Owen Gleiberman

The Passenger isn't finally the masterpiece some have made it out to be, but it retains a singular intrigue: It's the first, and probably the last, thriller ever made about depression.

Acting doesn't get more personal, or much greater.

Hoffman plays Dan Mahowny's addiction to instant money as something dirty and private and, at the same time, soul-quickening.

The nature of silent comedy was to elevate its heroes into myths, but after ''Charlie'' I can't wait to see Chaplin's movies again, this time to glimpse the man on the other side of the icon.

The Great Buck Howard is in love with kitsch, the backwaters of showbiz, and true magic. It's a wee charmer that left me enchanted.

Godzilla is still the most awesome of tacky movie monsters.

In the end, the most impressive performance may be Spike Lee's. He uses skill without gimmickry, flash without fuss, to tap the mesmerizing soul of this pulp.

A movie of tough excitement and surprise, even grace.

On the Outs parses the hopes and terrors of blasted lives with an empathy that never cheapens into pity. The movie wounds as much as it heals, and that's its true power.

By the end of the movie, you realize that these two have devised nothing less than a media-age alternative to the Nixon era’s dirty tricks. The War Room is a giddy celebration of clean tricks.

The end will haunt you.

Agreeably skewed fun.

The Fugitive is hardly Hitchcock — it never taps our emotions in a way that threatens to transcend the action — but it’s a mainstream thriller made with conviction, intelligence, and heat. In Hollywood, that used to be called professionalism. These days, it’s rare enough to look like artistry.

The movie is Mike's story, and Channing Tatum proves himself a true movie star. His Mike glides through the world with the ease of a god, and on stage he's electrifying.

Trekkies is hilarious, fascinating, and, at times, almost scary.

I will say that it's been a while since a romantic comedy mustered this much charm by looking this much like life.

You could describe Margin Call as a thriller (it's wired with suspense), yet the tension all comes from words.

If Linklater goes to a bit of an extreme here, it's in making both characters so intelligent and sincere, so ardent and giving, that they seem a little too good to believe.

Crystal’s ordinariness — his utter lack of glamour — really works for him here. He’s far more pleasureful to watch in this sort of dramatic-comedy role than, say, Robin Williams, because his comfy, urban-shlemiel personality helps ground the jokes.

Then there's Todd Solondz's Palindromes, which is that rare event: a memorable provocation.

A domestic tragedy of lacerating vision.

The scary culminating flashback, in which Stephanie gives birth -- in a public restroom, on a high school ski trip -- is a marvel of authentic disturbance.

Directed by Tony Scott, Crimson Tide is the kind of sumptuously exciting undersea thriller that moves forward in quick, propulsive waves.

This one, as thoughtful as it is rousing, scores a TKO.

A richly tender and moving experience.

A fascinating film -- more docudrama than biopic.

Painfully beautiful autobiographical kaleidoscope.

Movie stars radiate a power -- physical, erotic, spiritual -- that draws an audience into their orbit. Yet watching Curtis Hanson's gritty and electrifying 8 Mile, the first thing you notice about Eminem, the most scaldingly powerful artist in pop music today, is how vulnerable he looks.