Amy Taubin

Takes its shape from (Viard's) performance, which is as big as life.

Crouching Tiger's dramatic line is so blurry that the central character is only a bystander to the climactic fight between forces of good and evil.

A dark and unsparing study of female masochism and a brittle sex comedy of manners, Romance is unsettled in tone, to say the least.

It remains one of the most wrenching films about adolescent angst, thanks largely to the performance of Phil Daniels.

The most audacious debut feature of the year.

Unabashedly personal and uncool...but between you and me, dear reader, I love it to death.

The relationship between the hysterical Gerard and the careful, compulsive George is classic screwball material and more compelling than the relationship between George and Alicia.

As ethereal, moving, and uncompromising as its subject.

Justman's A Trial in Prague acts as something of a corrective to the exuberant but oversimplified "Fighter."

It seems like a more witty, wise, and succinct "Magnolia."

Takes us inside the consciousness and the coded masculine world of a single character.

Isn't convincing on every front, but as a political conversation piece, it's potentially effective.

A magisterial film, but not quite a great one.

What gives the film extra weight is the sense that these are not just actors trying to enhance their careers but real people seizing a chance for immortality.

Prince-Bythewood gives the film a style that's easy on the eye but also has muscle -- on and off the court.

It could be described as the most gripping political thriller to hit the big screen in many years, although given the events it depicts through interviews, photographs, and news footage, the words "gripping" and "thriller" have inappropriately frivolous and commercial associations.

There are big crowd scenes, intimate close-ups, and lots of bug’s-eye point-of-view shots. Call me gullible: I believed every second of it.

As fragmented and unresolved as the experiences of mother and daughter, Alma bears witness to a situation for which there are no easy answers.

Goodman and Anker adroitly shape a cohesive drama out of a complicated history.

A tender and hilarious vision of female adolescence.

Eccentric and thoroughly winning.

Thanks to some brilliant casting, Venus Beauty Institute provokes ideas about women, movies, sexuality, and age that extend beyond its frothy fiction.

A spare, formally ingenious, journalistically acute piece of filmmaking.

Compelling viewing, even if there's nothing pretty (pictorially or emotionally) about it.

Not as skillful, subtle, or hilarious as "Some Like It Hot," but its anti-essentialism vis-à-vis gender roles is just as sharp and exhilarating.

Josh Aronson's thoroughly engrossing documentary Sound and Fury is as much about children's rights as it is about the impact of cochlear-implant technology on a family in which deafness runs through three generations.

Derails toward the end, becoming platitudinous, not to mention kitschy, but, given the Cheerios wholesomeness of most gay indies, its grief-stricken delirium is a welcome relief.

A veritable Chekhov tragicomedy of provincial life.

Arik Kaplun's smart, scrappy romantic comedy Yana's Friends displays an insouciance rarely found in Israeli film.

Dorothy and Petula leave a bloodier trail than Thelma and Louise did.

What’s remarkable—and Kafkaesque—about La Sentinelle is how Desplechin grounds the phantasmagoric aspects of his tale in the details, routines, and conflicts of daily life.

Along with Raoul Coutard's radiant cinematography, what makes the film extraordinary is Karina, the pure curves of her face a contradiction to the marionette angularity of her body.

Even more than the subtlety of the writing and acting, it's this sophisticated and emotionally potent visual strategy that suggests Barbieri's promise as a filmmaker and lifts One above the low-budget indie heap.

This is one scary movie, not because we see ghosts or monsters, but because Kidman makes us feel her fear as our own.

There are long stretches in Sexy Beast that are so exhilarating it feels churlish to dwell on its flaws.

Downey, who radiates more energy doing nothing discernible than most other actors do when they let it all hang out, takes the film to another level.

By turns hilarious and wounding.

Psychologically resonant despite the intermittently clunky performances...one of the only Amerindies in recent years to match intellectual with formal ambitions.

The relationship is touching, painful, revealing, and often funny, which is true of the film as a whole as well.

The style of the filmmaking, the freewheeling handheld camera movement, the associative editing, and the buoyant Brazilian score convey Anderson's sense that chance plays a major role in our lives and that what's happening on the periphery is often more important than what's staring us in the face.

The 7Up series is thus one of the rare documentaries to have had a positive practical effect on the life of at least one of its subjects.

A smart, realist drama -- I wouldn't be surprised if this one winds up on my 10-best list for '99.

This adaptation of John Irving's novel--- is as paternalistic, puffed-up, and dull as a congressional debate about abortion rights.

As smooth and powerfully packed as its protagonist.

Everything about the film is familiar except that the twentysomethings are all African American.

A small, direct, tantalizing documentary.

Rampling has never been as beautiful, not to mention as emotionally naked, nuanced, and affecting as she is here.

Probably more terse than it needs to be, but the dramatic line has an elegance and drive that reinforces the unexpected turns of the story.

Eads's wit, generosity, insight, and courage are irresistible.

A very beautiful film, but its bleached desert colors and flatter perspectives are less inviting, and the back-and-forth between present and past can occasionally be confusing.

Primary story line is clumsy and badly acted. But he (Lee) reminds you that movies have power, that they matter, and for a few brilliant moments, Bamboozled matters more than any other American movie this year.

This is the Julia Roberts performance her fans have been waiting for.

A smart, sweet, and altogether smashing evocation of teenage girlhood.

The many eight-to-11-year-olds in the audience seemed completely enthralled.

An understated gem.

Although I don't begrudge Borchardt his year of fame, what he doesn't seem to understand about his exploitation creeps me out.

Singer achieves remarkable intimacy with his subjects.

Despite Sunshine's historical scope and multiplicity of characters, it doesn't shed half as much light on its subject -- identity and anti-Semitism -- as does, for example, Agnieszka Holland's claustrophobic chamber piece "Angry Harvest."

While the acting ensemble is crucial, it's not the only asset here.

Tender, poignant, and homoerotically charged, this complicated father-son relationship is brought to life by two brilliant actors and a director who's canny enough to give them all the room they need.

A pop culture document for a mass audience.

Filled with vivid and likable characters, The Opportunists could be the basis for a TV series as captivating as "The Sopranos."

What's most stunning about Raging Bull is the tension between 19th-century melodrama and 20th-century psychodrama, the narrative form brought into being by the conjunction of Freudian theory and the mechanics of the movie camera.

Series 7 could have turned out as ugly as the second season of "Survivor," were it not for the pleasure Minahan takes in melodrama.

(You) might be charmed by the film's blend of kineticism, car-culture rituals, and hilariously flat-footed dialogue.

The show that Horrocks puts on when she finally takes to the stage is more than worth the wait.

It's entertainment that never lets us off the hook.

Restrained, tough, and subtle enough to be as engrossing on the second viewing as it was on the first.

Has all the hallmarks of a Pennebaker production. The editing is seamless, the drama builds throughout, and the arc of the central character is as shapely as in a Hollywood fiction.

Cross "Rushmore" with "Cheech and Chong" and you might get Outside Providence.

We may not want another film about incest, but there's a necessity about this one that won't be denied.

Time has tamed some of the terror and eroticism of Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, but it’s still a haunting thriller about guilt and the supernatural. What’s notable (more notable even than the much celebrated bedroom scene between Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, in which sex is displaced into memory even as it’s taking place) is that Roeg’s use of the death of a child as the focus of a horror film never feels exploitative.

Antoine Fuqua's propulsive, elegantly written police thriller, offers the unsettling spectacle of Denzel Washington.

Inept as a thriller, Place Vendôme nevertheless intrigues.

Made with intelligence and formal sophistication.

The most progressive, good-hearted studio film of the summer.

His film is hardly memorable, but it's amusing enough for two hours, and it never panders or cloys.

A film of rare tenderness and mystery.

So low-key it could be mistaken for a throwaway. But Meadows's understanding of childhood fears and fantasies and the yearning, heartfelt performances he draws from his two young actors should not be underestimated.

A witty, trenchant script, lots of complicated characters, and a few actors who turn human frailty into something nearly sublime.

Largely a showcase for Puri, and he rises to the occasion with a performance that bursts from the screen and tears into your heart.