Mick LaSalle

More than a high concept stretched to feature length. This is a funny and extremely satisfying comedy, the best in a while.

Virtually everyone who sees this movie will be galvanized to do something about global warming -- and everyone should see this movie.

Here's another thought: This old man who can't leave the house has just made the first important film of 2010.

This is an acerbic examination of erotic obsession, told from different perspectives, with wit, suspense and cold-blooded detachment.

It's a lovely and wistful celebration of youth, time and moments of connection -- and about the experience of living in the midst of a simple, perfect day that you know you'll remember for the rest of your life.

This is one of the funniest movies of the year.

With its dry, throwaway humor and constant stream of chuckles, it creates its own category of stealth comedy.

This is a rare film and a rare use of cinema. Other documentaries are like filmed news stories. This one is like a poem. If you see this, you will never again think of hearing in quite the same way, and you will hear sounds that are so haunting that they will be with you for the rest of your life.

The women are remarkable, unforgettable. But don’t overlook Nivola, an enigmatic figure as the rabbi and husband.

This is the defining feminist film of the decade and one of the most important women's vehicles in popular American cinema. [15 Jan 2006, p.28]

A film of real beauty, which is surprising, since it's not a movie of beautiful sentiments or settings.

For pure laughs, for the experience of just sitting in a chair and breaking up every minute or so, Superbad is 2007's most successful comedy.

Jay Kelly is Baumbach’s best film and, from an artistic standpoint, his first complete success.

American Fiction is not a perfect film. The book trails off at the finish, and though the movie comes up with something better, the end still doesn’t feel ideal. But none of that matters as much as it might, because Wright gives the perfect performance.

“Hobbs & Shaw” is witty and mischievous, full of surprise and invention, and a total blast.

Ages well in memory because it gradually seems to mean more. Its meaning can't be summed up in a sentence, but it has to do with a view of life as inexpressibly sad and yet always right.

One of the best crime dramas to come along in years.

The submarine drama, which opens today, has everything you could want from an action thriller and a few other things you usually can't hope to expect: an excellent script, first-rate performances and a story that has more to do with individuals than explosions.

Internal Affairs gets inside of you so fast that it's hard to look for or notice its imperfections. There's no point in quibbling about a movie that's this good, this absorbing and merciless, this original and twisted. [12 Jan 1990, p.E1]

Usually, with movies, you can imagine how they were made — how the idea came, and the process of its creation. But Knight of Cups seems as if it arrived whole. If there’s a better film this year, get ready for a very good year.

The smartest thing director Steven Soderbergh did in the making of The Girlfriend Experience was to cast Sasha Grey.

So in-depth, so appealing, so easy to sit through and so anomalously grand scale that few who see it will ever forget it.

The Fugitive is the best movie of the summer and one of the best of the year. It's an action film that delivers everything a modern audience expects, and it's also a serious drama with strong characters and intense performances. [6 Aug 1993, p.C1]

Spike Lee is relevant again. He's necessary again.

The magic of Brooklyn can’t be analyzed, but something in the richness of its relationships puts an essential truth before us — the brevity and immensity of life. We know all about that, of course, but that’s the beauty of great art: It takes what you already know and makes you feel it.

Eichner is quick and funny, and Macfarlane is a strong leading man and a sensitive listener — with Eichner constantly deluging him with a torrent of words, Macfarlane would have to be. Audiences will become very fond of both long before the end of the picture.

Chef is the best thing he (Favreau) has ever done, as writer or director or actor. It's the sort of thing of beauty that filmmakers are ultimately remembered for.

A few times every year, Hollywood makes a mistake, violates formula and actually makes a great picture. Falling Down is one of the great mistakes of 1993, a film too good and too original to win any Oscars but one bound to be remembered in years to come as a true and ironic statement about life in our time. [26 Feb 1993, p.D1]

Simply the most relentlessly entertaining film of the last few months.

Craig leaves the series in a mammoth, 163-minute extravaganza that audiences will be enjoying for decades. It’s a lovely thing to see.

The best American film of 2008.

There are many great acting moments in this film, but you should especially savor the final shot, the long close-up of Haenel in profile. Put simply, it’s why we go to the movies.

A completely appealing, beautifully preserved memory piece - a grand, colorful coming-of-age story with a candy box color palette and a standout performance by Renée Zellweger. It's a great story and a great crowd-pleaser.

This expands an already long movie to more than three hours, but this time there's no getting enough of a good thing. [2002 Director's Cut]

With Milk, a great San Francisco story becomes a great American story.

It’s a bit crazy, wild yet precise, a mix of comedy and drama that feints in the direction of anachronism, even as it provides a grand showcase for Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone and Olivia Colman, who are extraordinary.

Kristin Scott Thomas' performance in I've Loved You So Long is one of a small handful of highlights by which people will remember this year in movies. This is acting at its most exalted.

[Lange's] allure is staggering. If you've never seen her in this film - if you've never seen the young Jessica Lange, except in "Tootsie" - prepare to pick your jaw up off the floor.

Assessing the merits of a political film is a tricky business. Obviously, its quality is partly a function of its power to persuade, but its persuasiveness is in the eye of the beholder.

Shows how a documentary can be as moving and suspenseful as the best narrative feature.

RoboCop is no canned remake of the 1987 action film. It's a reimagining that responds to everything that has changed in American life over the past 27 years, addressing new threats and exploiting new anxieties.

Its deeply anarchic sensibility has kept Taxi Driver fresh all these years. [20th Anniversary Release]

Pelosi in the House is a one-of-a-kind document of one of the most important women in American history.

Cruise and McQuarrie have made the best film in the franchise’s history and the most enjoyable and exciting action movie in several years.

The kind of picture to whip out the clichés for: Surprisingly original. Delightful. Brilliant. Funny as all heck. When 1989 is through, sex, lies, and videotape may well be remembered as the best film of the year. [11 Aug 1989, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

Why such a structurally scattered movie should hang together at all is a mystery. That it does more than that, that it works brilliantly, is a miracle, or at the very least the product of unquantifiable causes.

Flows in a way that seems effortless, following its own path, arriving at its own place. Only after the movie is over are the outlines of its story apparent. I found it impossible to outguess it. [12 July 1991]

May December is light and amusing, but also profound and serious. See it once — and then think about it for a long time.

From the outside, Sunshine sounds like the most boring film on Earth. In fact, it's glorious.

Washington delivers not only one of the year’s best performances, but one of the best self-directed performances in cinema history.

Sicko will scare people, and it probably should.

This is warm and intuitive work, striking that elusive balance between inspiration and control.

Presented without preachiness or affectation, Kandahar is a short, matter-of-fact visit to hell.

But make no mistake, whether the movie is fair or horribly unfair - I know nothing of the actual facts and can't make that determination - its portrait of Zuckerberg is a hatchet job of epic and perhaps lasting proportions.

One of the great satisfactions of Spectre is that, in addition to all the stirring action, and all the timely references to a secret organization out to steal everyone’s personal information, we get to believe in Bond as a person.

Part conscious and part unconscious, Watchmen tells us of a world without hope and then makes us wonder if we're already living in it.

The effect is like watching an opera without music. Or a musical drama in which no one sings. These departures from a realistic convention never feel like static set pieces - that's the great success of the film and of the poems themselves.

A different kind of Harry Potter movie, a better kind... It's where this fantasy series has wanted to go all along.

The alien attack, taking place in several cities at once, is breathtaking...All the same, Independence Day is consistently funny.

For its look and its innovation, and for its ability to suggest shades of feeling with a minimum use of intertitles — and as a classic of the first order — Sunrise must be seen.

A tense, concise and elegantly shot film.

Terminator 2 imagines things you wouldn't even be likely to dream and gets these visions onto the screen with a seamlessness that's mind-boggling. [3 July 1991, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

More than one joke or one idea. It's a thoroughly satisfying comedy --and a respectable space adventure, as well.

Masterful documentary.

Directed with playful wit and energy, with steamy sex scenes played as much for laughs as anything else.

Midnight Run has thrills, excellent performances, touching moments, slick plotting, lively dialogue, plenty of laughs, beautiful locations and finely detailed direction. It's an across-the-board success, the best new movie I've seen in years. [20 July 1988]

Not only more crazy than “Reservoir Dogs,'' but it also feels more real. [1 Jan 1993, Daily Notebook, p.D1]

If you want to fall in love with Catherine Deneuve, don’t start with her youth. Start with her here, in her 70s, and then work your way back.

The experience of watching Daniel Day-Lewis in this role is nothing less than thrilling. This is Lincoln. No need for a time machine, there he is.

The evocative nature of Nelson's stillness is essential to the whole last movement of Fresh, an intricately plotted series of unexpected and related events. In a way, the audience has to read the meaning of the ending in Nelson's face. Fortunately Nelson has a face that can make you believe anything. [31 Aug 1994, p.E1]

A brilliant piece of construction, and talking too much about its specifics would only spoil the overall experience.

In the end this is Hoffman's movie, and it's refreshing, finally, to see him not as an oddball or eccentric but as a decent, capable guy who is ultimately a lot more intense than most people.

Beauty and the Beast creates an air of enchantment from its first moments, one that lingers and builds and takes on qualities of warmth and generosity as it goes along.

A triumph that goes well beyond Hoffman's tour de force performance.

Fascinating in its depiction of presidential leadership in action.

What makes Ben Is Back different is that, even if this kind of pain is completely outside your own experience, you’ll feel some of it watching this movie.

It brings together several popular strains of contemporary moviemaking and combines them into one big, shameless, audacious, compulsively watchable, irresistibly likable piece of pure entertainment.

This laugh-out-loud comedy is set in the world of daytime television and is reminiscent of the sex farces that were popular in the early and mid-'60s -- except that Soapdish, unhampered by a desire to be perceived as sophisticated, is actually more sophisticated and much funnier than the movies that were around then. [31 May 1991, p.E1]

It's a humane and witty treatment of an average life that, incidentally, speaks to the worth and inherent drama of average lives.

An absolute delight, combining the cheap thrills of a biopic with the gentler, but more lasting, pleasures of a brilliant character study.

In "Fatal Attraction" [Close] was a woman out of control. Here she's in control of her emotions, too much in control. When Merteuil finally lets loose and gives way to complete animal despair, Close is horrifying. [13 Jan 1989, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

It's a pumped-up, intricate and fast-moving yarn that never flags and continues to play out in unexpected ways as it unravels.

You have never seen anything like this.

Almost too much to bear. But brace yourself and see it anyway. It’s worth it.

I’ve been fascinated by McCartney for decades, and “Man on the Run” made me feel like I was getting closer to understanding the real guy.

Mel Brooks has made a movie that's completely free and spontaneous, which at the same time is not in any way lazy or sloppy. [28 July 1993, p.E1]

Clark Gable was at his most virile and Charles Laughton at almost his most vicious and sneering in director Frank Lloyd's vigorous adaptation, the first and best screen version of the Bounty story. [22 March 1998, p.52]

Few who see it will be sorry. Sometimes being humane means not being squeamish.

One of the most innovative and best made films of the past year. Every now and then, even Dick Cheney gets to like a great movie.

The Zookeeper’s Wife achieves its grandeur, not through the depiction of grand movements, but through its attentiveness to the shifts and flickers of the soul.

There may be better examples of cinematic art in 2013, but for a good time at the movies, it's hard to imagine anything beating this action extravaganza, from director Roland Emmerich, about a very Obama-like president.

The finest American Westerns have a characteristic that 3:10 to Yuma shares. In a way that's almost mystical, they suggest a truth beyond the specifics of the tale.

A breakthrough for McCarthy and a highlight of the movie year.

This is human drama at its most intense and universal. This is the rare film that can change the way you think and see the world.

Welles is lovely in the film, open and vulnerable, and Keith Baxter as Hal is quite good. [28 Sep 2016, p.Q39]

Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind captures that special quality that Williams had, the extra quality that went beyond the laughs, that communicated his whole being.

More than on "Prime Suspect," more than any film in recent memory, Le Petit Lieutenant conveys the relentless toll of big-city police work.

The actors keep their clothes on, but everything else is naked in Like Crazy, a romantic drama that makes other romantic films look obvious and calculated in comparison.