Edition: U.S. / Global

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Movies

More in Movies »
Anatomy of a Scene
A Most Wanted Man »
Slide Show
Newfest 2014 »
Video
This Week’s Movies »
Kelly and Cal »
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
The Congress »
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Last Days in Vietnam »
By A. O. SCOTT
Ben Affleck in ‘Gone Girl’ »
Female Characters in Movies »
Julianne Moore in ‘Maps to the Stars’ »

You do not have the correct Flash player version to view this feature.

In order to view this feature, you must download the latest version of Flash.

Once you have downloaded the latest version of Flash player, you will need to reload this page.

Movie Review | ‘The Drop’

Quiet Bartender’s Secret

By A. O. SCOTT
James Gandolfini and Tom Hardy in “The Drop.”
Fox Searchlight Pictures

James Gandolfini and Tom Hardy in “The Drop.”

In “The Drop,” based on a short story by Dennis Lehane, a decade-old unsolved murder casts a shadow on a Brooklyn bar.

Movie Review | 'Bird People'

The Void Beckons: It’s Time to Leap

By A. O. SCOTT
Bird People Anaïs Demoustier as a maid in Pascale Ferran's film, which also stars Josh Charles and opens on Friday.
Carole Bethuel/Sundance Selects

Bird People Anaïs Demoustier as a maid in Pascale Ferran's film, which also stars Josh Charles and opens on Friday.

In “Bird People,” a businessman and a maid at an airport hotel abruptly seek escapes from unhappy lives.

Movie Reviews
Movie Review | ‘The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby’
A scene from “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby,” starring Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy.

When Sorrow Is Deeper Than Love

By A. O. SCOTT

In chronicling the end of a marriage, “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby” crosses a landscape mined with loss, secrets and questions of identity.

Movie Review | The Skeleton Twins
Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig play siblings who reconnect after a hiatus in “The Skeleton Twins,” directed by Craig Johnson.

Like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Only They’re Angsty

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

In “The Skeleton Twins,” Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig play twins who reconnect after a long impasse and jointly struggle with their present and past.

Movie Review | 'The Green Prince'
Mosab Hassan Yousef, whose father was a founder of Hamas, was recruited to spy for Israel.

A Spy Shaped by Manipulation and Shame

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

Nadav Schirman’s documentary thriller “The Green Prince” tells the story of a Palestinian recruited as a spy by the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, and his Israeli handler.

Movie Review | 'Stray Dogs'
Lee Kang-sheng, left, with Lee Yi Chieh and Lee Yi Cheng, plays a homeless man with two children who loses all hope.

Mired in an Abyss of Despair in Taipei

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

Few words are spoken in “Stray Dogs,” Tsai Ming-liang’s exercise in Asian miserablism, with the modern industrial cityscape of Taipei seen as a chilly wasteland.

Movie Review | 'I Am Eleven'
Genevieve Bailey interviewed children including Goh, here, about their lives and aspirations for her documentary “I Am Eleven.”

Now 11 Is the New 14, and the New 8

By NEIL GENZLINGER

In Genevieve Bailey’s documentary “I Am Eleven,” 11-year-olds in 15 countries talk about home, school, war, love, marriage and visions of the future.

Movie Review | ‘Honeymoon’
The vulnerability of the besotted: Rose Leslie and Harry Treadaway as a couple whose romantic idyll goes awry in “Honeymoon,” directed by Leigh Janiak.

And They Had Such Chemistry

By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

In “Honeymoon,” wedded bliss in a rural cabin gives way to terror when a wife starts acting strange.

Movie Review | ‘Take Me to the River’
Bobby (Blue) Bland, far left, and Lil’ P-Nut in a film exploring the 1960s and 1970s soul legacy of the Mississippi Delta and Memphis. It also visits the Stax Music Academy, where soul legends are teaching.

Mississippi Sounds Live on in New Musicians

By ANDY WEBSTER

“Take Me to the River” looks to the past and the future of a vanishing musical legacy.

Movie Review | 'The Quitter'
Matthew Bonifacio and Julianna Gelinas Bonifacio as exes who reunite back in Brooklyn.

Losing Is the Real Victory for One Family

By ANITA GATES

“The Quitter,” directed by and starring Matthew Bonifacio, focuses on a washed-up baseball star.

Movie Review | 'Dolphin Tale 2'
Cozi Zuehlsdorff and Nathan Gamble with Winter the dolphin, together again in “Dolphin Tale 2.”

Lonely Sea Mammal Seeks Tank Mate

By BEN KENIGSBERG

“Dolphin Tale 2” is the story of the humans who love one brave dolphin and the race to find a new playmate for her, because otherwise they’ll lose her to another aquarium.

Movie Review | ‘Swearnet’
“Swearnet” features, from left, Robb Wells, Mike Smith and John Paul Tremblay.

Curses! Over and Over Again

By NEIL GENZLINGER

The Trailer Park Boys, the Canadian mockumentary franchise, creates a film outlet for its vaunted limited vocabulary.

Movie Review | ‘At the Devil’s Door’
Ashley Rickards in “At the Devil’s Door,” a shape-shifting horror film with fluctuating points of view.

Sucked Into a Sinister Maw

By BEN KENIGSBERG

In “At the Devil’s Door,” nothing good comes of selling your soul, especially when Satan is involved.

Movie Review | 'The Man on Her Mind'
Samuel James and Amy McAllister in this romance.

Love and Neuroses in Mamaroneck

By ANDY WEBSTER

“The Man on Her Mind,” based on a play by Alan Hruska, deals with objects of desire, real and imaginary.

Movie Review | ‘Archaeology of a Woman’
Sally Kirkland with James Murtaugh in “Archaeology of a Woman,” directed by Sharon Greytak.

A Weakness for Cops, a Crime to Solve

By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

In “Archaeology of a Woman,” Sally Kirkland plays an ex-newspaper columnist battling dementia while a murder mystery unfolds.

Movie Review | 'The Frontier'
Max Gail is a retired professor whose son returns home after an absence in “The Frontier,” directed by Matt Rabinowitz.

A Son Comes Home: Cue the Father Clash

By ANITA GATES

Max Gail stars as a retired college professor in “The Frontier,” a family drama.

Movie Review | ‘Finding Fanny’
The Bollywood veteran Dimple Kapadia, center, with Pankaj Kapur and Deepika Padukone, in Homi Adajania’s comedy “Finding Fanny.”

Searching for the Object of a Mailman’s Longing

By RACHEL SALTZ

In “Finding Fanny,” the actress Dimple Kapadia plays a busybody in a backwater town who joins others in doing a good deed.

Movie Review | 'Faith Connections'
A holy man who finds himself raising a little boy left on his doorstep in “Faith Connections.”

For the Joy of Worship, However Arduous

By NICOLAS RAPOLD

Pan Nalin’s documentary “Faith Connections” examines the annual Kumbh Mela festival, which draws millions of Hindu pilgrims to a town in northern India.

Movie Review | 'Altina'
Altina Schinasi, as seen in “Altina,” Peter Sanders’s film about his grandmother.

From Money, but So Much More Than That

By ANITA GATES

“Altina” tracks the life of a tobacco heiress, artist and inventor who refused to be hemmed in by convention.

Movie Review | ‘Smiling Through the Apocalypse’
The Esquire editor Harold Hayes in the film “Smiling Through the Apocalypse.”

Putting a New-Journalism Pioneer Into Perspective

By BEN KENIGSBERG

“Smiling Through the Apocalypse: Esquire in the 60s” is Tom Hayes’s film about his father’s time as editor of the magazine.

Movie Review | ‘The Pirates’
Son Ye-jin plays one of the seafaring adventurers in “The Pirates,” a South Korean action comedy directed by Lee Seok-hoon.

Follow That Whale

By NICOLAS RAPOLD

“The Pirates,” directed by Lee Seok-hoon, is an action comedy that takes place on the high seas at the start of the Joseon dynasty.

Movie Review | ‘Alumbrones'
The artist Luis Rodríguez NOA, in Havana. The artworks in “Alumbrones” are influenced by other Cuban art.

Making Do With Little, Yet Making Art

By RACHEL SALTZ

“Alumbrones,” a documentary by Bruce Donnelly, focuses on Cuban artists whose creative lives have been defined by scarcity.

Movie Review | 'My Old Lady'
Kevin Kline as an American in Paris, and Maggie Smith as his tenant for life, in “My Old Lady.”

An Apartment in the Marais, With Complications and Family Secrets

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

In “My Old Lady,” a failed American playwright inherits a splendid Paris apartment, but French law gives his tenant the upper hand.

Movie Review | 'Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity'
Physical limits being tested in “Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity,” a documentary directed by Catherine Gund.

A Pursuit That Leaps, Crashes and Swings

By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

The documentary “Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity” uses performance and rehearsal footage to help profile this choreographer.

News & Features
Dan Stevens stars in “The Guest,” opening Wednesday.

A ‘Downton’ Darling Turned Mr. Hyde

By SARAH LYALL

Dan Stevens, best known as the valiant Matthew Crawley in “Downton Abbey,” is going against type in a variety of new roles.

Return of the Boxes That Ate Your Brain!

By ERIK PIEPENBURG

As Gorgon Video plans back-catalog releases of old horror films featuring the original cover art, its production chief discusses some of the more eye-popping images.

The Death of Adulthood in American Culture

By A. O. SCOTT

Charting the final, exhausted collapse of the adult white male, from Huck Finn to “Mad Men.”

Menahem Golan, left, and Yoram Globus, in 1983. Their Cannon Group made films like “Bolero,” which starred Bo Derek.

Documentary Explores B-Film Kingdom of Golan and Globus

By MICHAEL CIEPLY

Memories stirred about the cousins who founded the Cannon Group, which released films with stars like Bo Derek and Charles Bronson, weren’t warm and fuzzy.

Clockwise from left: Chloë Grace Moretz (with Jamie Blackley) in “If I Stay”; Emma Roberts in “Palo Alto”; Jennifer  Lawrence in “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1”; Aubrey Plaza in “Life After Beth”; Elle Fanning in “Maleficent”; Quvenzhané Wallis in “Annie.”

Sugar, Spice and Guts

By A. O. SCOTT and MANOHLA DARGIS

In many movie genres, the representation of girls and women is improving. But there’s a long way to go.

Paul Dano, left, and William Pohlad on the “Love & Mercy” set.

Filmmaker Pins Hopes on a Beach Boy

By MICHAEL CIEPLY

William M. Pohlad, a movie producer and heir to a family fortune, hopes his second feature film directing effort in 24 years, a biopic about the Beach Boy Brian Wilson, is a charm.

More News & Features

Toronto Film Festival

Toronto 2014: Michael R. Roskam Narrates a Scene From ‘The Drop’

By MEKADO MURPHY

Michael R. Roskam discusses a sequence from his film.

The director David Thorpe in

Toronto Festival 2014: David Thorpe and ‘Do I Sound Gay?’

By MEKADO MURPHY

The Brooklyn filmmaker discusses his documentary about his quest to better understand his voice.

Toronto Festival 2014: Lone Scherfig on ‘The Riot Club’

By MEKADO MURPHY

The director discusses her drama “The Riot Club,” about a secret, misbehaving group of Oxford students.

Interactive Feature
Fall Arts Preview — Times 100

How to wade through the crush of culture coming your way this season? Here’s a guide to 100 events that have us especially excited, in order of appearance.

Photos & Video
A scene from “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby,” starring Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy.
ArtsBeat
Ned Benson Narrates a Scene From ‘The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby’
By MEKADO MURPHY

The writer and director Ned Benson narrates a sequence from his drama “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them.”

Film About Exiles Is Banned in Singapore

September 10, 2014

Hawke, Gere to Be Honored at New York Film Festival

September 9, 2014

Schomburg Center Plans Exhibition on ‘For Colored Girls’

September 8, 2014

More Movies Posts in Artsbeat »

Movies Update
Movies Update Newsletter

Sign up here for our Movies Update e-mail, delivered each Friday, and stay on top of Critics’ Picks, blockbusters and independent films.

Photos & Video
Video
This Week’s Movies | Sept. 5, 2014

The New York Times film critics review “The Congress,” “Kelly & Cal” and “Last Days In Vietnam.”

Jennifer Aniston as a woman in for a big surprise in “Life of Crime,” based on the Elmore Leonard novel “The Switch.”
Daniel Schechter Narrates a Scene From ‘Life of Crime’
By MEKADO MURPHY

The director Daniel Schechter discusses a moment from “Life of Crime,” the film adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel “The Switch.”

Video Feature
Anatomy of a Scene

In this series, directors discuss ideas and techniques behind moments in their films.

Box Office Top 5

  1. Guardians of the Galaxy
  2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
  3. Let's Be Cops
  4. If I Stay
  5. The November Man
More Box Office Data »
Special Section
Summer Movies

Comedy couples, breakthrough performances, movie listings and more.

Times Pulse

The most popular movies among NYTimes.com readers.
  1. My Old Lady
  2. 12 Years a Slave
  3. The Pawnbroker
  4. Guardians of the Galaxy
  5. The November Man
Expanded List » | What's This?
The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made

This guide includes links to the original reviews from the archives of The New York Times.

More Theaters Near You »

MOST POPULAR - MOVIES