The Theory of Everything: Inspiring biopic on life of Stephen Hawking.
Rosewater: Gael Garcia Bernal (The Motorcycle Diaries, Science of Sleep) plays true story of Iranian-Canadian journalist Bahari who was arrested and tortured in 2009 for reporting on unrest during re-election of Iranian Pres. Ahmadinejad. Dir. by Jon Stewart
Interstellar: Dir. Christopher Nolan attempts to reawaken the thrilling dream of finding and colonizing a new world, rather than figure out how not to destroy the one we’re on.
Big Hero 6: Animated. Delightful deconstruction of boyhood machismo.
Elsa & Fred: Shirley MacLaine coaxes octogenarian Christopher Plummer out of his shell.
Mr. Pip: Despite the frame white teacher makes nice to black children, the children and the teacher (Hugh Laurie of House) make this story of reading Dickens’ Great Expectations to Papua New Guinea schoolchildren during war look like a winner.
Actress: Docudrama. Brandy Burre laments how the film industry undervalues women.
Pelican Dreams: Doc. Dir. Judy Irving (The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill) takes us inside the life of our aviary cousins once again, this time through a wayward injured pelican.
West: Germany, 1979. Three years after the apparent death of her lover a mother takes her young son across the border from East to West, but there is confronted by Western security services who distrust her motives.
The Homesman: Hillary Swank (Boys Don’t Cry, Million Dollar Baby) is a woman in the old West taking three women driven mad by life on the Nebraska frontier back to Iowa, who enlists the drifter Tommy Lee Jones for the perilous journey.
Foxcatcher: Steve Carell does an amazing transformation as wealthy heir John du Pont in this true life tale that illumines the tragedy that unfolded when du Pont offered to help Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) and his brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo) train to wrestle in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, and was overcome by personal demons.
Beyond the Lights: On the brink of stardom she realizes be careful what you ask for.
The Imitation Game: The story of mathematician Alan Turing, who cracked the Enigma code of the Germans during WWII and went on to become the father of the modern computer, but was prosecuted for homosexuality, leading to his untimely suicide.
The Hunger Games-Mockingjay Part 1: Part 1 of the two part finale finds Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) walking the ever thinner line between celebrity and revolutionary.
Food Chains: Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Delores Huerta, Robert Kennedy, Robert Kennedy Jr., Eva Longoria and others shed light on the long struggle of farm workers to earn a decent wage, from Spanish colonialism to today’s supermarket chains.
Reach Me: An all star cast tells the tale of the search for the reluctant author of a motivational book, and the lives touched by his words.
Concerning Violence: Illuminating highly rated documentary of African liberation struggles of the 60s and 70s from colonial rule, based on the work of Franz Fanon.
Plot for Peace: Story of the French businessman who helped secure the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in South Africa and hastened apartheid’s fall.
