Pauline Kael

The fact that we experience Travis’s need for an explosion viscerally, and that the explosion itself has the quality of consummation, makes Taxi Driver one of the few truly modern horror films.

It's a deluxe glorification of creative crisis, visually arresting (the dark and light contrasts are extraordinary, magical) but in some essential way conventional-minded.

Hal Ashby has the deftness to keep us conscious of the whirring pleasures of the carnal-farce structure and yet to give it free play. This was the most virtuoso example of sophisticated, kaleidoscopic face that American moviemakers had yet come up with; frivolous and funny, it carries a sense of heedless activity, of a craze of dissatisfaction.

A near masterpiece...The story is told in a flowing, lyrical German manner that is extraordinarily sensual, yet is perhaps too self-conscious, too fable-like for American audiences.

A macabre comedy classic.

The slow, strange rhythm is very unsettling and takes some getting used to, but it's an altogether amazing, sunsuous film; it even has an element of science fiction and some creepy musical numbers, and the soundtrack is as original and peculiar as the imagery.

The film is a near masterpiece. Welles' direction of the battle of Shrewsbury is unlike anything he has ever done--indeed, unlike any battle ever done on the screen before. It ranks with the finest of Griffith, John Ford, Eisenstein, Kurosawa.

Peppy and pleasurable, this is one of the most sheerly beautiful comedies ever shot. Mazursky isn't afraid of uproarious silliness: there are some dizzying slapstick routines that reach their peak when a small black-and-white Border collie takes over.

A stirring 18-centry sea adventure...For the kind of big budget, studio controlled romantic adventure that this is, it's very well done.

One of John Ford's most memorable films, and not at all the tedious bummer that the title might suggest. Henry Fonda, in one of his best early performances, is funny and poignant as the drawling, awkward young hero.

Wonderful comedy about a tragedy.

Perhaps the most simple and traditional and graceful of all modern Westerns.

It's not only a musical entertainment but an imaginative version of the novel as a lyrical, macabre fable.

It's like "The Godfather" acted out by The Munsters...Everything in this picture works with everything else - which is to say that John Husto has it all in the palm of his big, bony hand.

A magnificent horse opera.

A lovely, graceful film, and surprisingly faithful to the atmosphere, the Victorian sentiments, and the Victorian strengths of the Louisa May Alcott novel.

Shiny and unfelt and smart-aleck-commercial as the movie is, it's almost irresistibly entertaining - one of the high spots of M-G-M professionalism.

What it really has to do with is love of the film medium, and if Welles can't resist the candy of shadows and angels and baroque decor, he turns it into stronger fare than most directors' solemn meat and potatoes. It's terrific entertainment.

The Comden-Green script isn't as consistently fresh as the one they did for Singin' in the Rain, but there have been few screen musicals as good as this one, starring those two great song-and-dance men Fred Astaire and Jack Buchanan.

It's like reading a fairy tale that has the mixture of happiness and trauma to set your imagination whirling; the fire-breathing dragon--scaly, winged, huge--is more mysterious, probably, than any we could have imagined for ourselves.

This ingenious melodrama set in a jury room generates more suspense than most thrillers.

This stylized movie of ideas is a lean, impressive piece of work.

Extraordinarily simple, yet deeply, emotionally rich.

Throughout, the writer-director, Agnes Varda, sustains an unsentimental yet subjective tone that is almost unique in the history of movies.

One of the fastest, most exciting melodramas ever made.

A very pleasurable surprise. Lighted by Freddie Francis, this film is perhaps the most beautiful example of black-and-white cinematography in about 15 years.

Intermittently first-rate.

This is a polished light comedy in the "continental" style -- a sophisticated romantic trifle, with Dietrich more chic and modern than in her von Sternberg pictures.