John Wick

It might be difficult for those who didn't grow up in the 1980s to understand my generation's fetishization of that decade's action movies. Yes, they could be jingoistic, misogynist, blood-drenched and latently homosexual (often all at the same time), but you could rarely argue that they weren't fun. Keanu Reeves is an unlikely resuscitator of the genre, considering he mostly missed out on the era (Point Break, while certainly '80s in spirit, was released in 1991). John Wick eschews the brooding aesthetic of so many recent action movies and dishes out a film that's as unassuming in its ambitions as it is enjoyable to watch.

Life Itself

Roger Ebert represented the apex of a career in film criticism, all but unattainable now in an era when the number of people able to make a living watching and subsequently writing or talking about movies can almost be counted on two thumbs. He was the most (hell, the only) recognizable movie critic for so many of us as well as one of the most valued voices in the industry. Interviewing a wide range of subjects from across Ebert's life and career, director Steve James (Hoop Dreams) gives a fitting sendoff to a man loved by many, hated by more than a few, but respected by all.

Locke

I'm trying to imagine the meeting in which writer/director Steve Knight pitched a movie about Tom Hardy making phone calls from a car for almost 90 minutes. The character he plays, Ivan Locke, is a successful construction manager and family man who's now paying the price for a fateful mistake. That Hardy, splendid in a second movie this year (see also The Drop), conveys so much remorse, intensity and sorrow without ever leaving his car seat makes me wonder when we can finally recognize him as one of the finest actors of this generation.

Nightcrawler

I suppose Lou Bloom technically qualifies as part of the Horatio Alger myth, since going from petty theft to freelance camera work elevates one from rags to...if not "riches," then at least some money and notoriety. Is Alger's meritocracy still applicable today, if in fact it ever was? What writer/director Dan Gilroy seems to be telling us is: The tables have turned, and "honesty and thrift" are less marketable in the 21st-century economic landscape than ruthlessness and cynicism. Anchored by Jake Gyllenhaal's disturbing performance, Nightcrawler isn't just an indictment of the media; it's a sobering reflection of America as a whole.