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An astonishing human, political, and historical document.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.