Kenneth Turan

The Prestige does more than focus on magicians. It is so in love with the romance, wonder and ability to fool of stage illusion that it becomes something of a magic trick in and of itself

One of the real pluses of Up the Yangtze, aside from its empathy with its subjects, is its striking visual quality. Beijing-based cinematographer Wang Shi Qing has an impeccable eye, often coming up with haunting images that show both the beauty and uncertainty of this pivotal time.

Though the film stars a relaxed and capable Harrison Ford as everyone's favorite intrepid archaeologist and boasts supporting players ranging from Cate Blanchett as a superb villainess to Shia LaBeouf as the inevitable youngster, the real heroes of this film are director Steven Spielberg and the veritable army of superb technicians who turn the film's numerous stunts and special effects into trains that insist on running on time.

Lots of documentaries these days will tell you to be afraid, to be very afraid, but few will scare you as coolly and as convincingly as Command and Control.

Using all his resources, Hedlund has created Mike Burden whole on screen in all his tormented awkwardness. Confused and conflicted, incapable of doing the right thing without recidivism and backsliding, this is hardly a conventional hero. Siding with the angels can seem like a snap in films, but Burden has the grace to show how difficult and wrenching a choice that can be.

Fascinating and frequently compelling, The Mustang is a hybrid, the unlikely combination of genres you wouldn’t think go together but are able to coexist thanks to an exceptional leading performance.

High-spirited, emotional and funny, Sound City is, of all things, a mash note to a machine. Not just any machine, however, but one that helped change the face of rock 'n' roll.

The best kind of labor of love. A documentary made with affection and intelligence, it looks at a brief episode in the life of a cultural icon and uses it to illuminate what turns out to be a telling moment in time and in the process shed some light on the man himself.

Has it's share of downtime.

It deals with friendship, loneliness, abandonment and forgiveness, and though its curious narrative arc means you're never sure exactly where it's going, the film works up a considerable emotional charge by the end.

There's a palpable excitement around the search for knowledge, and this film captures that beautifully.

Police, Adjective may not be the film you're expecting, but it's one that will stay on your mind.

This is a story as involving as you'd imagine it would be.

Maneuvering shrewdly within the boundaries of the traditional canon and aided by the impeccable performance of Ian McKellen, Bill Condon directs an elegant puzzler that presents the sage of Baker Street dealing with the one thing he's never had to contend with before: his own emotions.

Unusual in its ability to mix bodily functions humor with a sincere and unlooked-for sense of decency.

When you add in the tip-top tension created by the legendary break itself, not to mention the verisimilitude of shooting in a recently decommissioned prison, you end up with a small film with an impressive impact. Those who take a chance on Maze will not be disappointed.

When the melodrama does get strong, and it does, when bad things happen on a dark and stormy night, we go with it rather than resisting. The film has won our trust, given some heft to its characters and involved us in their lives, come what may.

Unlike documentaries that tie things up in a tidy bow, Supreme Price wants viewers to understand that the status of democracy in Nigeria remains very much in flux.

Well-crafted, disturbing Texas gothic thriller, a completely spooky piece of business that gets under your skin and, some plot blips aside, stays there for the duration.

Marsh makes the most of McCarten's effective script. There's a real energy to his filmmaking, the ability to be intelligently dramatic without overdoing things that is ideally suited to material that would be so easy to get wrong.

Just as there will always be an England, there will always be a certain kind of English film: the highly polished entertainment, well-acted, genteelly amusing and impeccably turned out. Mrs. Henderson Presents is the latest example of the trend and an especially satisfying one.

Though it's more than a little awestruck and feels padded even at 82 minutes, the story it tells remains completely fascinating

A compelling piece of work that turns out to have unexpected relevance to the current world situation.

Though its plot frequently falls back on coincidence, so much so that the characters joke about it, Career Girls has the almost magical ability to involve us emotionally with these women even though there are points when we would've sworn that wouldn't be possible.

While the filmmaker's trademark mixture of talking heads, archival footage and investigative ethos is familiar, Gibney is certainly good at what he does, and "Steve Jobs" is at its best in providing a brisk summation of the man's life. Or, more accurately, lives, for Jobs seemed to have been more people than one would have thought possible.

As a slice of ultra-orthodox life, Menashe offers an unusual — and unusually sympathetic — look inside a world that is often hidden from view.

Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman is an involving film that tells a more complicated story than its unexciting title would indicate.

It's a bawdy farce done with real delicacy, a charming adult comedy that ends up with unlooked-for emotional heft. If that doesn't cover all the bases, it certainly comes close.

As is always the case with Leigh's protagonists, Poppy does not fit into a schematic log line, she simply is. She exists with an intensity that few other filmmakers' characters can manage because of the singular way Leigh creates his people.

An odd, one-of-a-kind little film that features an involving plot by Anthony Shaffer and a performance by Christopher Lee that the iconic actor declares is his best. It also features paganism. Lots and lots of paganism.

Without doubt this strong documentary sheds a powerful light on this particular case while emphasizing the ultimate unknowability of absolute truth.

Ferrara hasn't merely remade Body Snatchers; he has reimagined and reinvigorated it, using the best of special-effects talent and cool directorial skill to turn out a splendidly creepy and unsettling piece of genre filmmaking that knows how to scare you and isn't afraid to try. [04 Feb 1994, p.F1]

An easygoing and amusing romantic confection.

Instead of a thriller, war movie or western, the director has turned out a stirring drama about South African leader Nelson Mandela, blending entertainment, social message and history lesson.

What French writer-director Mia Hansen-Love has created is an extraordinarily empathetic humanistic drama, a film of love, joy, sadness and hope that understands how complex our emotions are and does beautiful justice to them.

With its gift for infusing uneasiness into every frame, Kurosawa's moody, unnerving film continues to spook us even after the lights have gone on.

It is the gift of Midnight Traveler to allow us to feel this family’s fate in the pit of our stomachs. If the plight of refugees has ever seemed abstract, this film makes sure you know how real it is.

While success is not guaranteed, Sea of Shadows dramatically demonstrates how and why the battle continues to be fought.

With warm humor and perceptive writing, director Kenneth Lonergan displays a gift for creating realistic characters and a compelling story.

"Antarctica" is successful because it operates on two complementary levels, the epic visuals whose grandeur can stagger you and the small-scale personal stories of the people who live and work down there.

Neville's goal here is not so much to tell the story of Rogers' personal life, though that does get some play, but rather to detail the how and why of his success, to show the way someone whose formidable task was, in his own words, "to make goodness attractive" was able to make it happen.

Scott and company have gotten so accomplished at re-creating history that the results have a welcome offhanded quality, making them spectacular without seeming to be showing off.

Zaillian (an Oscar winner for his "Schindler's List" screenplay) has given us an intricate, subtly rewarding narrative whose uncompromising nature and undeniable moral seriousness make it far from business as usual, even in the ever-decreasing world of quality Hollywood filmmaking.

The Trials of Muhammad Ali is a complex and involving documentary.

No definitive answers are possible to the questions The Flat raises, which makes them all the more provocative.

Meanders, dawdles, doubles back on itself but finally gets us somewhere fascinating and worthwhile.

Drunk and disorderly on the pure joy of making movies. A frantic, flawed, fascinating film that is both impressive and a bit out of control, often at the same time.

A droll romp through prehistoric times, filtered through Park's beyond antic imagination.

A poetic attempt to re-create a bygone culture as not only a role model for the present but also a positive mythology for the future, the movie's strong visual qualities and epic emotions make it a bracing remedy to swallow.

Tainted or not, Hughes' life was a remarkable one, and, flawed or not, Scorsese's film version deserves the same accolade.

Confident of its emotional effects, Swingers knows how to breathe life into its people, and hooking audiences is its reward.

Miss Hokusai surprises us with its different emotional tones, ranging from the sinister and supernatural to the unapologetically sexual and the sweetly sentimental.

The main reason to see Whitney is the way it explores the baffling conundrums of her life.

The triumph of aesthetics, of artistic filmmaking of a high order, is the victory to be celebrated here, and it is something you are not going to see every day. [13 Mar 2015, p.E7]

This comprehensive and charming film not only recalls those days exactly, it also manages the wonderful trick of taking us back there along with it.

Reich and documentary director Jacob Kornbluth turn out to be the ideal collaborators to tell the story of what that gap is, why it happened and why it's important, all in a totally engaging way.

Both sweet-natured and sharply pointed, a film whose poignant, emotional effects and subtle acting sneak up on you.

An impeccably made bleak comedy with an exactly calibrated, almost musical sense of timing, Nói is singular enough to have swept the Eddas, the Icelandic Academy Awards.

This beguiling Belgian fable, very much its own droll and delicate little film, has some touching things to say about what is important in life and why.

Promises takes a simple idea and just about breaks your heart with it.

In the mythology of personal growth, liberating yourself leads invariably to increased happiness. Yet what characterizes the seekers in the powerful One of Us is nothing that straightforward.

A sports film to remember.

From its grab-for-all-the-gusto Gary Oldman performance to its direction by Joe Wright, Darkest Hour is nothing if not an energetic, showy piece of work, but some types of showy have more staying power than others.

You may never have expected to see the words heavy metal, endearing and warmhearted in the same sentence, but you just did.

It's that rare film that captures and conveys the romance of the theatrical experience.

The combined exceptional work of star Leonardo DiCaprio and nonpareil cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki create so much verisimilitude and beauty that it compels us to pay more attention to this glimpse of a dark, unsettling kill-or-be-killed world.

It is the gift of Terror's Advocate, Barbet Schroeder's riveting new documentary, to simply present Vergès as is, to say "here is the man" and let things speak for themselves. Do they ever.

Stella may be frothy and paper-thin, but it's also another great success for star Angela Bassett, who transforms the film into an infomercial for her considerable abilities.

Looser and less obviously formulaic in its fresh approach to our hearts, the brash Lilo & Stitch has an unleashed, subversive sense of humor that's less corporate and more uninhibited than any non-Pixar Disney film.

Afternoon of a Faun offers privileged glimpses of Le Clercq's life.

One of the charms of “Blue Note” is the stories the artists tell about each other.

A fearless movie about a fearful subject, an unusually empathetic and quite funny film that deals with death and dying in the most offbeat and casually life-affirming way. Exceptionally smart, playful and perceptive, Look Both Ways confronts things that people would rather avoid.

Stands out among creative bio-pics for an ability to show art being made in a way that's as realistic and exciting as it's ever been on screen.

If you believe that bringing the questionable virtues of "American Idol" to Afghanistan would do that beleaguered nation no favors, the remarkable documentary Afghan Star will change your mind in an instant.

More popular melodrama than the usual exercise in high art, it whipsaws us with so many unexpected passions and surprising events that holding on to your seat is strongly recommended.

As the perfectionist creator of bravura set pieces, Cameron is still the leader of the pack. [14 Jul 1994 Pg. F1]

Directors Goldfine and Geller tell their story with such engaged confidence that we are swept along to its wild end.

A look at the intertwined lives of a father and his three live-at-home daughters, this is more than anything a personal-scaled film, funny, emotional and compassionate toward the human comedy, Taiwan-style.

The result, unusual in a documentary involving the police and the public, is a film that does not advocate for anything but the truth, one that aims to show what happens on both sides of an issue rather than coming down in favor of one or the other.

Sometimes a film about nothing can be a film about everything; a film without overwhelmingly dramatic events can delight you more than an outsized epic. The sly and disarming Duck Season is such a film.

In some ways, Barry the film takes its personality from Barry himself. Always pleasant and companionable but a little pro forma in its early going, it gains in texture and interest as Obama's life and his reaction to it get more complex.

The mellow, serendipitous The Parrots of Telegraph Hill is here to show you just how magical happenstance can be.

An amusing tale of larceny triumphant, Bandits is an entertainment with a rogue's imagination.

This is not a typical Iranian production. Simultaneously deeply allegorical and concretely physical, this striking film is not a typical production, period.

Frequently excessive but never dull, The Departed is a little too much of a lot of the things that define Martin Scorsese films but it's also almost impossible to resist. Too operatic at times, too in love with violence and macho posturing at others, it's a potboiler dressed up in upscale designer clothes, but oh how that pot does boil.

Every moment on screen may not be enthralling, but the moments that are are such knockouts they make the enterprise essential viewing.

As Bhutto, the thorough and involving documentary on her life conveys, Benazir was a formidable personality all by herself.

Jindabyne's strength and power come from a number of factors: its origin, its current landscape and the unusual way its writer-director, Ray Lawrence, has chosen to work.

Because it's a Coen brothers film before it's anything else, this is about as dark and nihilistic as comedies are allowed to get before the laughter dies bitterly on your lips.

Unexpectedly involving documentary.

Ava Gardner in the role of her career (Humphrey Bogart isn't bad either) and writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz at the top of his form. [03 Dec 2006, p.18]

What is finally most compelling about this film is the sense it gives of how passionately the citizens of Ghana believe in democracy, how much it means to them.

An insightful film that takes us on a nuanced emotional journey with a group of friends trying to make sense of the romantic choices they've made, it has the sympathy and psychological acuity we've come to recognize as the hallmark of French cinema at its best. [20 Aug 1999, p.F14]

Actors gravitate toward passion projects, films they care deeply, even obsessively about, but the end result is hardly ever as convincing as A Tale of Love and Darkness a film of beautiful melancholy.

A moving, troubling documentary. Moving because of the nature of the problem it explores, troubling because the film can't help but underline that simple solutions are never going to present themselves, no matter how much we want them to.

Julia Jentsch strong and graceful, quiet knockout of a performance is the film's most potent weapon.

Has a warmth and sweetness that is especially hard to resist.

What is interesting is not how little sense Déjà Vu makes but how little that matters. If you want your films to add up logically, you're welcome to take your calculator somewhere else. But if you do, you will be missing out on some first-class genre fun.

Perhaps the greatest compliment that can be paid to the rush of raw excitement "Twister" creates is that it makes it possible to ignore the painful awkwardness of the film's expository sequences and thudding dialogue of the "OK, boss lady, hold your horses" variety.

Not as slick as “Free Willy” or as sophisticated as “Searching for Bobby Fischer,” this is a throwback to the sweet and sentimental Disney family films that Walt himself loved, a live-action fairy tale about a boy, his dogs and a darn tough race.

Full of stunning views of China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan and showing an unexpected side of Genghis Kahn, Mongol feels like an old-fashioned epic.

Anchored in an exceptionally persuasive performance by Rachel Weisz, "My Cousin Rachel" is not only a triumphant exercise in dark and delicious romantic ambiguity, the pitfalls of being taken in are what this melodramatic thriller is all about.

That’s Entertainment! III is the sunniest of memento mori, a showy tribute to the flabbergasting musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer that emphasizes both how delightful the genre was and how inescapably extinct it’s become.

This is a mostly genial film that gets as much mileage as it can out of the undeniable charisma of its stars.

One True Thing demonstrates that the power of simple things, the transcendent nature of the ordinary, can make for riveting filmmaking.

Its instinctive, unstoppable cheerfulness can be, as all those millions of viewers have found, something of a tonic if you're in the mood.

But if the film flirts with being sentimental, it never completely gives in: The inherent strength of the material as well as the integrity of the filmmakers gives this coming-of-age story restraint as well as warmth.

A type of American independent we don't see often enough.

One of the dark pleasures of "Margot" is watching Kidman and Leigh inhabit these two roles with a fierce passion.

A transcendent, transporting experience, a trance movie that casts a major league spell by going deeply into a monastic world that lives largely without words.

Subtle, unsettling, slyly amusing, Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer takes some getting used to because it's the kind of film we're not used to seeing.

With a fine piece of work in his hands, Schroeder has brought all his skill to bear on Kiss of Death, and it has made all the difference.

A knockout of a sports documentary. Destined against its will to be known as "the LeBron James movie," it is all that, and a good deal more.

Selena is in part a completely predictable Latino soap opera that should satisfy those who complain they aren't making movies like they like used to.

The Accountant is a nifty piece of genre entertainment, its wacky edge and genial tone despite that body count coming as something of a pleasant surprise in a year rife with lumbering, over-amped blockbusters.

Inevitably violent (though a disemboweling still seems excessive), as edited by Jake Roberts Outlaw King now moves along at a satisfyingly brisk pace. While we likely have not seen the end of Robert the Bruce on film, this for sure is a worthy addition to the canon.

As written and directed by Xavier Giannoli, Marguerite is a thoughtful examination of an unusual, deeply eccentric woman.

Has enough virtues to make it successful, including an unusual story and some fine acting, especially by the powerful Janet McTeer.

A superior filmed biography that brings intelligence, restraint and style to what could have been a more standard treatment.

The jokes are quick, with clever jibes alternating with double-crosses and the occasional murder, and the streamlined plot unrolls like a colorful ball of twine.

It would be Pollyannaish to pretend that the documentary Earth is without its problems, but the bottom line is, difficulties be damned, it shouldn't be missed.

Smartly plotted by newcomer Russell Gewirtz and smoothly directed by, of all people, Spike Lee, Inside Man is a deft and satisfying entertainment, an elegant, expertly acted puzzler that is just off-base and out-of-the-ordinary enough to keep us consistently involved.

Using their great ability with comic dialogue (the film won the best screenplay award at Venice), the Coens exaggerate and subvert familiar western tropes to gleeful comic effect.

Whatever else you think about Marx and his ideas, it's hard to imagine him as hot-blooded and young. Director and co-writer Raoul Peck, as it turns out, not only understands those contradictions, he is committed to embracing them, which is what makes The Young Karl Marx the audacious, engrossing film it is.

It all comes together on election night, as Lears shadows Ocasio-Cortez and captures her disbelief as she nears her post-election party and suddenly realizes she has in fact won. It’s precisely the kind of you-are-there moment, one of many, that makes Knock Down the House so satisfying.

Helped by Ennio Morricone's trademark score, especially the haunting playing of pan pipes by Gheorghe Zamfir, this is a work whose overall mood is one of overwhelming melancholy and sadness, of youthful yearning, mature regret, and the transcendent but fleeting nature of memory itself. [10 Jul 1999, p.F1]

McQuarrie is adept at keeping things moving and has overseen two areas where "Rogue Nation" stands out from the crowd.

One of the five most popular films of the year in France, "Wolf" is a cross-cultural hoot that no one should take too seriously.

For what makes this tale something more than a puzzle to be solved is a level of emotional impact that genre exercises don't often provide, emotion traceable to sensitive acting that is similarly rare.

Pure pleasure to experience. Written and directed by Tom McCarthy with an impeccable feel for off-center human comedy at its funniest and most heartfelt, its low-key qualities are so relaxed and unforced every moment feels like a gift.

A top-drawer heist movie that ratchets up the tension inch by careful inch, The Score will remind you of classic caper films of the past, and that is a good thing.

It is the achievement of Gerhard Richter Painting to shine a light on that hidden, private act as few other films have done.

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.

Both a fine introduction for those who don’t know the work and a thoughtful examination of the issues surrounding him for those who do.

Even surrounded by all this quality work, Ralph Fiennes, who plays William Cavendish, the fifth duke of Devonshire, the most powerful man in England next to the king, walks off with the picture.

Small scale though it is, this is a film that knows what it wants to do and has thought out exactly how to go about doing it. The same must be said about the luminous nature of Kazan's performance, which won best actress last year at the Tribeca Film Festival.

The key reason "Jimi" doesn't need the signature music is the extraordinary performance of actor-musician André Benjamin.

Despite being a pure fantasy that relishes not making literal sense, Millions retains a conviction about what it's doing that makes us believe and enjoy.

Because the stories are so specific, and because they play out over such a long period of time, it is hard not to be fascinated by this intimate look at how particular families deal with the great parental challenge of shepherding their children through the all-important educational experience.

This engaging and enlightening documentary is stuffed with anecdotes, history and information. It makes excellent use of both new interviews and carefully selected archival footage to reveal the building blocks of all this accomplishment.

In its best moments, Face/Off practically mainlines fury, leaving audiences no time to think or even breathe.

Rams is so much its own film that figuring out where its unusual, unpredictable plot will end up is difficult if not impossible.

A striking new documentary that shows the war in a way it's not been seen before: from the ground up.

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.

If you feel like you've already read quite a bit about the documentary Bully, you have. But that still won't prepare you for the experience of seeing it.

Whedon is the key reason why this $220-million behemoth of a movie is smartly thought out and executed with verve and precision. It may be overly long at two hours, 23 minutes, but so much is going on you might not even notice.

More concerned, and with good reason, with the opera's extravagant visual look. The gorgeous pageantry of sets and costumes is frankly dazzling.

The most compelling aspect of The Green Wave, however, is the extensive footage shot clandestinely by amateurs using cellphones. What they recorded shows us the reality of what went down in a way nothing else can match.

A writer's thriller. True, it's cleanly and efficiently directed, and it showcases some crackerjack acting, but the reason it's a real pleasure to watch is that a writer's sensibility is the foundation everything is built on.

Starts gently, with amusing drollness, then gets more serious, even provocative, without sacrificing its light touch. This is very much a film with something on its mind.

Benefits from delicious acting from co-stars Geoffrey Rush and Pierce Brosnan, a mordant script co-written by le Carre (along with Boorman and Andrew Davies), and the distinctive touch of its director.

A chilling documentary that firmly positions McVeigh not as some delusional loner but rather as a product of a far-right subculture that looked on the U.S. federal government as one of the most dangerous forces on the face of the Earth.

Physical beauty and fearless adventure, silly comedy and sensitive emotions, filmmaker Hiroyuki Okiura brings a facility for all of them to the table.

Though its theme of the corrosive influence of unimaginable wealth is not exactly news, "All the Money" benefits, in much the same way that Scott's similar (and underappreciated) "American Gangster" did, from the director's expertise at bringing pace and interest to stories he cares enough about to sink his teeth into.

Persuasive rather than polemical, it's the unusual issue film that deals in counterintuitive reason rather than barely controlled hysteria.

With Midnight in Paris, Allen has lightened up, allowed himself a treat and in the process created a gift for us and him.

Dallaire is not only the protagonist of Shake Hands, he is a compelling reason to see it.

This is an unusual venture, both charming and serious, that goes in more directions than anticipated, including more than a touch of magic realism.

A surprisingly intimate film, a completely involving look inside the life of a gifted and complex woman.

Wings of the Dove is richly appointed and beautifully mounted, with lush location shooting in Venice given the place of honor.

More disturbing than you expect, its story of innocence lost and perspective gained holds us and will not let go.

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.

You might expect its beauty but not its intelligence, its ability to reflect the texture of some extraordinary lives.

Tickling Giants surprises us on several levels. It reveals Egypt’s familiar Arab Spring experience through a lens, that of satiric comedy, which is very different from the way we usually see it. And it has the personal element of Youssef’s involving story, showing what can happen when your dreams come true to a completely unexpected extent.

The whole thing is as satisfying as a meal at a slow food restaurant, and when Gianni's mother gratefully tells her son, "you mellow these hours," we wholeheartedly agree.

A moderately diverting entertainment as sleek and aerodynamically sound as the glider its characters tool around in, it takes no extraordinary chances and delivers no major surprises.

What results is a portrait of Wallace in effect in dialogue with himself, a presentation that puts viewers on edge a bit the way the man himself interacted with the world.

It is as harrowing as it is triumphant in its depiction of the way it all came to pass.

You may not respect What’s Love Got to Do With It, but enjoying it is inescapable. A high-energy mixture of spectacular music, vigorous acting and cliched situations, this is a rough-and-rowdy fairy tale with a feminist subtext, and if that sounds perplexing, Love so pumps up the volume you won’t have much time to think about it.

Dan offers the most pleasing kind of unforced charm as it uses a terrific plot device to examine the conflicts between family and romance as well as the joy and pain of being in love.

One of the main treats of Art & Copy is that it allows us to revisit those classic ads, all of which are just as exciting now as they were when they first ran.

The Corporation takes great and successful pains to be as visually diverse and clever as it is intellectually provocative.

It may sound commonplace, but in the hands of master filmmaker Mike Leigh, the everyday becomes extraordinary.

Because of its strong dialogue and convincing acting, 99 Homes stays on point for quite some time, artfully disguising the film's increasing reliance on plot devices.

Tarantino was a boy of 6 in 1969, living far from the center of Los Angeles, and in a sense what he’s done here is re-create the world he’s imagined the adults were living in at the time. If it plays like a fairy tale, and it does, don’t forget the first words in the title are “Once Upon a Time.”

Measured and beautifully modulated, the 82-year-old director has the kind of sureness and fluidity that is easy to underestimate. But it's difficult not to be impressed by the results.

The result is an unexpectedly satisfying fantasia of reality and imagination, a meditation on the nature of lies and deception, on how we come to embrace not the truth but what it suits us to believe.

A powerful and effective piece of advocacy filmmaking, but it's difficult to watch it without thinking of subtitles like "The Place Where Evil Dwells" or "The Little Town With the Really Big Secret." Which is no accident.

The Great Hack couldn’t be more timely, or unsettling. An intentionally disturbing examination of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, it both explains and offers a warning shot about the misuse of personal data and how that influenced past elections and might well do so in the future.

An absolutely first-rate documentary.

With her unblinking but nonjudgmental eye, Spheeris doesn't shy away from the horrifying, at times violent messes these kids make of their lives, but she is always sensitive to the pain behind everything, to the unhappy futility of squandered potential.

The Cave reminds us of the horrors of a situation we have perhaps become numb to and shows us the unforgettable people who don’t have that luxury.

If the final result doesn't transcend emotionally in the manner of the gold standard of Boston noir, Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River," the fault is not in the execution but the unyieldingly oppressive nature of the underlying material.

An expertly paced and efficient sci-fi thrill machine, "T3" effectively marries impressive action sequences with persuasive storytelling and its star's uniquely appealing style of "No" drama -- as in no reaction, no expression, no emotion of any kind.

It is the charm of Lorna Tucker's film that, her subject's reluctance notwithstanding, it provides a fascinating, involving glimpse of both who Westwood was back in the day and who she is at this particular moment in time, so much so that we genuinely miss her once the credits begin to roll.

Though Fellowes and director Michael Engler have taken pains to make the plot engaging for newcomers, this is a film, as was the case with the Harry Potter series and the Avengers saga, where the emotional connection will be strongest for those who’ve been there from the start.

Smart, lively and altogether warmhearted dramatic comedy.

A powerful and empathetic melodrama with feminist underpinnings.

History is not neat and tidy, however much we wish it could be, and Olympic Pride, American Prejudice is more than adept at getting to the truth about perhaps the most mythologized event of the modern Olympic movement.

Because Into the Arms of Strangers is as much a story about childhood as it is about the Holocaust, it's an especially moving and effective piece of work.

By the time this lightly entertaining look at life's emotional crises ends, even the characters you didn't think were sympathetic will have won you over.

This examination of the whys and wherefores of indie rock star Nick Cave is an unusual and nonformulaic cinematic enterprise and an adventurous film by any standard.

A plethora of pleasures are hidden under the deceptively mundane title of The Opera House. Nominally a documentary about the creation of New York's half-century-old Metropolitan Opera House, it turns out to be a charming and convivial celebration of not just the building but also opera in general and creativity across the board.

Though he is on less certain ground during the narrative's moments of warmth than when things are grim, director Cretton manages it all successfully. With Woody Harrelson as its dependable lodestar, "The Glass Castle" never loses its sense of direction or its belief in where it’s going.

This may not be exact history, but it certainly makes an impression.

What the intelligently spooky Birth does best is disturb us.

A clever piece of business that is a complete pleasure to experience.

Odd, offbeat, somehow endearing, the bleakly comic Frank has its own kind of charm as well as some pointed, poignant things to say about the mysterious nature of creativity, where it comes from and where it might all go.

At its heart Lore qualifies as a coming-of-age story, but it is far from the ones we usually see.

Half visual essay, half verbal investigation, “Silence” is thoughtful and informative as well as contemplative and restorative.

Though it is small in scale and lasts only 78 minutes, New York Doll, like any documentary, goes places we expect it to and places we do not. As journeys go, this is one to treasure.

Citizen K uses Khodorkovsky’s story as a way to guide us through the thickets of modern Russian history, a tangled, through-the-looking-glass world that the film surveys from the days of Boris Yeltsin in 1991 to today’s increasingly autocratic reign of Vladimir Putin

An effective, efficient and quite dramatic examination of the events surrounding the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three and injured 264, Patriots Day is a tribute to people who earned it: the investigators and first responders who ensured that a horrible situation did not become even worse.

This turns out to be an informative, involving, even sobering advocacy film.

Turns out to be a thoroughly entertaining if eccentric piece of business, wacky and amusing in a cheerfully preposterous way. [28 September 1994, Calendar, p.F-1]

It's a wonderful documentary look at an astonishingly successful public-school chess program that manages to be more moving and heartening than you expect. Which is saying a lot.

Enchanted is as good as its name.

A fascinating hybrid of a film. Even though its purpose couldn't be more serious, its style could hardly be more pulp.

A powerful documentary that uncovers half-forgotten history, history that is still relevant but not in ways you might be expecting.

A startling reminder of exactly how spectacular a director Spielberg can be when he allows himself to be challenged by a subject (in this case World War II) that pushes against his limits.

No one has to see a documentary to understand that large sums of untraceable political campaign contributions are a bad thing. But Dark Money does need to be seen because it reveals with fascinating specificity how that crooked system works and details how one state decided to take it on.

Germans and Jews is too sophisticated to provide a glib answer, but it shows how deeply involving just asking the question can be.

It's clear that an exceptional body of work is coming out of this country at this particular time and place. It's not necessary to categorize these films to enjoy them, it's just necessary to go.

As Lelio's earlier films demonstrated, the director's style is restrained but potent, which helps the impact of the actors' performances as well as the picture's fairly graphic love scene. The possibilities for these characters are more varied than it initially seems, and "Disobedience" thoughtfully considers them all.

A thoughtful look backward, a summing up that attempts to understand what is ephemeral and what truly lasts, what it is that matters in the final analysis.

The combination of Ruffalo’s quietly intense performance and Haynes’ direction illuminates both what drives him and what the cost can be.

This gently amusing, genuinely sweet animated film makes you smile from start to finish?

But though the new ground it breaks is visual rather than dramatic or emotional, this is a polished, satisfying entertainment that just about dares you to look a gift lion in the mouth.

Daring and edgy, it's a German co-production (critical for avoiding censorship) that's filled with the intoxicating excitement of creating images for the screen.

Oblivion has the ability to haunt you visually and, with an unanticipated love story, even emotionally.

Macdonald has never starred in a film until Puzzle, and her delicate but deeply felt performance, along with the work of top Indian actor and costar Irrfan Khan and the rest of the cast, make this gentle, thoughtful yet pointed film the undeniable success it is.

The result is an eccentric, amusing fable that moves at an unhurried island pace, a picturesque tale that Merchant seems to have invested with an almost personal sense of spirit.

Clockers, Lee's eighth feature in nine years, demonstrates how accomplished a filmmaker he has become, securely in control of plot, actors and imagery.

A champagne bubble of a movie, lively, effervescent and diverting. If it bursts earlier than we'd like -- and it does -- that takes nothing away from the considerable pleasure it provides along the way.

If you are familiar with his mesmerizing work, nothing more need be said; if you’re not, this feast of dance illustrates why others are.

The Danish director, whose film Pelle the Conqueror won the best foreign-language film Oscar, has turned out a thoughtful and accomplished piece of filmmaking, skillfully acted and beautifully put together with a kind of discreet elegance that the biggest budget (roughly $10 million) in Swedish film history made possible.

Playful in unexpected ways and graced with a genuinely off-center sense of humor, Ant-Man (engagingly directed by Peyton Reed) is light on its feet the way the standard-issue Marvel behemoths never are.

The Second Mother is a satisfying contradiction. It's a soap opera with a social conscience that casually mixes dramatic elements about serious class issues with a crowd-pleasing audience picture sensibility.

Complex, unexpected and dazzling, alternating relentless tension with resonant emotional moments, this is an exemplary espionage thriller that has a strong sense of what it wants to accomplish and how best to get there.

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.

Best known for 1994's "The Wild Reeds," Techine has been a director for more than 30 years, and the fluidity of his polished, intelligent, at times enigmatic works make him someone whose films are always worth watching.

City of Ghosts demonstrates, in Hamoud’s phrase, that “the camera is more powerful than a weapon,” but it also shows the horrible price it extracts from those who wield it.

A model of professionalism and energy, Official Secrets moves along at a brisk clip. It’s paced like a police procedural, but it focuses not on an investigator but rather a moral exemplar who takes a principled stand in defiance of the price that has to be paid.

Life Itself may sound like it's a film that would only be of interest to those who knew Ebert personally or to fellow film critics, but the opposite is true.

Woo has turned out a slick piece of business, filled with explosions and assorted acts of violence brought off with considerable movie-making skill.

It may not sound like it, but In Heaven, Underground: The Weissensee Jewish Cemetery is a playful, poetic and all-around charming documentary, an off-center look at an unusual institution.

An art film to the core. If it's an epic, it's an intimate, dream-time epic, an elliptical, episodic film, dependent on images and reveries, that treats war as the ultimate nightmare, the one you just cannot awaken from no matter how hard you try.

The film may not be restrained but stars Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe are powerfully effective and its little-known true story is so flabbergasting that resistance is all but futile.

Warm without sacrificing integrity, pleasant but not to a fault, Back to Burgundy is satisfying rather than earth-shaking.

The sharpest inside Hollywood comedy in quite a while.

An example of how expert action filmmaking and up-to-the-minute visual effects can transcend a workmanlike script and bring excitement to conventional genre material.

A tight courtroom melodrama that serves up twist after twist like so many baffling knuckle balls, this film handles its suspenseful material with skill and style.

Unusual in both its subject matter and its approach, this film guides us on a pair of intertwined paths American movies rarely venture down.

Only the tigers, beautiful and dangerous, maintain their integrity. By staying true to themselves, they make nothing else matter.

A sly and gleeful comedy showcase that pokes clever fun at the American musical, amateur theatricals and anything else that's not nailed down.

Cogent, convincing, determinedly non-ideological, Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare tells us that everything we think we know about that incendiary topic might be wrong. And it offers us a way out of the morass.

"Monster" is almost too ambitious to be completely realized. But when it works, which is most of the time, its story has a power which lingers in the mind.

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.

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.

Though it is a work of fiction, we have the sense every minute that we are watching something real, something with the unmistakable taste of life.

The result is a surprisingly satisfying film, true to Bukowski and itself, a work that manages to make the man and his profane world more palatable without compromising on who he was and what he stood for.

This is a moving and provocative film that initially unsettles, then disturbs and finally haunts you well into the night.

A deeply involving look at people living permanently on the knife-edge of danger, Flame & Citron does more than radically rethink the World War II resistance drama. Its biggest accomplishment may be to make these historical conflicts and dilemmas seem surprisingly contemporary.

Beautiful and melodic as well as pointedly political.

Petraglia and Rulli once again display their gift for bringing the texture of reality to family drama, for creating people and situations that involve us completely. My Brother Is an Only Child is not the only film that does this, but it's a product that's in shorter and shorter supply every year.

An intimate, intensely dramatic film that holds us in its grip like a page-turning novel. Except it’s all true.

Most of Time To Choose is concerned with demonstrating that, as more than one speaker says, every crisis is an opportunity. That for every human action that increases global warming there are already workable alternatives in place just waiting to be embraced by a wider constituency.

A powerful, poignant, provocative drama, it gets its strength from its dispassion, from an uncompromising determination to explain rather than justify or condemn, to put a human face on incomprehensible acts.

Made with care and conviction as it explores this unexpected relationship, "Our Souls at Night" understands both what changes in people as they age and what remains the same. It covers quite a bit of emotional territory, and it covers it well.

Edgy and provocative but with a weakness for sensationalistic footage.

As directed by Morgan Neville, "Strangers" turns out to be as concerned with emotion as with performance, spending much of its time investigating how so much joyous music was able to come out of exploration, disturbance, even pain.

A sly and captivating comedy of imaginative leaps and gently orchestrated pandemonium.

Though its unhurried pace and ultimately sweet nature give Mad Dog and Glory the feeling more of a diversion than a major work, those who get into its eccentric comic rhythms will definitely be charmed. [5 Mar 1993, p.1]

"Molière" is a polished, character-driven entertainment enlivened by flashes of droll humor.