Mick LaSalle

Haynes elicits two great performances and provides the perfect frame for them, not just in terms of setting, but through smart casting and attention to the smallest of performances.

No, T2 is not a great film, but its pleasures are great — and so rare and accomplished that they raise T2 to a level approximating greatness. There is something to be said for a movie this enjoyable. T2 is great enough.

Director Duncan Jones achieves a strange and winning amalgam, a gripping action film that also works as poetry.

The Substance gets more wonderfully appalling as it goes along, but it’s impressive from its first moments, and it never lets up.

Emotionally sophisticated, humane and worth talking about for hours.

It is the best and most enjoyable American film to be released this year.

This is a profound saga that makes for a great American movie.

It turns out that Pepe Le Moko is even better than "Algiers."

in addition to the quality of its dialogue, Levinson’s script is a testament to the value of talking and listening, past the point of discomfort, past the point it hurts.

The result is a film of sadness and power, the first great 21st century movie about a 21st century subject.

This new film is exceptional and one of Ozon’s best.

Henry Fool is far and away writer-director Hal Hartley's best movie.

Toback has found a documentary subject as tragic and ridiculous, as bizarre and driven, as the heroes of his other films.

Casino Royale is fresh, actually fresh.

The storytelling in The Force Awakens is masterful, in that it seems to be taking its time but is always moving relentlessly forward and coming up with surprises.

Stays in the mind, changing the way we look at the world.

The result is something rare, especially considering how fine the novel is, a film that's fuller and deeper than the book.

That perception of Fiennes and Gustave is central to the whole enterprise. Without it, the movie just breaks off and flies away. But with it, The Grand Budapest Hotel becomes something wonderful.

A brilliant and irresistible counterfactual overview of American history.

Riveting.

One Day is a beautiful movie, but beautiful in a way that life often is, not movies. Nothing is sudden or easy, either for the characters or for the audience, and there are no thunderbolts from the blue.

Benediction is an awesome combination of wildness and control. Davies is out there all by himself, speaking a cinematic language that is his own and that has little to do with plays or literature.

The Farewell has a special feeling about it. It’s full of truth and emotion, and lacking in sentimentality. It has an eye for absurdity and for the telling detail, and it marks Lulu Wang as a director with the rare but essential ability to make you care about what she cares about. It will go down as one of the standout movies of 2019.

At times trying and perplexing, but it also contains some of the most psychologically insightful and ecstatic filmmaking imaginable.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film that conveyed with such vividness and precision the helplessness of childhood.

A remarkable documentary about an almost unfathomable ordeal.

A serious movie that slowly earns its emotion and enlists our involvement. Even before the finish, it’s goosebumps all around.

Like her (Cholodenko) other movies, this one has vivid characters and strong performances and flows like a slice of life set in an appealing, interesting world. But this one also has a good story and, if you're paying attention, a distinct point of view.