Film

Every so often an arthouse director dips a toe into the horror genre and you realize vampires and space aliens are subjects too rich to be the property of schlockmeisters, says critic David Bianculli.

Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez tell Terry Gross about the inspiration for "Let It Go" and a "very strong strike across the bow at all princess-myth things" song that didn't make the film.

Darren Aronofsky's latest film is a big-budget Bible story called, simply, Noah. Russell Crowe plays the title character, and the movie also features Jennifer Connelly and Emma Watson.

Charlotte Gainsbourg and newcomer Stacy Martin anchor Lars von Trier's four-hour inquiry into the nature of impulse and desire.

The British import Doll & Em is another inside-Hollywood comedy from HBO; Emily Mortimer and her real-life friend Dolly Wells play outsize versions of themselves.

The Grand Budapest Hotel takes place in the fictional European country of Zubrowka on the eve of war. Anderson shot much of the film in Germany, drawing inspiration from the surrounding landscape.

Wes Anderson's new feature takes place at a resort hotel, between World Wars I and II. Fresh Air's critic says the visuals are so witty they transcend camp, but the dialogue isn't quite at that level.

Neeson became a bankable action hero in 2008 after the thriller Taken. Now almost 62, he's still getting out of tight corners with his fists. His new film unfolds on a transatlantic flight.

Best known for Animal House, Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day, Ramis died Monday at 69. Critic John Powers says Ramis was like a favorite uncle who spices up the family reunion by spiking the punch

The comedy actor, writer and director had co-written and planned to star in the long-awaited Ghostbusters III — but did not get the chance. He died Monday in Chicago at age 69.

The new film from the acclaimed Japanese animator spans 30 years and centers on a young man who dreams of designing the perfect airplane in the early 1930s.

David O. Russell, director of American Hustle and Silver Linings Playbook, first spoke with Terry Gross back in 1994. On Thursday, he tells her that after 20 years, he's finally met his aspirations.

Claude Lanzmann's documentary profiles a Viennese rabbi put to work in a Czech concentration camp. Although Benjamin Murmelstein was himself not a free man, he was despised by fellow Jewish prisoners.

"New Orleans buries too many of its young," Wynton Marsalis says in the documentary's introduction. The Whole Gritty City, airing Saturday on CBS, follows young students who take refuge in New Orleans marching bands.

George Clooney's film tells the largely true story of a World War II squad of art experts assigned to protect European masterworks from Nazi theft and Allied bombardment. Critic David Edelstein says the film is engaging and earnest, but a little formulaic.

Gloria is a new film from Chile that centers on a late-middle-aged divorced woman whose life is full of ambiguity. She's played by Paulina Garcia, who won the top acting prize — the Silver Bear — at the 2013 Berlin Film Festival, where the movie was a surprise hit. It opens this week in New York and Los Angeles, and wider next month.

Tom Clancy's wonkish spy returns in a new thriller from Kenneth Branagh, with Star Trek's Chris Pine in the title role and the director playing a menacing Russian bad guy out to bring the U.S. to its knees.

As we approach the third anniversary of the demonstrations in Egypt, Fresh Air critic John Powers reviews a documentary that captures the story of Cairo's Tahrir Square. He says the film "is less a final reckoning than an exciting bulletin from the front lines of an unfinished revolution."

A new film explores the affair between Dickens and a young actress for whom he left his wife, but who for years never showed up in biographies of Dickens. It's the second film directed by Ralph Fiennes, who also plays Dickens.