Kenneth Turan

Spotlight doesn't call attention to itself. Its screenplay is self-effacing, its accomplished direction is intentionally low key, and it encourages its fistful of top actors to blend into an eloquent ensemble.

Simultaneously uplifting and melancholy, suffused with an unexpected sense of possibility as much as the inevitable sense of loss.

The reality of François' classroom is so intense that it holds our interest even while the film's dramatic focus is building so quietly under the surface that we don't notice it at first.

An intense, nihilistic thriller as well as a model of implacable storytelling, this is a film you can't stop watching even though you very much wish you could. That's because No Country escorts you through a world so pitilessly bleak, "you put your soul at hazard," as one character says, to be part of it.

Creates magic of a completely different sort. It makes the unlikeliest subject unforgettable, finding drama, beauty, even poetry in simple things and simple lives.

It's as sad and painful to report as it is to experience, but Hollywood Ending makes the conclusion inescapable: Woody Allen has become his own worst enemy.

If film means anything to you, if emotional truth is a quality you care about, this is an event that ought not be missed.

It's a mind-bending film, devastating and disorienting, that disturbs us in ways we're not used to being disturbed, raising questions about the nature of documentary, the persistence of evil, and the intertwined ways movies function in our culture and in our minds.

Seeing E.T. again reminds us of how much we've remained the same, how gratified we still are by a film that connects so beautifully to our sense of wonder and joy. [2002 re-release]

What was impressive 22 years ago seems even more so now; what was problematic seems less important. Changes in us as an audience, changes in filmmaking fashions, changes in the times we live in, they've all combined in making this "Apocalypse" feel more impressive, more of a revelation than it did before.

Made with intelligence, imagination, passion and skill, propulsively paced and shot through with an aged-in-oak sense of wonder, the trilogy's first film so thrillingly catches us up in its sweeping story that nothing matters but the vivid and compelling events unfolding on the screen.

"Let It Fall" understands the value of allowing its interview subjects to talk at greater, more involving length than is usual for documentaries, a technique that illuminates the complexities of reality and gives listeners a sense of the emotional textures of these people's lives.

So it is an especial triumph that Quiz Show, directed by Robert Redford and written by Paul Attanasio, turns that footnote of television history into a thoughtful, absorbing drama about moral ambiguity and the affability of evil. Sticking moderately close to the facts and using real names whenever possible, it succeeds by pulling back and looking at the situation through an unexpectedly subtle and wide-ranging lens.

This film becomes the kind of love note to movies we want and need.

That rare comedy that is as completely entertaining now in its re-release...as it was back then.

Alphaville is more than quintessential Godard. Despite its age it's that rare science fiction film that doesn't seem to have dated at all.

Director Amir Bar-Lev finds a way to mix the personal, the philosophical and the historical into a complex human document, something that's funny, moving and sad.

It may seem like nothing much is happening on-screen, but by the time A Summer's Tale is all over, it feels like everything important has been said and done. Welcome to the magic of Rohmer, one final time.

Nearly three hours long, and deliberately paced at that, this first feature ever in the Inuit language is a demanding experience. But the rewards for those who risk the journey are simply extraordinary.

L.A. Confidential, with an exceptional ensemble cast directed by Curtis Hanson from James Ellroy's densely plotted novel, looks to be the definitive noir for this particular time and place.

When Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers go into their dance, everything else fades into insignificance. The pair made 10 films together, and, with sequences like Pick Yourself Up and Never Gonna Dance, this is the consensus pick for their best. [03 Apr 2020, p.E1]

The fact that this kind of serious material ends up playing puckishly funny as well as poignant is a tribute both to Coppola and to her do-or-die decision to cast Murray in the lead role.

In its examination of what is fleeting and what remains, "After Life" is not only perceptive, it leavens everything it touches with a surprisingly sly sense of humor. Few films about death, or about life for that matter, leave you feeling so affirmative about existence.

Son of Saul is an immersive experience of the most disturbing kind, an unwavering vision of a particular kind of hell. No matter how many Holocaust films you've seen, you've not seen one like this.

With a head-shaking plot so foolproof it was remade twice, this romantic fantasy starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer was so beloved by Cary Grant he convinced director Leo McCarey to remake it with himself as the star (as An Affair to Remember). [03 Apr 2020, p.E1]

Acerbic, emotional, provocative, it's a risky high dive off the big board with a plot that sounds like a gimmick but ends up haunting, odd and a bit wonderful.

More than anything, this is a film in love with its characters’ passions, a rich and effortlessly vibrant examination of the four March “little women” (so called by their father) and the ways, at least initially, they’re practically bursting with the innocent it’s-happening-right-now joy of being young and alive.

Fast, funny, unexpected and uninhibited, The Triplets of Belleville may be animated, but it is also the product of an artistic vision every bit as rigorous as any lofty Cannes prize-winner. Hearing about a film this special isn't enough. It demands to be seen, and it generously rewards those who, like Madame Souza, let nothing stand in their way.