Kenneth Turan

Mad Max: Fury Road will leave you speechless, which couldn't be more appropriate. Words are not really the point when it comes to dealing with this barn-burner of a post-apocalyptic extravaganza in which sizzling, unsettling images are the order of the day.

Intense, immersive and in control, Winter's Bone has an art house soul inside a B picture body, and that proves to be a potent combination indeed.

In a commanding performance that is as compelling as it is unexpected, Mirren has turned The Queen into something you never imagined it could be: a crackling dramatic story that's intelligent, thoughtful and moving.

Artistic, obsessive and intoxicating, I Called Him Morgan is a documentary with a creative soul, and that makes all the difference.

Charming and outlandish by turns, this misfit love story of disconnected people trying to find one another in an antagonistic world is a comedy of discomfort and rage that turns unexpectedly sweet and pure.

Once positions hardened, tragedy was all but inevitable, and Bloody Sunday" does the spirit of that awful day full and unforgettable justice.

It's the style of the thing, not the plot, that is the attraction here, the great way the cast has with the snarky dialogue.

Fascinating for what it signifies as much as what it shows, This Is Not a Film illustrates how Panahi is struggling to stay alive creatively and, paradoxically, can't help but demonstrate how much of a natural filmmaker he is.

The best break of all is that Pixar's traditionally untethered imagination can't be kept under wraps forever, and "Nemo" erupts with sea creatures that showcase Stanton and company's gift for character and peerless eye for skewering contemporary culture.

A bit longer than it might be, a bit more attached to its digressions than we might wish. But the length does encourage the feeling that we've been through the whole creative process with Gilbert and Sullivan .

If you're in the mood for a hip-hop film with more happy faces than "The Partridge Family," Honey will divert you.

A clever and outrageous piece of whimsical fantasy that is unique, unpredictable and more than a little strange.

Bird has created the unprecedented film that is not just a grand feature-length cartoon but a grand feature, period, a piece of animation that's involving across a spectrum of comedy, action, even drama.

To borrow a marketing phrase from another, very different film, A Prophet really is the movie that reminds you why you love the movies. Especially movies like this one.

See it and it'll stay with you as your own memories do: funny, poignant, bittersweet and irreplaceable.

Passionate, tempestuous, haunting and assured, this latest from writer-director Pawel Pawlikowski explores, as did his Oscar-winning “Ida,” Poland’s recent past, resulting in a potent emotional story with political overtones that plays impeccably today.

Adventurous, provocative, even daring.

The music is so rich and completely satisfying and the characters so appealing Once makes us believe that this is all happening right in front of our eyes. We fall for each of these young people at the precise moment they are falling for each other, and what could be better than that?

When on-the-ground reality is conveyed with the complexity and fascination it is here, unforgettable documentaries are always the result.

Made by a first-time feature director working with a microscopic budget and a tiny, 11-year-old protagonist, it’s a 72-minute wonder, a self-assured, gently mysterious little film that is hypnotic in unexpected ways.

Disturbing, disorienting, quietly terrifying, it's one of the least known of the world's great horror movies and, in its own dark way, a startlingly beautiful and artful piece of cinema as well.

It’s a mark of Greengrass’ unequaled gift for believably re-creating reality that, once seen, it’s impossible to get United 93 out of your mind, no matter how much you may want to.

Overmatched by the strange and compelling true story that is its subject, this unfortunate film ends up both more disingenuous than it wants to admit and more awkward than it can easily acknowledge.

[Russell's] dizzying, outlandishly entertaining American Hustle is a 21-first century screwball farce about 20th-century con men, scam artists and those who dream of living large, a film that is big hearted and off the wall in equal measure.

A beautifully done adaptation of the novel, polished, elegant and completely cinematic. It is also a bit distant, a film that doesn't wear its feelings on its sleeve, but given the effects it's after, that would be counterproductive. [17 Sept 1993, Calendar, p.F-1]

Those who see it will, quite frankly, not believe their luck. It is that satisfying, that engrossing, that good.

It's a film of unexpected, almost indescribable off-center charm that deepens as it goes on.

It convincingly demonstrates that when done right, moral and political quandaries can be the most intensely dramatic dilemmas of all.

While some individuals are inevitably more compelling than others, as a whole the entire series, and 63 Up in particular, is completely enveloping as it draws us into the latest happenings of these people we’ve followed for so long.

A provocative political thriller that is as troubling today as when it came out in 1970. Maybe more so.

Writer-director Steven Zaillian proves as much of a prodigy as his chess-playing subject, turning out a film that is a beautifully calibrated model of honestly sentimental filmmaking, made with delicacy, restraint and unmistakable emotional power. The feelings it goes for are almost never the easy or obvious ones, and the levers it presses are all the more effective because of that.

This is a police procedural, if you will, about what's been called the artistic crime of the century.

Echoes the unmistakable freshness and excitement of the Nouvelle Vague, the sense of joy in being alive and making movies, that made those works distinctive and unforgettable.

This small gem of a movie always feels true and real as it gently reveals the quiet moments that define our lives.

With his corrosive brand of take-no-prisoners humor that scalds on contact, Cohen is the most intentionally provocative comedian since Lenny Bruce and early Richard Pryor, with a difference. For unlike those predecessors, there is a mean-spiritedness, an every-man-for-himself coldness about his humor. The one kind of laughter you won't find in Borat is that which acknowledges shared humanity. Instead, there is that pitiless staple of reality TV, watching others humiliate themselves for our viewing pleasure.

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya is a marvel of Japanese animation, a hand-drawn, painterly epic that submerges us in a world of beauty.

As if to prove that the unlikeliest material can make for the best films, The Madness of King George, directed by Nicholas Hytner from Alan Bennett's prize-winning play, has taken this footnote to history and transformed it into one of the triumphs of the year--potent, engrossing and even thrilling to experience.

Phoenix is an intoxicating witches' brew, equal parts melodrama and moral parable, that audaciously mixes diverse elements to compelling, disturbing effect.

Its style is spare, rigorous, almost anti-dramatic, but it deals thoughtfully with some of the most complex elements of the human equation.

It combines delightful humor and charm with what movies at their best have always conveyed: the honest power of pure emotion. It is a movie love story and a love note to the movies, all at the same time.

No one, with the possible exception of Bruce Lee, conveyed as much onscreen energy as Jimmy Cagney, and this musical biopic of George M. Cohan has that in spades, culminating in a dance down the White House stairs that is unforgettable. [03 Apr 2020, p.E1]

The most memorable section of the film is the chilling quarter-hour devoted to the apprehension and eventual murder of the Clutter family. Captured in unblinking, neo-documentary detail, it freezes the blood just as they did all those decades ago.

It takes exceptional acting to enable a story like this to take hold, and Campion has gotten it here. [19 Nov 1993]

Brooding, beautifully made and almost impossible for Americans to see -- Quai des Orfèvres, makes a triumphant reappearance on theatrical screens after an absence of about 50 years.

Letters From Iwo Jima, takes audiences to a place that would seem unimaginable for an American director. Daring and significant, it presents a picture from life's other side, not only showing what wartime was like for our Japanese adversaries on that island in the Pacific but also actually telling the story in their language. Which turns out to be no small thing.

The heart of The Conversation’s appeal, then and now, is the way it combines an exceptional character study, a thriller plot and an ability to superbly convey the unease of a society where blanket surveillance is getting to be the norm.

Even with its flaws, this latest Disney animated feature once again delivers what its audience wants.

Director Spike Lee has made some of the most hard-edged and unsettling American films on racism and its effects. Yet none has been as moving as this. [24 Oct 1997, Pg.F2]

Corpse Bride has more warmth and appeal than its title would indicate, but it is finally more grotesque than good-humored. And, even at 75 minutes, it feels longer than its content can comfortably support.

Crime + Punishment is a quiet documentary but a potent one. Though its approach is low key, its passion, drama and concern for exposing wrongdoing is unmistakable.

Writer-directors Joel and Ethan have seized the opportunity afforded by the Oscar-winning success of "No Country for Old Men," to make their most personal, most intensely Jewish film, a pitch-perfect comedy of despair that, against some odds, turns out to be one of their most universal as well.

Iannucci's take-no-prisoners directorial style is perfect for this blackest of farces.

This is a difficult film to pigeonhole, an indefinable mixture of genres and attitudes that is by turns off-the-wall and serious, comic and sad.

In the hands of uncommon writer-director Martin McDonagh and a splendid cast toplined by Frances McDormand in what could be the role of her rich and varied career, the how and why of those billboards becomes a savage film, even a dangerous one, the blackest take-no-prisoners farce in quite some time.

Things to Come holds us completely. A life is unfolding here, under our eyes, and we never lose sight of how special that is.

The writer-director's familiar style blends with a group of unexpected factors to create a magnificently cockeyed entertainment.

The result is a show business rush so pure it would be illegal if it were a drug. Though the film’s peek behind the celebrity-curtain love story inevitably falters a bit in the second half, the emotional waves it has already created manage to carry us over the rough spots.

Citizenfour is a formidable viewing experience, but it's not necessarily a problem-free film.

Not just an especially subtle and thoughtful psychological drama, it's a provocative, even an unnerving one as well.

A magnificent film almost no one knows about, this hidden classic offers a wider variety of pleasures than most contemporary works can even aspire to.

An intricate, dazzling cinematic dance, Foxtrot goes both deeper in and further out than standard-issue cinema. It's profound and moving and wild and crazy at the same time, simultaneously telling a specific story and offering an emotional snapshot of a country whose very soul seems to be at risk.

Because it is confident of its story and its powers, “Howards End” takes the time to establish itself, to allow its characters the space to demonstrate subtlety and complexity.

After watching Charles Ferguson's powerhouse documentary about the global economic crisis, you will more than understand what went down - you will be thunderstruck and boiling with rage.

While many familiar tropes are present, including murder, mayhem, a tough lawman and a tentative posse, Thornton uses them to tell a 20th century outback story and offer sharp, pointed commentary on relations between whites and indigenous peoples.

Fiercely involving in a way we're not used to, made with sensitivity and honesty by director/co-writer Debra Granik, it tells its emotional story of a father and daughter living dangerously off the grid in a way that is unnerving and uncompromising yet completely satisfying.

Never loses its priceless stamp of individuality. Reduced to its essence, this is a joke told by a person, not a corporation--and that makes all the difference.

The gift of The King's Speech is that it allows us to look on as a pair of masterful actors re-create a monumental test of wills.

With the perfect assist from their actors, all of whom are well in on the joke, this affectionate look at the frozen North brings the Coens back in from the cold.

Rarely has any film, let alone an animated one powered by the logic of dream and fantasy, been able to move so successfully -- and so effortlessly -- through so many different kinds of cinematic territory.

Toy Story 2 may not have the most original title, but everything else about it is, well, mint in the box.

Energized to a thrilling extent by a myriad of Afrocentric influences, Black Panther showcases a vivid inventiveness that underscores the obvious point that we want all cultures and colors represented on screen because that makes for a richness of cinematic experience that everyone enjoys being exposed to.

A godsend for audiences who hunger for rich emotion presented with wit, grace and not a trace of sentimentality, Brooklyn illustrates the power of restraint in dealing with poignant, impassioned material.

You feel protective about Leigh's work because its almost indescribable virtues touch the heart, yet far from being some delicate flower, Life Is Sweet has the wild, brazen, anything-goes energy of a 2-year-old, willing to take chances that would freeze the blood of another, more timidly conventional film.

One of the unexpected but welcome things Apollo 11 accomplishes is restoring a sense of how insanely complex the lunar mission was, and how audacious.

The Belgian directing brothers deal with themes they have made their own: the difficulty of being moral in an amoral world and the grinding, unforgiving nature of reality for those forced by poverty to live on the margins of society. These are not easy films to experience, but they are uncompromising and unforgettable.

Daring in the ways only quiet, unhurried but finally haunting films have the courage to be. A character study of remarkable subtlety joined to a carefully worked-out plot that fearlessly explores big issues like beauty, truth and mortality, it marks the further emergence of Korean writer-director Lee Chang-dong.

It's heartbreaking stuff, and Newtown handles it all with a gentle grace.

Popular filmmaking at its smartest and most persuasive.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? demands not our love for this supremely difficult person but rather our respect for her defiance of an unsympathetic world. With such an impeccable presentation of such an intransigent personality, it is hard to deny her that.

The Missing Picture is personal and unexpected, a documentary that mixes media in an unusual way to very potent effect.

A surprise in all ways except its surpassing quality, Pain and Glory reveals master Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar forging dazzling new paths while being completely himself.

An astonishing technological feat, but what is even more remarkable is that the technology does not overwhelm the artistry.

The fingerprints of the Camorra are everywhere, this film wants us to know, and its grip is lethal.

Any time you're watching a film in which the statistics in the voice-over have more intrinsic drama than the protagonists' lives, you know you're in trouble.

Daring in its willingness to risk looking maudlin by dealing with extremes, Blue doesn't hesitate to explore spiritual and psychological states that are beyond many films.

The result is a kind of ultimate romantic film, joining an almost Jamesian sadness and discipline to that extraordinary visual sensibility. It's not the kind of thing you see every day.

Likely as not, these things mean nothing in a conventional plot sense, but as powerful images, as pictures from a dreamlike world, they are unforgettable. And that, David Lynch would probably say, is exactly the point.

What Fire at Sea appears to be and what it is are not the same thing, and it's that difference that makes it a masterful documentary.

This is a film that wants you to live in the moment, to enjoy what is on screen when it is there in front of you and not worry how it fits into a plot that can be confusing but clears up in time for the inevitably rousing conclusion.

Shows and tells an astonishing story, a disturbing and provocative tale of obsession, bravado and self-invention that leaves you open-mouthed for all kinds of reasons.

As we hang on the film’s plot twists, we also quietly absorb its points about the power of community and the purposeful determination of immigrants to create better lives for their families, not as special pleading but as something powerful and convincing.

As its title indicates, My Journey Through French Cinema is personal with a capital “P,” a passionate, opinionated, drop-dead fascinating documentary essay about that country’s film history put together by a clear-eyed enthusiast who was born to tell the tale.

Most of all, Wallace & Gromit retains the clever, one-of-a-kind sensibility that made its shorter predecessors so delightful. With every studio comedy looking for a formula for success, it's refreshing to find a heroically whimsical film that succeeds by following no formula known to dog or man.

Emotional intensity is Farhadi's métier, and to see About Elly is to revel in his skill.

There is nothing bravura or overly emotional about Spielberg's direction here, but the impeccable filmmaking is no less impressive for being quiet and to the point.

A revelatory, strikingly emotional look at a complex, troubled, enormously gifted man.

A super-adrenalized stemwinder, a crisp and jolting melodrama that screws the tension so pitilessly tight it does everything but squeak.

Though it is undeniably bleak and pessimistic and marked by a texture of observation worthy of British director Mike Leigh, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is not as forbidding as it sounds.