David Sterritt

Movies don't come more original, inventive, or outlandishly entertaining.

Unexpectedly entertaining, if you're willing to put up with the picture's stagy look, over-the-top moods, and heavy doses of vulgarity.

Exhilarating doses of style, imagination, and sheer energy.

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

With its ingenious camera style, keenly dramatic music score, and brash yet indomitable humor, Do the Right Thing is the richest and most thought-provoking portrait of underclass experience that Hollywood has ever given us.

This is as challenging as movies come, alluding to everything from philosopher Thomas Hobbes to the history of Western music.

Absorbing but disturbing documentary.

Stands with the greatest science-fiction movies ever made.

Superb performances by Setsuko Hara and the great Chishu Ryu also contribute to the film's impact, which is at once deeply moving and profoundly thoughtful about moral and spiritual issues. [10 Nov 1994, p.12]

This masterpiece of 1952 is one of the gentlest, subtlest tales from one of Japan's all-time-great filmmakers, combining the sweep of a novel with the intimacy of an elegy. [10 Jan 2003]

The credo of Italy's fabled neorealist movement was that movies rooted in real, unadorned experience carry more dramatic impact than studio concoctions can dream of, and this 1952 masterpiece exemplifies that argument brilliantly.

The movie is Allen's most successful in years, even if you don't see it as a self-made commentary on his own career. Credit goes less to the comic dialogue than to the razor-sharp performances of an excellent cast.

The timeless fairy tale about a young woman who agrees to dwell with a mysterious monster, as interpreted in 1946 by one of cinema's most brilliant visual stylists and mythmakers.

Doesn't make it a masterpiece, but it's fun. [2002 re-release]

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.

Expressively filmed story of rivalry, romance, and cultural conflict.

Far from the movie of the year, the first installment of the long-awaited Lord of the Rings trilogy is an all-around disappointment.

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.

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

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

This sometimes harrowing, often delightful drama stands with his (Sembène) most compassionate, colorful, and artfully filmed works.

Its refusal to draw solid lines between "good" and "evil" characters is more sophisticated than the psychology of most current commercial pictures. It's well worth a trek to a theater adventurous enough to show it.

The story is so complicated that the movie can't quite make it clear, but the picture has impressive energy and high-intensity performances from Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito, and Guy Pearce.

Smart, funny, and splendidly acted.

Children may enjoy it, aside from the youngest, who might find it too weird for comfort. Its main audience is adults, though. And not just any adults, but those in the mood for venturesome fare that's both surreal and hilarious.

Brando made one of his most indelible impressions in this relentlessly dramatic, ever-controversial tale of loyalty and betrayal in the world of working-class unions.

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.

Has social, psychological, and ultimately mystical overtones that raise it leagues above most other teen-centered comedies.