Lawrence Toppman

The result is a film that has "Masterpiece Theatre" production values but not an ounce of dust upon it.

A spruced-up version has been re-released after 22 years, and the addition of 43 minutes means the story really has room to breathe.

An experience as tender and troubling as any you're likely to get - or not likely, if this subject puts you off.

The title comes from the memoir by Mariane Pearl, wife of kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. It applies equally to Winterbottom, who has made the rarest movie among this summer's releases: a taut police procedural that examines all sides of an issue and forces us to re-think our own.

To talk more about the movie's layers is to risk giving away too much. I'll say only that this film confirms Nolan's status as the director whose work I look forward to more than any other.

You can’t exactly call Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity the best film of its kind, because it has no kind: It stands alone as an extraordinary balance of 3-D effects, heroes-in-jeopardy storytelling and emotional depth.

Watching it again reminded me how remarkably the sound engineers did their jobs. Listen to the subtly amplified heartbeat - Ripley's? the ship's? - that pulses under the soundtrack through the last 15 minutes.

Jackson surpasses the expectations anyone might have had for him with The Fellowship of the Ring, the first installment of his trilogy devoted to J.R.R. Tolkien's masterwork.

The film is visually sumptuous, morally ambiguous, dramatic and dreamlike, with a narrative as engrossing as any live-action movie of 2013. It’s easy to follow yet hard to shake.

A gently spellbinding drama that captures the old-fashioned enchantment of Roald Dahl’s book.

U.S. geography doesn't matter to Payne. He always charts the terrain of the human heart, and he's among the wisest of mapmakers.

The Big Short, which he directed and wrote with Charles Randolph from the book by Michael Lewis, jumps off the screen in every scene and pins an elusive subject firmly in place.

Has an honesty few movies seek or achieve these days.

David Fincher obsesses about obsessive people.

This meditation on spirituality, loneliness and accountability could touch your heart's core.

As we bounce over rough seas on the Maersk, we know just what will be lost if the Somalis don’t keep their trembling fingers off their triggers. As the title suggests, this is not a movie about an incident: It’s a movie about a man who stays very real to us.

I haven’t seen a movie this year with a more brilliant combination of imagination, emotionally moving moments, witty writing, visually interesting details and psychologically accurate behavior than Inside Out.

To call it a masterpiece is premature: That's a title to be earned only in retrospect. But I've seen it twice now and can't imagine what I would change. It fits together tightly as a suspenseful puzzle, yet it's also emotionally rewarding and sardonically funny.

The most atmospheric thing in the movie is Farnsworth's face.

One of the most uncompromisingly bleak films I've ever seen.

Breathtaking masterpiece.

One of the most heartbreaking, unforgettable dramas in years.

Its uniqueness lies in its juxtaposition of happy faces and unhappy realities, of fleeting expressions of art and culture undone by daily brutality.

Most documentaries put us inside people's heads. The dazzling, experimental Pina puts us inside people's feet.

A dark comedy that's as emotionally honest as any picture of 2002.

It's encouraging to see a nation so aware of its public image and defensive about its military decisions examine a dark day in its history.

Jackson had the vision, persistence, insight and patience for this mighty job, plus the smarts to shape stage veterans and overlooked film actors into a seamless cast. He's made himself as immortal as a movie director can be.

All that matters is that emotions be real, and so they are: wracking grief, harrowing madness, unquenchable hate. Composers have tried and failed to turn "Lear" into a workable opera, but Kurosawa has found the visual equivalent. Yet the last image of a man, solitary and silent, is more haunting than all the destruction. [10 Aug 2001, p.7E]

It'll preach mainly to the choir - lazy thinkers won't attend, despite George Clooney's attachment as director and actor - but maybe it'll wake a few sleepers.

Freeman's understated, deeply-felt acting tops a passel of good performances. [25 Dec 1998, p.7E]

This suspenseful drama reveals pieces of its puzzle steadily and slowly, until the final heartrending picture can be seen at last. Remarkably, it comes from a screenwriter who had never had a feature film produced and a director who had never made one in English.

Most nations, ours included, still tolerate some form of slavery or indentured servitude. And 12 Years shows the cruelty of denying not only someone’s freedom but his identity. Take away the essence of a human being – whether he’s in fetters or not – and you destroy him.

There’s not a great theme, a great performance or even a great scene in Boyhood. But I think it might be a great picture.

The usually quiet Zellweger is the revelation: Like her character, the actress seems happily amazed to find herself crossing a polished dance floor, sheathed in silk and diamonds, having the naughty, self-glorifying time of her life.

What surprises us most is the picture's topicality, and not just because terrorists crashed a plane into the Pentagon three years ago.

Sometimes a movie speaks loudest when nobody raises a voice. I can’t remember a single scene of fierce denunciation, fervid declaration of righteousness, act of violence or shouting match in Loving. Yet it lands with as much impact as any movie you’ll see this year.

The giddiest and funniest animated film of the year.

Adams gives her best performance as a lonely woman who has to make a decision that will haunt her – though perhaps in a good way – for the rest of her life.

Pixar's employees, masters of computer-generated animation, capture the look of the ocean like no artists before.

For the first time since "X-Men," I was on the edge of my seat anticipating a sequel, wondering who'd play the Joker and how quickly Nolan - it must be Nolan! - can bring the next chapter of this story to the screen.

Squid keeps you on your toes, but payoffs will have you smiling - maybe in rueful recognition of the truth - in scene after scene.

When was the last time you had to wait until the final sentence of a film to understand all the details? When was the last time you went to a genre movie – or what looked like one in spooky trailers – and realized the director had fulfilled that promise and meditated on his favorite topic? Shutter Island does just that.

Langella has always been a cerebral actor, one who never gives away all he's thinking. What comes through in this portrayal is how smart Nixon was, whether he's cunningly probing Frost's weaknesses or pitching himself to TV viewers as an avuncular, misunderstood Cold Warrior.

Moviegoers are turned off by depressing topics, yet "Diving Bell" supplies something film fans claim they want: pure escapism, the chance to experience extreme sensations virtually none of us will ever have.

Yet its visual surrealism, identity-bending and strong social/ecological message make it as much an allegory as a fable.

Reveals the drama and degredation so powerfully that it ranks among the all-time heavyweights of sports movies.

As a picture that celebrates one of the greatest archetypes in literature while freshening countless familiar details, I doubt it can be bettered.

A tribute to anyone who ever picked up a score, a pen, a paintbrush or a grease pencil - or a movie camera.

Spielberg has never made a more sophisticated and less sentimental picture. He and writer Tony Kushner craft it like a historical thriller.

In a world full of recyclable superheroes and mindless “empowerment” comedies, we’re finally getting a movie about reality. We’re surrounded by surveillance and the threat of violence, and this film asks us to judge the proper balance between liberty and security – and the amount of collateral damage acceptable to maintain the latter.

The film's proudest boast is that nary a frame comes from documentary footage...Every riot, every explosion, every seemingly spontaneous gundown in the streets of Algiers was staged, then shot in black-and-white stock that intentionally echoes newsreel footage.

It's freakishly funny, suddenly tender, gleefully macabre, genuinely scary, and full of a moral – fear turns weak people into bullies – which is dosed out so gently that it never tastes like medicine.

For a movie that ends in the profoundest depths of sadness, Boys Don't Cry contains one of the year's purest moments of joy.

Among many things that make the taut thriller Argo remarkable is this one: It depicts a 1980 rescue of American hostages from Iran yet begins by pointing out that the United States was partly responsible for the situation.

Phoenix gives a performance as convincing as he did in “The Master,” and in exactly the opposite direction: gentle, meditative and cerebral, instead of angry, closed-minded and baffled.

A picture from an old man working at the top of his game.

Director Tom McCarthy, who wrote the script with Josh Singer, has made a film without heroes.

The two most frightening concepts in Room, one of the most remarkable movies of 2015, are freedom and the lack of it.

I can't recall the last film that so wholly, honestly and movingly explained what it means to be a Christian.

Writer Steve Kloves, who adapted all of J.K. Rowling's novels except "Order of the Phoenix" over the last 11 years, neither wastes a word nor leaves out any essentials.

Selick's fantastical adaptation of Neil Gaiman's novel will be too dazzlingly rich for many; it'll be like "caviare to the general," as Hamlet said of a complex play enacted for a public with lazy minds.

The most difficult task in Pixar's 20-year history: to make an un-Mickey-like rodent appealing enough to admire.

He's (Yimou) like a painter combining bloody reds, sunshine yellows and pale blues in the harmony of a masterpiece.

Just as moving, uplifting and funny as ever in its slightly modified form. [2002 re-release]

We don't find out until the last scene how reality and fantasy intersect, when the meaning of the first shot of the film gets driven home. How many movies have you seen with a payoff like that?

Warms the heart while chilling the bones.

Succeeds as an action film, character study and metaphor for our own terrorism-obsessed time.

Once every couple of years, a movie comes along to remind us how satisfyingly complex the genre can be. Christopher Nolan’s reimagining of the “Batman” saga did that masterfully. On a slightly less ambitious scale, so does X-Men: Days of Future Past.

Director Matt Reeves, working from a script by Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver and Mark Bomback, elevates the apes to primary importance in this intelligent thriller.

The film remains sadly profound and profoundly sad, yet it holds just enough humor to lighten a weighty subject without trivializing it.

Moore makes no attempt at visual reality. The colors and drawings employ the flat design of a handsomely decorated book, and the children have the huge eyes, disproportionately large heads and small bodies you sometimes see in Japanese animation.

The Dardennes know how to tell low-key stories effectively, and Cotillard’s Academy Award-nominated performance builds toward the unexpected ending.

Nobody fires a shot. Nobody topples a kingdom. But as Ivan Locke’s life unravels behind the wheel of his car, which he drives almost from the first frame to the last, we can’t look away.

The most important thing, though, is that we come away feeling we know him. He died on Christmas Day eight years ago, and people listening to samples of his music in rap and hip-hop may have no idea why he mattered. Now they’ll see.

The film could hardly be less American in tone: It has no villains. It provides complete and comfortable closure for none of its relationships.

It’s the rare animated film that might amuse adults and kids while slipping a useful message to the latter.

Now You See Me can’t quite claim to be the ideal crime drama – that would be “The Usual Suspects,” which justly won an Oscar for its script – but it’s only one level down.

Relaxed editing and well-researched set and costumes give us a firm feeling of the period, and Dick Pope (who has worked with Leigh 10 times) excels. It’s a cliche to say a cinematographer does painterly work, but Pope suffuses the screen with light in the way Turner did his canvases.

This Oscar-nominated documentary does everything you want a documentary to do. It introduces us to a compelling character and, by the finish, allows us to feel we know him well. It makes larger points about the human toil and suffering he shot for most of his career, before he turned to nature to refresh himself.

Gone Girl offers interesting, even amusing audio cues: the sound of a distant mourning dove when we suspect Amy’s been killed, or Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” playing on a car radio as Nick returns his obnoxious father to an assisted care center.

The Fault in Our Stars beautifully captures the hesitancy, shyness masked by outward confidence, feelings of unworthiness and quiet intensity of teenagers in love.

The result is two-tiered humor, broad enough to appeal to anybody but overlaid with jokes that will be funnier if you know the show.

He's (Soderbergh) among the few directors working today who makes me wonder what he'll do next - and draws me into the movie house, whatever it may be.

An animated film that challenges preconceptions about the genre and foregoes the usual romance/adventure structure.

Begins and ends quietly, like stirrings of thunder from a distant storm. In between comes a tragedy that rolls over us like a compact hurricane.

Control Room ends by acknowledging that independence, accuracy and even truth itself may be illusory.

It's among the most inventive, screwily funny and consistently surprising movies I've seen in years.

If you see Hot Fuzz, you'll never again watch a Michael Bay film without howling with disrespectful laughter.

Few white directors depict racial interaction in a thoughtful, non-exploitative way, but Sayles has always been one of them.

Denzel Washington directed and stars in Fences, and he has translated every element of August Wilson’s play to the screen: A language that’s naturalistic yet gently poetic, a detailed sense of America at mid-century...drama that turns to melodrama at key points, characterizations that seethe and explode, the touch of the fantastic (or is it the supernatural?) that pervades most of Wilson’s stories.

The final drum-off (c'mon, you knew it would come down to that) resembles a combination of music, gymnastics and martial arts, and I don't think I've seen a more pulse-pounding scene this year.

On the most basic level, Cars is an old-fashioned fable about an egotistical, talented loner who learns humility and redeems himself by helping unfortunates.

After an hour, The Pianist stops being the Holocaust movie and becomes a Holocaust movie.

Captain America: Civil War appeals to me more strongly than any superhero movie of the last decade.

It's fascinating to watch others sweat, suffer and triumph in the documentary Dust to Glory, which chronicles the longest nonstop, point-to-point race on our planet.

Allen, rejuvenated by foreign settings, makes us appreciate posh parts of England as he always did Manhattan. (Credit cinematographer Remi Adefarasin for showing us how seductive upper-crust London can be.)

Shows the fate of Sicilians who moved to the Italian industrial city of Turin 40-plus years ago, and it suggests that the experience of relocation is universal.

A director needs to know how to pace the tale, where to place the camera, how to draw out a shy actor or get out of the way of a strong one. Those skills are rarer than you'd think. Sarah Polley, who never wrote or directed a feature film before Away From Her, has them all.

Bolt has the magical quality of great animation, the ability to touch us without the hint of preachiness or manipulation.

Brilliantly embodied by Jamie Foxx in this unflinching, entertaining biography.

Howard has never been so grown-up in his handling of tough themes or so inventive in depicting states of mind. Goldsman has never been so down-to-earth or created so touching a character.

It has the charm, irony and saucy wit of the original, plus two supporting characters -- a suave, egocentric feline and a cheerfully conniving fairy godmother -- who are funnier than anyone in "Shrek."

By riffing off two iconic American narratives of the last 35 years, "The Godfather" and "The Sopranos," it has changed the template for animation, making a timely film that still deals with timeless children's themes.

Corpse Bride had me at the maggot.

This film reminds us you can have a miracle only when David slings a stone at Goliath, not when two Goliaths pummel each other with sticks.

This is the first real family comedy I've seen in a long time: one honest enough to satisfy teens, wryly funny enough for adults and zany enough for little kids.

A crackling rendition of Dan Brown's novel, siphoning off unneeded fat and fancy and leaving us with a streamlined train of a picture that never stops moving.

If you're tired of false holiday cheer, Lilya 4-Ever will provide a corrective to the spiritual eggnog force-fed to us all season. The climax takes place during Christmas, though one that would make Tiny Tim grateful for his crutch and cold chimney corner.

Cravalho shows spunk and a generically lovely voice, though she’s saddled with assembly-line anthems Disney has done better elsewhere. Johnson has exuberance, deft timing and a passable singing voice.

Yet as fine as she and Ewan McGregor are as the parents, Tom Holland stands out as eldest son Lucas, a slightly sullen teen who learns to put other people before himself.

The sequel is faster, funnier and wilder, with more cunningly contrived computer effects.

Bloom finally comes into his own as a man here, somberly thoughtful and melancholic. The elfin archer of "The Lord of the Rings" and the trivial boy-toy of "Troy" have been forgotten.

If you've been seduced by Andrew Lloyd Webber's stage version of "The Phantom of the Opera," you'll fall in love with the gorgeous, splendidly cast film.

The technical side of Baadasssss! far surpasses that of "Sweetback," and re-created scenes from the 1971 film look much better in the son's hands than they did in the father's.

Cedar is mostly interested in the father-son dynamics, and he cast excellent actors. Lewensohn, a famous Israeli theatrical director, makes his film acting debut, while the veteran Ashkenazi ("Late Wedding") handles his low-key role with bearlike grace.

His (LaBute) observation of human nature is keener than before, his dialogue more attuned to ambiguities.

The animals' personalities have been carefully calibrated: They have sufficient edge to amuse us as characters, yet they're cuddly enough to market as plush toys or action figures.

Lanthimos and Filippou have thoroughly imagined their world.

Most horror movies try to show us the man inside the monster, so we'll empathize with his moral dilemmas or feel his suffering. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer shows us a man who is all monster, whose colossal amorality makes him a potential Messiah or menace to humanity.

(The Coens have) never again achieved the one-two punch of Blood Simple and "Raising Arizona" - the first darkly cynical, the second light-headedly comical.

Cinematographer Cesar Charlone, whose burnt-orange view of the favela made "City of God" striking, conveys Africa's slums with equal force in somber browns and simmering yellows. At times, the inhabitants seem to be on fire in their surroundings, a fitting image for a land consigned to a hell of unhappiness.

A horror film that doesn't wear out a moment of its welcome.

The film requires close attention, especially while it jumps back and forth in time for the first half-hour, but all the pieces lock into place tightly by the end.

The voice cast includes Angelina Jolie as a tigress, omnipresent Seth Rogen as an acupuncturist who's a praying mantis, David Cross as a nasal crane and Lucy Liu as a cheerful viper.

The film's a little more accessible than "Requiem for a Dream" and a lot easier to understand than "The Fountain," but its low-key grunginess may restrict its appeal to people who have liked professional wrestling and/or Rourke.

Less gloriously showy than "Memento," but it proves you can still craft fine art under the auspices of a big studio.

Johnny Depp has finally won me over to rabid support after "Neverland" and "Pirates of the Caribbean." He gives the most controlled, least mannered performance of his career, staying sweet and rueful while suggesting unseen emotional depths.

This superficial plot, almost devoid of characterization or weighty emotions, is an excuse for ferocious, fast and frequent combat.

If I understand the intentions of writer-directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the film moved me profoundly. I’ll let you come up with your interpretation – or I’ll share mine privately, to avoid spoilers – but it’s a unique look inside a troubled mind.

A high-wire act, treading a thin line of truth between hokum and homilies. You hold your breath, waiting to see if the filmmakers misstep, but they never do.

It's possible to groan, chuckle, wince and be moist-eyed, sometimes in a span of seven or eight minutes.

If you wait through the credits, you get one last joke in the fine print: The actors shot the whole movie in Hawaii, on the fabulously lush island of Kauai. So while they were shooting a story about indulged prima donnas, they were working themselves in one of the most tourist-friendly spots on Earth. You've gotta smile at that.

Marston doesn't develop the characters, except for the strong-willed and quick-witted Maria.

This story of a guy looking for love in many of the wrong places turns out to be one of the happiest surprises of the movie year.

The picture shatters all genre conventions.

Salva's view of the universe is bleak, but he communicates it with scary sincerity.

Field does what most American directors don't: He shows people at work, in the day-to-day activity unmarked by excitement.

It settles into the typical reflective mode of Iranian films, but something IS happening: A human being is slowly, sullenly, silently approaching his combustion point.

Polished, thoughtful and touching.

By the end, you'll be chilled and disturbed by what you've seen -- and, rare as this is in a horror movie, touched to the heart.

Top honors go to Guinee, who steadily builds his character from tiny details, and Reaser, who's understood through eyes and attitude while speaking a hodgepodge of German, Norwegian and English.

Until Year of the Dog, I've never seen a movie where someone obsessed over a puppy.

Unobtrusively satisfying.

It’s impossible to envision a sequel with pleasure – this kind of lightning wouldn’t strike twice – but the first one could hardly be improved.

These aren't people whose problems can be solved quickly or easily. They'll need medication, therapy, patience, self-awareness and willingness to compromise to conquer troubles, and Russell makes us root for them as they stumble along.

A character in Yann Martel's novel "Life of Pi" tells us this will be a story to make us believe in God. The film version written by David Magee and directed by Ang Lee may do that – you'll decide for yourself – but it will definitely make you believe in the power of cinema.

Best of all, Billy (Jamie Bell) is that rarity in a film distributed by Hollywood: a real boy, confused at 11 about almost everything.

The strong personalities of Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal, who play typical supportive wives, keep scenes from sagging.

At bottom, all Payne's films make us smile, often ruefully but hopefully.

Watching I Heart Huckabees was like taking my first Manhattan cab ride with a madman behind the wheel. As the skyscrapers whizzed by, I thought, "What a view! I just wish we'd slow down, so I could take everything in."

Proves eye-opening in two ways: Sweeping, bloody battles will make your orbs pop, and you'll re-evaluate this supposedly “uncivilized” man who unified quarrelsome Central Asian tribes to create one of the largest empires in history.

After 30 minutes, I wondered why I was watching a drama about a quarrelsome couple who seemed so obviously wrong for each other. After 60 minutes, I knew. After 90 minutes, I cared. By the end, I was riveted.

Betty moves into Coen Brothers territory, a land so unreal that horrific behavior wrings laughter from a disbelieving audience.

Grosser than "American Pie"! More penis jokes than "There''s Something About Mary"! Nudity more gratuitous than "Porky''s"!

Doesn't have the daring lunacy of "Chuck and Buck," the previous collaboration by director Miguel Arteta and writer Mike White. Yet it gets closer to the troubled, lonely soul of its main character.

These kids may be too small for sports and may not be headed to college on academic scholarships. But for once, they've proven to the world and to themselves that they matter.

Best of all, we finally learn something about Bond's origins: The movie takes its title from his ancestral home in Scotland. (A nod to Connery, perhaps?)

Among the handsome explosions, wacky effects, slapstick comedy and zooming action sequences of The Incredibles, writer-director Brad Bird is attempting to start a revolution.

Beach blends all the performing styles smoothly: LL's blithe coolness, Blalock's sultry ambiguity, Liotta's slow-boiling intensity, Ejiofor's dapper amiability, Phifer's brooding intensity.

The Tony-winning Bosco, one of the great stage actors of the last 50 years, does a lot with a little in his restricted role; he's haughty, almost dignified by his angry silence. Linney and Hoffman stay pitch-perfect in their noisy desperation and sullen withdrawal.

Hanks has a good time, romping around with the assurance of a holy fool. He and Roberts seem "actorish," putting on accents and mannerisms, but they're entertaining. Hoffman is something more, a scenery-devouring force of nature irresistible as a cyclone and irreverent as a stand-up comedian at a midnight show.

The ex-lovers' new conversation is stimulating and banal, selfish and broad-minded, affectionate and recriminatory, insightful and obtuse - in short, the kind of dialogue two people might have while pouring out their hearts and poring over their pasts.

Filmmakers have presented an unvarnished drama about Marshall University and the people who love it, and the results are inspirational.

Almodovar still populates his work with characters you'll see nowhere else in movies.

Hungarian writer-director László Nemes makes an extraordinary feature-length debut with this film, which requires us to put together bits of information and leaves us guessing at a few missing pieces.

Mortensen has been ideally cast. He’s at his best playing fanatics, obsessives, people beyond the norm who can’t find their place in a quiet world.

Keeps its sense of humor while dealing with serious issues.

The effect is as potent as a straight right to the solar plexus.

An articulate plea to Westerners not to repeat these terrible sins of omission.

The film has two active virtues, too. It shows human beings in all their pitiable, noble, stupid or sensitive modes of action, and it reminds us there's always time to fall in love, if only for a few days.

Enchanted charmingly reworks all the old favorites while incorporating fresh twists of its own.

The leads blend as seamlessly as any young-old character coupling I've seen. The prosthetically altered Gordon-Levitt, unrecognizable at first, really resembles Willis.

Gandolfini's fans expect something quirky whenever he shows up, and they'll get what they've bargained for.

Every era gets the Robin Hood it needs…Now director Ridley Scott and writer Brian Helgeland have given us an intelligent, layered story suited to our grim, patience-trying times.

Ryder puts fire into both Abigail's pants and her belly, aided by makeup that makes her seem as much victim as victimizer. [20 Dec 1996, p.1E]

The funniest, crassest, wildest, most musical, most satirical and most scatological of the Powers trilogy. And you get to watch Britney Spears' head explode. What more could you want?

The irony is, this family isn't mismatched: All six bickering characters are connected by empathy as well as blood, and we wait for them to figure that out.

Those of us who admire Charles Portis' novel have waited 40 years for a screen version that's as literal as possible – and the Coen brothers just about deliver it.

The plot is thin: You'll guess the villain early, then pick holes in story construction. But Black's ear for mock-noir speeches doesn't fail him, and he gleefully parodies the chase scenes that dominated his action movies.

The chorus backs the soloists powerfully, and they are as fresh as the rest of the film: fat and fit, homely and handsome, young gods and old codgers – in short, people you might really see in Greece. Reality in a musical? That alone makes it worth your open-eared attention.

The rabbits, foolishly introduced to a land that couldn't support them as they bred and dispersed, are symbols of the English: ravenous, unheeding, ineradicable and a constant threat to the native way of life.

Can be unbearably moving or annoyingly mawkish, sometimes in the same scene.

Talkies may have killed silent movies, the way TV serials and soap operas wiped out radio dramas. But there are stories most effectively told in the old style, and The Artist is proof.

This is a game of numbers, not personalities, and a shrewd man wants the bigger numbers on his side when historians pick up their pens.

Two things keep the film off Disney's top shelf. First, Naveen is a dull hero; his good-natured vanity isn't engaging until late in the story. Second, Newman's songs are less bland than usual but no more memorable.

(Mendes') film debut shows he can shock not only with noise and nakedness but with subtle observations.

It's a gentle look at people who cut themselves off from others and realize consequences too late. If Southern Baptists believed in karma, this would be their touchstone.

The most sophisticated and satisfying ghost story on film since "The Sixth Sense."

In rare cases – and The Woman in Black is one of them – a story may be more atmospheric when less is left to the imagination.

You can't root for Ronnie. You can't identify with him. You can't hope he gets the girl – any girl. But you may want to look on with stunned fascination as he ticks away, ready to explode.

Picks up steam from the ominous opening scene and ends as a quietly suspenseful thriller.

The mountain, grim and unforgiving, remains the star.

Li plays haughty, brilliant wushu master Huo Yuanjia, whose recklessness leads to tragedy after he becomes a champion at the end of the 19th century.

The film offers an unusually rounded picture of a Latino family. All the men work, getting up early to do blue-collar jobs that demand dedication and responsible behavior. (We don't see much of them, but they have a strong presence in the household.)

Most of the actors live their roles, and Fassbender (Rochester in the last "Jane Eyre") is superb as the wolflike, undisciplined assassin.

Anyone who enjoys the novels of Ed McBain, the Oscar-winning "All the President's Men" or any televised variation of "CSI" will be at home here.

Bayona understands the forces that bind families together and the ones that tear individuals apart. His real domain is childhood itself, and few storytellers summon its fears and fury so faithfully.

To adapt it for a 130-minute movie, Irving ruthlessly cut away subplots, eliminated supporting characters and pared down the traits of the ones that remain.

Turn a potentially unforgettable movie into a broad crowd-pleaser that sustains itself on three acting performances.

Yi Yi is an intimate movie, for all its length and complexity.

Gone Baby Gone would be an accomplishment with anyone at the helm; from a first-timer, it's a revelation.

Doesn't reveal all its layers until you've taken the last bite.

The film moves slowly, yet at exactly the right pace. Long holds on faces let us ponder what’s said and look for visual clues that it may be a lie.

Trumping its predecessor with a tauter plot, a lower body count and just as many edge-of-the-seat jolts.

My sentimentality meter never went off, and Smith proved what people have forgotten since his breakthroughs in "Where the Day Takes You" and "Six Degrees of Separation" 13 years ago: He's a serious actor.

The film moves swiftly and unerringly to its conclusion. Spielberg remains under Stanley Kubrick's directorial spell.

Portman doesn't catch fire until the second half, then heaves herself into emotional action; this suits her initially passive, mostly unthinking character. Weaving, who acts entirely with his voice, is V's ideal embodiment: witty, rueful, pitiless, visionary and mad.

Balances brains, brawn and heart in ideal proportions. The actors - some first-rate, all enjoyable - never get overshadowed by the special effects, which dazzle us without gory excess.

The most thoughtfully satisfying of the first six books.

The longer film makes Donnie's intentions clearer, explains the time-travel theme better and also leaves us in no doubt as to Frank's identity.

It comes from Pixar, the animation studio that scored with the "Toy Story" series and "A Bug's Life," and it has more zip and a tad less soul than those predecessors.

Whedon wants to make a Serenity trilogy, and I suspect the actors will grow on me if he does. In this case, familiarity would breed not contempt but comfort.

Hank Greenberg was to Jews what Jackie Robinson was to African Americans: a great athlete, handsome and hard-working, who took the first line of abuse from bigots and proved that his people belonged at the highest level of professional sports.

Anton has a sad, gentle detachment that allows him to turn the other cheek literally through a series of slaps.

Despite Hunter's terrific acting, the mom seems too unaware.

Careful casting adds to verisimilitude. Nobody carries off a chilly authority figure like Tilda Swinton, who represents the chemical company; Pollack, who has more or less stopped directing, now embodies urbane amorality as an actor; Wilkinson, whose career has mostly been devoted to repressed or depressed characters, enjoys his turn as a bright-eyed fanatic.

It's obviously meant to help his presidential candidacy - why release it a month before the election, otherwise? - and for the first 7 minutes, it plays like a campaign commercial about young John's integrity, hard work and humble roots.

If you're put off by deliberate filmmaking (or subtitles, though the movie doesn't have much dialogue), you're in the wrong spot. If not, you'll see why voters gave "Atanarjuat," as it's officially called, a 2002 Oscar nomination for best foreign film.

Anderson tells this story slowly, inexorably, with a sense of control I've never felt from him before. This is the least violent of his five dramas, the first where nobody dies. It's also the bleakest.

It depicts a world close enough to our own to be terrifying, yet different enough to rouse curiosity.

A follow-up with as much artistic integrity, complexity, humor and well-designed action as the original.

Markowitz, Daley and Goldstein sounds like a New York firm that delivers financial advice, but they're asking you to invest only $9 of your cash and 100 minutes of your time. They have written the funniest movie I've seen this year in Horrible Bosses.

What director Jan Hrebejk and writer Petr Jarchovský are talking about is the Czech Republic, ravaged for decades by communism and then left to fend for itself in a world to which it can scarcely adjust.

Rodriguez' inner peace wins us over. He seems to have enjoyed recording music, fathering kids, cleaning houses, playing sold-out gigs and simply strumming a guitar in his kitchen. Searching for Sugar Man reminds us that a wise man knows lasting riches are never the result of record sales.

Though the writing isn't always specific, Williams is. He differentiates between the murderer in "Insomnia," who wants a cop to understand his motives, and Sy, who realizes no one ever could.

The well-composed movie directed by Jon Favreau and written by Justin Marks takes us beyond the 1967 cartoon and, in some ways, beyond Kipling.

Like a story-spinner from the "Tales of the Arabian Nights," Steven Spielberg begins by demanding we accept impossible things. If we do, his spell can enchant us; if not, it must vanish like colored smoke.

The result owes a little to the 1927 "Metropolis," a little to film noir, a little to early depictions of H.G. Wells' science fiction -- notably the 1936 "Things to Come" -- and a little to lovably far-fetched sci-fi serials.

Wallenda once said, "Life is being on the wire; everything else is just waiting." This film makes that motto ring true.

Anyone who saw the Oscar-nominated Mulligan in "An Education" knows what she can do. If you didn't, you're in for the kind of quietly revelatory acting that portends a brilliant career.

Disney's updated, animated version respects its source material while aiming at kids who grew up with extreme sports and edgy music.

This documentary makes a terrible kind of sense. It reminds us that something we take for granted, like air, can be sold to us – if we can afford it. And if we can't, what happens then?

Mikkelsen, like Jimmy Stewart, projects emotions with a slight twitch of a lip or narrowing of an eye. His long face - often handsome, sometimes plain, always cryptic - yields secrets slowly; you have to watch an entire film to know how his character feels and how you feel about him.

The director lingers over images, watching builders at work or Baran at her chores; the camera often seems to daydream, like Lateef. No grand climax caps the film, but the small incidents have a cumulative effect.

It gives such a down-to-Earth view of the joys, terrors, boredom, anxieties and camaraderie in a war zone.

It'll hearten anyone who believed Lee had insights and merely needed to find the right vehicle to express them. Bus is that vehicle. [18 Oct 1996, p.1E]

Each major character is complex, none more so than Bill. He's almost Shakespearean in scope.

Director Stephen Frears...drops down to the underclass in "DPT," examining the ways in which educated illegals fight off despair, poverty and extradition.

I've heard that one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. By that standard, the U.S. "War on Drugs" seems crazy indeed in The House I Live In.

No matter what character Don Cheadle has played in his 23-year career, he's always seemed to be holding something back...Until Talk to Me.

The film's main virtue, a large virtue indeed, is that it does not give anything away before its shockingly apt time.

The terrific Spellbound really isn't about the ability to tear words apart letter by letter. It's about nerve-wracking competitiveness.

Kandahar found itself in real-life controversy last December, when one of its actors was accused of murder.

One of those rare thrillers where the cops aren't fools, villains don't turn stupid at crucial moments, and career assassins seldom miss targets.

You won't forget Nobody Knows, the quietly harrowing tale of four abandoned Japanese children.

Charming Stuart Little improves on original tale.

Finally! For the first time, Hollywood has made a whimsical, witty, feature-length version of Dr. Seuss that's neither overblown nor smutty nor emotionally hollow.

Haneke peels back the layers of Georges Laurent as slowly and dispassionately as a scientist dissecting a diseased mouse. The ending arrives with the power and inevitability of Greek drama.

Nolan’s tale is not only a trip through mental labyrinths but a reminder that memories may cripple us, unless we learn to let them go.

It's a unique vision of war from the point of view of a Marine who never pulled a trigger against a foe.

You know you’re in a top-drawer Marvel Comics adaptation when even the Stan Lee cameo is clever.

Menno Meyjes' provocative film might be called an example of the haphazardness of evil.

A lot of chaotic fun.

It may cast a spell on anyone who has known loneliness, exclusion, feelings of inferiority or a desire to be encased in a hard shell to protect a soft interior.

The simple, utterly satisfying Premium Rush delivers just what the title promises.

Perhaps Zeitlin isn't really making an issue of class distinctions. Maybe he's just suggesting that we don't know these people very well, and our lives would be richer if we did.

The film's full of in-jokes, from the Spanish-language billboards to the name of Banderas' character.

The saga regains its grandeur with a complicated but easy-to-follow story. The characters are as satisfying as the effects.

This film has two of Fincher's happiest trademarks: It's full of information and stretches over a remarkably long time (165 minutes), yet it's neither confusing nor overextended.

It's tense, strangely funny in a lot of spots and – if you grew up loving old-fashioned, seat-of-the-pants baseball, as I did – the most depressing movie of the year.

You may not realize the imprint it has left until its last season comes to a close.

The writer-director waited until he had the clout, budget and prestige to attract a top-flight cast, then turned Colored Girls into a movie with a little less darkness but plenty of heart and guts.

The best war movies don't preach against war: They remind us of the costs for soldiers and families and ask us to consider whether those costs are worth paying. The Messenger does that without firing a bullet or putting us on a battlefield.

Fierce, fast and funny.

Evans makes a terrific raconteur, imitating voices and putting us behind the scenes.

In an era when most scripts are written by committees of monkeys, hearing one man's intelligent voice is an almost forgotten pleasure.