Jack Mathews

This year’s foreign language Oscar scandal – there is always at least one – is the snub of director Cristian Mungiu’s disturbing, masterful realist drama following two college roommates as they carry out plans for one’s black market abortion in Communist Romania.

That (cinéma-vérité) feel is absolutely convincing, as are the performances.

Turns everything we know about the contemporary world on its head, and substitutes it with one in which spirits, monsters, magicians and animals mix it up in a carnival of energy, good humor and freewheeling illusion.

As joyously energetic now as the day it arrived.

A gorgeous, wonderfully inventive computer-animated comedy.

Passes like an evening spent with friends.

What stands out, not surprisingly, is the work and passion that goes into the shows. But seeing all this from the inside creates an extraordinary level of empathy for those involved.

The best comedy of 2004. In fact, it's so far the best movie of the year.

The most emotionally satisfying because, in addition to having both more intimate drama and more spectacular battles, it resolves all of the issues raised before.

Intermittently funny.

With a grating symphonic score by ­Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood and the constant sense of danger following Plainview, "Blood" does not release its grip on the audience until its last, bizarrely crazy minutes.

If the structure is a tad out of whack, "No Country" does not lack for action or suspense. Some of the scenes of Chigurh's stalking of Moss are nearly unbearably tense. Bring your worry beads.

Universally appealing story that plays as well now as it did on opening day a half-century ago. Maybe better.

Given the near total absence of intellectually ambitious American movies today, a critic's first impulse after seeing Francis Ford Coppola's reedited Apocalypse Now may be to treat it as the new, improved version he says it is and proclaim it a masterpiece - if not in 1979, then now. But it's not that simple: Apocalypse Now Redux is not a new movie, and neither is it necessarily improved.

For Hobbitués and adventure fans of all other ages, it's the year's best thrill ride -- maybe the best film.

If you've got the patience, this is still one of the all-time exercises in cinematic cool.

Don't miss The Fast Runner. If you do, you will deprive yourself of not only one of the most intriguing feature-film projects in decades and enough plain-spoken anthropology for three credits at Harvard, but one of the most flat-out entertaining movies of the year.

A smartly written, confidently directed film that delivers big laughs while developing two of the year's most earnest characters and some of its most rewarding sentiments.

The memories recalled here aren't epic tales, just moments that make life worth living. Like seeing a good movie. [12 May 1999, p.44]

Funny, insightful, unpredictable and blessed with pitch-perfect performances, Ghost World is one of the year's best movies.

The naturalistic dialogue is a masterful bit of writing, credited to Linklater and his "Sunrise" co-writer Kim Krizan, as well as to the two stars.

In some ways, The Queen is a comedy of manners - bad, good and archaic. The formal bowing and scraping surrounding Her Majesty is as hilarious as it is (apparently) accurate.

Whether Adam Sandler can actually act is not actually answered in Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love. But he's great in it.

Surges forward with barely a respite. It's like watching a propane factory burn, waiting for the tanks inside to explode, and when they do, we're right in the middle of it.

As inventive as "Being John Malkovich," as psychologically quirky as "Ghost World" and as honest as the day is long.

A hive of broad, brilliant performances.

A by-the-numbers, let's-put-on-a-show quasi-musical that has absolutely nothing going for it, except Alba.

A great movie -- and the best movie ever about the '70s rock era.

This is melodrama with broad theatrical flourishes, but Dietrich's sensuality is still a natural wonder, and with a new print, the Film Forum run offers a rare opportunity to see it big-screen-size.

I wouldn't recommend the movie to anyone, but if the families of the victims take something positive from it, as their cooperation with Greengrass suggests they do, that's justification enough.

The black-and-white animation won't dazzle your eyes, but everything else about Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's adaptation of Satrapi's graphic comic book series Persepolis will hold you in its thrall.

A masterpiece? Probably. Ingenious? Absolutely! Unforgettable? I'll see you at the 10th-year anniversary.

Except for Hempf, every character is under incredible duress, and the performances are exceptional. With his first feature, an Oscar nominee for foreign-language film, von Donnersmarck has certainly left his mark.

Though Borat has been likened to "Jackass," there's a huge difference. The "Jackass" movies are about extreme stunts. Borat is about interaction and gullibility, and its success is unique to both Cohen and to this one-time-only movie.

The most compelling and least partisan of all the Iraq documentaries.

Bale gives a near-great performance as a man with all the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia and the film weaves an ingenious psychological web.

"Letters" isn't about numbers or the battle or even the morality of war. It's about the sanctity of life and how we value our own.

The story itself is a smooth little gem.

What "Capote" fails to reveal to the audience is the sense of a homoerotic attraction between the author and Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.). It is more than implied that one exists, but there isn't a scene between them that supports it or even makes it believable.

Though made 31 years after D-Day, the dramatic scenes have the period look of a '40s movie, which links them perfectly with the stunning archival footage.

A well-crafted indictment of the dark side of the modern work ethic.

Allen was out of his element in creating characters who feel like East Coast cousins of the Clampetts, and his dialogue has never been more banal or forced.

The Two Towers moves faster, covers more ground, has more action and -- with the introduction of the marvelous character Gollum -- packs some much-appreciated laughs.

Amadeus is about as close to perfection as movies get. [2002 Director's Cut]

A love story told from the point of impact, at the heart, and no conventional resolution could be more profound.

If Lazarescu's experience is typical in the former Soviet bloc, democracy hasn't done much to humanize the bureaucracy.

The film's greatest strength is its inadvertent timeliness. Parallels between LBJ's Vietnam policy and George W. Bush's Iraq policy go off in your head like flares.

On one level, Microcosmos is the strangest act of voyeurism ever recorded, with bugs caught au naturel, eating, working, metamorphosing. We're even treated to a steamy scene of unexpurgated snail sex. When this couple gets together, it redefines intimacy and stick-to-itiveness. On another level, the film is a spectacle and celebration of life, in all its phases. [11 Oct 1996, p.F15]

When it comes to sports movies, there's nothing like the real thing, and there's never been anything quite as real as the documentary Murderball.

Despite the audience pandering -- not just in its violence, but in its wall-to-wall sexual vulgarity -- there are terrific elements in Baby Boy.

I love this series; it's possibly the most exciting use of the documentary medium ever.

It's a human drama, drawn in such careful emotional detail, its two acts of violence -- one shown, one not -- are almost incidental.

Arguably Lumet's best film in 20 years.

Amy Berg's riveting documentary, tracks O'Grady's predatory trail from San Andreas, Calif., to Ireland, where he is now living on a church pension that was apparently meant to buy his silence.

This quiet yet jolting meditation on love, obsession, loneliness, friendship and fate has the quality to entrance you through a first viewing, and compel you to take its themes and characters home with you for further consideration.

A powerful, deeply moving tale, immeasurably facilitated by the performance of relatively unknown Hilary Swank as Brandon...smartly shot and edited, and the performances are dead-on.

What Andersen does best is capture the sense of growing up and living among the landmarks of Hollywood's authentic back lot.

Turgoose, in his first film role, is entirely convincing as the strong-willed but naïve Shaun, and Graham is a genuine fright as the feral prototype of the violent skinhead culture on the horizon.

Sitting through the film is punishing work. The jittery closeups create a response that is more physical (I'm thinking nausea) than emotional, and there are no respites.

Compston, with Loach's uncanny guidance, gives a performance of such natural power you'd think you were watching a drama-class prodigy like James Dean rather than a moonlighting high-schooler.

It's in French with French actors, but its film noir sensibilities have a filtered Hollywood vibe about them. In other words, it's pretty much a mess.

A personal eulogy, from one artist to another, and an indictment of all systems of government that deny people the right to free expression and the full realization of their talent.

The Savages is a TV movie made for the big screen - and it needs the larger venue to accommodate the huge performances of its stars, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney.

A dazzlingly original visual adventure.

A combination homage, living obituary and darkly moody piece of cinematic poetry.

What follows is an extreme case of reverse courtship, which begins at conception and works backward toward getting to know each other, and then moves forward to one of the funniest birthing scenes ever filmed.

A movie-movie of the first rank.

It is not easy to watch, yet beyond the traps that society and the urban culture have set up for Drey and the other kids, and the traps that Dan is falling into on his own, this is ultimately a hopeful story of common humanity.

May be the best movie of the year.

Newark Mayor Sharpe James is the kind of politician that Tony Soprano would be happy to own.

You may have to go back to 1973's "Paper Moon" and the father/daughter work of Ryan O'Neal and 10-year-old Tatum for equal excellence in nepotism.

The characters are boring, the violence generic, the suspense nonexistent.

Personally, I'd rather have my brain invaded by flesh-eating beetles than listen to 10 seconds of the Sex Pistols -- Truth is, I've rarely had a worse time watching a good movie.

It is an amazing story, filled with quiet moments of profundity and more surprises than you could imagine.

It's an antidote to complacency. The question is, whom is it trying to wake up?

Cuarón relies on his ample visual style, and he has indeed created a film you cannot tear your eyes away from.

A solid delight, the sort of cinematic concoction you might expect from a time-warp collaboration between Preston Sturges and Jim Jarmusch.

One of the best things about Michael Apted's uniquely ambitious and continuing documentary series on the lives of a group of British schoolchildren is that you don't have to have seen the last one to enjoy the next.

May be the year's most derivative film, but it's also the most original.

Clever as it is, Blood Simple is derivative and self-consciously stylized.

Features some of the year's most beautiful scenery and two of its most wooden characters.

For a black comedy whose tangled sequence of events is completely improbable, Pedro Almodóvar's Volver feels absolutely authentic. So, think of everything as metaphor and enjoy one of the year's most delectably twisted treats.

What separates Diggers from its kin - notably the Ed Burns movies - is the testosterone balance of its masculine script and Dieckmann's sensitive direction. Maybe we need more buddy movies by women.

The film is at its most compelling when the witnesses are telling their stories, and at its least in covering Pinochet's circuitous legal route to Britain's House of Lords.

Glover, wearing his close-cropped hair in a pompadour and striking beady-eyed, furrow-browed poses that scare the hair off a tarantula, makes it as much fun as a rat revenge movie can be.

Farrell, adding to the case for his impending stardom, locks into his role with the laser precision of the sniper's rifle scope.

The Exorcist is still shocking, but mostly because of its graphic, anti-religious language. [2000 re-release]

Amen is propelled by a most dubious assumption -- Gerstein's belief that if the German people knew of the Holocaust, they'd stop it.

Strong stuff, compelling drama.

Ale's community is like a band of pirates - collegial, bickering, larcenous and supportive - and his life within it is both heartening and heartbreaking.

The things you can look forward to, however, are the humor, intellectual musing, emotional tumult, superb acting and challenging adult questions.

a despairing movie that you can't look away from, though you'll wish you could.

You have never seen a concert film like U2 3D, and it may change your expectations for the rest of your rocking years.

The whole system was sadistic and indefensible, and the church, looking the other way as long as profits rolled in from the laundries, deserves the scorn that Mullan and his fine cast heap on it.

The first must-see adult film of the young fall.

Depp may not be a trained singer, but his voice is more than passable, and his presence - his Sweeney is Edward Scissorhands gone bad - is perfect. Bonham Carter sings well, too, and young Ed Sanders, as the pie shop's Dickensian apprentice, is a delight.

The actors are solid at every position, but Broderick, who seems to get better with each performance, is especially good at playing the impulsively self-destructive yet sympathetic loser.

One of the most original and ultimately confounding mind games to reach the screen since "The Usual Suspects."