Claudia Puig

As directed by Angelina Jolie, it is occasionally powerful, with soaring visuals. It also is, however, stately and slow to the point of tedium.

Big Eyes is a fabulous match of artist — Burton — and material. While it's one of the director's more low-key works, his trademark sly wit infuses the mesmerizing stranger-than-fiction biopic.

American Sniper's wartime sequences are well-paced and harrowing, reminiscent of those in 2008's "The Hurt Locker." Like that film, Sniper can be interpreted either as a patriotic salute or as an incisive anti-war movie. In either case, it's a powerful, moving and tragic tale.

The notion that children are raised on fairy tales and the question of how those early stories affect us all — even into adulthood — remains fascinating and is delivered here with visual panache and musical flair.

The third installment of the Night at the Museum franchise, Secret of the Tomb, is better than its predecessors, funnier and more adventurous, thanks to a visit across the pond to the British Museum.

Quvenzhané Wallis is adorably plucky as the lead in Annie. She and Jamie Foxx as the newfangled Daddy Warbucks character have an appealing chemistry and their songs together are the best moments in the movie. But the rest of Annie is banal, shallow and markedly cynical.

The final installment of the Hobbit trilogy is the best, featuring more spectacular action scenes as well as the series' most emotionally resonant moments.

Considering the controversy and chaos Sony Pictures Studios is undergoing because of it, The Interview fails to live up to the hype, floundering as a rowdy comedy as it grows duller by the minute.

The result is raunchy, energetic, sharp-eyed and a bit rambling.

Swarms of flies, oozing pustules, alligator attacks and gaggles of frogs are vividly rendered in three dimensions in Exodus: Gods and Kings. And yet this biblical epic is still bland, overly long and otherwise forgettable.

Well-acted, intermittently compelling, often incoherent but always offbeat, Inherent Vice is a twisting story about twisted California stoners. Think of it as a film that's meant to be experienced, more than fully understood.

While other Alzheimer's-related films, including "Amour," "Iris" and "Away from Her", delved more deeply into the subject, Alice is understated yet still moving.

Partners is exceedingly well-cast and well-acted, bringing a lightly satirical and witty script to life. Meester and Jacobs have a disarming chemistry, and their conversation is filled with a comfortable shorthand.

Translating solitary musings, raw despondency and personal enlightenment into arresting visuals is a substantial feat and novelist/screenwriter Nick Hornby was the perfect choice to convert the fascinating book into a lively script.

"Imitation" illuminates Turing's brilliance in an engrossing and moving film that features a standout, Oscar-worthy performance by Benedict Cumberbatch.

This is a joyless, frenetic film that is very rarely funny.

This ill-conceived sequel to 2011's entertaining Horrible Bosses is base, moronic, insulting and vulgar. It's also cringingly unfunny.

It's easily the most political of the three films. It also is the most absorbing and best in the series.

Foxcatcher might just be the feel-bad movie of the year. But it's so well-acted that audiences won't want to miss its dark, chilling yet restrained story. A little less muting of this outlandish true-to-life tale, however, might have made it even more mesmerizing.

With its focus on integrity, creativity and identity, Beyond the Lights is a rare intelligent romantic drama.

If there was any doubt that most things in society have been dumbed down in the last couple of decades, Dumb and Dumber To could be exhibit A.

The Homesman aims for a story that's poignant and told sparely, but comes across as mawkish, tedious and self-indulgent.

The year's most riveting documentary.

The film is involving, nimbly acted and smartly directed, though conventional in its narrative style.

The most endearing character in Disney's animated superhero animated movie is a one-man Affordable Care Act. (Make that a one-robot ACA.)

The corny love story is all the more disappointing given the pedigree of the octogenarian actors.

Through most of the movie, the former star of the Harry Potter movies sports an impressive set of curling ram-style protuberances that bring to mind a character in "Pan's Labyrinth."

Thirty pounds lighter, all cheekbones and bulging eyes, Gyllenhaal plays one of the year's most memorable characters in this dark, provocative drama.