David Sterritt

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.