Lou Lumenick

What might seem like showing off in another movie is dazzling storytelling here, packing in an hour's worth of human misery.

Bursting with energy and originality even after 36 years, A Hard Day's Night is easily the best show in town.

This is perhaps the most effective 3-D movie I have ever seen, with a sophisticated, involving story that will appeal to many adults. The only reservation I have is with the PG rating, which seems too lenient for a story that may give very young children - particularly if they are sensitive - nightmares.

So gorgeously animated and so thoroughly entertaining for all ages that only an ogre would complain it's not quite as fresh as the original.

A triumph of low-budget filmmaking.

It's the well-wrought details that explain, perhaps better than any earlier film, how an entire country bought into Hitler's genocidal madness.

Julie Christie is simply astounding as a woman slipping into the ravages of Alzheimer's in Sarah Polley's deeply affecting and artfully crafted Away From Her.

This remarkable new documentary from Raymond De Felitta ("City Island") fruitfully revisits the aftermath of a TV doc that his father, Frank, produced for NBC in 1965.

Williams, who was elected president of ASCAP in 2009, speaks frankly and eloquently about his problems dealing with fame, and his recovery. And more important, he earns our thanks by resolutely refusing to let Kessler turn this into a clichéd documentary.

In the Loop is certainly the smartest and funniest movie inspired by the Iraq war.

Nutty Danish provocateur Lars von Trier -- long one of the most annoying filmmakers on the planet -- turns out one of the year's most emotionally resonant art movies.

Cars leaves the animated competition in the dust, even if it is a tad slower and more predictable than Pixar at full throttle.

This demanding puzzle is not for the "Chocolat" crowd, but those who stay with it will experience perhaps the most dazzling film released so far this year - even though a second viewing is virtually mandatory.

I'm not generally a huge fan of movies with two-or three-person casts -- they tend to resemble filmed plays -- but The Business of Strangers is a knockout.

An instant classic.

Includes insightful and often hilarious archival interviews with Langlois and dozens of associates, as well as wonderful footage of Langlois.

The role of William is a perfect fit for Red West, a well-weathered member of Elvis Presley's Memphis Mafia who has served as a bodyguard as well as a stuntman and bit-part actor.

Rarely less than absorbing and never boring over its nearly three-hour length.

Like some of Hitchcock's films, the story - adapted from a novel by Charlotte Armstrong, an American mystery writer of the '40s and '50s - can be accused of stretching credibility and coincidence almost to the breaking point.

Be warned: Though it's entirely justified by the story, there's a level of violence and brutality in Training Day -- that some terror-weary audience members may not care to cope with these days.

Genuinely creepy Southern Gothic thriller that once again proves that in horror movies, sometimes less is actually more.

So terrifically entertaining, it would be a shame if it didn't inspire a companion piece on New York.

Pays off with emotional dividends well worth the time investment.

An unforgettable and complex portrait of a nuclear family in meltdown.

You'll either be screaming with laughter - or be incredibly offended.

Director William Friedkin, (“The French Connection” and this year’s “Rules of Engagement”) has always been a provocateur, a master of the shock. But his very lack of subtlety is both the strength and weakness of The Exorcist in the 21st century. [2000 re-release]

An astonishing re-creation of the Londonderry massacre of January 1972.

This environmentally themed, very loose version of Hans Christian Andersen's "Little Mermaid" is never going to be mistaken for Disney's musical of the same name.