Kevin Thomas

Seems every bit the masterpiece it was when first released by Paramount. In this dazzling film, Bertolucci manages to combine the bravura style of Fellini, the acute sense of period of Visconti and the fervent political commitment of Elio Petri -- and, better still, a lack of self-indulgence.

Never was Tati's mastery of sound effects more inspired than in Playtime, a commercial disaster at the time of its release that nevertheless may be Tati's true masterpiece. [14 May 1998, p.F18]

Ran, which translates as "chaos" or "turmoil," is at once brisk and vital, elegiac and contemplative, intimate and epic, tragic yet shot through with humor. It combines the energy of youth with the perspective of maturity. It encompasses all of human nature in its folly and grandeur, and it does so in images as beautiful and terrifying as any ever captured on film and in performances that are impeccable.

The older it gets, and we with it, the more we're able to see in it. As few American films have, Gone With the Wind succeeds both as historical epic and as intimate drama.

In short, Wonderland is an extraordinary film, as entertaining as it is observant, about ordinary people.

A harrowing yet sublime work that has to do with the exceptionally cruel fate of an 11th-Century noblewoman, played by the incomparable Kinuyo Tanaka. [12 Aug 1985, p.2]

Mean Streets is a jazzy riff of a movie, zigging and zagging as if to the beat of snapping fingers. Its greatness lies in its leanness, with nary a word, a move, a gesture that's nonessential.

Sunrise reminds us that the silent film was reaching its artistic heights just as sound was arriving. [29 Apr 1985, p.2]

A brilliantly conceived epic fable.

An enduring film of enchanting and provocative revelation. [09 Jan 2009, p.E15]

An elegiac saga of the decline and fall of a rich small-town American family, based on a Booth Tarkington novel.

This witty and tender 1966 gem remains as timeless and fresh as ever.

Far from seeming dated, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie seems timelier than ever, downright prophetic, for that matter.

Ah, what glorious casting!

Sankofa unfolds as a kind of oratorio--the film’s music in itself is incredibly rich and intoxicating--in which people deal with terrible cruelty through ritual and incantations of the African gods. It is a celebration of the strength of black people, in drawing upon their spiritual roots, to defy their oppressors--past and present alike.

A dazzlingly imaginative work with awesome production values and special effects that bear comparison to those of "2001."

For 20 years, Claire Denis has been among France's foremost filmmakers with her acute yet subtle observations of the ebbs and flows within relationships. Her perception and understanding seem to grow only richer over the years, and her newest film, 35 Shots of Rum, is surely one of her finest -- and thereby one of the best films of the year.

Chillingly, Portillo reveals that 50 women were killed in the 18 months it took her to make her film.

A superlative work, offering a rich emotional experience that at the same time calls attention to the seemingly endless suffering of the Afghan people.

There's such a rich sense of the fullness of life in Moolaadé that it sustains those passages that are truly and necessarily harrowing.

A great poetic epic that blends the stirring visual daring of Russia's cinema of revolution with an intoxicating Latin sensuality. [21 Jul 1995, p.F8]

Has a sense of humor that is intellectual, even academic, at heart.

A ruggedly beautiful landscape of desert and sea provides a dramatic setting for a psychological drama told with the utmost rigor--and unabashed eroticism.

Ghost World is above all a disquieting consciousness-raiser.

Le Samourai is a film of few words but many vivid images and, above all, impeccable style. [09 Jul 1998, p.F18]

Has the stuff of a cavalry classic...but it lacks the vision and personality to attain such a level of artistry.

Superb.

With its inspired sight gags and comic mishaps, the deceptively artless-seeming "Mr. Hulot's Holiday" is as blissful as a sunny day at the beach. [02 Feb 1995, p.F4]

Hawks' direction is his very best: crisp, humane and full of humor. [26 Jul 1998, p.4]

Structurally, High and Low, which is remarkable in many ways--the camera work alone could serve as a primer in film technique--is quite a departure for Kurosawa.

House of Flying Daggers finds the great Chinese director at his most romantic in this thrilling martial arts epic that involves a conflict between love and duty carried out to its fullest expression.

It is a film of uncommon intelligence and rigor that illuminates a complex era, and the romance at its center is also one of exceptional passion and honesty.

What makes the famous 1949 Raoul Walsh gangster film White Heat a classic is its crackling tension that derives from Walsh's breakneck pace and the developing psychological complexity of James Cagney's Cody Jarrett. [21 Oct 1990, p.6]

Such is the intensity of Ceylan's vision that a perfectly natural, even casual, course of events, which is what the film consists of, makes Kasaba utterly compelling. [30 Sep 2004, p.E13]

Not quite stunning enough to live up to a boldly bleak and unrelenting buildup.

Project X strains credibility. Too often it seems an overreaching variation on "WarGames."

Jean-Luc Godard’s “King Lear” is his most off-putting picture since his unwatchable political films of the ‘70s.

The film is at once of its time--simultaneously the fullest flowering of the French New Wave and the shattering of its male chauvinist tendencies--and utterly timeless in its perception of love, sex and human nature.

The musical biography of comedian Fanny Brice emerges as a true classic, as enthralling as the day it was released in 1968. It is a superb example of Hollywood craftsmanship in which all elements have been blended to perfection with inspired artistry.

It is a stylish, durable piece of epic Americana, replete with some of the most beloved songs in musical theater and rich in its sense of period. [15 Jul 1985, p.2]

It has the subtlety and devastating impact of Renoir’s prophetic classic Rules of the Game, and it is suffused with the calm, detached tragic irony and inevitability of the ancient Greek plays.

Handsome as all Allen films are, and it proceeds with the brisk, sophisticated air of throwaway confidence and lack of pretense that we expect from the contemporary master of grown-up comedy.

“Donnie Darko" was one of the best pictures released in 2001. Now that it has returned in a 20-minute longer--and richer -- director's cut, it seems sure to be ranked as one of the key American films of the decade.

Brisk, ingenious and funny comedy that happily reunites Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder. [12 May 1989, p.6]

A graceful, affectionate yet clear-eyed portrait of daily Middle America small-town life in which no individuals are interviewed but instead are observed with detachment as they go about their lives.

Even though the film's tone grows ever more elegiac, it stubbornly remains a celebration of the Kurdish capacity to endure.

Beguiling but long-winded.

Armstrong, screenplay adapter/co-producer Robin Swicord and their colleagues have got everything just right. [23 Dec 1994]

Ozu cherishes tradition but accepts the inevitability of loss and change, and is as all-embracing as Jean Renoir. His people may judge and not forgive, often understandably, but as one of the greatest filmmakers he does not do so. [04 Oct 2007, p.E13]

As splendid as John Wayne is in these films, the elegiac She Wore a Yellow Ribbon provides him with one of his finest roles. [19 May 1996, p.72]

For all the laughter it generates in its confrontations between city and country folk and their ways, Withnail and I has a decidedly dark and subtle undertow. One hilarious incident after another may keep the semiautobiographical Withnail and I perking along, but it is at the same time a ‘60s joy ride about to tailspin into the sobering ‘70s.

It was this ineffably poignant semiautobiographical reverie that unleashed fully Fellini's shimmering, flowing poetic style, echoed perfectly in a plaintive score by Fellini's potently evocative collaborator, Nino Rota.

The film may be fearlessly sentimental, but it is sturdy enough to provide rewarding major roles for two veterans, who are of an age when such starring parts are rare.

In its vitality and finesse, Maria Full of Grace is all of a piece -- and both artistically and spiritually itself full of grace.

A psychological suspense drama of the utmost rigor and originality.

The impact of its finish has been dissipated by too much meandering along the way.

Requires careful attention at its abrupt finish. Close concentration on the final shots yields a meaning not possible should a viewer's attention wander or turn away a few moments too soon.

A major cult film, but a bit much, to put it mildly. [23 Sep 1991, p.F12]

Time is truly on Apted's side because the passing of time not surprisingly brings a richer, deeper perspective with each new segment.

One of the most entertaining escape movies ever made, a rousing 1963 big-scale production directed by John Sturges and written by James Clavell. [12 May 1991, p.4]

Sparkling 1934 comedy-mystery derived from the Dashiell Hammett mystery and directed by W.S. Van Dyke. It dared to suggest that a sophisticated married couple, Nick and Nora Charles (William Powell and Myrna Loy) could have fun with each other. [14 Jul 1996, p.4]

If Hay's style tends to the theatrical, his use of flashbacks, aided by Edie Ichioka's sharp editing and Matthew Heckerling's resourceful camera work, is entirely cinematic, revealing his clever way with plotting.

The strangest and most delightful of the many collaborations of those joint exemplars of neo-realism, Vittorio De Sica and Cesare Zavattini: a Chaplinesque fable about a purely innocent and good young orphan who leads the inhabitants of a Roman shantytown in angelic revolt against their cruel evictors. [10 Nov 1996, p.4]

Written by Francis Coppola and Edmund H. North and directed impeccably by Franklin Schaffner, Patton is extraordinary for its mix of action and deft illumination of an amazingly complex man, brought to proud, robust life unforgettably by George C. Scott. [10 Jul 1988, p.2]

Fresh, virulently funny, with an eye on life that's as offbeat as the early Beatles movies, the talents behind the bizarre and irreverent Repo Man are a real discovery. [16 Nov 1986, p.5]

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg has stood the test of time as beautifully as Deneuve and seems likely to enchant future generations as fully as it has audiences over the past four decades.

Desire represents Hollywood at its timeless, beloved best. A stunning blend of European and American sensibilities -- Marlene Dietrich and producer Ernst Lubitsch on the one hand, Gary Cooper and director Frank Borzage on the other -- it is the epitome of glittery escapist entertainment. Yet the emotional honesty at its core gives it a reality that is deeply involving. [12 May 1986, p.2]

Captivating new documentary, The Gleaners and I, is charged with the pleasure of discovery.

Although the film's narrative line sometimes proves hard to follow, and some of the songs heard on the soundtrack seem to have little to offer beyond sheer noise, Kill Me Later is a gem, even if a little rough around the edges.

The effect is dazzlingly beautiful and surreal.

Ambitious and impressive, both in its provocative themes and superb production design using striking sets and locations in Korea, Russia and Thailand, this handsome epic amply rewards audiences willing to go the distance.

Catches you up so firmly in its world that you find yourself accepting whatever Thornton presents right up to its deeply ironic finish.

On the screen, the rip-roaring rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch retains all the excitement and energy it had on stage while adding depth, clarity and emotional texture.

Never has Denis demanded so much from audiences as with this shimmering enigma, at once intimate and epic, but it's worth the effort and then some.

Amazing, rich in authentic period atmosphere and detail, an ever-changing cyclorama of a movie.

By the time “The Sacrifice” comes full circle it emerges itself as a symbolic gesture of great emotional impact. We may share Alexander’s sense of impotence, but Tarkovsky turns such feelings into a work of art.

The luminous humanity that characterizes the films of Alexander Sokurov is in full force in Alexandra. On the surface, it is a work of the utmost simplicity but is charged with the eternal complexities and contradictions of both love and war.

The smiles don't fade until the finish of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown when we witness Pepa's realization that she has, in fact, come into her own and taken charge of her own destiny. [20 Dec 1988, p.1]

What these five and others have to say may be familiar to many by now, but the experiences they lived through are so terrible and told in such riveting detail it’s as if you’re hearing about the Holocaust for the first time.

Illuminating, poignant and heartening.

Josh Aronson's Sound and Fury, as illuminating and comprehensive as it is heart-wrenching, is an example of what the documentary can accomplish at its most vital and engaging.

Not merely affecting and illuminating; it concludes on a note of hope.

Atlantic City is a sophisticated fairy tale, beautifully acted and beautiful to behold; it is as funny as it is touching.

Remains a timeless, major work of a master.

Although overly long at 107 minutes, American Movie is an incisive, largely absorbing work and a far more mature effort than Smith's "American Job."

Superb, contemplative.

Visually as pleasing as it sounds.

This 1946 version became a key film in postwar Hollywood film noir. Directed by Tay Garnett, it remains one of Lana Turner's (right) very best films. [02 Feb 1997, p.78]

Raises it to the level of an art film with fully drawn characters, a serious underlying theme, and a sophisticated style and point of view.

MGM's 1940 Pride and Prejudice holds up better than you might expect as a prime example of Hollywood studio gentility in the '30s and '40s. [11 Aug 1996, p.74]

It's a satisfying comedy in which the humor actually develops from character rather than plot. [15 Mar 1987, p.5]

Blood Simple becomes a dazzling comedie noire, a dynamic, virtuoso display by a couple of talented fledgling filmmakers who give the conventions of the genre such a thorough workout that the result is a movie that's fresh and exhilarating (in the way that Jean-Jacques Beineix’s “Diva” was).

Mastery of tone is everything here, and Azazel's control, combined with his wit, perception, discretion and easy command of the visual and of his cast makes Momma's Man a gem.

The Oscar-winning Mon Oncle, in which Tati returned as Hulot, finds the filmmaker in a no less humorous, yet more critical, mood. [02 Feb 1995, p.F4]

Breathtaking reverie worthy of Fellini.

The new Willard, which has taken the original's humanity and the psychological validity, leavened with a dollop of dark humor, and replaced them with a technically impressive but essentially heartless spoof.

A leisurely, understated film reminiscent of any number of Japanese counterparts featuring quietly heroic rural teachers. It is easy to label the film as slow, old-fashioned and sentimental, which it certainly is, but it has the tenacity of its heroine, the pretty and intelligent Melinda (Alessandra de Rossi).

Few filmmakers juxtapose cruelty and beauty as audaciously as Japan's Takashi Miike. A master director with great style and panache, Miike's latest, 13 Assassins, is a classic samurai movie, right up there among the finest in the genre.