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Four-star movies Keep tabs on the films that received top honors from Post critics over the last year.
"Frances Ha"
Greta Gerwig stars in Noah Baumbach's latest film. Baumbach "has created a spectacular showcase for Gerwig, a creaturely, almost feral sprite whose instincts and born-ready camera presence have long been staples of hand-made indie productions, but have yet to find their rightful purchase in mainstream Hollywood (Gerwig’s participation in the benighted re-make of 'Arthur' notwithstanding)," writes Ann Hornaday. Read the full review of "Frances Ha ."
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"Stories We Tell"
Actress-turned-director Sarah Polley made this documentary about her late mother and a long-held family secret. Ann Hornaday writes: "With its ingenious structure, seamless visual conceits and mordant humor, 'Stories We Tell' is a masterful film on technical and aesthetic values alone. But because of the wisdom and compassion of its maker, it rises to another level entirely." Read the full review of “Stories We Tell .”
Ken Woroner
"The Gatekeepers"
Dror Moreh's Oscar-nominated documentary touts uncommonly candid interviews with former leaders of Israel's secret service agency, Shin Bet. "With lucidity and a scrupulously un-hysterical tone — helped by stunning reenactments and computer-generated animation — 'The Gatekeepers' engages issues that have ramifications far outside Israel," writes Ann Hornaday. Read full review of “The Gatekeepers ”
Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
"Sound City"
Musician David Grohl's directorial debut is a documentary about an old-school piece of recording equipment that wins praise from the likes of Tom Petty, Neil Young, Trent Reznor and many more. "It may seem weird to hear someone rave about a dumb machine, let alone make a whole movie about it. But it's a machine that's smart enough to get out of the way," writes Michael O'Sullivan. Full review of "Sound City "
Courtesy of Variance Films/Roswell Films
"Zero Dark Thirty"
Jessica Chastain stars in the film about the CIA's hunt for Osama bin Laden. "Director Kathryn Bigelow demonstrates why she is such a formidable filmmaker, as adept with human emotion as with visceral, pulse-quickening action," writes critic Ann Hornaday. Full review of "Zero Dark Thirty "
Jonathan Olley
"Amour"
Michael Haneke's look at love at the end of a long life stars Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant. According to Hornaday, "Haneke seems to be making a genuine step toward humanism, tempering his usual chilly sense of superiority with discretion and empathy. He’s still a rigorous formalist and intellectual -- witness one of the film’s first shots, wherein the film’s audience watches another audience on screen." Full review of "Amour "
Photo by Darius Khondji
"Rust and Bone"
The French film, directed by Jacques Audiard, stars Matthias Schoenaerts and Marion Cotillard as a homeless single dad and an injured killer whale trainer. The movie "defies categorization, slips convenient genre boundaries, and leaves viewers feeling haunted and inspired in equal measure," writes Ann Hornaday. Full review of “Rust and Bone .”
Roger Arpajou
"The Waiting Room"
The documentary profiles life at the emergency room of Highland Hospital in Oakland, Calif. Ann Hornaday writes that Peter Nicks's film "offers a surprisingly heartening view of a system that we often assume is mired in dysfunction and waste." Full review of "The Waiting Room ."
Image courtesy of International Film Circuit
"Anna Karenina"
Keira Knightley stars as Anna in director Joe Wright’s bold, theatrical new vision of the epic story of love. Ann Hornaday says the classic tale with a new spin "sings, dances and finally soars." Full review of “Anna Karenina ”
Laurie Sparham
“Lincoln”
Daniel Day-Lewis stars as President Abraham Lincoln in this film directed by Steven Spielberg. Post critic Ann Hornaday writes: “That Lincoln emerges with such endearing freshness and vigor has a lot to do with Day-Lewis’s performance, in which his character’s lanky world-weariness comes through with each expressive glance.” Full review of “Lincoln ”
Dreamworks
“Holy Motors”
Take a ride with limo driver Céline (Edith Scob), and you’ll find yourself in “a singular journey through cinematic, geographic and psychic space,” says critic Ann Hornaday. The film “functions on one level as a night-in-the-life picaresque and on another as an interrogation of movie genre itself.” Full review of “Holy Motors ”
Courtesy of Indomina Releasing
“The Loneliest Planet”
Gael Garcia Bernal and Hani Furstenberg star in "The Loneliest Planet," which is "a mesmerizing drama about a footloose couple that, while not spectacular on the surface, manages to plumb some shattering truths about men, women, intimacy and power," writes Post critic Ann Hornaday. Full review of "The Loneliest Planet ."
Inti Briones
“This Must Be the Place”
“A mop of shoe-polish-black hair and a layer of heavy makeup” can’t quite disguise Sean Penn, writes critic Michael O’Sullivan. “As the movie goes on, [his character] Cheyenne starts to look less and less strange, while the sweetly surreal world around him seems more so.” Full review of “This Must Be the Place ”
Chuck Zlotnick
"The Queen of Versailles"
Jackie Siegel is the subject of the riches-to-rags documentary "The Queen of Versailles." Ann Hornaday writes that it would be so easy to demonize her, "but by the end of the film, with the animals dying, her house descending into unkempt chaos and her marriage fraying, viewers can’t help but feel confounded sympathy for a woman who so willingly bought into the American Dream at its most perversely distorted."Full review of “The Queen of Versailles”
Lauren Greenfield
"A Separation"
Leila Hatami and Peyman Moadi star in the Iranian movie, which took home the Oscar for best foreign language film. Hornaday wrote that "Asghar Farhadi's domestic drama takes hold from its first moments and doesn't let go even long after the lights have come on."Full review of “A Separation”
Habib Madjidi
"Coriolanus"
Vanessa Redgrave headlines a stellar cast in this update of the Bard's tragedy. Hornaday's take: "Ralph Fiennes invests Shakespeare's play 'Coriolanus' with ferocity and fresh vigor in his film of the same name, which transposes the story of an ancient Roman general to the present day with ease and uncanny relevance."Full review of “Coriolanus”
Larry D. Horricks
"The Kid With a Bike"
Thomas Doret and Cecile de France star in the Belgian film about a boy in search of his father. "Cyril is one of the most inspiringly resilient, self-aware young characters to arrive on-screen in recent memory, an embodiment of a child's instinctive capacity to claim his right to be loved, to ask for what he needs and, sadly, to indulge in grievous self-deception," Hornaday wrote.Full review of “The Kid With a Bike”
Christine Plenus
"Margaret"
Anna Paquin stars in writer-director Kenneth Lonergan's first effort since 2000's beloved "You Can Count on Me." Hornaday said of the much-anticipated film: "Ambitious, affecting, unwieldy and haunting, it's an eccentric, densely atmospheric, morally hyper-aware masterpiece that refuses to follow the strictures of conventional cinematic structure."Full review of “Margaret”
Myles Aronowitz
"Monsieur Lazhar"
Seddik Benslimane and Mohamed Fellag star in the Canadian film Hornaday compares to "a clear, clean glass of water: transparent, utterly devoid of gratuitous flavorings or frou-frou, and all the more bracing and essential for it."Full review of "Monsieur Lazhar”
Courtesy of Music Box Films
"Once Upon a Time in Anatolia"
The dimly-lit and moody Turkish movie follows the search for a dead body. Michael O'Sullivan writes, "Nuri Bilge Ceylan's film is austerely bewitching, even when focused on the corpse, which is, yes, eventually unearthed."Full review of “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia”
Courtesy of Cinema Guild.
"This Is Not a Film"
Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi was jailed then put under house arrest. The charges — making anti-state propaganda — means he has been banned from making films for 20 years. His response is this documentary, which he made with fellow director Mojtaba Mirtahmasb. Hornaday wrote the piece “is indeed not a film — it’s a cry from the heart of an artist compelled to create, tell stories and respond to hostile, confounding realities.”Full review of “This Is Not a Film”
Image courtesy of Palisades Tartan
“I Wish”
Ohshiro Maeda and Koki Maeda star in the Japanese film. This is what Mark Jenkins has to say: "The endearing new movie by writer-director Hirokazu Kore-eda (“After Life,” “Nobody Knows”) does deal in marvels, although not of the parting-the-Red-Sea variety. It’s about the wonders of everyday life, and of childhood imagination."Full review of “I Wish”
Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures
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Section:/goingoutguide
![“A mop of shoe-polish-black hair and a layer of heavy makeup” can’t quite disguise Sean Penn, writes critic Michael O’Sullivan. “As the movie goes on, [his character] Cheyenne starts to look less and less strange, while the sweetly surreal world around him seems more so.” Full review of “<a data-xslt='_http' href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/movies/this-must-be-the-place,1221205/critic-review.html'>This Must Be the Place</a>”](/rf/image_606w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2012/11/06/Weekend/Images/wk-this1109-1.jpg)
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