Richard Corliss

Singin’ in the Rain might have been the last musical of the ’50s to convey irrepressible optimism through what Alan Greenspan would call “irrational exuberance.” But what exuberance! Look at it and try to think of a contemporary picture that has half as much vivacity, fun, joy. When your movie-loving grandpa says, “They don’t make ’em like they used to,” he is surely thinkin’ of Singin’ in the Rain.

With his instinct and craft, Miller has provided more autosuggestive violence on a $1 million budget than The Blues Brothers did with half the Chicago police force and $30 million.

One of the strongest movies in recent years.

Artful but not arty, Spirited Away is a handcrafted cartoon, as personal as an Utamaro painting, yet its breadth and heart give it an appeal that should touch American viewers of all ages.

When a genius like Lasseter sits at his computer, the machine becomes just a more supple paintbrush. Like the creatures in this wonderful zoo of a movie, it's alive!

A document that is raw, eloquent, horrifying and essential.

The subtle colors and textures of the food alone make Ratatouille a three-star Michelin evening.

Gravity shows us the glory of cinema’s future. It thrills on so many levels. And because Cuar‪ón is a movie visionary of the highest order, you truly can’t beat the view.

The voluptuousness of visual detail offers proof, if any more were needed after The Little Mermaid, that the Disney studio has relocated the pure magic of the Pinocchio-Dumbo years.

The rewards for paying attention are mammoth and exhilarating. This is a high-IQ movie that gives viewers an IQ high.

A near-perfect movie about men in war, men at work. Through sturdy imagery and violent action, it says that even Hell needs heroes.

It towers over the year's other movies as majestically and menacingly as a gang lord at a preschool. [10 Oct 1994]

The word docudrama doesn't hint at Boal's achievement. This is movie journalism that snaps and stings, that purifies a decade's clamor and clutter into narrative clarity, with a salutary kick.

However ripe A Separation might seem for being adapted into a smart American film, Hollywood shouldn't bother. Farhadi's movie is just about perfect as it is.

It works; this is Pixar's most enthralling entertainment since "Nemo."

The performances are daring and assured, especially Lansbury's holy terror of Momism and Harvey's snide, pathetic pawn, brainwashed by both KGB AND CIA. [21 March 1988, p.84]

To transport picturegoers to a unique place in the glare of the earth, in the darkness of the heart--this, you realize with a gasp of joy, is what movies can do.

Crouching Tiger is contemplative, and it kicks ass. Or put it this way: it's a powerful film and a terrific movie.

It could as well be called Best Thing of Undetermined Species.

Sideways is by far the year's best American movie.

The second half of the film elevates all the story elements to Beethovenian crescendo. Here is an epic with literature's depth and opera's splendor -- and one that could be achieved only in movies. What could be more terrific?

A marvelously sad and funny docucomedy. [22 Oct 1990]

Inside Llewyn Davis is more deserving of a Grammy than an Oscar. Problematic movie, great album.

To accept the film, though, one must first understand its point of view, and that is maddeningly difficult. All we know for certain is that Do the Right Thing is not naturalistic. [July 3, 1989]

"How perfectly goddamned delightful it all is, to be sure." Irony aside, that's how to respond to this magnificent study in ink and blood.

With craft, crackle, a little bombast and plenty of residual rage, he has created a time-capsule movie that explodes like a frag bomb in the consciousness of America, showing how it was back then, over there.

Is comedy a young man's game, like skateboarding or sex? Writing jokes, creating droll characters -- these take ambition, ingenuity and energy, and after decades of devotion to this voracious muse, a fellow can get pooped.

Rich in humor, pained or frolicking.

Apocalypse Now is about an American, perhaps a human madness. It searingly depicts, and finally embodies, the spiritual wounds men inflict on themselves and one another in the name of war. To gain the hearts and minds of a distant people, we lose our own souls.

Though faithful in every detail to Tolkien, it has a vigorous life of its own -- grandeur, moral heft and emotional depth.

An instant classic.

For all its japes and jokes, the movie is really about exhaustion of the spirit: sitting in a bleak hotel suite at 4 a.m. with the bad taste of last night in the mouth and the feeling that tomorrow will not be a better day.

So it is Scorsese's triumph that GoodFellas offers the fastest, sharpest 2 1/2-hr. ride in recent film history. [Sept 24, 1990]

It is a ripping yarn and a spectacularly new and odd vision.

Watch Murray's eyes in the climactic scene in the hotel lobby: while hardly moving, they express the collapsing of all hopes, the return to a sleepwalking status quo. You won't find a subtler, funnier or more poignant performance this year than this quietly astonishing turn.

Jonze creates the splendid anachronism of a movie romance that is laugh-and-cry and warm all over, totally sweet and utterly serious.

Triplettes is terrific…there's no competition for the fall's most imaginative delight. In that race, Triplettes can already take its victory lap.

In this arid landscape, the edifice of Ghost World, with all its acute insolence, stands out like the Taj Mahal.

In a style of agitated naturalism, Jordan examines poignant matters of life and death, sex and friendship, duty and loyalty, freedom and bondage, manhood and womanhood and all the ambiguous areas in between. [30 Nov 1992]

Mirren, who won an Emmy playing Elizabeth I for HBO, may deserve an Oscar for this ripe appraisal of Elizabeth II.

The fun in this moody, pounding, overlong, rewarding bring-down of a film is seeing Eddie’s curled lip of contempt, which he flashes at all the suckers, freeze into a rictus when he gets his.

For three hours, Kechiche puts the audience on a ride nearly as exhilarating and exhausting as that endured by Adèle and Emma, Adèle and Léa. The film is like a tough exam that everybody aced. The director, the actresses, the moviegoer — we all deserve a très bien.

Nemo, with its ravishing underwater fantasia, manages to trump the design glamour of earlier Pixar films.

Weird, beguiling premise.

The Incredibles has those characters, that heart.

So Almost Famous is almost fabulous. Oh, all right. The movie's so clever and endearing, you can forget the almost.

Hollywood's smartest media satire in years--and a breakthrough for Jim Carrey.

Hannah and Her Sisters is old-fashioned in another sense: its plot has the elegant geometry of a Philip Barry play. [Feb 3, 1986]

[Pfeiffer & Demme] and a gang of co-stars have created a coherent farce symphony.

The first hour of the film sets up the situation with a naturalistic vigor and cinematic resourcefulness unique to Scorsese. He knows precisely how to move the camera, dress a set, direct his splendid actors, underlay the music, edit to keep the viewer off guard and consistently impressed. But Raging Bull has nowhere to go but down and out. As Jake follows the trajectory of his predictable degradation, the film threatens to become as bloated and repetitious as the fat ex-champ in his cups.

The controversial film that is unbearable--and unmissable.

Reveling in its ’70s milieu and in the eternal abrasion of sexy women and covetous men, American Hustle is an urban eruption of flat-out fun — the sharpest, most exhilarating comedy in years. Anyone who says otherwise must be conning you.

A gravely beautiful fairy tale of longing and loss. [20 Sept 1993, p.82]

Kaufman may be counting on the audience's will, insistence and yearning to create a coherent love story from the shards and shrapnel he provides us.

Directing with a cool, steady hand that renounces shaky-cam the way Fletcher would denounce rock ‘n roll, and getting strong performances from his two leads, Chazelle provides a potent metaphor for artistic ambition as both a religion and an addiction.

Smartly crafted, impeccably acted, The Lives of Others packs a subtle punch, from its creepy first images to its poignant finale.

The cast list is like a convocation of the Three Chinas: Taiwan's Kaneshiro, Hong Kong's Lau and the mainland's Zhang Ziyi. All are terrific, but the lady shines brightest.

If this sounds like an old-fashioned sex comedy, it is -- sexy, for sure, and funny, in wild spurts.

Campion has spun a fable as potently romantic as a Bronte tale. But The Piano is also deeply cinematic. [22 Nov 1993]

In Rapace, it has an actress who brings a memorable literary character to indelible movie life, as Vivien Leigh did for Scarlett O'Hara.

For 82 minutes, The Little Mermaid reclaims the movie house as a dream palace and the big screen as a window into enchantment. Live-action filmmakers, see this and try to top it. Go on and try.

To absorb God's body blows, this disquieting, haunting movie says, is to be fully alive. To do otherwise could kill you.

Hoffman and the film are terrific. Supported by the eminent Catherine Keener (as author Harper Lee) and Chris Cooper (as detective Alvin Dewey), Hoffman begins with a dead-on impersonation of Capote that soon becomes a kind of channeling as the audience comes to see this American tragedy through his eyes.

This is a true-life heist movie, and the thieves not only got away with their billions, they're still doing business. Pay attention and blow a gasket.

Obvious, though, is the word for Hopper's direction. It amplifies to rock-concert level every pained plosive in Bertie's speech, forces certain characters dangerously close to caricature.

All attitude and low aptitude.

Extending the patented Pixar mix of humor and heart, Up is the studio's most deeply emotional and affecting work.

The picture packs a wonderful wallop.

Watching the film is like reading Playboy for the articles.

Towers, while not quite so varied as Fellowship in its moods and settings, has a grave gusto that energizes every moment...a thrilling work of film craft.

Shot in 30 days after a long rehearsal period, with the actors’ and the camera’s movements calibrated to the inch and the millisecond so the action flows smoothly, the picture has the jagged energy of a long guerrilla raid choreographed by Bob Fosse.

Director Gillian Armstrong and writer Robin Swicord have fashioned an entrancing film from this distinctly unfashionable classic.

Ceases to be a cogent study of the disease of genius and devolves into two lesser creatures: an ordinary weepie and an Oscar contender.

A grand, sprawling entertainment that incites enthrallment for much of its 2 hr. 38 min.

A coda that will have the movie's audience gasping in exhilarated exhaustion, whispering astonished gratitude to Sokurov for having created vigorous art out of 21st century video technique and asking themselves, "What's the Russian word for Wow!?"

In this bad-better-best movie, the Flik story is the bad, the choir singing much better and Peters the soul-stirring best.

This enthralling, enigmatic, romantic drama from Asia's most influential auteur (Chungking Express) is an essay in appetite and inhibition.

Viewers will feel as though they've just finished a great meal but aren't sure what they've been served. Behind them, the chef smiles wickedly.

The whole rollicking adventure zips along a mile a minute.

This high-IQ sermon is long but never lazy. Renouncing his tendency to make every movie take emotional flight, Spielberg sticks to the story as Kushner has artfully compressed it. Lincoln is brain food and, at another pivotal moment in American political history, an instructive feast.

The true, rare glamour of the piece is its revival of two precious movie tropes: the flourishing of words for their majesty and fun, and--in the love play between Fiennes and his enchantress--the kindling of a playfully adult eroticism.

This is spellbinding reality cinema about duplicity and, worse, ignorance at the highest level.

We the viewers are its beneficiaries, watching and waiting for something awful to happen. Here it does, first subtly, then spectacularly. The twist is not revealed until the last shot--if you keep your avid eyes open.

The most mature and satisfying work in a glittering, consistently surprising career.

His performance is a canny portrait of leadership - part genius, part crazy guts, part dumb luck - and worthy of moving Pitt up to the playoff round of Oscar finalists for Best Actor. We'd put money on it.

The rhythm of rural life has rarely seemed so lucid and luminous.

What amazes is that at just 26, Soderbergh displays the three qualities associated with mature filmmakers: a unique authorial voice, a spooky camera assurance, and the easy control of ensemble acting. [31 July 1989, p.65]

This is a good-natured retro romp that is truer to Golden Age movies than to golden oldies songs.

Apted...has the storytelling skills to weave a powerful and poignant snapshot of some decent folks who have become, collectively, Britain's first family.

At times Dead Ringers also tilts out of coherence, with scenes that are dramatically stillborn. But Irons is splendid in both roles, and Cronenberg can create tour-de-force tableaux with his effortless black magic. [26 Sept 1988]

So here's a tip for those attending this handsomely acted, epic-length little film. Ease into the sleaze, stare at the party animals, look but don't touch, and, oh, boogie all night. [October 6, 1997]

Alvin's tragic memories give perspective to the triumph of his trek, even as Farnsworth's weathered brilliance makes this movie a G as in gem.

An enthralled and mostly enthralling guided tour of what Herzog describes as "one of the greatest art discoveries in the history of human culture."

I have the anachronistic notion that romantic comedies needn't be exclusively partial to one gender; they should be critical and loving and true to both. So I'll soldier on with my mixed, distant, defiantly ignorant review of this 142-minute trifle -- which comes close to being the longest non-musical romantic comedy in Hollywood history.

In terms of quality, though, Argo is just so-so.

Best to savor The Grifters for its handsome design -- the picture looks as clean as a Hockney landscape -- and its juicy performances. [11 Feb 1991]

While the movie is glorious to watch, it brings no coherence or insight to its two main characters.

Davies recalls all these sights and sounds -- so horrifying, so beautiful -- and, with his unflinching style, turns anecdote into artistry. The distant voices still live.