In Norman, Norman (Dan Byrd) seems like a normal high-school kid: He's smarter than he probably knows, he feels like he's carrying world is on his sho...

As underdog sports movies go, The Mighty Macs has plenty of spirit - but also a slavish devotion to the template of the "last-to-first" sports-film fo...

How bad does your life have to get to surrender your being to the demands of a communal cult? How tentative does our grasp on our individual self need to be to give it up to the hive identity, led by one person's desires?

Every teacher's nightmare is being accused of violating the trust they've been given: doing something to abuse or harm one of their students. And, in...

This is one of those thrillers that relies on the unreliability of cell phones for suspense. It also layers on a testy relationship between a pair of divorced cops (Worthington and the ever-present Jessica Chastain) who are forced to work together.

Geez, Footloose sucked when it was a Kevin Bacon movie in 1984. Who thought remaking it, almost scene for scene and song for song, would improve it?

Given the zeitgeist about the death penalty and the execution of innocent people from the Troy Davis Case -- and the presidential campaign of Texas Gov. Rick Perry -- the timing couldn't be better for the release of the documentary, Incendiary: The Willingham Case.

The cowboy - rugged, stoic and resourceful - will always be a cinematic archetype, though the western has all but disappeared as a commercially popula...

Moody and portentous, Jeff Nichols' Take Shelter stars the actor who may be our most readily accessible force of darkness at this point in cinematic history: Michael Shannon.

50/50 no doubt will be dismissed by critics who distrust movies that deal with feelings, rather than ideas. But it proves that it's possible to be emotional and thoughtful -- and funny -- at the same time.

Puncture is an intensely earnest little film, one that deals with a serious issue while trying to tell an equally compelling personal story. Unfortunately, it fades from memory almost before it's left the screen.

Killer Elite is a serviceable action-thriller that eventually runs out of ideas. What starts as a complex tale with strong action set-pieces eventually dwindles to formula, unable to keep as many balls in the air as it promises.

A cousin of films such as Before Sunrise and Brief Encounter, Weekend tells the story of what seems to be a one-night stand, which turns into something more.

Michael Lewis' book, Moneyball, was a sports thriller disguised as a nonfiction volume about statistics wonks. And Bennett Miller's film of Thomas' bo...

One of the most buzzed-about movies out of the Cannes Film Festival last spring, Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive is a strange mix of outrageous action an...

Rod Lurie's Straw Dogs is a solid, tense drama that packs a wallop and tells its story on Lurie's own terms. It's less a remake than a new version of the story, filtered through Lurie's vision.

It's not hard to see how a movie like Main Street got made, at least in theory. Why it's being released is another question altogether.

The first hour of Steven Soderbergh's Contagion is so tense that you can almost forgive the second half for getting bogged down.

Warrior is like Rocky squared -- an underdog story with two underdogs who, just to up the emotional stakes, happen to be brothers who have to fight each other.

Based on a true story, I'm Glad My Mother is Alive is a film about unrequited mother-love gone haywire -- and the price of bad parenting.

As you watch Alain Corneau's Love Crime, take a minute to try to decide who has the iciest, deadliest pair of eyes -- Kristin Scott Thomas or Ludivine Sagnier.

Set in two different eras, with two different trios playing the same characters, The Debt is gripping and gritty, a thriller that breeds genuine excitement in both of the time periods in which it is set.

Jesse Peretz's Our Idiot Brother is a summer-ending treat, a low-key comedy with sharp performances and a shaggy-dog feel.

Based on a 1973 TV movie of the same name, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark is a horror movie that rarely insults your intelligence. Indeed, it seduces you into thinking you can outsmart the film -- and then zaps you when you least expect it. Now that's fun.

Amigo is a companion piece to John Sayles' new novel, A Moment in the Sun - or perhaps it's the other way around. While it's easy to admire Sayles' a...