Mick LaSalle

It's a film of sensitivity, observation and humor - a must-see for Fellini enthusiasts and a worthwhile investment for everyone else.

How many doubts can Lee possibly cram into one motion picture? Red Hook Summer has almost too many to count: moments that go clunk, followed by others that go clang; actors who talk as if reading their lines off cue cards or rehearsing them for the first time; and set pieces that lie there.

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

Nomadland is too singular a film to dismiss on technicalities. It’s very much its own thing, very much an original experience, and must be counted as some odd kind of good movie.

It is not a pleasure to sit through, not even remotely, not even by some stretched definition of the word “pleasure.” It’s work, but it’s ultimately rewarding work. It tackles some truths that other movies wouldn’t touch, not even with a stick and thick gloves.

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.

There's no music to tell you what to think. It's just three good actors and one director's merciless powers of observation.

The best thing about The Banshees of Inisherin is Kerry Condon as Pádraic’s sister, an intelligent woman with an even temperament and a good sense of humor who finds herself marooned in the wrong part of Ireland and in the wrong half of the 20th century.

Love & Friendship looks splendid. If the costumes by Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh (“Cavalry”) were any more beautiful, they’d be too beautiful.

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]

Masterful documentary.

Carries a lot of emotional power.

What it means in practice is that, with a Dardennes movie, nothing much seems to be going on - until everything seems to be going on. We watch events at a remove, and then, at a certain magical point, we are in the story, and we don't quite know how they did it - again.

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]

Everything about Joel Coen’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth” is striking and remarkable — except Denzel Washington as Macbeth and Frances McDormand as Lady Macbeth. This is not to say that they’re terrible, because they’re not. They’re better than decent. If you saw them in a regional stage production, and you didn’t know who they were, you might go home saying you saw a pretty good show. But neither is quite up for their role nor quite right for it.

The Shape of Water is brilliant, but sick — or maybe it’s sick, but brilliant. In any case, it’s something to see.

In the important things, in all the ways that really count, Caché is a handsome fraud.

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

With Diane, as in life, it feels like nothing’s going on, but everything’s going on.

Saint John of Las Vegas was a bad script that somehow got made into a bad movie with good people in it.

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]

An irresistible movie about a guy who goes on a journey, the kind an audience can't wait to take with him.

By the way, The Tillman Story has an R rating because of language. Think about that one, too: Lies are rated G and can be heard around the clock on television, but try saying the truth with the proper force and you end up with a restricted audience.

In the end, the film shakes down as a kind of eat-your-spinach exercise, a movie that’s worthy and perhaps good for you, but is labored and only enjoyable intermittently.

The film's tone is extraordinarily flexible, holding within the same reality elements of the absurd, the ridiculous and the comic while sustaining a sense of tension and dread throughout. This is, of course, one of the classic Pacino roles - he's so appealing - but don't overlook the late John Cazale as his accomplice, who gives us a character who's stupid and scared, troubled and dangerous, and disturbingly inscrutable.

An authentic piece of Americana. There's no lying or condescending from this director. Nebraska feels pure.

A good rule of thumb for Richard III is that if it's not fun, somebody's doing something wrong. Nothing's wrong here. Some of the unexpected visual touches are brilliant, others simply entertaining. But the picture never stops coming at you.

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.