribbon.

A Lobster Tale

2006 PG-13

A Maine fairy tale so cluelessly inauthentic it makes L.L.Bean tourists look like salty locals.

A Perfect Day

2005 not rated

A Lebanese insomniac wanders Beirut for two hours, and after watching the dailies, you'll understand why he can't sleep.

A Serious Man

2009 R

The Coens build a $7 million Midwestern Jewish purgatory just to leave every question unanswered, which might be the point but is definitely maddening.

Adventureland

2009 R

Trust-fund kids cosplay as working class for a summer at a theme park, complete with Yo La Tengo soundtrack and zero self-awareness about their privilege.

Afghan Star

2009 not rated

American Idol's scrappy Afghan cousin proves pop trash can be mightier than tyranny—and Lady Gaga might do more damage to extremists than a drone strike.

All Good Things

2010 R

Ryan Gosling does creepy rich murderer convincingly, but Kirsten Dunst hasn't evolved past cheerleader and the movie can't decide if it's thriller or tearjerker.

An Education

2009 PG-13

A 17-year-old discovers that dreamy older men with jazz clubs and Paris weekends might not be the shortcut to sophistication they seem.

Australia

2008 PG-13

$130 million couldn't buy Baz Luhrmann chemistry between Kidman and Jackman, or a voiceover that doesn't make Jar-Jar Binks look dignified.

Avatar

2009 PG-13

Half a billion dollars of James Cameron's hot rod ambitions produced Fern Gully with a Jarhead protagonist and a Dodge Caravan soul.

Away We Go

2009 R

A contemptibly precious two-hour exercise where indie parents-to-be tour the country judging everyone else's parenting while coasting on trust-fund plane tickets.

Banksy's Coming for Dinner

2009 not rated

D-list celebrities grovel over a fake Banksy at Joan Collins' dinner party, proving fame-hunger is embarrassing even when you already have a driver.

Be Kind, Rewind and Semi-Pro

2008 PG-13

Jack Black and Will Ferrell play lovable doofuses saving doomed relics, delivering fair-food-level sweetness that leaves you feeling kind of empty.

Best Worst Movie

2009 not rated

The child star of IMDb's worst-rated movie tracks down his co-stars for a documentary that's somehow more balanced than a film about goblin vegetarians deserves.

Black Swan

2010 R

Darren Aronofsky's ballerina psychodrama is the most anti-woman 'chick flick' since America's Next Top Model, beloved mostly by young men and thinspiration blogs.

Blood Simple

1984 R

The Coens' first film proves they emerged from the womb making better noir than most directors' entire careers, belted purple jumpsuit and all.

Blue Valentine

2010 R

A gut-punch romance where everything happens like real life, which means the beloved family dog gets run over and the marriage slowly follows.

Bobby

2006 R

Estevez assembles half of Hollywood to mourn RFK in 100 subplots while essentially telling millennials 'Sorry we couldn't fix things, good luck!'

Borat

2006 R

Sacha Baron Cohen's fake Kazakhstani journalist exposes American racism, homophobia, and anti-Semitism so effortlessly you'll wonder why we bother with subtlety.

Brand Upon the Brain!

2006 not rated

Guy Maddin's faux-silent film piles on effects like marmite on a Snoopy canvas, mistaking repetition and Isabella Rossellini's tremulous voice for profundity.

Bridesmaids

2011 R

A diarrhea-joke smear on humanity that makes you want to become a hermit more than it makes you want to be a bridesmaid.

Brief Interviews With Hideous Men

2009 not rated

David Foster Wallace's darkly funny men become sitcom clichés filtered through a humorless academic who might be the most hideous character of all.

Brokeback Mountain

2005 R

Our finest tragic love story since Romeo and Juliet, remarkable for how normal it makes two sheepherders falling hopelessly for each other seem.

Bubble

2005 R

Steven Soderbergh makes a 73-minute murder mystery so boring you'd rather take a long bath than watch vinyl-siding-flat actors mumble through it.

Burn After Reading

2008 R

The Coens take their bungled-heist formula to DC, where a gaggle of megawatt stars play shockingly dumb people fighting over a gym-lost CD of CIA memoirs.

Burning Man: Beyond Black Rock

2005 not rated

A 105-minute commercial for hippie self-congratulation that finally settles it: Burning Man is just Sedona with glowsticks and gluten-free burritos.

Call Northside 777

1948 not rated

Gorgeous Depression-era Chicago footage undermined by every annoying reporter cliché that makes actual journalists want to beat someone with a pica pole.

Casino Royale

2006 PG-13

Daniel Craig demolishes the Ken-doll Bond specter with a bloody, brilliant reboot that finally drags 007 from naughty back to noir.

Chapter 27

2008 R

Jared Leto gains 67 pounds and loses the audience somewhere in Mark David Chapman's fractured psyche—another platform for a man who deserves to be forgotten.

Charlie Bartlett

2007 R

Anton Yelchin is so damn charming you almost forgive this prep-school Mary Sue fantasy where every problem dissolves within five minutes.

Charlie Wilson's War

2007 R

Tom Hanks turns congressional covert ops into a Bombay martini of strippers, bellydancers, and Stinger missiles—then reminds you we effed up the endgame.

Cold Souls

2009 PG-13

Paul Giamatti has his soul extracted and discovers it's chickpea-sized, which is about the scale of this movie's cleverness once you look inside.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

2003 R

The Gong Show host claims he killed 33 people for the CIA, and this movie is brilliant precisely because it doesn't fit any known profile.

Confessions of a Shopaholic

2009 PG

A cute white girl racks up $16K in shoe debt and gets rewarded with a dream career, because apparently that's what passes for aspirational cinema now.

Cool as Ice

1991 PG

Vanilla Ice was 19 years old wearing two pairs of striped overalls, and honestly, bashing him 30 years later is sadder than any fashion crime he committed.

Crossroads

2002 PG-13

The Britney road-trip movie isn't actually awful, and its plot about a girl worked ragged by handlers is more autobiographical prophecy than anyone realized.

Cyrus

2010 R

Jonah Hill plays a 21-year-old who showers with his mom's bathroom door open, and somehow Marisa Tomei ends up the least developed character.

Date Night

2010 PG-13

Carell and Fey's marriage needs a spark, but every time the movie approaches anything real about long-term relationships, it swerves into potato-skin safety.

Day Zero

2007 R

Three friends face a reinstated draft in this unadorned time capsule that proves you only need six actors and the absence of limitations to tell the truth.

Defiance

2008 R

1,200 Jews hiding in a Belarussian forest should be thrilling, but Daniel Craig's energy-leeching brooding turns a survival epic into a half-baked Lifetime movie for men.

Did You Hear About the Morgans?

2009 PG-13

Hugh Grant and SJP hide in Wyoming and discover frozen biscuits and canned gravy aren't as terrible as coastal snobs assume—neither is this movie, shockingly.

District 9

2009 R

A sweater-vest bureaucrat giggles while torching alien eggs, then slowly becomes one—proving we fear things on the outside when we are the true beasts.

Do the Right Thing

1989 R

Spike Lee's message movie works because it puts story first, and white suburbia refusing to rent it in 1989 was sort of the point.

Double Indemnity

1944 not rated

Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder's noir is so hard-boiled it scorches the pan, proving insurance fraud and murder are sexier than any modern blockbuster.

Doubt

2008 PG-13

Did Philip Seymour Hoffman's priest molest that boy? The movie refuses to answer, and that's exactly what makes your brain flip like a perpetual motion toy.

Down to the Bone

2004 R

Vera Farmiga snorts a line before trick-or-treating with her kids, but the movie keeps pulling her back from the edge every time it gets too real.

Dreamgirls

2006 PG-13

Jennifer Hudson can belt it out, but $75 million couldn't buy a pinch of originality for this gushing ode to American Idol's first legitimate star.

Drillbit Taylor

2008 PG-13

Owen Wilson plays a homeless veteran bodyguard and the movie treats his Army jacket as just another ironic thrift-store accessory—embarrassing in wartime.

Earth Girls Are Easy

1988 PG

Furry Jeff Goldblum crashes into Geena Davis's pool in this Valley culture celebration—and don't pretend 80s America didn't want big hair and aerosol cheese too.

Easy A

2010 PG-13

Emma Stone takes The Scarlet Letter and owns it with Mae West retorts and safety-pinned corsets, proving the best revenge on slut-shaming is self-aware swagger.

Eat Pray Love

2010 PG-13

Julia Roberts spends a year and six figures finding herself across three continents while the rest of us wonder why divorce counts as tragedy when you have unlimited credit.

Eden

2008 R

Irish suburban marital ennui that would have slapped you on stage falls flat on screen—Fleetwood Mac without the exploding sexual frustration.

Eldorado

2008 not rated

A big-hearted Belgian drives a junkie across beautiful fog-choked landscapes, proving once again you should never trust a heroin addict with your road trip.

Employee of the Month

2006 PG-13

Dane Cook in a Costco calling himself a comedian is like a pole dancer calling herself a ballerina, and this bargain-basement 'Office Space' proves it.

Expired

2008 not rated

Samantha Morton plays a meter maid dating the worst kind of parking enforcement colleague, and somehow this movie about the 192nd-worst job achieves greatness.

Extract

2009 R

Mike Judge shows that even the boss in the BMW isn't doing much better than his workers, making 'Office Space' from management's perspective almost sympathetic.

Factory Girl

2006 R

Sienna Miller channels Edie Sedgwick's needle-marked junkie-dark destruction beautifully, but America's obsession with poor little rich girls remains inexplicable.

Fireman, Save My Child

1954 not rated

Spike Jones plays perfectly tuned firehose nozzles while Abbott and Costello wisely bail—only the Marx Brothers could have matched this zoot-suited insanity.

Fish Tank

2009 not rated

A 15-year-old in a tracksuit head-butts girls and dreams of hip-hop stardom while the world prepares to fling her into its filthy, churning waters.

Flawless

1999 R

Philip Seymour Hoffman in drag versus stroke-victim DeNiro screaming 'Fascist!' 'Republican!' at each other is Joel Schumacher's penance for ruining Batman.

Frost/Nixon / The Wrestler

2008 R

Frost/Nixon rewrites history into drunk-dial confessions that never happened, while Mickey Rourke's wrestler goes out in a sequin-pantsed blaze of authentic exhaustion.

Frozen River

2008 R

Two broke women smuggle people across a frozen river, and when one learns migrants pay $50K to get here, you see her thinking 'at least I don't have it that bad.'

Generation Kill

2008 not rated

Marines who risk their lives saving comrades can also spew dark filth at peace-loving schoolkids who wrote them letters—because war isn't the fiction we pretend it is.

Ghost Town

2008 PG-13

Ricky Gervais gets to be an anti-social jerk with stumpy little arms who can see dead people, and the movie's smart enough to let him stay that way.

Grandma's Boy

2006 R

Adam Sandler proves that with enough money to surround yourself with sycophantic toadies, you can make any movie—even one less funny than a dead family pet.

Grey Gardens

2009 PG-13

Drew Barrymore gives her best performance as Jackie Kennedy's cousin rotting into a cat-lady recluse, in a 'love story' where love is actually the prison sentence.

Hamlet 2

2008 R

Steve Coogan's time-traveling Hamlet sequel has potential, but the 90% of filler around it is pure contempt masquerading as feistiness—and they didn't even film in Tucson.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

2009 PG

The dark, foreboding penultimate Potter film proves this franchise might be the best there ever was—and Twilight should be cast into a vanishing cabinet forever.

Heavenly Creatures

1994 R

Kate Winslet's first role asks what happens when two 14-year-olds' fantasy world blurs with reality and they decide to slay the monster keeping them apart.

Heckler

2007 R

Jamie Kennedy asks Hollywood why everyone hates him after 'Son of the Mask,' and Lewis Black delivers the truth: 'It used to be you had to have a RESUME.'

High Hopes

1988 PG

Mike Leigh nails class warfare and real love with a hash-smoking couple who bonk foreheads in empathy and steal gold-plated bananas from their yuppie relatives.

High Noon

1952 not rated

Gary Cooper's marshal gets abandoned by the whole town 90 minutes after his wedding, proving the minister was right: 'we hire men to do our killing for us.'

Hounddog and Rachel Getting Married

2008 R

Dakota Fanning carries deep-fried Southern cliché like an iPhone, while 'Rachel Getting Married' makes you want to slip Anne Hathaway some Percocet and car keys.

How To Lose Friends and Alienate People / Choke

2008 R

Toby Young's story of failing at Vanity Fair gets Hollywood-whitewashed into blandness, but 'Choke' stays gloriously true to Palahniuk's black heart.

Hud

1963 not rated

Paul Newman's soul makes barbed wire look cuddly, and we spend the whole movie watching to see if his nephew and housekeeper will finally spit out his poison.

I Do & I Don't

2007 R

Jane Lynch glides in with a Bloody Mary in a champagne flute, face contorted with loathing and suicidal ideation, to counsel a bland couple on marriage—awesome.

I Love You Phillip Morris

2009 R

Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor fall in love in prison, and Hollywood's refusal to watch their gay romance proves the movies really are 'very bland.'

I'm No Angel

1933 not rated

Mae West seduces Cary Grant (11 years her junior) while purring 'When I'm good I'm very good, but when I'm bad I'm better'—still ahead of its time.

I'm Still Here

2010 R

Joaquin Phoenix's beard-and-gut performance art is a disgusted rebuke of a culture where 'be worshipped' and 'die' are the only celebrity options.

I've Loved You So Long

2008 PG-13

To say that "I've Loved You So Long" is another foreign film about disappearance is like saying that "Ed Wood" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" are both just Tim Burton movies.

Illegal Aliens

2007 R

Anna Nicole Smith's last film is dumber than an empty Coke bottle falling to Earth, but Chyna's primal howls of joy at having a body again are must-see camp.

Important Things With Demetri Martin

2009 not rated

Demetri Martin's hipster affectations would be insufferable if he actually wanted you to be charmed—thankfully he doesn't, and 'Creedocide' rat poison is genius.

In Bruges

2008 R

Colin Farrell hates Bruges as much as you'll love watching him hate it, in Martin McDonagh's weighty, awesome feature debut about hitmen hiding in a fairy-tale town.

In the Name of the Father

1993 R

Daniel Day-Lewis gets tortured into a false confession for an IRA bombing he didn't commit, in a jaw-dropping film about what happens when passion rules over evidence.

Inception

2010 PG-13

Wizard-of-Oz-level amazing, where you live lives in a five-minute nap and want to collapse in tears on everyone when you wake up—the most ambitious project in years.

Inglourious Basterds

2009 R

Two hours of clever nicknames and Brad Pitt's questionable Apache techniques lead to the darkly satisfying spectacle of machine-gunning Hitler's face to shredded bologna.

Inside Job

2010 PG-13

The 2008 crash wasn't a bursting bubble—it was a piñata where big kids peeked under their blindfolds, filled their shirts, then asked for goody bags.

interMission

2003 R

Colin Farrell punches women and Colm Meany pees on people, but Kelly MacDonald's deadpan monologue about her ex's brown sauce obsession almost saves this mess.

Jack Goes Boating

2010 R

Philip Seymour Hoffman drifts through Manhattan in Walkman headphones from the '90s, making The Dude look like an action hero in this sludgy bourgeois disappointment.

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

2010 R

Five seconds in, you'll dissolve into helpless laughter as Joan Rivers calls her daughter a three-word insult and proves she's tougher than any comedy landscape deserves.

Jude

1996 R

Kate Winslet smashes a naked Jesus statue while Thomas Hardy's bleakest tragedy unfolds—you know it's going to end badly when children get involved.

Julie & Julia

2009 PG-13

Meryl Streep's Julia Child is butter-soaked perfection, but Amy Adams' whiny blogger makes you want to debone someone by the end.

Juno" and "The Tracey Fragments

Expected to hate 'Juno' and love the weird 'Tracey Fragments'—got it backwards, proving darling suspects sometimes deserve their acclaim.

Kamp Katrina

2007 not rated

Determined crackheads set up tents, hit soup lines, and clean their neighborhood after Katrina—a different kind of survivor documentary.

Kath & Kim

2008 not rated

NBC's American remake of the Australian comedy is poor taxidermy, proving the more beloved the original, the more grotesque the corpse-propping becomes.

Kick-Ass

2010 R

A Harry Potter lookalike's superhero dreams would be boring if Chloe Moretz's knife-flinging purple-wigged kid didn't steal the show with sickening violence done right.

Kidulthood

2006 R

British teenagers treat each other like violent prisoners in a world without guards, and get a day off school when they bully a classmate into suicide.

King of California

2007 PG-13

Michael Douglas plays a mental patient hunting Spanish treasure while his teenage daughter works double shifts at McDonald's—Quixote meets suburban sprawl.

La Fille Sur Le Pont

1999 R

A knife-thrower rescues a suicidal sexpot from a Paris bridge, and their black-and-white chemistry crackles with the kind of doom that makes you want to watch anyway.

La Grand Bouffe

1973 NC-17

Four men decide to eat themselves to death, dancing with cow heads and rhapsodizing over blood sausage—Anthony Bourdain meets suicide pact.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains

1981 R

Diane Lane's teenage punk band rises and falls in this rage cinema that warms the heart better than striped cats and hot cider.

Last Chance Harvey

2008 PG-13

Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson find late-blooming romance in London, and somehow it's not the geriatric rom-com disaster it sounds like.

Laura

1944 not rated

A detective falls in love with a murder victim's portrait, then she walks through the door—noir doesn't get more deliciously twisted than this.

Law Abiding Citizen

2009 R

Gerard Butler's vengeful mastermind dismembers criminals while Jamie Foxx's prosecutor learns that plea deals have consequences—then it all goes stupid.

Les Raisins de la Mort

1978 not rated

Gratuitous horror movie tits meet pesticide-poisoned vineyard zombies in this French exploitation that's exactly what it sounds like.

Let the Right One In

2008 R

Two doomed 12-year-olds fall in love—one carries a knife for bullies, the other is a vampire—in the most heartbreaking Swedish horror romance you'll ever see.

Like Water For Chocolate

1992 R

A woman's cooking transmits her emotions to everyone who eats it, which is less magical realism than it sounds when tears end up in the wedding cake.

Lucas

1986 PG

Corey Haim plays a tiny, brilliant outsider in the rare teen movie that takes its characters seriously instead of serving up fart jokes or vampire abstinence.

Man on Wire

2008 PG-13

Philippe Petit walks a wire between the Twin Towers, and somehow the documentary about it is as breathtaking as the act itself.

Marie Antoinette

2006 PG-13

Sofia Coppola proves yet again that no one understands how hard it is to be rich, pretty, bored and misunderstood—if only beheading aristocrats were still in style.

Martha Marcy May Marlene

2011 R

Elizabeth Olsen escapes a cult and can't tell memory from reality, in a film as disorienting as PTSD itself—no comforting voiceover to guide you out.

Marwencol

2010 not rated

A man beaten nearly to death rebuilds his psyche through an elaborate miniature WWII village with Barbie dolls—outsider art as survival mechanism.

Meet Bill

2007 R

American Beauty on Prozac—Aaron Eckhart's midlife crisis has all the suburban malaise and none of the interesting darkness.

Melancholia

2011 R

Two troubled sisters face the actual end of the world, and the depressed one handles it better—Lars von Trier's most beautiful argument for nihilism.

Milk

2008 R

Sean Penn disappears into Harvey Milk so completely you forget he's acting, in a film that makes you furious the same fights are still being fought.

Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day

2008 PG-13

A dowdy governess accidentally becomes a glamorous actress's social secretary, and the 60-year wait to film it was worth the air-raid tension they got to add.

Moon

2009 R

Sam Rockwell alone on a lunar base discovers something that makes isolation the least of his problems—smart sci-fi that trusts its audience to think.

Muriel's Wedding

1994 R

This is how you make a movie about a woman who wants to get married—not with wedding porn fantasy, but with ABBA and the messy truth about chasing happiness.

My Left Foot

1989 R

Daniel Day-Lewis plays a man with cerebral palsy who paints with his left foot, and makes you forget you ever associated feet with toe jam.

My Week With Marilyn

2011 R

Michelle Williams channels Marilyn on a minor film set, but the real story is watching a star crumble under the weight of everyone wanting a piece of her.

Neil Young: Heart of Gold

2006 not rated

The man whose lyric closed Kurt Cobain's suicide note performs at the Ryman after a brain aneurysm, proving fading away can be its own kind of fire.

Night of the Comet

1984 PG-13

Regina's a weird girl. She's mouthy and adorably, confidently casual in her job as a movie theater usher. She'd rather shoot arcade space invaders in...

No End In Sight

2007 not rated

Gut-wrenchingly depressing investigative journalism about Iraq that makes you furious at how thoroughly we botched it—quality misery.

No Strings Attached

What an utterly shiny piece of garbage—an inducement toward throwing crockery out a high window that wastes Natalie Portman on tired friends-with-benefits dreck.

Nobel Son

2007 R

An arrogant chemistry professor wins the Nobel Prize — and finds his son's been kidnapped. Unfortunately, the movie is a trap.

Obselidia

2010 not rated

Calling a movie "immature" usually calls to mind the diarrhea-in-a-sink scene from "Bridesmaids," Ace Ventura emerging from the rear end of a Rhino or the...

Offensive Behaviour

2004 R

New Zealander Patrick Gillies' "Offensive Behaviour" isn't stellar, but given that it was made on an $8,000 budget, it's entirely forgivable.

Only the Lonely

1991 PG-13

I love Maureen O'Hara ("Miracle on 34th Street" and the mom in "Parent Trap" — the original, good one) and I love Ally Sheedy (her portrayal of a rich girl...

Page One: Inside the New York Times

2011 R

David Carr chain-smokes and defends journalism against bloggers in pajamas while the newspaper industry crumbles—essential viewing for anyone who reads.

Paper Moon

1973 PG

Tatum O'Neal cons her way across Depression-era Kansas with her maybe-father, proving 9-year-olds can out-act adults when given the chance.

Parents

1989 R

A 1950s kid suspects his parents are cannibals, and the mystery meat at dinner confirms his fears—suburban horror with Bob Balaban's unsettling calm.

Pineapple Express

2008 R

Seth Rogen enjoys weed, talk radio, and his high school girlfriend (in that order) until witnessing a murder turns a stoner comedy into an action movie.

Pontypool

2008 R

A radio DJ narrates a zombie outbreak where the infection spreads through language itself—the smartest horror premise in years, executed in a single room.

Post-Valentine's Day edition, part 1: "Much Ado About Nothing

Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson banter Shakespeare at a Tuscan villa, and their real-life chemistry makes the staged romance almost unbearably electric.

Powder Blue

2009 R

Jessica Biel strips while Ray Liotta cries near a Virgin Mary windshield sighting—L.A. interconnected-lives dreck that thinks misery equals depth.

Precious

2009 R

Watching this felt like heart attack warning signs, but the days after revealed why it matters—poverty porn that earns its devastating punches.

Prodigal Sons

2008 not rated

A trans woman returns to her Montana hometown to reunite with her adopted brother who suffered brain damage—and discovers he's Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth's grandson.

Public Enemies

2009 R

Johnny Depp plays Dillinger and Michael Mann shoots it like a dream, but the romance flatlines and the history lesson never quite catches fire.

Punching the Clown

2009 unrated

A folk comedian's song about a child molester gets him confused for an actual pedophile—deadpan comedy about the music industry's soul-crushing machinery.

Quantum of Solace

2008 PG-13

Daniel Craig's second Bond can rest on Casino Royale's laurels, which is lucky because this revenge sequel is more forgettable car chase than character study.

Red State

2011 R

Kevin Smith ditches dick jokes to make a horror film about fundamentalist killers, and the tonal whiplash proves he should stick to dick jokes.

Repo Men

2010 R

Jude Law repossesses artificial organs from people who can't pay, and the dystopian premise is better than the Blade Runner knockoff execution.

Roman Holiday

1953 not rated

Audrey Hepburn plays a princess who escapes for a day with Gregory Peck, and unlike Breakfast at Tiffany's, she's a protagonist worth rooting for.

Rudo y Cursi

2008 R

Two rural Mexican brothers chase stardom—one in soccer, one in pop music—and the engaging tragedy of their dreams feels painfully true to life.

Run, Fatboy, Run

2007 PG-13

Simon Pegg runs a marathon to win back the woman he abandoned at the altar, directed by David Schwimmer—yes, Ross from Friends, and it shows.

RV

2006 PG

This movie should never leave America, lest it be used as a terrorist training video to incite hatred against the wretchedness of American family comedies.

Saint John of Las Vegas

2009 R

A Vegas movie not about Vegas, a cubicle movie not about offices, a buddy movie not about buddies—Steve Buscemi wanders through a film that's about nothing in particular.

She's the Man

2006 PG-13

Amanda Bynes does Twelfth Night at soccer camp, and it works if you can still tap into the part of you that forgives gender-swap comedies their logical impossibilities.

Sherrybaby

2006 R

Maggie Gyllenhaal plays a parolee in trash Jersey wardrobe trying to get her daughter back, and the mess she makes of it is painfully authentic.

Silent Light

2007 not rated

A Mennonite man's affair unfolds in static shots so slow they make Warhol look hyperactive—hypnotic if you're patient, insufferable if you're not.

Slacker Uprising

2007 no rating

Michael Moore tries to get young people to vote in 2004 by giving away ramen and underwear—a time capsule of hope before everything went sideways.

Slouching Towards Hollywood: "The African Queen

Bogart and Hepburn build a bomb to sink a German boat, and somehow this plot to commit terrorism is one of the most romantic adventures ever filmed.

Slumdog Millionaire

2008 R

A slum kid's traumatic life conveniently prepares him for every Who Wants to Be a Millionaire question—poverty porn with a Bollywood ending.

Smoke Signals

1998 not rated

Two Native American men road-trip to collect a dead father's ashes, making jokes that would make your white liberal guilt very uncomfortable—and that's the point.

Soapdish

1991 PG-13

Kevin Kline reads a teleprompter he's never seen while Sally Field plots backstage sabotage—the most accurate soap opera satire ever made.

Star Trek

2009 PG-13

J.J. Abrams reboots Star Trek with lens flares and space playboy energy, proving you can make Trekkies and normies happy simultaneously.

State of Play

2003 miniseries, 2009 film, rated PG-13

The BBC miniseries is vastly superior to the Russell Crowe movie—six hours of journalism thriller beats a rushed two-hour compression every time.

Stranger Than Fiction

2006 PG-13

Will Ferrell plays an IRS agent who hears a narrator describing his life—a premise that sounds terrible but actually works because he plays it dead straight.

subUrbia

1996 R

Gen-X slackers loiter outside a convenience store waiting for something to happen, and Richard Linklater makes their aimlessness feel like Greek tragedy.

Suddenly, Last Summer

1959 not rated

Katherine Hepburn wants Elizabeth Taylor lobotomized to hide how her son really died—Tennessee Williams at his most Gothic and disturbing.

The Amateurs

2007 R

A small town decides to make a porno to save the local economy, and the premise is better than the execution—outsider comedy that doesn't quite land.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

2007 R

Brad Pitt transcends pretty-boy status as a weary, paranoid Jesse James, in a Western so slow and gorgeous it feels like watching a painting develop cracks.

The Baader Meinhof Complex

2008 R

German terrorists bomb their way through the 70s and your increasing disgust with them is exactly the point—idealism curdled into murder.

The Boy With Green Hair

1948 not rated

A war orphan's hair turns green as an anti-war message, in a 1948 film that got its director blacklisted—still relevant, still weirdly moving.

The Cake Eaters

2007 R

Kristen Stewart plays a girl with a degenerative disease pursuing sex before she dies, and she's actually good when given something real to do.

The Deer Hunter

1978 R

By the end you've lived another lifetime in a Pennsylvania steel town that goes to Vietnam—the Russian roulette scene will haunt you forever.

The Departed

2006 R

Scorsese finally wins his Oscar by remaking a Hong Kong film, and the all-star cast chews scenery like Jack Nicholson chews on everything.

The Gate

1986 PG-13

Kids open a portal to hell in their backyard, and the only drinking game you need is 'take a shot every time you cringe at the 80s effects.'

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

2009 R

The Swedish original should be titled 'Men Who Hate Pacing'—Noomi Rapace is compelling but the story meanders like it's getting paid by the minute.

The Grapes of Wrath

1940 not rated

The book ends in death; the movie ends in hope—Hollywood softening Steinbeck, but Henry Fonda's Tom Joad still burns with righteous fury.

The Great Buck Howard

2008 PG

John Malkovich plays a fading mentalist with delusions of grandeur, and Tom Hanks' son discovers that show business is mostly humiliation and denial.

The Great Happiness Space

2006 not rated

Japanese host club boys sell the girlfriend experience to women who pay thousands for champagne and attention—loneliness monetized into something heartbreaking.

The Happening

2008 R

Plants decide to kill humans and M. Night Shyamalan directs Mark Wahlberg to talk to a houseplant—the twist is that someone funded this.

The Hurt Locker

2009 R

Jeremy Renner defuses bombs and chases the high, in the rare Iraq War film that doesn't preach—just shows you what the addiction to danger looks like.

The Informant!

2009 R

Matt Damon plays a price-fixing whistleblower who's also a pathological liar, and the exclamation point in the title tells you exactly how absurd it gets.

The Informers

2009 R

Bret Easton Ellis's unlovable 80s sociopaths get an unlovable movie adaptation that's as incompetent as it is over-ambitious.

The Italian Job

1969 G

Michael Caine leads a heist with Mini Coopers through Turin, and the cliffhanger ending is literally a cliff—60s cool at its most self-aware.

The King's Speech

2010 R

A king with a stammer learns to speak with Geoffrey Rush's help, and somehow this rich-man's-problems movie earns every tear it wrings out of you.

The Lincoln Lawyer

2011 R

Matthew McConaughey works out of his Lincoln and discovers his client is guilty of worse than he's charged with—solid legal thriller that marks his comeback.

The Living End

1992 R

Two HIV-positive gay guys road-trip through early-90s L.A. with nothing to lose—a cinematic middle finger from the hangover of the sexual revolution.

The Love Guru

2008 PG-13

Mike Myers proves that creating Austin Powers and Wayne Campbell doesn't make you immune to making unwatchable garbage—this is the unwatchable garbage.

The Man With the Golden Arm

1955 unrated

Frank Sinatra plays a heroin addict trying to stay clean, and someone should remake this now because we clearly haven't learned anything since 1955.

The Men Who Stare At Goats

2009 R

George Clooney claims he can kill goats with his mind in this Iraq War comedy that ends with a man running through a wall—which sums up the whole thing.

The Messenger

2009 R

Ben Foster delivers death notifications to military families, and his unlikability at the start makes his gradual cracking open devastating to watch.

The Pink Panther

2006 PG

Steve Martin does a French accent for 90 minutes while Peter Sellers rolls in his grave—some remakes should be prosecuted as crimes against cinema.

The Reader

2008 R

Kate Winslet plays an illiterate Nazi war criminal who seduced a teenager, and somehow the movie wants you to feel sorry for her—Oscar bait at its most manipulative.

The Rocker

2008 PG-13

Rainn Wilson plays a washed-up 80s drummer who joins his nephew's band, and the 'keep churning out words' theory of writing produced this forgettable result.

The Savages

2007 R

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney deal with their terrible father's dementia—he paints bad words in his own poop, and it only gets darker from there.

The Secret of My Success

1987 PG-13

Michael J. Fox fakes his way into a corner office in this 80s fantasy where pluck and deception are rewarded—Reagan-era capitalism as romantic comedy.

The Seven Year Itch

1955 not rated

Marilyn Monroe's skirt flies up over a subway grate, and Billy Wilder turns a married man's summer temptation into something funnier than it has any right to be.

The Skulls

2000 PG-13

The lost pilot to 'Coach' tries for handsome scary mystique about Ivy League secret societies and lands somewhere between laughable and forgettable.

The Social Network

2010 PG-13

Aaron Sorkin turns Mark Zuckerberg into a fascinating asshole, and Fincher makes a movie about coding feel like a thriller—essential viewing for the internet age.

The Trip

2010 not rated

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon eat at fancy restaurants and do Michael Caine impressions at each other—if that sounds fun to you, it's perfect; if not, leave now.

The Troubadors / Went to Coney Island On a Mission From God, Be Back By 5

A pig inseminator explains his business philosophy while Jon Cryer searches for a homeless friend—indie weirdness from the pre-mumblecore era.

The U.S. vs. John Lennon

2006 PG-13

Nixon tried to deport John Lennon for being too effective at anti-war activism—paranoia justified, and the documentary proves the FBI files weren't lying.

The Yes Men Fix the World

2009 unrated

Pranksters pose as corporate spokespeople and announce things companies should actually do—satire as activism, with the targets too embarrassed to sue.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated

2006 NC-17

A documentary about the MPAA ratings board hires a private detective to find out who the anonymous raters are—exposing hypocrisy with a side of sleuthing.

Timer

2009 R

An implanted timer counts down to the moment you meet your soulmate, and the sci-fi premise is clever enough to forgive the rom-com execution.

Tron: Legacy

2010 PG

Jeff Bridges returns to the Grid with a de-aged CGI face that screams 'uncanny valley,' but Daft Punk's soundtrack almost justifies the entire exercise.

Tropic Thunder

2008 R

Robert Downey Jr. in blackface and Tom Cruise in a fat suit savage Hollywood's pretensions—the blackface works precisely because it's satirizing actors who'd do it.

True Grit

2010 PG-13

The Coens remake John Wayne's Western with Hailee Steinfeld stealing every scene, until a flash-forward ending nearly ruins everything Benjamin Button-style.

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

2010 R

Hillbillies are mistaken for murderers by college kids who keep accidentally killing themselves—the horror-comedy premise executed to gory perfection.

Twilight

2008 PG-13

Kristen Stewart proves she can handle A-list territory, but the abstinence-porn vampire romance is mostly unbearable to think about.

Visioneers

2008 not rated

People literally explode from suppressed emotions in a corporate dystopia whose logo looks like a middle finger—'Office Space' meets body horror.

W

2008 PG-13

Oliver Stone turns George W. Bush into a tragic figure seeking daddy's approval, which is either humanizing or enraging depending on your politics.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story / Johnny Suede

John C. Reilly parodies every music biopic ever made while Brad Pitt's early work proves he was always more than a pretty face—two films about performers faking it.

Waltz With Bashir / Internet Dating

An animated documentary about repressed war memories from Lebanon pairs with a short about online dating—trauma and comedy make strange but effective bedfellows.

War, Inc

2008 R

John Cusack plays a corporate hitman in a privatized war zone, channeling 'Grosse Pointe Blank' into Iraq War satire that swings wildly between clever and exhausting.

What Just Happened?

2008 R

Robert De Niro plays a Hollywood producer dealing with Bruce Willis's beard demands and Sean Penn's dog-shooting movie—insider satire only Angelenos will fully appreciate.

Whatever Works

2009 PG-13

Larry David plays a misanthropic genius who marries a young runaway, in Woody Allen's late-period New York comedy that's basically Curb Your Enthusiasm with more neurosis.

Where the Sidewalk Ends

1950 not rated

Dana Andrews plays a cop who accidentally kills a suspect and has to investigate his own crime—noir at its most morally compromised and beautifully shot.

Which Way Home

2009 unrated

Children ride freight trains alone through Mexico trying to reach the US border, and the documentary makes you feel complicit in every danger they face.

Withnail & I

1987 R

Two unemployed actors drink themselves through 1969 London in the cult comedy your pretentious film friends won't shut up about—and they're right.

Witness to the Mob

2008 R

A made-for-TV mob movie with half the Sopranos cast, made before the Sopranos existed—decent but utterly eclipsed by what came after.

World's Greatest Dad

2009 R

Robin Williams covers up his awful son's autoerotic asphyxiation death and becomes famous from the fake suicide note—Bobcat Goldthwait's darkest, funniest provocation.

X: A Night of Vengeance

2011 not rated

Australian sex workers fight off a home invasion in this exploitation throwback that knows exactly what it is and delivers the gory goods.

Year One

2009 R

Jack Black and Michael Cera wander through the Old Testament making dick jokes, proving Harold Ramis can't save every comedy premise.

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

2010 R

Woody Allen's London ensemble piece about people deluding themselves into happiness—minor Allen, but his minor work is still better than most directors' best.

Your Past Is Showing

1957 not rated

A blackmailer's victims team up to murder him in this 1957 British comedy that proves some jokes about scandal and hypocrisy never get old.

Zombie Strippers

2008 R

Jenna Jameson plays an undead exotic dancer in a movie that's exactly what the title promises—Ionesco's Rhinocéros by way of a gentleman's club.