Rene Rodriguez

Leave it to von Trier to conceive an intergalactic sci-fi metaphor for a psychological disorder – and then make it work so astonishingly well.

This is a beautiful movie.

Contains all of the hallmarks of classic genre Spielberg: It shows you things you've never seen before, instills an accompanying sense of awestruck wonder, and delivers long stretches of heightened, delirious excitement that remind you why people started going to the movies in the first place.

White God is the rare sort of movie in the era of computer-generated special effects where you can’t believe your eyes, because what you’re looking at is real.

This poignant, wise and subtle picture -- which, yes, happens to be the best movie of the year -- should be approached with humble expectations. Lee's approach to this delicate material is suffused with melancholy, metaphors and small, telling touches that favor subtlety over exclamation points and rough-hewn simplicity over grandiloquence.

The Lion King is everything you'd expect it to be: utterly charming, dazzling, rapturous entertainment. It's one for the ages. [24 June 1994, p.G4]

Brilliant, suspenseful, absolutely riveting film.

The best teen horror flick ever made, an emotionally involving, sublimely acted tale of an archetypal ugly-duckling loner (Sissy Spacek, who earned an Oscar nomination) who wreaks revenge on her tormentors, with apocalyptic results. [24 Aug 2001, p.21G]

And the animation, ultimately, is what makes Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs worth seeing again on the big screen. Aladdin may have grossed more than $200 million, but even its state-of- the-art, computer-assisted animation can't surpass the detail and fluidity, the denser-than-reality feel, the astonishing palette (check out the red on the poisoned apple) of the film. Watching it, you don't forget it's a cartoon: You relish that it is. What bigger compliment is there than that? [2 July 1993, p.G5]

It’s a cry of despair and soul-shaking desperation, leavened with shades of Dostoyevskyan angst.

That song (Jefferson Airplane's Somebody to Love), which becomes a sort of mantra to the movie, is the key to understanding what the Coens are after: When the truth is found to be lies, and all the joy within you dies, you better find somebody to love.

Hana-Bi is a film by an artist too creative -- and too talented -- to set limits for himself. He is a rarity among filmmakers nowadays: A genuine original. [17 Apr 1998]

In a larger sense, Adaptation is a movie about the simple act of enjoying life -- of really embracing it -- without constantly worrying about what others think.

A terrific yarn, one so engrossing and surprising that the nature of the story's structure -- each question Jamal gets asked on the show corresponds with a traumatic or momentous moment from his childhood -- never feels like a contrived framing device.

One of the best things about 12 Years a Slave is that McQueen renders all the characters with the same depth and complexity as his protagonist.

Silence feels like a career summation for a filmmaker who has spent his life exploring his faith through his work. Here is a movie about the importance of religion that will move you, regardless of whichever God you worship — or don’t.

What makes it the best movie of the year -- is its insight into human behavior.

This is the sort of small, intimate drama about unpleasant subject matter Hollywood rarely deals with, but Haneke isn't worried about turning off his audience, because death is something everyone has in common. It fascinates us, the way it also scares us.

Here is a celebration of the artistic drive that is also a daring feat of showmanship, as technically accomplished in its own way as “Mad Max Fury Road” or “The Revenant."

Project X is an astounding, superlative movie about adolescence - a brutal, unapologetic comedy about the fantasy every high school kid carries around in his head about being popular and cool and beloved.

Jeanne Dielman is not for all tastes. But for those with the necessary patience, it is a game-changing masterpiece. [11 Sep 2009, p.G18]

Rousing, exhilarating entertainment.

The movie is quiet and serene, but it stirs and inspires and amuses. In the small details of an ordinary life, Jarmusch finds wells of beauty and empathy. The movie is an exploration of the deep pleasures of creativity.

This is the most vibrant, exciting and invigorating movie-movie of the year.

Brave has a manic, almost daffy energy and sense of humor.

Up in the Air is also optimistic about the perpetual themes that preoccupy so many movies that endure the test of time: Life is better with company. And everybody needs a co-pilot.

The film is precious and adorable, but it isn't naïve, and the movie breathes so deep that Anderson even gets a real performance out of Willis (this is his best work in years).

In The Act of Killing, director Joshua Oppenheimer pulls off the impossible: He confronts great, incomprehensible evil and puts a human face on it.

Like every war before it, the U.S. invasion of Iraq has generated its share of movies. But The Hurt Locker is the first of them that can properly be called a masterpiece.

The movie, shot in lovely, grainy 16mm by cinematographer Ed Lachman, is so elegantly staged you can practically smell the characters’ perfume. Haynes’ direction is methodical and precise without being fussy or oppressive. Every detail has been weighed and considered.

Although it is technically a sequel, Before Sunset stands perfectly well on its own. In fact, the new movie plays better if you haven't seen the original for a while, so its details have grown appropriately fuzzy.

A visually thrilling experience.

The Straight Story truly is one from the heart, and it is wonderful.

Ever the satirist, Payne mines humor from his characters, be it Randall's cockeyed pyramid-scheme ideas or the banality of a ridiculous wedding toast.

Feels like a miracle, a movie that exceeds even the most formidable expectations without straying from its singular path. All hail this King.

Basterds isn't so revolutionary or so finely crafted as "Pulp Fiction" was, but it crackles with the same energy and imagination and chutzpah.

Inside Llewyn Davis is one of the Coens’ smallest movies — this one doesn't have the broad appeal of "True Grit" or "No Country For Old Men" — but like Llewyn’s music, it comes from the heart and it is deeply felt. It is also one of their best.

The movie itself is a nominee for Best Animated Feature, and it's good enough to pull a surprise upset over the beloved Finding Nemo. It's a mad masterpiece.

But this is also his funniest, nimblest picture: There are long stretches in it that could pass for a comedy.

The movie has such a profound and compassionate understanding of human behavior, family ties and the way ordinary people respond when they're forced into a moral quandary, I can't imagine anyone not being transfixed by it.

Sometimes, the simplest, smallest things require the greatest courage. Moonlight is Miami’s first bonafide movie masterpiece.

It's the filmmakers' refusal to sugarcoat their tale's darker subtexts that makes Finding Nemo such a resounding piece of storytelling.

Spotlight is simply a great story exceedingly well told, through characters whose fingers are perpetually stained with ink.

One of the most searing experiences to be had at the movies this year.

A thoughtful, audacious meditation on love and relationships that finds a group of wildly disparate talents clicking together in perfect unison.

Intentionally designed to rile as much as entertain.

A model of pitch and modulation and craft. For two hours, the Coens hold you in their grip so tightly that for long stretches it feels a little hard to breathe.

There isn't a moment in the movie where you don't feel Spielberg's passion, and this time, the film is worthy of his enthusiasm. It's a knockout.

This is not the sort of movie you can just leave behind in the theater. And like any true finale to a trilogy, the picture doesn't work nearly as well if you haven't seen the previous two installments: It's not designed to stand alone, and it pays off all that has come before with an exuberant, thrilling high.

If it had been a drama, The Wolf of Wall Street might have been unwatchable: There’s simply too much of everything. But Scorsese and screenwriter Terence Winter (The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire) hit on the genius idea to turn the story into a riotous comedy, one that keeps topping itself everytime you think it can’t possibly get crazier.

Movies that demand to be seen by everyone -- not only for their entertainment value, but for what they say -- are precious rarities. Spike Lee's Get On the Bus is one of those films. You walk out of it feeling the world's axis has tilted ever so slightly: No matter who you are, or what your perspective was going in, the movie will make you look at last year's Million Man March -- and all of black America -- through different eyes. [16 Oct 1996, p.1D]

One of the many pleasures of this beautifully composed, measured movie is how it reminds you of the power of pure storytelling -- an art that's too often overlooked in contemporary films in the rush for sensation and excitement.

Has the feel of an instant classic, a melodrama with an exacting precision and a visceral, propulsive energy.

Delivers the heady, rib-tickling rush of an action picture, and it gradually builds to an emotional wallop that blindsides you.

The movie is an absolute triumph of culturally relevant filmmaking – a film that will thrill and fascinate sport junkies and non-fans alike. If you like baseball, you will love this movie. If you hate baseball, you will still love this movie.

Part of the accomplishment of Carlos is the sheer accumulation of detail the movie amasses, and the longer running time gives you a deeper sense of the terrorist lifestyle, and when and why Ilich gradually succumbed to ego and self-glorification without realizing it.

The movie gives you what you think you want, and then gives you some more, and just when you think things can't get any worse, Haneke swoops in and smashes the wall between fiction and reality, turning the viewer into a direct accomplice to what's transpiring onscreen. It is an astonishing film, sure to be controversial, and quite simply unforgettable. [30 Jan. 1998, p.6G]

A rich, marvelous movie -- the kind that enchants on so many different levels, it leaves you feeling giddy.

Her argues that sometimes, crazy can be wonderful.

The good news is you’re feeling stuff, you know? And you’ve got to hold on to that. You get older, and you don’t feel as much, your skin gets tough.” This remarkable, wonderful movie helps you remember.

Makes the Columbine shootings seem both abstract yet more painful and vivid. It also gets you excited all over again about the things movies can do.

Seydoux says that when the film was completed and released shortly after the end of the war, it became a symbol of freedom.

It's a beautiful, strange tone poem about childhood and innocence, set in a strange but still recognizable world where the polar ice caps are melting, crayfish shacks float down rivers and enormous aurochs, an extinct breed of bison, are sloughing their way toward our tiny, adorable narrator.

The fact that that character happens to be so repellent -- and yet so endlessly fascinating -- is one of the film's many strokes of genius.

With Mad Max: Fury Road, director George Miller delivers the sort of jumbo-sized entertainment that makes you spontaneously break out in appreciative laughter: The breadth of his imagination and showmanship makes you giddy.

It leaves you feeling exhilarated at the invigorating power a well-told story, no matter its subject, can have. If you like Harry Potter, you will love this movie. If you don't like Harry Potter, you will still love this movie.

This remarkable, continually surprising documentary turns out to be something far richer and more complex, closer in spirit to "Crumb," another devastating film about a family's gradual self-destruction.

A masterpiece of pop filmmaking -- a fantastic, exuberant entertainment that manages to be both sleek and substantial without being patronizing.

Seeing the Earth from the point of view these men saw it -- ''like a jewel hung in the blackness'' -- tends to put things in perspective.

A worthy and delirious final chapter to this hallowed animation franchise.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame is an example of Disney animators at the very top of their craft -- and at their most daring. [21 June 1996, p.5G]

The movie is a furious, in-your-face whirlwind of emotions, but it’s never tiresome or bellicose, and its raucous, messy energy is invigorating.

Smashing, supremely engrossing picture.

Control Room may not seem all that compelling 10 years down the road. But right now, at this very moment, it is essential, imperative viewing.

The Muppets may have been born out of a desire to revive a dormant franchise that was once a cash cow, but there isn't a single beat in the film that feels crass or opportunistic. This one is from the heart.

It takes some exceptionally intelligent and witty people to make a dumb comedy this funny and perceptive: Borat may be offensive (to some), infantile, low-brow or even just a stunt, but you won't hate yourself in the morning for loving it.

The movie is absolutely hilarious, a satire as brisk and fleet as a farce and as profane as a convention of Tony Montana impersonators.

The movie, engrossing as it is intentionally horrifying, is capped by a last-minute revelation that brings the story to a haunting, powerful close.

As this intimate, beautifully observed film unfolds, you realize that the story's themes -- the nature of love, the role of sex in relationships and the ways in which we learn to make peace with our guilty consciences -- are relevant no matter what age you happen to be.

Maya is as consumed with finding bin Laden as Jake Gyllenhaal was obsessed with finding a serial killer in "Zodiac," only he was doing it as a hobby.

If The Pianist isn't quite as devastating as "Schindler's List" -- the movie with which all other Holocaust movies must be compared -- it's because Polanski isn't interested in an expansive view of the war.

But this smart, genuinely creepy movie also feels <I>real</I>, which is why its horrors hit so hard. Fans of the scary stuff, run, don't walk.

Instead of a history lesson, Selma plays like suspenseful, absorbing drama.

Deals with themes Eastwood has often explored before, but never so delicately or with as much sad wisdom: The way in which our past haunts our present, the lasting repercussions of violence and the cruel inexorability of fate.

Without a hint of sanctimony, it is a love story as much about soul as heart.

A searing, heartbreaking metaphor for the futility of war.

Match Point begins to recall Hitchcock as it unfolds, although it wouldn't be right to call it a thriller. This is still very much a Woody Allen movie, populated by upper-class characters who chatter about literature and fine art, frequent museums and designer boutiques and accidentally run into each other on the street with uncanny regularity.

One frenetic movie that doesn't know when to quit -- and leaves you wishing it could go on forever.

A soaring, exhilarating fantasy grounded in earthy emotion, Crouching Tiger more than lives up to the hype.

Easily the most searing movie-going experience of the year.

This playful, immensely entertaining movie knows that art is in the eye of the beholder.

Although it is structured like a thriller, and its plot dominated by Benjamin's detective work, The Secret in Their Eyes is really a cautionary tale about the consequences of a life of too much apprehension and propriety.

Those rigorously moral and humanistic underpinnings give 28 Weeks Later a kind of power that 100 Saws and Texas Chainsaw Massacre remakes could never achieve.

Like Roman Polanski's "Repulsion," Martha Marcy May Marlene gradually places us inside the mind of a woman who just might be insane, and in its audacious, terrifying final scene, the movie traps us there in perpetuity, refusing to provide the viewer with a way out. This time, the horror follows you home - no exit, no escape.

The fact that the last line of dialogue is spoken five minutes before the end credits roll is telling: Words matter little in a movie that favors seeing and feeling above all else. It’s a work of pure, furious sensation.

But Romeo Is Bleeding ultimately belongs to Olin. When she and Oldman finally begin to go at it, no holds barred, in the last 20 minutes, the film becomes an audacious free-for-all, a bloody battle of the sexes that reaches a frantic fever pitch that will leave you giddy. It is film noir at its funniest -- and darkest. [4 Feb 1994, p.5]

Mendes' approach to action is classical and elegant - no manic editing and blurry unintelligible images here - but what makes the movie truly special is the attention he gives his actors.

One of the most rewarding and engaging movies of the year. Don't miss it.

The Wrestler presents a fascinating peek at the workings of the pro wrestling industry (the tenderness and humor the athletes share backstage is the complete opposite of the ferocity they display in the ring).

No is an exploration of the power of the media to manipulate hearts and minds. The moral of the story: Always go positive.

There are moments in the punishing drama Once Were Warriors that are supremely difficult to watch, but you can't tear your eyes away. Once these characters -- a violence-prone Maori family living in contemporary New Zealand -- get hold of you, you're in for the long haul. [09 Feb 1995, p.1G]

The movie contains little in terms of traditional action, and Refn never uses it in a rousing or exciting manner, either. That would break the nightmarish spell this strange, beautiful film casts on the viewer. A mother’s love has never been this ruinous.

The remarkable Hoop Dreams proves that even at its best, Hollywood can't match the drama of everyday life. This rich and insightful documentary, which traces five years in the lives of two Chicago inner-city kids, is more compelling than anything a pack of scriptwriters could ever concoct. [21 Oct 1994, p.G5]

Straw Dogs is an artful provocation - a meditation on masculinity and societal mores in the guise of an explosive thriller.

This remarkable documentary argues that art can also be the glue that binds disparate souls.

What ultimately makes Drive so compelling is its characters - sketches given dimension and heft by a superb cast.

Gunn makes this huge entertainment accessible to the converted and the neophyte alike, and he has only has one goal: To send you out of the theater with a fat smile on your face. Mission accomplished.

Director Kim Jee-woon's astonishing story of a serial killer who picks the wrong man's fiancée to murder, is so extreme and intense that it had to be trimmed down in its native country before it was released to theaters. We lucky westerners get to see it in all its hair-raising, stomach-churning glory, and that's a wonderful thing.

Beautifully textured and layered movie.

A feverish pipe dream of a movie, fueled by an unbridled artistic imagination that serves as evidence of mad genius at work. [30 Dec 1996, p.1C]

Daughters of the Dust is as concerned with grand and universal emotions as it is with its "story." Daughters is an enlightening and sublimely lyrical film. [27 June 1992, p.E5]

This delicate, transporting movie, which keeps dialogue to a minimum to tell its story primarily through images, is also a triumph of sheer cinematic craft that mirrors its characters' contemplative natures while extolling the virtues of lives simply led.

Star Trek Into Darkness gives you an exhilarating, tingle-inducing rush — that rare feeling that comes when a gigantic entertainment is firing on all fronts, exceeding your expectations.

In Captain Phillips, director Paul Greengrass pulls off the same remarkable feat he accomplished with "United 93": He takes a true story in which the outcome is already known and transforms it into a gripping, wrenching, devastating thriller.

I Am Love is a bold and thrilling masterpiece -- the introduction of a major talent to the world's stage.

The moral of Irreversible -- time destroys everything -- isn't nearly as profound as writer-director Gaspar No&#233; seems to think it is, which is why some critics have already dismissed the movie as the facile, misogynistic posturings of a provocateur.

The movie is supremely entertaining -- and often hilarious.

Campos, a cinematic disciple of Stanley Kubrick and latter-period Gus Van Sant, opts to let the movie do the talking for him. The fact that this is a film of few words only adds to its hypnotic, relentless pull.

Chemistry is one of the few things left filmmakers can't fake with CGI, and the dynamic between Craig and Mara in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is so sensational, it instantly propels the movie beyond glossy, high-toned pulp into something far more affecting.

This is a smart, wise and compassionate movie about young people in the act of finding out who they are and not always behaving properly but never crossing the line into cruelty or crassness. If you happen to have been around during 1980, the soundtrack is just a bonus.

The movie plays out as a series of memories, so exact and evocative that watching it becomes an immersive experience.

Profoundly hopeful and optimistic film.

Murderball invokes fascination toward its protagonists, because it views them with the same confidence and acceptance they view themselves.

Gravity is a celebration of the primal pleasure of movies: It shows you things you’ve never seen before, transports you out of the theater and out of your head, tricks you into believing what’s happening on the screen is happening to you.

Foxcatcher is too cold of a movie to love, but that chilliness is intentional and transfixing, a parable about the darkest corners of the minds of men that dares to whisper instead of shout.

That broad range of subject matter is indicative of the messy, meandering structure of the movie. But if Moore fails to tie this unwieldy movie into a lucid thesis, at least every tangent he chases down has its own payoff.

The emotional connection we develop with her as the movie unfolds pays off in the final 20 minutes, which is about as happy of an ending as anyone could imagine, except this one really happened.

With a light, sometimes hilarious touch, Look at Me deflates the pretensions and self-obsessed nature of a group of wealthy Parisian literati, but its observations about the effects of fame and success and our natural desire to fan them as high as they can go, apply to anyone within range of reality-TV culture.

Blue Jasmine, which is easily Allen’s best and most powerful movie since 2005’s "Match Point", is filled with terrific performances, including Hawkins as the sweet-natured Ginger.

The Dreamers argues that life must be lived, not dreamt. But it also remembers the confounding pleasures of dreaming with your eyes wide open.

Cotillard, who earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance, plays the character as a woman hanging on by the barest of threads.

By the end, Turtles Can Fly becomes a lyrical and heartbreaking reminder of the human toll of war.

The casting of Hiddleston and Swinton was a stroke of genius: They emanate a particular sort of cool only they seem privy to, accentuating their alienation.

This is an intentionally fanciful, gossamer movie, extremely personal and heartfelt, influenced in equal parts by Michelangelo Antonioni (although never so elusive) and Gus Van Sant (just not quite so self-conscious).

Monsieur Lazhar doesn't send you home depressed. Instead, the film leaves you hopeful, and even exhilarated, that even the most painful wounds can sometimes heal.

Waltz With Bashir isn't only a harrowing anti-war plea, it is also an eloquent and deeply moving argument that it is critical to never forget human atrocity, lest the past be repeated.

There's nothing about United 93 that qualifies as entertainment in the traditional sense: It is an unpleasant, wrenching experience, which is just as it should be.

A big, bold movie that gets at undeniable truths about the way no one, no matter how powerful, is immune from manipulation.

One of the scariest films I've seen in ages, although I cannot in all honesty explain exactly what the movie is about.

By the end of the movie, when all your questions have been answered, you're left with the exhilarating high of having been manipulated by a gifted artist in a diabolically dark mood.

By shunning the clinical mumbo-jumbo, the movie allows the viewer's imagination to fill in the gaps, making Microcosmos a delightfully entertaining -- and often hilarious -- celebration of nature. [27 Nov 1996, p.4D]

It’s ABOUT something, which has become a rarity in Hollywood pictures. Sometimes, the smallest stories cast the largest shadows.

This is a romantic comedy that makes the concept of romantic comedies appealing again -- that reminds you how resonant and transporting they can be when they're done right.

The movie isn’t a thriller, but it still generates a strange sort of emotional suspense - an incredibly intense drama that makes you hold your breath, and it builds toward a total knockout of a final scene in which the story is resolved with hardly a word.

She's such a fascinating, faceted character that halfway through "Christine" you almost forget about what's coming.

In fact, by ignoring its McCarthyist roots, The Crucible becomes more expansive and timely. This tale about the Salem witch trials of 1692 no longer seems harnessed to the now-quaint fear of communism that swept America in the 1950s: And its subject -- the power of lies and the dangers of conformity -- seems more symbolic than ever before. [20 Dec 1996, p.5G]

Almodóvar has never been shy about experimenting with plot structure, but Bad Education is the closest he's ever come to a metamovie, the sort of self-reflective, hall-of-mirrors contraption on which Charlie Kaufman has built his career.

By the end, the movie has pulled off a small miracle: You become absorbed in the lives of these people for who they are and not what they own.

A fiendishly subtle horror movie, a goosebump-inducing exercise in suspense that uses your own imagination to scare you silly.

The Grandmaster sets aside traditional story structure in its last 15 minutes and becomes one of the filmmaker’s free-form visual poems, suffused with melancholy and compassion.

Impossible to resist.

Remarkably astute and devastatingly funny.

The film is far from a downer. If anything, more than any of the films in the trilogy, this one may be the most hopeful - and the most affecting.

Pay attention, Michael Bay: This is what thrilling summer movies look like.

The story of Paranoid Park may center on an extreme and unusual case, but it's Van Sant's understanding of -- and compassion for -- the hell of growing up that makes the film such a profound and lasting pleasure.

It's a small victory, but Punch-Drunk Love knows how to reap epic delight from the most precious of details.

Like his con artists are prone to saying, American Hustle works from the feet up, and the fun is intoxicating.

There isn't a moment in the entire film that doesn't feel genuine.

Flowers is a quiet, eloquent movie about big, overwhelming emotions, and the constant presence of its eponymous plants, in all kinds of colors and shapes, is a metaphor for the ways in which we respond to what life throws at us, be it a sudden trauma, a perpetual state of melancholy or an unexpected opportunity for romance. Some people blossom and bloom; others wither and give up.

This is an exciting, exceptionally well-made futuristic thriller that also happens to be loaded with lived-in touches and punchy ideas.

Director Ryan Coogler has pulled off a miracle: He taps into the beautiful simplicity and deep well of emotion of the 1976 original, capturing its essence and spirit while branching out into a new story.

A marketable counterpoint to last year’s "Boyhood."

An exuberant, appropriately cynical reinvention of the stalwart Broadway hit that deftly straddles the line between old-fashioned Hollywood musicals and experimental concoctions like last year's "Moulin Rouge."

This is a fiendishly complicated whodunit -- or, to be more precise, a who-done-what-to-whom-and-when -- told within the confines of thoughtful, speculative science-fiction.

The film wouldn't work at all, though, if Sarsgaard didn't strike the perfect balance between snaky predator and love-struck fool.

Like "A Separation," which used the story of a dissolving marriage to illustrate the unexpected consequences of a rigid, inflexible society, About Elly turns what starts out as a breezy comedy into an engaging and substantial exploration of human nature and how sometimes, without intending to, we hurt the ones we love most — including ourselves.

This may not be Park’s best or gravest picture. But it might be his most entertaining.

Serial Mom is one of the most consistently funny films in years, moving from one hilarious set piece to another just when you're sure it has nowhere left to go. [15 Apr 1994, p.G5]

Harrowing and grueling, Lebanon ends on a gentle, hopeful note.

Won't appeal to everyone, of course, particularly those who blush easily. And parents who take children to see it deserve to have their heads examined. But for those who don't mind a little bile in their eggnog, it's the perfect antidote to all that prefab Christmas cheer.

More than once during The Fast Runner (Atanarjuat), it's easy to forget you're watching a movie.

Knocked Up is filled with comic exchanges and bits of business that, while not essential to the central plot, keep the movie's comedic energy chugging (like Debbie's throwdown with a doorman at a popular nightclub who won't let her in because she's too old).

Shine a Light provides the clearest and most intimate viewing experience of the band to date. It is also a happy circumstance that the group, now in their mid-60s, have rarely sounded tighter.

This rich, emotionally complex movie finds Almod&#243;var venturing into trickier, more fascinating territory, even if his themes.

The movie has a longing melancholy that leavens the humor — it’s a surprisingly sad, gentle comedy.

An overwhelmingly tactile experience. Scott brings you so close into the action, the grit and smoke and blood seem to spill off the screen and into your head.

This is the rare breed of Hollywood studio production that has the brash spirit of an independent picture and the sharp wit of a stand-up comic.

The movie fares less well when the plot and Simon’s neuroses come to the surface, but there is some tremendous suspense in the movie’s final scene.

A dreamy, passionate ode to freedom -- of thought, of expression, of every person's innate right to simply be.

The experience of watching Funny Games, be it the original or this version, is never forgotten, whatever your ultimate impression of the film.

An excellent legal thriller elevated to superb drama by the actor's (Clooney) central performance.

There's nothing in the utterly enchanting Raising Victor Vargas you haven't seen before; you'd just be hard-pressed to name another movie that did it as well.

Unlike "A Separation", in which Iranian culture and mores played critical roles, the theme in The Past is more universal and spelled out in the title.

An exuberant, disarming entertainment.

Has the ring of classic Disney seamlessly combined with a modern-day sensibility.

The results, for the most part, aren't pretty. The newly expanded Balseros, which adds an hour of footage to the previous film, is an even more compelling, if grimmer, work than the original.

Charles Bukowski would have loved this foul-mouthed, fiery, reckless woman. Against all odds and common sense, you will, too.

Children of Men is thrilling, both for its groundbreaking style (there are action sequences here unlike any filmed before) and its complex, vividly realized ideas.

What American Gangster does have -- what makes it such a commanding, exhilarating movie -- is a consummate love and understanding of story.

Burton has found a vehicle sturdy enough to indulge every facet of his imagination: His great visual flair, his sense of whimsy and humor, his fondness for horror and his love of music.

One False Move is by no means a "big" film. Its goals are admittedly modest, and that's the reason it works so well. If you're a fan of Jim Thompson novels (After Dark, My Sweet, The Killer Inside Me ) or Southern-style film noir, don't miss it. [26 June 1992, p.G5]

As suspenseful as a full-blown thriller.

Here, finally, is something you've really never seen before.

The movie isn't just hilarious: It's witty and inventive, too, and in hindsight, it isn't even all that dumb.

Shame is fearless in the way the most ambitious art often is, and to write it off for what it doesn't do is reductive and misguided. You don't just watch Shame: You feel it, too.

Unabashedly frank in its depiction of sex -- too frank, probably, for more discreet viewers -- but it's never exploitive or seedy.

Even though it unfolds almost entirely through a child's eyes, and contains no onscreen violence, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas packs as devastating a punch as an adult-oriented drama about the subject. Its concluding five minutes are almost impossible to watch.

Michael Mann's extraordinary Public Enemies is an unusual sort of gangster picture, a near-impressionistic recreation of the last year in the life of one of American history's most notorious bank robbers.

It's a dry, mundane title. It's also the only thing about the film that doesn't blow your mind right out of its comfortable, I've-seen-all-this-before rut.

The Salt of the Earth is a celebration of the power of art to change the world, as well as an exploration of the considerable toll gifted artists sometimes pay for their talents, and their courage to push forward regardless.

The biggest compliment you can pay the much-anticipated film adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is that you can't imagine Stieg Larsson's corker of a story ever having existed in book form.

After the nihilistic deconstruction of Deadpool and the flattening self-importance of Batman v. Superman, Captain America: Civil War reminds you how funny and exciting these pictures can be when they’re done right — you know, like comic books. The summer movie season has barely begun, and already the remedy for superhero film fatigue has arrived.

Movies like Monsters, Inc. literally make you feel like a kid again, marveling at the joyously inventive sights before you, and that's a feat that should not be taken lightly.

It's an action picture that's been distilled and compressed to its tightest, barest, almost abstract essence, and it's absolutely thrilling.

But Tarantino isn’t glorifying the ugliness; he’s condemning it. He just wants to put on a grand show at the same time. “Are you not entertained?” he seems to be asking. Yes. Yes, we are.

As a director, Woo never hesitates, and the result is exhilarating. [22 Oct 1993, p.G6]

It's a sign of just how much Coppola respects her characters that she doesn't make us privy to that final line: It is only meant for them to share. But like the rest of the ethereal Lost in Translation, you don't need to have it spelled out in order to feel it.

It just requires an open mind, a love of film and a willingness to dream.

The overriding point of Into the Abyss, what keeps this sad, sorrowful film from becoming depressing and elevates it far above the usual chatter of liberal-conservative debate, is that there can be light on the other end of even the darkest of tunnels.

If "The Sixth Sense" was Shyamalan's take on ghost stories and "Unbreakable" his ode to comic books, then Signs is the evil cousin to Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."

One of the first things that strikes you about these courageous people, who constantly confront volatile, gun-carrying thugs, is that they outgrew their violent pasts and now live contented lives with their families.

It feels wholly artificial, and your eyes never tire of drinking it all in.

A joyous, amazingly detailed paean to imagination and personal expression that dares -- and succeeds -- to illustrate one of the most mysterious enigmas of all: the creative process.

The movie is filled with wonderful music, memorable characters and rich, quotable dialogue. But what makes the picture really soar is the way it reminds you what it feels like to fall in love -- and the endless, countless possibilities a new romance brings.

A remarkable movie that merits a place alongside "The Executioner's Song" and "In Cold Blood" as an unforgettable depiction of tragedy in the heartland.

Another strange, sometimes harrowing exercise in absurdity that resonates despite its weirdness.

The movie offers just the right amount of spectacle.

A portrait of a family reeling with pain and resentment -- and rising to the challenge of dealing with it head-on.

As usual for the Dardennes, the plot is slight but loaded with hairpin turns of tremendous emotional power.

Offers a ride worth taking -- an excursion through a fantastical pop universe that is pure, enchanting magic. Try it; you'll like it.

“Movies are a machine that helps us generate a little empathy,” Ebert said about films. Life Itself is a lovely, eloquent tribute to a man who devoted his existence to showing us just that.

Gordon Gekko didn't disappear with the 1980s; he just became a lot more difficult to pick out from a crowd.

Brings the viewer up close and personal with the face of evil.

Raucous look at an equally raucous phenomenon.

All of Payne's films have been driven by the anger and frustration of his protagonists, but The Descendants is the first one in which sadness lurks behind every frame.

The most compelling -- and horrifying -- portion of the film, which interweaves archival footage and stylish graphics with the interview segments, centers on the firebombing of Japan during World War II.

The movie is such an intense, disturbing and exhilarating experience, even five more minutes might have felt like too much.

This is writer-director David O. Russell's idea of a romantic comedy, and it's terrific - one of the freshest, funniest, most elevating crowd-pleasers of the year.

The movie's scientific content is so fascinating that it almost feels like a bonus that Kinsey himself is such an intriguing figure.

Miraculously, the new picture makes the old one feel like Evans was just warming up.

Unlike The Lion King or Beauty and the Beast, Hercules never feels like more than what it is: A zippy, energetic cartoon. But it's still better than just about any movie out there right now. This Hercules is heavenly, indeed. [27 June 1997, p.5G]

The sound never loses its urgency, its sense of immediate danger, straight through to the closing shot of the film.

The movie implies that despite its thunderous success, the book also destroyed Capote, who crossed a line in his quest for personal glory for which he could never forgive himself -- no matter how many accolades it brought him.

The filmmakers’ fondness and respect for all things Batman are what elevate The Lego Batman Movie past the trappings of a funny cartoon. Who could have guessed, in the era of non-stop comic-book pictures, that a movie that uses toys as protagonist would do the most justice to the enigmatic Bruce Wayne?

This is a wonderfully imagined, heartfelt piece of pop entertainment that soars not only for its spectacular eye candy, but also during the moments when its protagonists simply stand still and talk to each other. How many comic-book movies can you say that about?

The movie is filled with small, loaded moments that resonate like gunshots in an echo chamber.

A lot of ground for one film to cover, but this smart, absorbing movie, which has been sharply edited by Felipe Lacerda, never feels like it's spreading itself too thin.

Exotica seems to be about lust for the flesh, but it ends up as something much more tender -- and deeper. [24 Mar 1995, p.4G]

Narco Cultura isn’t a documentary about runaway crime: Its actual subject is far stranger.

What makes Exit Through the Gift Shop so fascinating -- and it is riveting, regardless of your interest in the art world -- is the eloquent way in which it illustrates how beauty and meaning really are in the eye of the beholder and how that eternal phrase still holds true: There's a sucker born every minute.

American Splendor reminds you that sometimes, simply getting out of bed each morning can be the most heroic of acts.

Delivers all the expected moments of high suspense --that is worthy of Hitchcock

Leaves you in a state of stunned, exhilarated awe, both for what it shows and how it shows it.

Doesn't feel so much like a movie as a glimpse into the extraordinarily messed-up life of a young man about to make the simple yet life-changing realization that actions have consequences, and that other people matter, too.

The movie puts Jasira -- and the audience -- through the wringer, but it also makes the ride worth it.

This is a long, impeccably detailed, richly textured movie about a most unusual life, and although it's far from perfect, the sum of it achieves what Fincher set out to do in the first place: Make you blubber like a 6-year-old who just found his pet turtle lying belly-up.

Birdman takes advantage of every facet of Keaton’s talent, from his knack for absurdist comedy to his seemingly effortless ability to tap into graceful profundity without making a big show of it.

With a film this funny, exciting and visually stimulating, who cares if you know exactly what's going to happen next, and when.

The wait for a great action movie is finally over. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is pure popcorn of the highest, most flavorful order, and it's good for you, too.

At two hours, the movie is probably 15 minutes too long -- the final half-hour in particular could have used some trimming -- but complaining about having too much of a good thing makes one sound like a grouch.

The film’s true subject, though, is innate talent — for music, writing, painting, sculpture, plumbing — and the superhuman lengths we sometimes have to go to in order to wring it out of ourselves.

Within the confines of this minimalist picture, there are sequences so vital, timely and of-the-moment, so powerful and well-observed and precise, the effect can be emotionally overwhelming.

The rapturous power of music has rarely been captured as purely and joyously as it is in Calle 54.

A unique bond still develops between the two outcasts, leading to an unexpected resolution that ends this subtle, deeply humane movie on an ambiguous, but unmistakably hopeful, note.

Most prison movies are about escape or survival. A Prophet (Un Prophete) is about the creation of a consciousness. This one, too, could have been called “An Education.”

In a film overstuffed with tragedy, the most painful one might be the gradual transformation of Fernando's moral and intellectual indignation into a weary, cynical detachment.

Letters From Iwo Jima, much like any war movie, honors the courage of men who took part in a war not necessarily of their making. But by placing us on the opposite side of the battlefield, the movie forces us to approach it from a fresh perspective.

For now, The Two Towers feels like the second installment in what next year, when Frodo finally reaches Mount Doom and the story draws to a close, we'll surely be hailing as a masterpiece.

The Dark Knight is dark, all right: It's a luxurious nightmare disguised in a superhero costume, and it's proof that popcorn entertainments don't have to talk down to their audiences in order to satisfy them. The bar for comic-book film adaptations has been permanently raised.

This iconoclastic filmmaker seduces you with ridiculous laughs, then sends you home contemplating your mortality and your place in the world.

Animal Kingdom moves with a brisk efficiency - Michôd trusts the viewer and doesn't waste time with unnecessary back story - and the plot twists and turns at brutal speed.