Johnny Depp does career-best work as notorious Boston gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger in Scott Cooper's taut, elegantly understated crime drama. Courtesy of Warner Bros. The icy blue eyes of notorious Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger stare out…

Nicolas Cage scurries to and from as a Louisiana congressman juggling personal and state crises in a listless political drama. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill takes a back seat to the sticky personal and career complications of an idealistic…

Director F. Gary Gray turns the meteoric rise and fractious fall of rap supergroup N.W.A. into a sprawling, exhilarating Los Angeles hip-hop epic. Courtesy of Universal Pictures The ferocious rhymes of hip-hop icons N.W.A.’s controversial 1988 anthem…

Courtesy of Warner Bros. SCOTT FOUNDAS: Well, the cat is really out of the bag now. After weeks of intense blogosphere speculation about the fall festival season and palate-whetting gala announcements from the New York Film Festival, the Toronto Film…

A new generation of Griswolds take to the highway in a miserably unfunny reboot of the venerable National Lampoon comedy franchise. Courtesy of Warner Bros. Midway through “Vacation,” the intrepid Griswold clan unwittingly takes a dip in a lake…

Heather Kennedy/Getty Images Scott Foundas, who has served as Variety’s chief film critic for the past two years, will be leaving the publication and the journalism business to join Amazon Studios as a film acquisitions and development executive.…

Joel Edgerton gets his inner creep on as a vengeful high-school outcast in his familiar but effective directorial debut. Image courtesy of STX Entertainment The sins of the high-school cafeteria come home to roost in “The Gift,” a coolly unsettling…

“I feel like I have enough work now that, if I died, my ‘in memorium’ reel would be impressive,” joked Judd Apatow as he took to the stage of the Film Society of Lincoln Center Monday night for a loosely structured chat with one of his most devoted…

Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival The old truism that one man’s gold is another man’s garbage gives life to Corneliu Porumboiu’s “The Treasure,” a sandpaper-dry caper comedy about two unlikely fortune hunters searching for long-buried backyard booty.…

Tarsem Singh and the Pastor brothers' shame/less riff on John Frankenheimer's 'Seconds' transforms Ben Kingsley into Ryan Reynolds. A brand new you that just might be the old someone else is the quandary at the center of “Self/less,” an initially…

Courtesy of Warner Bros. With the year half over, our three critics have each selected their five favorite U.S. releases of 2015 so far. “Ex Machina”Novelist and screenwriter Alex Garland’s brainy, precisely calibrated chamber drama was that rare…

Teddy bears are people, too, says this likable if overlong sequel to Seth MacFarlane and Mark Wahlberg's 2012 summer smash. The magical teddy bear with the heart of gold and the mouth of potty is back in “Ted 2,” and so is writer-director-star Seth…

Bollywood's reigning hip-hop dance kings are back — and coming to America — in this too-much-is-never-enough sequel to 2013's 'ABCD.' All that glitters may not be gold, but whatever it is, it’s sure to be found somewhere in “Any Body Can Dance 2,”…

Courtesy of Disney I met Christopher Lee only once, over dinner at the 2013 Locarno Film Festival, where he was due to receive a lifetime achievement award. But even one night with Lee, who died June 7, was something to treasure. At 91, he was a…

Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg's test-tube dinosaurs get a critic-proof reboot that's fun for a while, but not a patch on the original. Courtesy of Universal Pictures “No one’s impressed by a dinosaur anymore,” notes one character early on in…

The restless spirits are back, but director James Wan isn't, for this unequal 'Insidious' prequel. Chief among things that go bump in the night in “Insidious: Chapter 3” is the movie itself — a thuddingly dull prequel to James Wan’s very enjoyable…

'March of the Penguins' director Luc Jacquet tackles global warming in an overstylized portrait of French glaciologist Claude Lorius. “My name is Claude Lorius,” says the subject of Luc Jacquet’s “Antarctica: Ice & Sky” more than once during the…

Damon Casarez for Variety, Location: Little Dom’s Restaurant Many a filmmaker shows up at the Sundance Film Festival dreaming of becoming the next Martin Scorsese. But only Alfonso Gomez-Rejon can claim to have crashed on the legendary director’s…