Michael Sragow

From Reagan to Disney: part one of an extended interview with the director of Gremlins—screening in its rare preview cut in Film Comment Selects

Breaking lad: the super-spy comic-book adaptation starring Colin Firth does not take the gentlemanly tack

Killer ratings: the writer-director of Nightcrawler talks about creating a tabloid-newsman character driven by animal instinct and utterly focused on the bottom line

The artist and director of Persepolis teams up with Ryan Reynolds for a curious portrait of a schizophrenic factory worker

Abderrahmane Sissako’s understated, humanist drama matches its emotional complexities with exquisite visuals

Always on: Al Pacino's bravura performance as an actor of a certain age fuels the offbeat humor in Barry Levinson's Philip Roth adaptation

Low resolution: Michael Mann's hacker action film fails to bring its globe-trotting characters to life

Peter and Michael Spierig's adaptation of a Robert Heinlein short story matches spectacle with nimble emotionality

Going rogue: Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's buddy comedy has all the potty-mouthed raunch you might expect—but who is its real star?

The more things change: Ava DuVernay offers a sometimes indirect portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. at a crucial moment

Peter Jackson's 10-year quest to adapt Tolkein's Middle Earth books concludes with lyrical grandeur

Evolution meets revolution: a look back at Dawn of the Planet of the Apes with its human director

Maximum charisma: Chris Rock's meditation on black celebrity confirms the virtuoso comic's strength as a filmmaker

Angelina Jolie's portrait of emotional and physical endurance aims for the epic but falls into hagiography

Secret life: Morten Tyldum's multilayered film about Alan Turning is a superbly, and subtly, wrought accomplishment

Working-class hero: the first half of The Hunger Games finale is driven by performances rather than explosions

The mission: Tommy Lee Jones's Western with Hilary Swank is a story of grit that looks the part, but is it true to all its characters?

A boy and his bot: our weekly West Coast critic peers into Disney's latest CG animated wonderland in his debut column!