Marjorie Baumgarten

This movie presented a radical melange of genuine horror and self-aware comic touches, not to mention the fabulous Rick Baker special effects.

One of the most emotionally honest movies about drug addiction ever made.

A distinctive story with universal appeal.

Exciting to watch: The audio disruptions of Carla putting in or taking out her hearing aids and the inventiveness of the way the heist plot is revealed are just a couple of the film's treats.

This Danish film is an alternately funny and harrowing look at a family crisis, a meltdown that blends the needs of the truthsayers with the instincts of the let's-bury-our-heads-in-the-sand-and-pretend-none-of-this-is-happening types.

Although a nip and a tuck here and there might improve Hugo's overall pace, there is no denying that this love letter to the movies is something to cherish.

Ju Dou is a juicy and stylish potboiler that keeps the pilots turned on full blast.

The perfect antidote to the summer heat in Austin, more refreshing even than a dip in our chilly holy waters of Barton Springs.

Oscar-winning special effects and animation sequences by Ward Kimball make this musical fantasy a perennial favorite.

The film's content is adult – and for the first time in Araki's career, so is the director.

Wonderful but improbable tale about a group of mercenaries sent to Mexico to rescue their employer's wife from bad man Jack Palance.

LaBute's narrative structure and visual strategies are rigorously crafted, bespeaking an almost mathematical calculation that, in compellingly contradictory ways, both enhances the dramatic experience while undermining its very authenticity.

The Counterfeiters differs from most Holocaust movies in that the emphasis is on the personal moral choices that are made rather than the overall horror and despair.

This political satire that's as fresh and exhilarating as anything we've seen come out of Hollywood in quite some time.

The adaptation by Joel and Ethan Coen (both co-credited as writer and director) of McCarthy's as-if-written-for-the-screen No Country for Old Men becomes a marvelous meld of narrative faithfulness and pre-established sensibilities.

Certainly one of the best drug movies ever made.... Great performances make this dispassionate study a memorable experience.

Despite its probe of deep moral questions, Woman at War (a multiple award winner on the festival circuit as well as having been Iceland’s entry for Oscar consideration last year) maintains a light feel and concludes with a sense of uplift as we watch human beings forge ahead despite the floodwaters rising around them.

Doesn’t provide any answers, and that’s both its strength and weakness.

Campion’s story of a tubercular poet and his lady love recasts the hackneyed old stanza in refreshing new verse.

The Hanna-Barbera animation is better than the studio’s usual bare-bones mediocrity, and the voice cast is superb.

The German film Victoria gives off a lustrous intensity. Filmed all in one take in pre-dawn Berlin, the film is a technical marvel inset with small jewels.

The sexual chemistry between Hepburn and Grant, when set against Charade's tumultuous backdrop of shifting identities, makes this movie an enduring favorite.

Yes, it's a coming-out film, but it breaks that mold by being thoroughly unpredictable. It's a coming-of-age film, too, and by virtue of of telling the story of a young, black lesbian, Pariah also ventures into novel territory for a motion picture.

Watching and listening to these two is a charming experience; their conversation has the ring of veracity, and rarely does the viewer's interest stray.

One of the most original movies of the year.

The kind of movie that gets under your skin and takes root.

Manages the most delicate of hat tricks: It gives definition to uncertainty.

The film is a magnificent document of secular humanism.

This oil-family story is way, way east of Eden. Were I asked to choose, Written on the Wind would blow in as my favorite Sirk film.

Restrepo is an example of photojournalism at its finest.

The crisp imagery (by Radek Ładczuk) creates a true sense of menace amid the household banality. Tales about mothers who fear their offspring also strike at a very primal level of mythic storytelling. Vigilance is the only means of protection against creatures from the id.

Though we will differ on the methods of improving the American health care system, Sicko's enduring contribution is the undeniable evidence that the system is broken. If the film brings the debate out into the open of our movie lobbies and living rooms, it can’t be long before the conversation trickles into the corridors of Congress.

Nobody Knows is the rare film that successfully tells its tale of childhood from the children’s point of view.

This folk tale about a magical child has even been cited by some scholars as an early and elegant work of science fiction. However, it’s also possible to bypass all this baggage and just approach The Tale of Princess Kaguya as the gorgeous and expressive film that it is.

Only a quite over-the-top character played by Raquel Welch strikes any false note. Otherwise, Tortilla Soup is a real chef's special.

Smart and self-deprecating story about love and mortality: It’s merely a winter's tale told with a summer's palette.

Though you might have a hard time discussing some of the film’s verbal descriptions of torture with young ones, Persepolis will prove a worthwhile movie for thoughtful teens.

Hustle is a great modern love story disguised as a neo-noir police procedural.

For the iconoclastic film director Ken Loach and his longtime screenwriting collaborator Paul Laverty, I, Daniel Blake represents their most accessible film ever.

Visually inventive cartoon is complemented by clever, whimsical narration and 11 songs from the Beatles.

Music has rarely appeared more essential to the human drama.

In her first solo writing and directing effort, the hard-working indie film actress Greta Gerwig proves that she is her own muse. She takes the well-worn coming-of-age-dramedy format and fashions something fresh, funny, and artful from its familiar tropes. Also delivering the goods is a knockout cast of accomplished veterans and relative newcomers.

Secretary is a testament to the importance of tonality in telling a story.

Not enough can be said about Willem Dafoe’s amazing performance as van Gogh. It is some of the best work of his career.

Jennifer Jason Leigh's performance is so incredible that witnessing it is reason enough to take a look at this movie.

There is a whole lot to be said for fun -- especially fun that can be shared by all -- and in this regard Spy Kids saves the day.

The basic outline was adapted from Kurosawa's classic Seven Samurai and made into an American Western by one of the great innovators of the genre, John Sturges. The film led the way for other all-star cast outings.

Elvis' third movie is surely his best. He plays a guy vaguely like himself, who hits it big after learning to play music while in prison. Not only does this film have some of the best tunes in an Elvis movie, the choreography is great too.

Finds a way to impart this sad history while raising our spirits at the same time.

Haynes brings the emotional underbelly to the surface, he also tricks up the visual surface with elaborate color schemes that provide unspoken clues regarding the characters’ frames of mind.

Sometimes people grow up sane despite the best efforts of society to drive them mad. This is the case for filmmaker Jonathan Caouette.

An abundance of color is present in Pain and Glory but the shades are more muted than Almodóvar’s early color-saturated work. Thematically and visually, this film has more in common with such Almodóvar dramas as "All About My Mother" and "Talk to Her." Pain and Glory is ultimately the story of an artist on the verge of a creative breakthrough.

Gets under your skin with its graceful edits and poetic elisions, lovely performances, and faded imagery.

The movie's ending at the train station and the modern-day epilogue feel protracted and indulgent...Apart from the ending though, this is Spielberg's most articulate movie ever.

Blue is a movie that engages the mind, challenges the senses, implores a resolution, and tells, with aesthetic grace and formal elegance, a good story and a political allegory.

Don't let the near-impossible-to-remember title keep you away from this singular and slightly surreal Tommy Lee Jones scorcher.

As we begin to follow the trail of journalist Areez Rahimi (Ebrahimi, who received the Best Actress award at Cannes for this role), the film becomes a very effective thriller. Through her, we also experience the country’s entrenched misogyny.

The Queen is palace intrigue at its finest.

From the second it begins, Boogie Nights seizes your senses and pulls you right in: no turning back, no time for debate, no regrets.

Depp, as the the fragile but irresistibily fabulous title character, is a delight.

It was the greatest rock & roll party you never heard of.

A devastating portrait of impoverished Calucutta children.

It’s endlessly arguable and open for debate. At the very least, we can all agree that Banksy has found a new wall on which to plaster his art – that of the silver screen.

At heart, White is a black comedy with intriguing characters and a plot that plays its cards close to the deck.

Corrosively funny yet emotionally devastating.

The Rider is a stunning piece of fiction played close to the bone.

Technically, what’s on display may not be the Oscar winner’s finest go at filmmaking, but never has his message seemed more urgent and unaffected.