Michael Sragow

It rises, all on its own, to the realm of masterwork.

You won't see a brighter, truer affirmation of the All-American messed-up improvisational family than Little Miss Sunshine.

I love Rabbit-Proof Fence as drama, as protest, as moviemaking and as poetry.

Samson Raphaelson's marvel of a script unfolds in six sequences that rise and fall with the surprising weight of mini-lifetimes; under Lubitsch's tart-tender direction, the emotionally transparent Stewart and the electric, conflicted Sullivan create an immortal comic courtship. [13 Feb 2004]

Twisted is an unusual forensic crime film because it's witty and sophisticated as well as taut and creepy.

What Phoenix and Witherspoon accomplish in this movie is transcendent. They act with every bone and inch of flesh and facial plane, and each tone and waver of their voice.

Deep Water is a movie that will connect to anyone whose private fantasies and creative plots have landed them in hot water.

Darger made art as if the lives of his subjects depended on it. That's how Yu has made her movie.

A madcap milestone. Not since Disney's 75-minute Alice In Wonderland (1951) has an animator filled the screen with dazzling flights of random invention that manage to hook up into a swift, brief narrative.

It's still the Holy Grail of crazy comedy.

Seabiscuit revives the sweeping pleasures of movies that address and respect the mass audience, raising the common denominator instead of pandering to it. This crowd-pleaser rouses honest and engulfing cheers.

A scary movie that's also funny, touching and good for you.

Takes a chaotic moment in the long history of "the Troubles" and turns it into a keening, air-clearing epic.

The movie's generosity of spirit and artistry swamps its flaws.

It's a topical, iconoclastic documentary with the warmth and pace of a first-rate personal essay.

Park's imagination is as fecund as the bunnies that bob up and down from their rabbit holes in every corner of the Tottington garden.

Hawks weaves brawny romance and humor and a man’s-man sort of heartbreak into his tribute to the ideal of vocation.

Uproarious, moving and thrilling.

Saved! is the audacious feel-good satire of 2004.

The tough beauty of the picture is that it lets each viewer weigh the costs and benefits to Gardner. It's a genuinely transporting inspirational movie because it's also a cautionary tale. It doesn't downplay the hero's occasional clumsiness or pigheadedness.

The Counterfeiters is in its own smart, trim fashion "The Bridge on the River Kwai" of concentration-camp sagas. Also based (like Kwai) on a real-life story, this movie starts small but becomes a miniature epic of overreach and moral drift.

No Country for Old Men is about the kind of amoral madness that can sweep across a country and redefine a landscape. It's so admirably lean and sinewy that it deserves not merely a rave review but a Johnny Cash song about matter-of-fact killings in shady hotels and sun-scoured landscapes.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly provides an ecstatic lift for movielovers, despite the tragic subject.

One of the favorite sayings of journalists and politicians is "You don't want to see how the sausage is made." Marsh's movie says you do want to see how a miracle is made, even if the details can be just as unsavory.

It's exhilarating in an authentic, pathos-streaked way to see Kearns, through Greg Kinnear's inspired characterization of a wary obsessive, representing himself during his trial against Ford Motor Co. for stealing his design.

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu runs the same 2 1/2 hours as "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," but what a difference a comic-dramatic purpose makes.

A great, lusty movie in the tradition of Bertrand Blier's "Going Places."

Its knockout success is a testament to Gore's eloquence and humanity and to the dexterity of his director, Davis Guggenheim.