Frank Lovece

Manages to inject more than a little humor into this tension-filled genre classic.

Serenely stunning.

Refreshing, innovative and immensely funny.

A brilliant surrealistic joke about a group of friends whose attempts to dine are continually thwarted.

A radiant, heartbreaking film.

This may be the warmest movie the Coen brothers have ever made. There's something unmistakably human beneath the oh-so-clever surface.

Feel-good tone notwithstanding (and creepy to boot), there are nagging riddles about the Helfgott story that the film has neither the nerve nor the sense to tackle.

The film ends with a return to the beach, and one of the most psychologically chilling and expertly photographed shots imaginable.

A collection of interconnected vignettes shot as live-action digital video footage which is then 'fed into' computer animation software, Linklater's latest film is an audacious, ambitious undertaking. There's a surreal yet consistent logic to it, which is the film's biggest accomplishment.

The atmosphere is Southern Gothic pure enough to do Carson McCullers proud -- grotesque, sentimental and dankly nasty -- and Thornton manages not to undermine his own writing.

Colossally entertaining.

This truly terrifying film version of the best-selling Blatty novel is far superior to the book.

Captures the way drug addiction gives structure and purpose to aimless lives, and evokes the breathtaking rapture of a fix. All this and a happy ending, too.

While the unfortunate epilogue strains the naturalism of what's gone on before and leaves a bit of a sour taste, this semi-improvisational comedy otherwise reaches Balzacian brilliance.

In a film mercifully free of the usual warm and fuzzy movie sentimentality, director Maggie Greenwald and her fine cast shatter most hillbilly stereotypes.

With grace and cleverness, mixing romance and comedy in a genuinely delightful way.

The film proceeds from an utterly fascinating notion. As with A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Spielberg's admirable intent is to create a prescient, serious science-fiction movie.

The ever-charismatic character actor George Coe stands out as a small-town jeweler grateful for a late-life affair.

From the opening lines to the epilogue (one of the film's few misfires), this taut first feature from TV producer and novelist Henry Bromell sustains a taut mood of unease and isolation, and the ensemble performances (TV starlet Campbell's included) have the qualities of the highest-caliber stage work.

The movie sticks with you as few do: It's rewardingly authentic and emotionally real.

An effective and moving drama about the strength of the human spirit and the will to survive.

The effect is one of gorgeous puppets, a removed perspective that makes some of the most powerful political and social events in history seem like the sad, desperate flailing of monkeys.

This is no film for the squeamish.

If you've never seen a martial arts movie, this is a great place to start.

Delightful, off-the-wall, and ultimately moving.

A comic masterpiece.

This is as powerful a set of evidence as you'll ever find of why art matters, and how it can resonate far beyond museum walls and through to the most painfully marginal lives.

The combat visuals that follow are as powerful as those of any war film.