As the Academy Awards celebrate a milestone 90th anniversary, the legacy of the best picture award is set to enter a new era. But how many of the previous 89 best picture winners are we still watching today? And what are the movies that Oscar voters missed? (Surely “Singin’ in the Rain” won an...

Short of staging another best picture fiasco, how can the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences bolster the television ratings for its tired Oscar awards ceremony? In a word: Brackets! Why not pair America’s love of the movies with its unbridled passion for gambling? It’s a strategy that...

“You clearly love Sacramento,” says the Catholic nun and high school principal as she looks over the college essay written by one of her students. The teenager, who clearly thinks the city is uncool, shrugs and says she just pays attention to her surroundings. “Well, it comes across as love,” says..

The Lucy in “Oh Lucy!” is a droopy middle-aged Tokyo office worker named Setsuko Kawashima (Shinobu Terajima), who abruptly decides to take a break from her gloomy, deadening routine. At the insistence of her upbeat young niece, Mika (Shioli Kutsuna), she joins an English class, held in a shady-look..

Simultaneously effective and uninspired, "Red Sparrow" is successful in fits and starts. A perfectly serviceable spy thriller, it inevitably leaves behind the feeling that a better film was possible than the one that made it to the screen. Certainly, all signs were promising, starting with the...

"Hondros" is not the first documentary about a celebrated combat photographer. It was preceded by, among others, "Which Way Is the Front Line From Here: The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington," "War Photographer" with its focus on James Nachtwey and "Robert Capa: In Love and War." But the new film...

“Allegiance” is a musical about the incarceration of Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor. In mass-market, story-and-song form, it encourages audiences to think deeply about a time when Americans were rounded up and shipped away because of their ethnicity. It is a learning opportunity for some;...