Name : Sheri Linden / Alias : Los Angeles Times
It's the rare documentary in which truly unpredictable events unfold and no assumption is safe.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
The film features stunning third-act revelations that compel viewers to rethink its characters' actions and motivations.

Name : Stephanie Merry / Alias : Washington Post
"The Overnighters" is commendable for many reasons, not the least of which is the way it allows complex issues to remain complex. There is a clear conflict between the pastor and the town, but there's no good vs. evil.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
A sobering must-see, The Overnighters speaks to the eternal dilemma of doing the right thing in a community beset by suspicion and fear.

Name : Andrew O'Hehir / Alias : Salon.com
If John Steinbeck were writing in the second decade of the 21st century, "The Overnighters" is precisely the story he'd want to tell.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
The movie might seem like just another liberal do-gooder profile, yet a shocker ending throws new and disturbing light on the situation, amplifying the Christian themes at the heart of the story.

Name : Leah Greenblatt / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Filmmaker Jesse Moss frames his shots beautifully; the landscapes look like Andrew Wyeth paintings.

Name : A.A. Dowd / Alias : AV Club
Moss uncovers something greater than a vision of a divided community; he's made a drama as prickly and surprising as any fictional character study.

Name : Lisa Kennedy / Alias : Denver Post
Moss uses images of drill towers or blistering flame as visual metaphors for other things transpiring on screen: the fracturing of a family, the heated fury that comes with a sense of betrayal.

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
It develops into a study of obsession, hypocrisy, righteousness and self-doubt, questioning motive and then gob-smacking the audience with the wholly unexpected.

Name : Jeannette Catsoulis / Alias : New York Times
Composed of multiple layers - more than one of which might bring tears to your eyes - this shape-shifting documentary begins as one thing and ends as quite another.

Name : Peter Keough / Alias : Boston Globe
Through patience, skill, discretion, and trust, Jesse Moss has taken a seemingly small town story and turned it into both a microcosm of today's most urgent issues and a portrait of a single suffering soul.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
So much of "The Overnighters" tells all sorts of truths, and Moss earned the trust of his subjects, whatever they might think of the result.

Name : David Lewis / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
Moss was basically a one-man production crew, which explains how he was able to film such intimate, painful conversations. His work is haunting - one of the best documentaries of the year.

Name : Trevor Johnston / Alias : Time Out
An urgent portrait of compassion under fire.

Name : Justin Chang / Alias : Variety
[A] tough-minded, admirably unresolved film .

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
A classic example of a documentary that discovers its subject in the process of its making.

Name : David Rooney / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
A scenario with present-day echoes of "The Grapes of Wrath" yields perceptive insights into the way we view outsiders.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : L.A. Weekly
The Overnighters sounds like the sort of dry news blurb you'd skim over in the Sunday paper, but it unfolds into an epic tragedy.

Name : Gary Goldstein / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Tyler Perry's The Single Moms Club is a sitcom masquerading as a feature film. And given Perry's snowballing small-screen presence, an eventual TV show of it would be no surprise.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
The movie understands how enchantment and disappointment go together, like the A and B sides of a single that won't leave the turntable.

Name : Rex Reed / Alias : New York Observer
Sing Street has the potential to achieve unmistakable popularity with not only teens but also audiences of all ages.

Name : Bill Zwecker / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
While the subject is very timely and worthy, this lame tale just falls completely flat.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
Sing Street knows what it takes to form your own band, made by a guy who really loves music.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
If "Once" was a densely crafted album, "Sing Street" is more like a perfectly crafted single: "Crazy Little Thing Called Youth."

Name : Alan Scherstuhl / Alias : Village Voice
Singing, dreaming, making out: Despite some familiar formula, these characters make all three feel new again.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
These are some great actresses, and with writer-director-producer Perry displaying some rare focus, you're intrigued at first by the possibility of watching them interact for a couple of hours. It doesn't last.

Name : Peter Debruge / Alias : Variety
For Illumination Entertainment, "Sing" is a game-changer, underscoring why company founder Chris Meledandri is the hottest name in animation today.

Name : Walter V. Addiego / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
Don't be deterred by the timeworn material - as a romantic vision of youth and rock, "Sing Street" is number one with a bullet.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
Here [Carney's] got the balance just right, delivering a funny and heartfelt tale about a Dublin teen in the mid-80s.

Name : Sheila O'Malley / Alias : RogerEbert.com
"The Single Moms Club" is almost good.

Name : Steve Pond / Alias : TheWrap
It starts out fun and then sneaks up on you for a final stretch that is both rousing and genuinely emotional.

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
In any other movie, the filmmaker would rightly be accused of trafficking in lazy stereotypes, but lazy stereotypes are the beachhead into which Tyler Perry has firmly planted his flag.

Name : David Rooney / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
A rite-of-passage romance wrapped in a let's-make-a-band scenario, the disarming film colors its social realism with the kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy often found in a four-minute music video.

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : TIME Magazine
You've seen every element of Sing Street hundreds of times before-it's Carney's knack for assembling them that makes the difference.

Name : Scott Marks / Alias : San Diego Reader
John Carney (Begin Again) once again tries to reheat a Once souffle and instead serves up a flat, cheerily antiseptic period musical.

Name : Christopher Orr / Alias : The Atlantic
I could scarcely be more delighted to report that Carney has rediscovered the magic of Once with Sing Street, another tiny, winsome charmer set in Dublin.

Name : Brad Wheeler / Alias : Globe and Mail
While this darling film is inspired by a year in the sentimental filmmaker's own early life, it is founded on the hope and charm of song.

Name : David Ehrlich / Alias : indieWIRE
Once with a bigger budget and smaller actors, this is a winsomely entertaining musical tribute to how passion can pave the way towards a better life.

Name : Frank Scheck / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
This is a club that you don't want to join.

Name : Leslie Felperin / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
A veritable farmyard of fun.

Name : Connie Ogle / Alias : Miami Herald
Sing Street feels personal, as well as universal, and it captures the warring factions of youthful euphoria and despair.

Name : Nicolas Rapold / Alias : New York Times
Mr. Perry's latest film touches upon some recognizable and realistic challenges with efficient compassion, but there's probably more dramatic tension in a car pool than in this film's collection of predicaments.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : L.A. Weekly
This is How Stella Got Her Groove Back for the Pop-Tart crowd, a wish-fulfillment weepie that narrowly clears Perry's low bar, thanks mostly to Wendi McLendon-Covey and Cocoa Brown

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
Though Sing Street is much more stylized and broad than Once, it remains true to Carney's fondness for grounded fantasy.

Name : Cary Darling / Alias : Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
A good-natured, old-fashioned, crowd-pleasing Irish pop musical that doesn't go anywhere unexpected but has a great time getting there.

Name : Guy Lodge / Alias : Variety
Lightning strikes thrice as Irish writer-director John Carney's let's-make-a-band formula once more yields winning results.

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
Fans of Carney's lush romanticism and hook-laden lyricism will be thrilled to add this one to their playlist.

Name : A.A. Dowd / Alias : AV Club
The fun of Sing Street, set during a big boom period for U.K. rock, is that it allows Carney's fond, romanticized memories of his glory days to double as a musical history lesson .

Name : David Hiltbrand / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
The moral here is that no challenge is insurmountable if you form a club. And keep a wine opener handy.

Name : Tim Grierson / Alias : The New Republic
The beguiling modesty of the film ends up being even more important than its music or incredibly likable characters. Like most of the bands it honors, "Sing Street" may be a bit disposable, but its electric emotions linger like a warm memory.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
In three features, Carney has made his personal greatest hits album.

Name : Scott Foundas / Alias : Variety
A surprisingly sharp and funny female-empowerment ensembler.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Just wondering, but if these sisters are indeed capable of doing it for themselves as the film insists, why can't at least one of them do it without a man?

Name : Alison Willmore / Alias : BuzzFeed News
The film captures the earnestness and the silliness of the boys' efforts, but also how little that matters when you're discovering what it feels like to create something.

Name : Calvin Wilson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
With its intriguing characters and exhilarating music, "Sing Street" is the best film about being young, gifted and Irish since "The Commitments."

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
The whole film is unlikely, a joyous story of youth, innocence, sweet earnestness, charming ineptitude and a shaky but productive belief on the hero's part that he can do anything he pleases.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : New York Daily News
"Sing Street" is just like the old singles it idolizes - sharp, slick, snappy. And it leaves you with nothing more than an urge to sit through it all again.

Name : Peter Keough / Alias : Boston Globe
In Tyler Perry's latest opus, "The Single Moms Club," he demonstrates how disparate stereotypes can find common ground through the power of a single cliche.

Name : Richard Brody / Alias : New Yorker
It's all too sweet and easy, and the band's music-which is composed by John Carney, the movie's writer and director, and Gary Clark-is bland and overproduced.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Carney understands how music not only provides a soundtrack for a life, but can change a life, too.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
Carney has an uncanny way of telling a story through music. "Sing Street" reminds us of being young and lost in a song, realizing with a jolt that someone else had the same feelings we did.

Name : Joshua Rothkopf / Alias : Time Out
Built out of crowd-pleasing elements as durable as a lacquered, sky-high '80s hairdo, writer-director John Carney's coming-of-age musical is a synth-drenched joy: a tuneful, deeply personal ode to the impulse that forges a high school rock band.

Name : Brian Truitt / Alias : USA Today
Carney digs deeper than the usual universal love story to comment on Irish life in 1985 and sets it to a soundtrack that hits all the right notes for those with fond memories of Swatch watches and Trapper Keepers.

Name : Peter Keough / Alias : Boston Globe
Those put off by the prospect of a musical in the '80s pop style of Duran Duran or Pet Shop Boys should cast their prejudices aside when it comes to John Carney's "Sing Street." You might find yourself singing along.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
Warm, ingratiating, with a beat you can dance to, "Sing Street" is a feel-good movie that never demands to be liked. Instead it asks, politely and irresistibly.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Sing Street is the most romantic movie you'll find anywhere these days, brimming over with music, fun and the thrill of first love.

Name : Katie Walsh / Alias : Los Angeles Times
A sweetly funny, charming and poignant depiction of this very specific time in life - at once universal and specific - when anything seems possible. And with killer pop tunes to boot.

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : USA Today
It quickly becomes a by-the-book, overly-simplified look at a quintet of single moms who find common ground coping with the challenges of raising middle-school age children and finding romance.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
As a testament to the power of music, the bond of brotherhood and the boundless possibilities of youth, "Sing Street" just plain works.

Name : Sheila O'Malley / Alias : RogerEbert.com
Carney has a humorous and loving eye for detail, an intuitive ear for dialogue, and the film is extremely personal in a way that is universal.

Name : Jordan Hoffman / Alias : New York Daily News
[T]his is a film about catharsis and camaraderie, not logic.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
A delightful film that is almost impossible to watch without a smile on your face.