David Sterritt

Weir had a truly magical touch in early films like this 1977 masterpiece, which offers a transfixing excursion into the "dream time" of Australian myth.

Stranger than fiction, indeed.

Green tells the tale through leisurely, eye-catching shots that allow the young cast members to imbue their characters with striking credibility and intensity.

Kubrick's great 1964 tragicomedy about superpowers on the nuclear brink continues to fascinate new generations of moviegoers, as its frequent reissues attest. A genuine classic.

Moody, atmospheric, and bewitching, like other first-rate examples of modern Thai cinema.

Egoyan's cinematic brilliance shows up intermittently in this atmospheric thriller, which gains most of its punch from Hoskins's surprisingly subtle performance.

The rock scene hasn't been the same since this hilarious 1984 comedy.

Masterly by any measure.

On screen as on the stage, Glengarry Glen Ross is a powerhouse experience - forcefully written, bruisingly performed, and one of the most thoughtful American films in recent memory. [29 Sep 1992, p.11]

What distinguishes the movie is its inventive, multifaceted way of questioning whether the "truth" of past events can ever be separated from the memories, longings, and scanty evidence that inextricably surrounds it.

It's a terrific movie, smart and funny enough to hold up at any time of year.

In sum, the classical Ron Howard and his splendid cast have made a spellbinding movie that joins "Million Dollar Baby," as well as "Raging Bull," the first two "Rocky" pictures, and "Fat City" as one of boxing cinema's all-time heavyweight champs.

This kind of quiet ambiguity, avoiding easy answers to complex human conflicts, is all too rare in American movies.

Put Roeg's powerful cinematic style on the cultural map.

Smart, funny, stimulating.

Magical movie, which has brilliant fun with the contrasts between film and theater, love and infatuation, reality and fantasy.

Iran's greatest filmmaker is fond of stripping personalities bare through conversations they have while riding in cars. Here he pushes his favorite dramatic device to its limit.

An astonishing human, political, and historical document.

Obviously a profoundly personal film, but it's also a smartly conducted tour through the world of building and design that Kahn towered over during the most successful phases of his career.

This superbly filmed Italian drama stands with Bellocchio's best work. Originally titled "Ora di religione."

LaBute is coming of age as an artist, and his future looks brighter than I ever would have suspected a year ago. Enfant terrible or not, he's starting to become a substantial figure in American film.

Articulate interviews and an unusually creative visual style make the picture as lively to watch as it is illuminating to think about.

The chief reason for its legendary reputation is the brilliant match between its timeless historical subject - the trial that required Joan to defend her faith before skeptical representatives of church and state - and Dreyer's decision to film it primarily in relentless close-ups, using the sharply etched faces of his performers to suggest the invisible spiritual struggles going on beneath the drama's human dimensions.

Hou's sensitivity plus Ozu's inspiration equals sublimity of sight and sound.

Superbly acted, cleverly written, sensitively directed.

It combines a fresh and exciting style with stunning performances and that rarity in current film, a deeply humanistic story.

Beneath its surface of chronic suffering and hospital details, Chereau's best drama etches a humane, sensitive, and richly moving portrait of fraternal love struggling to mitigate human frailty.

The movie is remarkably touching and engrossing, with Kline's spot-on acting and realistically second-rate singing balancing Judd's one-note performance as his wife.

Along with its historical value, The Weather Underground is also a terrific movie, energetic, and articulate. It's the don't-miss documentary of the season.

One of the most entertaining films ever made by the legendary Maysles brothers and their gifted associates. [17 Apr 1998, p.B2]

Not a masterpiece, but definitely one of the year's most entertaining movies.

The expanded "Redux" is even more resonant - partly because of its added material, and partly because the passage of time has increased the film's value as a key cultural document of the Vietnam War era and its aftermath. It's a movie not to be missed.

Take a chance on Gerry. It's only a movie, and you'll get out alive no matter what happens on the screen. You might even find you've had a rare adventure.

Worth a dozen "Blair Witch Projects," with much more harrowing psychology and pithy dialogue. It's a bone-chilling plunge into no-holds-barred storytelling.

The best is "Equilibrium" by Soderbergh, about a man being analyzed by a distracted shrink.

Not a great movie, but a valuable and revealing document.

Everyone raves about this 1957 film -- and everyone's right.

Timely, pointed messages about oppression and opportunity come poignantly through in strongly dramatic terms.

It's inexplicable that Wong's early masterpiece has been virtually absent from American screens since he completed it in 1991.

If it weren't so smartly filmed and acted, this might add up to an over-the-top mess. But watch how inventively Mr. Antal keeps the action moving and you'll see why his picture has won a passel of prizes.

The movie is a portrait, not a polemic -- but I can't imagine an attentive viewer leaving Love & Diane without increased understanding and concern with regard to inner-city life.

Metropolis has a place in world history as well as in the annals of fantasy. Adolf Hitler was said to have loved it, and Lang eventually fled Germany for Hollywood when the Third Reich wanted him to run its movie industry. Few movies of any era offer so much varied food for thought, cinematically and politically. Its new restoration is a major motion-picture event.

The drama's elegant structure, which takes you through a series of surprises so smoothly and logically that it might be over before you realize you've seen one of the new year's most intriguing, intelligent movies.

Filmed in a leisurely, understated style, this dark comedy is downright entrancing. A spectacular directorial debut.

As quietly dazzling as a small, very precious stone.

Kim's movie conjures a sense of spiritual discipline as suspenseful as it is stunning to watch and exhilarating to contemplate.

What makes the film stunning is less its metaphorical scheme than its cinematic style. Always a matter of flowing camera movement, Kubrick has photographed much of the action with long "traveling shots" that capture time and space as a seamless whole, not fractured into the bits and pieces of standard editing techniques. [26 June 1987]

Brilliant, poetic, and utterly unique.

A glistening gem among caper movies, this impeccably elegant jewel-heist drama takes its title from Buddhist lore, its cast from France's great gallery of leading men, and its style from the unique blend of cinematic savoir-faire and brooding existential angst.

Smart and sumptuous.

Sensitive, imaginative.

This is a lively, life-affirming documentary no viewer is likely to forget.

A scrupulously balanced look at the subject outlined in the title. Packed with historical, sociological, and cultural context.

Its best moments offer a sense of motion-picture poetry that will lift receptive viewers out of their seats.

A profound film by a legendary director in the greatest period of his career.

Riveting, suspenseful, and a perfect antidote to the too-tricky documentary "Super-Size Me."

It's a troubling, courageous, compulsively watchable work of art.

This poetic and compassionate drama by Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan combines the intricate structure of his earlier movies with an emotional power that raises his remarkable career to a whole new level.

A true American tragedy, directed with skill and conviction.

The delights of the movie lie in its zany characters, its goofy settings, and above all its surrealistic visual style.

Always hard-hitting and often grimly, revealingly satirical.

This deliciously offbeat Canadian comedy gets its charm from marvelous acting and from a screenplay bursting with ideas. Great fun.

This is a funny, sad, stunningly smart movie about the end of movies, made in Tsai's inimitable, unblinking style. No movie lover should miss it.

The tale is simply told but stunningly photographed and superbly acted in the best tradition of modern Iranian cinema.

Imaginatively acted, endlessly atmospheric.

This great masterpiece of German film is evocative and inventive from its first shot to its last.

This is a great companion piece to Hou's masterly "Flowers of Shanghai" and fresh evidence of his status as Taiwan's greatest filmmaker.

Hoffman's acting is poignant and compassionate, etching a profoundly sad character with no trace of compromise, and Bates gives one of her most controlled performances ever.

Intelligent, revealing, and sometimes hilarious.

The performances of this quiet Iranian drama are utterly genuine, and the story is a delicate blend of slice-of-life realism and soft-spoken social commentary.

Harrowing, informative, conscientiously balanced documentary. [14 Jan 2005, p.14]

The movie's underlying theme is the complex relationship between objects and memories, worked out through a taut, compelling story and superbly understated acting. Ryuichi Sakamoto composed the atmospheric score.

Stands with the greatest science-fiction movies ever made.

Aniston and Reilly give the best of many excellent performances. A few plotty scenes aside, this quietly directed drama paints a sensitive, sympathetic portrait of modern malaise, and has a smart sense of humor as a bonus.

Berri lets the story develop in a leisurely and organic way, capping it with a last scene that's subtle and satisfying. Jean-Pierre Bacri is just right as the man and Emilie Dequenne is perfect as the maid.

Hearing her speak her finely honed mind in unscripted, un-"handled" terms is worth the price of admission in itself.

Masina gives one of her most expressive performances.

All told, he's (Linklater) one of today's most versatile American filmmakers, and Before Sunset finds his light shining as brightly as ever.

Thoughtful, exciting, moving.

The movie's main contribution is its fresh look at the Vietnam War, being refought in the Kerry-Bush presidential campaign at the time of the film's release.

Superb acting and authentic details energize this rare Iran/Iraq coproduction.

It's the year's cleverest comedy in more ways than one. The animated sequences are brilliant... Most important, the story also has dark overtones that lend a hint of seriousness to what could have been just silly. [24 June 1988]

Informative documentary about the recent history of efforts to legalize gay marriage, tying these in with the history of marriage as an institution.

Riveting and unique.

This highly challenging, deeply philosophical Iranian drama focuses on a man who has decided to end his life but first drives through the countryside in search of a compassionate stranger who'll agree to give him a proper burial. At once a compelling human story and an utterly fresh piece of moviemaking, the picture reconfirms Kiarostami's growing reputation as one of world film's most original talents. [20 March 1998, p.B2]

Its dark-toned cinematography by Henri Decaë still packs a wallop, and the screenplay has a refreshing sense of humor.

A fascinating nonfiction voyage into rural and urban France, focusing on idiosyncratic individuals who live off things the rest of us throw away, from food to furniture.

As stylish as it is suspenseful.

Surely the best fiction film ever made on a jazz subject.

Wong has acquired a loyal cult following over the years, and Dupont's exquisitely filmed episodes show why.

Charged with humanity and compassion.

Quiet, mysterious, sometimes violent, ultimately close to sublime.

In the hands of a lesser talent, this might have become a self-conscious stunt, but in Hitchcock's it has the tightly wound perfection of a flawless sonnet or sonata.

Stunningly acted. [21 September 1990, The Arts, p.12]

A quintessential New York director made this quintessential New York movie in 1973, with Pacino at his best.

Utterly unsentimental, deeply moving.

This thriller is ingeniously woven with motifs suggesting the difficulty of seeing and understanding truth, and substitutes psychological chills for commonplace gore.

Its leisurely, deliberative style is a perfect complement to the emotions it deals with - emotions so penetrating that I warn you at the outset how jarringly intense you may find Bergman's most brilliant drama in decades.