Peter Rainer

If Balram was simply a born hustler, his odyssey would not have the resonance it has here. But we can see glimmers of what he might have become if not for his caste.

The jamboree is beautifully shot and directed, by Chris Menges and David Leland respectively, and there is a haunting touch: the presence of George’s son, Dhani, on guitar, looking near-identical to his dad in his twenties.

The power of this film sneaks up on you. It glides from jubilation to heartbreak without missing a beat.

It would be a mistake to regard American Splendor as an anthem for the common man. It is the UNCOMMON that is being celebrated here.

I've never seen another movie that so clearly expresses the sensual sustenance that great folk culture provides its practitioners.

While making his new film, he (McElwee) imagines that his boy is looking back at his screen image from some distant point in the future, when McElwee himself is gone. No child of a moviemaker could ask for a more beautiful bequest.

A crowd-pleaser in the best sense, it overflows with empathy for its beleaguered people.

What's remarkable is how often the photographer's subjects allow themselves to be caught on film; it's as if they understood implicitly that Nachtwey was there not only to agitate for reform but to memorialize their agony. He does both.

As a piece of inspirationalism about human stamina, Touching the Void is peerless, but what it doesn't--perhaps can't--explain is why people place themselves in such peril.

What's exciting about Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story is that, in Jason Scott Lee, the movies have created a new star out of an old star. The film is a tribute to Bruce Lee but it's also a tribute to the transforming powers of performance. Lee does justice to Bruce Lee while, at the same time, creating a character out of his own fierce resources. He is, quite literally, smashing.

Sean Penn is so frighteningly good in this movie that he outdoes even the best of his earlier work.

Rhys-Meyers and Johansson work well together - they both know how to project glossiness and guile.

A winning movie about losing. I didn’t always warm to its coy quirkiness, but it’s the rare American movie about contemporary teenagers that rings more true than false.

It’s a charming, wistful movie, and I trust Tan will not have to wait another 20 years to direct her next film.

Vanessa Redgrave, as the adult Briony, appears at the very end in a monologue that rounds out the film with heartbreaking force.

What also comes through is a quietly scathing portrait of a society in which every move, overtly or covertly, is monitored.

As inspirational academic stories go, it doesn't get much better than this.

The dragons in this movie are expertly brought to life.

Although stylistically and conceptually it never lifts itself entirely out of the realm of a made-for-television drama – don't expect "My Left Foot" – The Sessions is bracing. It's also one of the few movies to recognize that people with severe physical disabilities have sexual lives, too.

Without Cooper's performance, Breach would have been a good, workmanlike thriller. His presence lifts it to a whole new level.

Kore-eda’s slow reveal of who these people are, and what they mean to each other, has its mystery story aspects, but this is essentially a character study, or at least it tries to be, and not a puzzle picture. He fills in each of the main players leisurely, in snatches.

The ad campaign for the sci-fi thriller District 9, with mysterious billboards touting aliens among us, is highly creative and amusing. So, in patches, is the movie, which is a thinking man's, or man-boy's, "Transformers."

It may be subtitled, and the faces may be unfamiliar, but District B13 is the best buddy action movie around.

Timeliness is certainly on the side of Mira Nair’s uneven but fascinating The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

Plowright's performance as a genteel widow in Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont is a small-scale gem, deeply felt without being in the least bit showy.

The film stands quite well on its own. The directors have made the right, essential decision to make the movie almost entirely from Maisie’s point of view.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is an ersatz experience, a commingling of forced uplift and exotica, but it's moving anyway.

The film has a transcendent spookiness.