Janet Maslin

Kubrick left one more brilliantly provocative tour de force as his epitaph.

Brilliantly schematic, endlessly fascinating...this prescient 1958 spellbinder can now be admired as the deepest, darkest masterpiece of Hitchcock's career. [Restored version]

A deeply felt, deceptively simple film that marks the high point of Mr. Eastwood's directing career thus far.

Mr. Cage digs deep to find his character's inner demons while also capturing the riotous energy of his outward charm.

Something special.

Wonderfully funny behind-the-scenes look at the perils of film making, no-budget style.

The best western in a long while is Barbarosa, a film that uses one American legend, Willie Nelson, to create another.

Mr. Bogosian's venomously funny play, which he adapted himself for the screen, is given warmth and generosity by Mr. Linklater, whose elegantly fluid direction and great skill with actors are accentuated by the play's spareness.

Smoothly directed and acted with glee... showing quick-witted comic spirit.

Mr. Boorman, working in top form with a keenly acerbic overview, has written the film so sharply that the facts speak well for themselves.

Jerry Maguire is loaded with them: bright, funny, tender encounters between characters who seem so winningly warm and real.

Wag the Dog, the poison-tipped political satire that's as scarily plausible as it is swift, hilarious and impossible to resist.

More so than the exuberant movie miracles that came before it, this latest animated juggernaut has the feeling of a clever, predictable product. To its great advantage, it has been contrived with a spirited, animal-loving prettiness no child will resist.

A small, personal, independently made film with the sweep of El Norte, with solid, sympathetic performances by unknown actors and a visual style of astonishing vibrancy, must be regarded as a remarkable accomplishment. [11 Jan 1984, p.15]

His sumptuous film is as strange and mesmerizing as it is imaginatively ghastly. It's a sophisticated, spookily intense rendering of Ms. Rice's story.

Mr. Pollack's film runs into these obstacles so hard, in fact, that it runs right over them without difficulty. His "Sabrina" succeeds as a breezy, lighthearted throwback, made without benefit of the Hepburn magic but with much else in its favor.

BLACK humor, abundant originality and a brilliant visual style make Joel Coen's Blood Simple a directorial debut of extraordinary promise.

Ms. Garofalo, in a lovely, winning performance, gives Abby lots of heart while also making defensive snappishness a big part of her charm.

Ronin can be watched as appreciatively for its hard-boiled performances as for its visceral excitement.

Mr. Day-Lewis, looking wearily rugged and battling his way through several plausible boxing matches, once again breathes fire into the character of a high-minded loner, and his vitality lends real force to the film's moral arguments.

As directed by George Miller, this film has an appealingly brisk, unsentimental style and a rare ability to compress and convey detailed medical data. It also displays tremendous compassion for all three Odones and what they have been through.

Elegant and deeply disquieting drama.

If the film doesn't add up to a cogent legal argument, neither does it have trouble delivering 2 hours and 20 minutes' worth of sturdy, highly charged drama.

Diner isn't lavish or long, but it's the sort of small, honest, entertaining movie that should never go out of style, even in an age of sequels and extravaganzas.

Makes jaunty, imaginative use of both extraordinary technology and bold storytelling possibilities within the insect world.

Mr. Redford has found his own visually eloquent way to turn the potboiler into a panorama, with a deep-seated love for the Montana landscape against which his rapturously beautiful film unfolds.

Before we go numb from such prefab excitement, here comes a mega-movie that actually delivers what mega-movies promise: strong characters, smart plotting, breathless action and a gimmick that hasn't been seen before.

Handsome and impassioned, vigorously staged by the director of ''The Madness of King George,'' this ''Crucible'' is a reminder of the play's wide reach, which goes well beyond witch trials in any century. As adapted gamely by the playwright into a screenplay that takes advantage of scenic backgrounds and photogenic stars, ''The Crucible'' now speaks to subtler forms of dishonesty and opportunism than it did before.