Roger Ebert

LaBute likes people who think themselves into and out of love, and finds the truly passionate (like Blanche) to be the most dangerous. He likes romances that exist out of sight, denied, speculated about, suspected, fought against.

Set aside your memories of the Conan Doyle stories, save them to savor on a night this winter and enjoy this movie as a high-caliber entertainment.

It's very perceptive about the relationships among its characters - how they talk, how they compete, what their values are. And Howard has cast the movie with splendid veteran actors, who are able to convey all the little quirks and idiosyncrasies of real people.

The success of Stephen Frears’ film Chéri begins with its casting. Michelle Pfeiffer, as Lea de Lonval, is still a great beauty.

How much was legend, how much was pose, how much was real? I think it was all real, and the documentary suggests as much.

This is a movie in the true tradition of film noir -- which someone who didn't write a dictionary once described as a movie where an ordinary guy indulges the weak side of his character, and hell opens up beneath his feet.

The movie had stopped being delightfully scary about halfway through, and had become unexpectedly terrifying. There was a little girl across the aisle from me, maybe nine years old, who was sitting very still in her seat and crying.

The film is more violent, less cute than the others, but the action is not the mindless destruction of a video game; it has purpose, shape and style.

The movie reveals its serious undertones (with commentary by the Greek chorus, which occasionally breaks into song and dance) while at the same time developing a plot that lends itself to slapstick.

This isn't the kind of movie that even has hope enough to contain a message. There is no message, only the reality of these wounded personalities.

A terrific thriller with action sequences that function as a kind of action poetry.

The film's value is in its portrait of Ruth, and her independence as a solo outsider in a vast, uncaring city.

These characters and their quest began to grow on me, and by the time the movie was over I cared very much about how their lives would turn out.

Tells one of those rare and entrancing stories where one thing seems to happen while another thing is really happening.

Drew me in from the opening shots. Byler reveals his characters in a way that intrigues and even fascinates us, and he never reduces the situation to simple melodrama, which would release the tension. This is like a psychological thriller, in which the climax has to do with feelings, not actions.

Using a dialogue-heavy approach that's unusual for Cronenberg, his film is skilled at the way it weaves theory with the inner lives of its characters. We are learning, yet never feel we're being taught.

As a visual spectacle, it is all but overwhelming, putting to shame some of the recent historical epics from Hollywood. If it has a flaw, and it does, it is expressed succinctly by the wife of its hero: "All Mongols do is kill and steal."

Most movie characters are like Greek gods and comic book heroes: We learn their roles and powers at the beginning of the story, and they never change. Here are complex, troubled, flawed people, brave enough to breathe deeply and take one more risk with their lives.

Brooks, who co-wrote (with Monica Johnson) and directed as well as stars, is much too smart to settle for the obvious gags and payoffs. All of his films depend on closely observed behavior and language, on the ways language can refuse to let us communicate, no matter how obsessively we try to nail things down. In his scenes with Reynolds, they are told quietly, conversationally; they're not pounding out punch lines, and that's why the dialogue is so funny.

The Arrival fulfills one of the classic functions of science fiction, which is to take a current trend and extend it to a possible (and preferably alarming) future. The Arrival gives its aliens credit for reasoning that we might almost be tempted to agree with. We're just finishing what you started, one of the aliens tells Zane, referring to the smokestacks, auto exhausts, rain forests and so on. What would have taken you 100 years will only take us 10. He, or it, has a point.

As a period biopic, J. Edgar is masterful. Few films span seven decades this comfortably.

These opening scenes of Love and Death on Long Island are funny and touching, and Hurt brings a dignity to Giles De'Ath that transcends any snickering amusement at his infatuation.

Sagan's novel Contact provides the inspiration for Robert Zemeckis' new film, which tells the smartest and most absorbing story about extraterrestrial intelligence since "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."

Power to absorb, entertain and anger.

This is a film by the Coen Brothers, and this is the first straight genre exercise in their career. It's a loving one. Their craftsmanship is a wonder. Their casting is always inspired and exact. The cinematography by Roger Deakins reminds us of the glory that was, and can still be, the Western.

Munch's screenplay is tenderly observant of his characters. He watches them as they float within the seas of their personalities. His scenes are short and often unexpected. The story unfolds in sidelong glances.

For 20 years the news has reported from time to time of crimes alleged by employees of paid defense contractors. These cases rarely seem to result in change, and the stories continue. We can only guess what may be going unreported. The Whistleblower offers chilling evidence of why that seems to be so.

Here is a movie that finds the right look and tone for its material.

If I were choosing a director to make a film about the end of the world, von Trier the gloomy Dane might be my first choice. The only other name that comes to mind is Werner Herzog's. Both understand that at such a time silly little romantic subplots take on a vast irrelevance.

There are shadings of comic meaning that could have gotten lost if all we had were the words, and there are whole scenes that play off facial expressions. It's a good movie to watch just for that reason, because it's been done with such care, love and lunacy.

This is a loving, moving, inspiring, quirky documentary that was made while the lives it records were being lived.

What's impressive is how well this film joins its parts into a whole.

Maybe what makesFlipped" such a warm entertainment is how it re-creates a life we wish we'd had when we were 14.

Little Man Tate is the kind of movie you enjoy watching; it's about interesting people finding out about themselves.

Selena succeeds, through Lopez's performance, in evoking the magic of a sweet and talented young woman.

Fame is a genuine treasure, moving and entertaining, a movie that understands being a teen-ager as well as Breaking Away did, but studies its characters in a completely different milieu.

The Guard is a pleasure. I can't tell if it's really (bleeping) dumb or really (bleeping) smart, but it's pretty (bleeping) good.

What's best about the movie is its playfulness.

On the surface, this film is an enchanting meditation. At its core is the hard steel of individuality.

Both hilarious and sorrowful.

The acting is macho understatement. Mesrine is a character who might have been played years ago by Gerard Depardieu, who appears here as Guido, a bullet-headed impresario of larceny.

The acting style edges toward parody, the material is unforgiving of Australian middle-class life in the boondocks and then, pow! - Sweetie waltzes onto the screen.

This isn't a serious historical film. It plays different instruments than Spielberg's "Lincoln." Murray, who has a wider range than we sometimes realize, finds the human core of this FDR and presents it tenderly.

The thing about a movie like this is, the characters may be French, but they're more like people I know than they could ever be in the Hollywood remake.

Both Linney and Hoffman are so specific in creating these characters that we see them as people, not elements in a plot. Hoffman in particular shows how many disguises he has within his seemingly immutable presence; would you know it is the same actor here and in two other films this season, "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" and "Charlie Wilson's War"?

War Horse is bold, not afraid of sentiment and lets out all the stops in magnificently staged action sequences. Its characters are clearly defined and strongly played by charismatic actors. Its message is a universal one.

It is a stunning work of visual style - the best version of a comic book universe I've seen - and Brandon Lee clearly demonstrates in it that he might have become an action star, had he lived.

This is the best DiCillo movie I've seen, and he's made some good ones ("Box of Moonlight," "The Real Blonde").

Carrey makes the role seem effortless; he deceives as spontaneously as others breathe.

You can sense the difference between a movie that's a technical exercise ("Resident Evil") and one steamed in the dread cauldrons of the filmmaker's imagination.

A real movie, rich and atmospheric, savoring its disreputable characters and their human weaknesses.

The key to the film is in the performances by Spall and Stevenson -- and by Marsan. The utter averageness of the characters, their lack of insight, their normality, contrasts with the subject matter in an unsettling way.

Under the direction of David Fincher and with a screenplay by Steven Zaillian. I don't know if it's better or worse. It has a different air.

The naturalism of Anne Fontaine's film would be at home in a novel by Dreiser. Her star Audrey Tautou, who could make lovability into a career, avoids any effort to make Coco Chanel nice, or soft, or particularly sympathetic.

Riding Giants is about altogether another reality. The overarching fact about these surfers is the degree of their obsession.

Bite the Bullet finds the traditional power and integrity of the Western intact after all.

It is an immensely skillful sci-fi adventure, combining the usual elements: heroes and villains, special effects and stunts, chases and explosions, romance and oratory.

The film has the materials for a lifetime project; like the "7-Up" series, this is a conversation that could be returned to every 10 years or so, as Celine and Jesse grow older.

Likely to appeal to the fans of "The Sixth Sense," "Ghost" and other movies where the characters find a loophole in reality. What it also has in common with those two movies is warmth and emotion.

It tells a full story with three acts, it introduces characters we get to know and care about, and it has something it passionately wants to say.

The movie's thriller elements are given an additional gloss by the skill of the technical credits, and the wicked wit of the dialogue.

I'm giving the movie a high rating for its skill and professionalism and because it does the job it says it will do. I am also advising you not to eat before you go to see it.

Cat People moves back and forth between its mythic and realistic levels, held together primarily by the strength of Kinski's performance and John Heard's obsession. Kinski is something. She never overacts in this movie, never steps wrong, never seems ridiculous; she just steps onscreen and convincingly underplays a leopard. Heard also is good.

The movie is an uncommonly knowledgeable portrait of the way musical gifts could lift people of ordinary backgrounds into high circles.

Compulsively watchable and endlessly inventive as it transforms Broomfield's limited materials into a compelling argument.

This is not one of those delightful movies based on a Jane Austen novel. It is about hard realists, constrained in a stifling system and using whatever weapons they can command.

The movie does indeed feature much footage of MacPherson and her sister sirens in the nude, but it is smarter, more thoughtful and more good-tempered than you might expect.

It is about the desiring itself, not about what they desire. That makes it more intriguing than if we knew their secret--and sexier.

What works best in the film is the over-all vision. Branagh is able to see himself as a king, and so we can see him as one.

Has a bracing truth that's refreshing after the phoniness of female-bonding pictures like "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood."

The first film to build on the enormously influential "Pulp Fiction" instead of simply mimicking it. It has the games with time, the low-life dialogue, the absurd violent situations, but it also has its own texture.

What's interesting is that every single person in this film is seen as themselves, is allowed to speak and seems to have a good heart. I've rarely seen a documentary quite like it. It has a point to make but no ax to grind.

No one, male or female, has any fun, but the men behave as if they do. They are all half-stupefied by the languor in which they drown.

I.Q. is a romantic comedy with its heart in the right place, and all of the other pieces distributed correctly, too.

This is one of Denzel Washington's great performances, on a par with his work in "Malcolm X."

The movie is funny in a warm, fuzzy way, and it has a splendidly satisfactory ending, which is unusual for an Albert Brooks film 

Angelou's first-time direction stays out of its own way; she doesn't call attention to herself with unnecessary visual touches, but focuses on the business at hand.

Revanche involves a rare coming together of a male's criminal nature and a female's deep needs, entwined with a first-rate thriller. It is also perceptive in observing characters, including a proud old man. Rare is the thriller that is more about the reasons of people instead of the needs of the plot.

A skillful, efficient film that involves us in the clever and deceptive game being played by Ramius and in the best efforts of those on both sides to figure out what he plans to do with his submarine - and how he plans to do it.

Watching this movie is like daydreaming.

An ingenious thriller that comes billed as science fiction, although its science is preposterous.

What's special about the film is at a deeper level, down where (Tykwer) engages with the souls of his characters.

Folman is an Israeli documentarian who has not worked in animation. Now he uses it as the best way to reconstruct memories, fantasies, hallucinations, possibilities, past and present. This film would be nearly impossible to make any other way.

All of the actors play without winks and spins, unless you consider Lebowskism itself a wink and spin.

It creates original characters - Hudson and, especially, the little dynamo M. J. - and makes them more important than the plot. We care, and that's the key.

Jessica Lange plays Frances Farmer in a performance that is so driven, that contains so many different facets of a complex personality, that we feel she has an intuitive understanding of this tragic woman.

This is basically the first sitcom in drag, and the comic turns in the plot are achieved with such clockwork timing that sometimes we're laughing at what's funny and sometimes we're just laughing at the movie's sheer comic invention. This is a great time at the movies.

It is filled with good-hearted fun, with performances by actors who seem to be smacking their lips and by a certain true innocence that survives all of Reiner's satire.

The Spanish Prisoner resembles Alfred Hitchcock in the way that everything takes place in full view, on sunny beaches and in brightly lit rooms, with attractive people smilingly pulling the rug out from under the hero and revealing the abyss.

Achieves something that is uncommonly difficult. It is a spiritual movie with the power to emotionally touch believers, agnostics and atheists -- in that descending order, I suspect.

We suspect that the film will be about their various problems and that the hotel will not be as advertised. What we may not expect is what a charming, funny and heartwarming movie this is, a smoothly crafted entertainment that makes good use of seven superb veterans.

The Weavers of 2003 did not sing as well as they did in 1982, or 1952, but if anything they had more heart, because more memories.

In The Wings of the Dove, there is a fascination in the way smart people try to figure one another out. The film is acted with great tenderness.

I had to forget what I knew about Black. He creates this character out of thin air, it's like nothing he's done before, and it proves that an actor can be a miraculous thing in the right role.

One of the pleasures of Get Shorty is watching the way the plot moves effortlessly from crime to the movies - not a long distance, since both industries are based on fear, greed, creativity and intimidation.

To see this film's footage from the '70s is to see the beginning of much of pop and fashion iconography for the next two decades.

Even the ordinary moments in True Stories seem a little odd, as if the actors are trying to humor the weirdo they're working for.

This movie is more sophisticated and complicated than the Westerns of my childhood, and it is certainly better looking and better acted.

The movie's only flaw is also a virtue: It's jammed with characters, stories, warmth and laughs, until at times Curtis seems to be working from a checklist of obligatory movie love situations and doesn't want to leave anything out.

The movie, in fact, resembles Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life" more than other, conventional time-travel movies.

Surviving Progress is a bright, entertaining (!), coherent argument in favor of these principles I have simplified so briefly. It's self-evident and tells the truth.

Not a great movie, but as a classic heist movie, it's solid professionalism.

David Klass, the screenwriter, gives Freeman and Judd more specific dialogue than is usual in thrillers; they sound as if they might actually be talking with each other and not simply advancing plot points.

Robert Redford has directed Quiz Show as entertainment, history, and challenge.

It's the film you need to see in order to understand why the ending of "As Good As It Gets" was phony.

A visual poem of extraordinary beauty.

What's Love Got to Do With It ranks as one of the most harrowing, uncompromising showbiz biographies I've ever seen.

This is the kind of movie routinely dismissed as too slow and quiet by those who don't know it is more exciting to listen than to hear.

A tough, bitter little sleeper of a movie that's about four times as good as you'd expect.

The strength of the picture, directed by Eastwood, is that it has three intersecting story arcs: The investigation, the health issues, and the relationship that builds, step by step.

He's (Fukunaga) a director with a sure visual sense, here expressed in voluptuous visuals and ambitious art direction.

The director's key achievement is creating a convincing sense of daily life in the household and neighborhood. This is not a narrow drama that focuses on a few themes; it paints a whole style of life, the good times with the bad.

Ivan Reitman's direction and Gary Ross' screenplay use intelligence and warmhearted sentiment to make Dave into wonderful lighthearted entertainment.

Like Free Willy, The Secret Garden, Searching for Bobby Fischer and The Man in the Moon, this is a "family movie" that doesn't condescend. It takes its 12-year-old hero as seriously as he takes baseball, and nothing is "dumbed down" for the PG audience.

What adds boundless energy to Walk the Line is the performance by Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash.

Although it was not quite his last film, there can be little doubt that Limelight was Charlie Chaplin’s farewell. It is also probably his most personal, revealing film.

On the basis of its scale, energy and magical events, this is the Hong Kong equivalent of a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster. But it transcends them with the stylization of the costumes, the panoply of the folklore, the richness of the setting, and the fact that none of the characters (allegedly) have superpowers.

The characters have a weight and reality, as if Almodovar has finally taken pity on them--has seen that although their plights may seem ludicrous, they're real enough to hurt. These are people who stand outside conventional life and its rules, and yet affirm them.

The Pillow Book, starring Vivian Wu, is a seductive and elegant story.

As you listen to his uncanny narration of Tupac: Resurrection, which is stitched together from interviews, you realize you're not listening to the usual self-important vacancies from celebrity Q&As, but to spoken prose of a high order, in which analysis, memory and poetry come together seamlessly in sentences and paragraphs that sound as if they were written.

Sarandon and Davis find in Callie Khouri’s script the materials for two plausible, convincing, lovable characters. And as actors they work together like a high-wire team, walking across even the most hazardous scenes without putting a foot wrong.

Mamet's dialogue has a kind of logic, a cadence, that allows people to arrive in triumph at the ends of sentences we could not possibly have imagined. There is great energy in it. You can see the joy with which these actors get their teeth into these great lines.

The movie gets the job done, and the actors show a lot of confidence in occupying that tricky middle ground between controlled satire and comic overkill. It's fun.

One of the truest films I've seen about the ebb and flow of a real relationship.

The movie demonstrates the power of sports to involve us; we don't live in Odessa and are watching a game played 16 years ago, and we get all wound up.

Grown-ups are likely to be surprised by how smart the movie is, and how sneakily perceptive.

A ground-level documentary, messy and immediate, about the daily life of a combat soldier in Iraq. It is not pro-war or anti-war.

Every good actor has a season when he comes into his own, and this is Terrence Howard's time.

Jesus' Son surprises me with moments of wry humor, poignancy, sorrow and wildness. It has a sequence as funny as any I've seen this year.

Pedro Almodovar's new movie is like an ingenious toy that is a joy to behold, until you take it apart to see what makes it work, and then it never works again.

Most people do not choose their religions but have them forced upon themselves by birth, and the lesson of Incendies is that an accident of birth is not a reason for hatred.

The Mother peers so fearlessly into the dark needs of human nature that you almost wish it would look away. It's very disturbing.

Glory is a strong and valuable film no matter whose eyes it is seen through.

Not about murder in the literal sense, although that seems a possibility. It is about a man who would like to kill his father, and who may have been killed spiritually by his father.

Anyone who loves movies is likely to love Cinema Paradiso.

The movie's performances have a simplicity and accuracy that is always convincing. Compston, who plays Liam, is a local 17-year-old discovered in auditions at his school. He has never acted before, but is effortlessly natural.

Brave dissenting Islamic filmmakers are risking their lives to tell the story of the persecution of women, and it is a story worth knowing, and mourning.

Spellbinding.

The final scene of the film contains an appearance and a revelation of astonishing emotional power; not since the last shots of "Schindler's List" have I been so overcome with the realization that real people, in recent historical times, had to undergo such inhumanity.

Picks and chooses cleverly, skipping blithely past the entire Russian Revolution but lingering on mad monks, green goblins, storms at sea, train wrecks and youthful romance.

Burt and Verona are two characters rarely seen in the movies: thirtysomething, educated, healthy, self-employed, gentle, thoughtful, whimsical, not neurotic and really truly in love.

Tolkin gives us one richly detailed set piece after another, involving luncheons, openings, massages, telephone tag, psychic consultations, sex, heartfelt conversation, and pagan rituals led by a bald-headed woman who sees what others cannot see.

This movie takes a lot of delight in being more psychologically complex than it has to be. It contains fights and shootouts and big chase scenes, but they're all firmly centered on who the characters are and what they mean to one another.

Because the stories are so skillfully threaded together, the movie doesn't feel like an exercise: Each of the stories stands on its own.

Surprisingly touching.

Stephen Fry brings a depth and gentleness to the role that says what can be said about Oscar Wilde: that he was a funny and gifted idealist in a society that valued hypocrisy above honesty.

A bitter, unforgettable poem about alienation.

What I enjoyed was the way the film summons up the pure obsessive passion that chess stirs in some people.

It's a family film that deals with real problems and teaches real values, and yet is exciting and entertaining.

Although Clockers is... a murder mystery, in solving its murder, it doesn't even begin to find a solution to the system that led to the murder. That is the point.

Lethal Weapon 2 is that rarity - a sequel with most of the same qualities as the original. I walked into the movie with a certain dread. But this is a film with the same off-center invention and wild energy as the original.

He is one of the most prolific and generous of directors, and there is no word that summarizes a "Tavernier film," except, usually, masterful.

Parsimonious with its plot, which is revealed on a need-to-know basis. At first, we're not even sure who is who; dialogue is half-heard, references are unclear, the townspeople know things we discover only gradually.

The movie finds the right tone to present its bittersweet wisdom. It's relaxed. It's content to observe and listen.

It is a bold, reckless gesture.

To call it weird would be a cowardly evasion. It is creepy, eccentric, eerie, flaky, freaky, funky, grotesque, inscrutable, kinky, kooky, magical, oddball, spooky, uncanny, uncouth and unearthly. Especially uncouth.

There is little enough psychological depth anywhere in the films, actually, and they exist mostly as surface, gesture, archetype and spectacle. They do that magnificently well, but one feels at the end that nothing actual and human has been at stake.

One of the best-looking animated films ever made.

Fake It So Real filled me with affection for its down-and-out heroes, a group of semi-pro wrestlers in Lincolnton, N.C.

But Mimic is superior to most of its cousins, and has been stylishly directed by Guillermo Del Toro, whose visual sense adds a certain texture that makes everything scarier and more effective.

A return to form for Stone's dark side, Savages generates ruthless energy and some, but not too much, humor.

There really is a little something here for everyone: music and culture, politics and passion, crime and intrigue, history and even the backstage intrigue of the auction business.

About Schmidt is billed as a comedy. It is funny to the degree that Nicholson is funny playing Schmidt, and funny in terms of some of his adventures, but at bottom it is tragic.

The kind of caper movie that was made before special effects replaced wit, construction and intelligence. This movie is made out of fresh ingredients, not cake mix. Despite the twists of its plot, it is about its characters.

Jungle Fever contains two sequences - the girl talk and the crackhouse visit - of amazing power. It contains humor and insight and canny psychology, strong performances, and the fearless discussion of things both races would rather not face.

Altman's approach in Vincent & Theo is a very immediate, intimate one. He would rather show us things happening than provide themes and explanations. He is most concerned with the relationship that made the art possible.

The ads for Code of Silence look schlocky, and Chuck Norris is still identified with a series of grade-zilch karate epics, but this is a heavy-duty thriller - a slick, energetic movie with good performances and a lot of genuine human interest.

And the casting of minor characters (including Muriel's sister with the naughty-naughty smirk) is flawless.

The movie is all color and music, sound and motion, kinetic energy, broad strokes, operatic excess.

I saw more important films at Sundance 2003, but none more purely enjoyable than Bend It Like Beckham, which is just about perfect as a teenage coming-of-age comedy.

Marley, an ambitious and comprehensive film, does what is probably the best possible job of documenting an important life.

This movie will cheerfully go for a laugh wherever one is even remotely likely to be found. It has political jokes and boob jokes, dog poop jokes, and ballet jokes. It makes fun of two completely different Hollywood genres: the spy movie and the Elvis Presley musical.

Cars 2 is fun. Whether that's because John Lasseter is in touch with his inner child or mine, I cannot say.

It's a funny, engaging comedy that takes the familiar but underrated Emma Stone and makes her, I believe, a star.

The famous faces make it difficult, at first, to sink into the story, but eventually we do; the characters become so convincing that even if we're aware of Keaton and Streep, it's as if these events are happening to them.

A harrowing look at institutional cruelty, perpetrated by the Catholic Church in Ireland, and justified by a perverted hysteria about sex.

There is an old saying: Be careful what you ask for, because you might get it. The Piano Teacher has a more ominous lesson: Be especially careful with someone who has asked for you.

Not just a cute romp but an involving story that has something to say.

The unexpected thing about Made in Dagenham is how entertaining it is.

I figured it wasn't important for me to go into detail about the photography and the editing. I just wanted to scare the bejesus out of you, which is what Food, Inc. did to me.

Like "The Exorcist," the best film in the genre, it is inspired by some degree of religious scholarship and creates believable characters in a real world. That religions take demonic possessions seriously makes them more fun for us, the unpossessed.

Sometimes it's all about the casting. The notice of a screening came around, I read the names Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin, and it didn't matter in a way what the movie was about - although it didn't hurt that it was a crime movie.

Entertaining and surprisingly amusing, under the circumstances. The film is in a better state of mind than its characters. Its humor comes, as the best humor does, from an acute observation of human nature.

In its complexity and wit, this is one of his (Allen's) best recent films.

There is a scene in The Fabulous Baker Boys where Michelle Pfeiffer, wearing a slinky red dress, uncurls on top of a piano while singing "Makin' Whoopee." The rest of the movie is also worth the price of admission.

It's manipulative, yes, but clever and persuasive in its manipulations.

The movie is a dazzling song and dance extravaganza, with just enough words to support the music and allow everyone to catch their breath between songs.

The acting here, by Sean Penn, is a virtuoso tour de force - one of those performances that takes on a life of its own.

Under Fire surrounds these performances with a vivid sense of place and becomes, somewhat surprisingly, one of the year's best films.

Siskel and Jacobs focus on the performances, which are inspiring and electrifying.

An astonishing film.

This is a very good haunted house film. It milks our frustration deliciously.

Cluzot, with his uncanny resemblance to Dustin Hoffman, is an engaging actor who effortlessly summons up inner neurosis. The others are all skilled at light wit and banter; in a way, the film is simply a record of the French being French.

Mark is played by John Hawkes, who has emerged in recent years as an actor of amazing versatility. What he does here is not only physically challenging, but requires timing and emotion to elevate the story into realms of deep feeling and, astonishingly, even comedy.

These are hard men. They could have the "Sopranos" for dinner, throw up and have them again.

Brave, heartless, and exceedingly strange, a quasi-documentary in which the actor Maximilian Schell mercilessly violates the privacy of his older sister, Maria.

An effective thriller precisely because it is true to the way sophisticated people might behave in this situation. Its characters are not movie creatures, gullible, emotional and quickly moved to tears. They're realists, rich, a little jaded.

The Sure Thing is a small miracle. Although the hero of this movie is promised by his buddy that he'll be fixed up with a "guaranteed sure thing," the film is not about the sure thing but about how this kid falls genuinely and touchingly into love.

Like a John Cheever short story or a sociological snapshot by Tom Wolfe, The Object of Beauty is about people who have been so defined by their lifestyles that without those styles they scarcely exist.

The result of the film is shocking, saddening and frustrating.

In Spielberg's Schindler's List there are the famous shots of the little girl in the red coat (in a film otherwise shot in black and white). Her coat acts as a marker, allowing us to follow the fate of one among millions. The Last Days, directed by James Moll, is in a way all about red coats--about a handful of survivors, and what happened to them.

One of the nicest things about the movie is the way it maintains its note of slightly bewildered innocence.

The key to the film is in the character of David. One can imagine a scenario in which an overbearing father drives the son to rebellion, but what happens here is more complex and sinister.

Where did Hollywood get the conviction that audiences demand an ending that lets them off the hook? Foster doesn't let herself off the hook in The Brave One, and we should be as brave as she is.

A rather brilliant lump of coal for your stocking hung by the fireside with care. How else to explain an R-rated Santa Claus origin story crossed with "The Thing"?

The film most of all is about Hester, who stares out the window and smokes.

By dropping in on this couple from time to time for the kinds of moments one of them might remember, the film is more honest than its characters.

But what Husbands and Wives argues is that many "rational" relationships are actually not as durable as they seem, because somewhere inside every person is a child crying me! me! me! We say we want the other person to be happy. What we mean is, we want them to be happy with us, just as we are, on our terms.

Does the film have a message? I don't think it wants one. It is about the journey of a man going mad. A film can simply be a character study, as this one is.

Stella is the kind of movie they used to call a tearjerker, and we might as well go ahead and still call it that, because all around me at the sneak preview people were blowing noses and sort of softly catching their breath - you know, the way you do when you're having a great time.

What Burton has made is a film which celebrates Wood more than it mocks him, and which celebrates, too, the zany spirit of 1950s exploitation films - in which a great title, a has-been star and a lurid ad campaign were enough to get bookings for some of the oddest films ever made.

When the mistake is discovered, how do the families react? What disturbs them more: that their son has been raised as an enemy or that he has been raised in another religion? That's where The Other Son gets complicated.

Not all movies can be stark, difficult and obscure. Sometimes in a quite ordinary way a director can reach out and touch us.

Enormously entertaining for moviegoers of any age -- But for young women depressed because they don't look like skinny models, this film is a breath of common sense and fresh air. Real Women Have Curves is a reminder of how rarely the women in the movies are real.

Mask is a wonderful movie, a story of high spirits and hope and courage.

Lee doesn't make exploitation films, and he doesn't find conventional answers. He is puzzled by the mysteries of inexplicable behavior.

The movie will seem slow to some viewers, unless they are alert to the raging emotions, the cruel unfairness and the desperation that are masked by the measured and polite words of the characters.

I like this movie. More important, I like Mike Birbiglia in it. Whether he has a future in stand-up I cannot say, but he has a future as a monologist and actor.

Jarecki's film makes a shattering case against the War on Drugs.

The film is exhilarating to watch because Sandler, liberated from the constraints of formula, reveals unexpected depths as an actor.

Franju constructs an elegant visual work; here is a horror movie in which the shrieks are not by the characters but by the images.

It's always about more than boxing.

Certainly the best in its technical credits, and among the best in the ingenuity of its plot.

This is a delightfully goofy, self-aware movie that knows it is a movie.

The movie's races are thrilling because they must be thrilling; there's no way for the movie to miss on those, but writer-director Gary Ross and his cinematographer, John Schwartzman, get amazingly close to the action.

Wallace and Gromit are arguably the two most delightful characters in the history of animation.

The wonder is that it took Disney so long to get to the gods of Greek mythology. Hercules jumps into the ancient legends feet-first, cheerfully tossing out what won't fit and combining what's left into a new look and a lighthearted style.

So perceptive and mature it makes similar films seem flippant. The performances are on just the right note, scene after scene, for what needs to be done.

There's a lot of funny stuff, but the most unexpected comes from Arnold, who has been uneven, to say the least, in his movies.

Now, Forager is a uncompromising film about two people who don't deserve each other - but maybe nobody deserves either one of them.

This is the kind of movie that cults are made of, and after Little Shop finishes its first run, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it develop into a successor to "Rocky Horror Show," as one of those movies that fans want to include in their lives.

A triumph of style over story, and of acting over characters.

By occupying their roles believably, by acting as we think their characters probably would, they save the movie from feeling like basic Hollywood action (even when it probably is). This is one of the year's best thrillers.

Sleeper establishes Woody Allen as the best comic director and actor in America, a distinction that would mean more if there were more comedies being made.

You're looking for depth and profundity, this is the wrong movie. But under the direction of David Koepp ("Secret Window," the screenplays for "Mission: Impossible" and "Spider-Man"), this is an expert and spellbinding adventure.

Ghostbusters is one of those rare movies where the original, fragile comic vision has survived a multimillion-dollar production.

Mad Dog and Glory is one of the few recent movies where it helps to pay close attention. Some of the best moments come quietly and subtly, in a nuance of dialogue or a choice of timing. The movie is very funny, but it's not broad humor, it's humor born of personality quirks and the style of the performances.

The director of the film, a veteran stop-action master named Henry Selick, is the person who has made it all work. And his achievement is enormous.

No, it doesn't turn into another horror film or a murder-suicide. It simply shows how lives torn apart by financial emergencies can be revealed as being damaged all along.

You want a good horror film about a child from hell, you got one. Do not, under any circumstances, take children to see it. Take my word on this.

Craig is fascinating here as a criminal who is very smart, and finds that is not an advantage because while you might be able to figure out what another smart person is about to do, dumbos like the men he works for are likely to do anything.

The beauty in this film is in its directness. There are some obligatory scenes. But there are also some very original and touching ones. This is a movie that has its heart in the right place.

Not a simpleminded movie in which merely being ABLE to read lips saves the day. In this brilliant sequence, she reads his lips and that ALLOWS them to set into motion a risky chain of events based on the odds that the bad guys will respond predictably.

It somehow succeeds in taking those pop-culture brand names like Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie and giving them human form.

What I like about movies like this is the way they keep us involved until the end. There is no formula that we can project; “Thelma & Louise” was clearly heading for an act of self-destruction, but here we have no idea what to expect, except (inevitably) the birth of a child.

Derek Cianfrance, the film's writer and director, observes with great exactitude the birth and decay of a relationship. This film is alive in its details.

This is DeLillo's first produced screenplay, but he has written for the stage, and perhaps his portrait of Steven Schwimmer (Robert Downey Jr.), the detested critic, is drawn from life.

If the film is perhaps a little slow in its middle passages, maybe that is part of the idea, too, to give us a sense of the leaden passage of time, before the glory of the final redemption.

Setting entirely aside the accuracy of the film, the IRA still has him marked for death, and indeed there was an attempt on his life in Canada 10 years after he fled. He’s still out there somewhere.

What is fascinating about Ridicule is that so much depends on language, and so little is really said.

Crossroads borrows so freely and is a reminder of so many other movies that it's a little startling, at the end, to realize how effective the movie is and how original it manages to feel despite all the plunderings.

At once the most harrowing and, strangely, the most touching film I have seen about child abuse.

As for myself, I think he made it all up and never killed anybody. Having been involved in a weekly television show myself, I know for a melancholy fact that there is just not enough time between tapings to fly off to Helsinki and kill for my government.

Like another recent feel-good film about the disease, Gus Van Sant's "Restless," it creates a comforting myth. That's one of the things movies are good for.

Death of a Gunfighter is quite an extraordinary western. It's one of those rare attempts (the last was Will Penny) to populate the West with real people living in real historical time.

The experience is frightening, sometimes disgusting, and (if the truth be told) exhilarating. This is very skillful filmmaking, and Mad Max 2 is a movie like no other.

But what's most visible in the movie is the engaging acting. Murphy and Aykroyd are perfect foils for each other.

One hell of a thriller. It's not often that I feel true suspense and dread building within me, but they were building during long stretches of this expertly constructed film.

The film proceeds like a black comedy version of "The Godfather," crossed with Oliver Stone’s "Nixon."

Rod Lurie has made a first-rate film of psychological warfare, and yes, I thought it was better than Peckinpah's. Marsden, Bosworth and Skarsgard are all persuasive, and although James Woods has played a lot of evil men during his career, this one may be the scariest.

The result is a superior police procedural, and something more -- a study in devious human nature.

This movie is remarkable in that it seems to be interested only in facts.

The plot is as good as crime procedurals get, but the movie is really better than its plot because of the three-dimensional characters.

A well-made thriller, tense and involving, and the scary thing, in these months after Watergate, is that it's all too believable.

More than anything else, I responded to the performances. Feature films may be fiction, but they are certainly documentaries showing actors in front of a camera. Both Dafoe and Gainsbourg have been risk takers, as anyone working with von Trier must be. The ways they're called upon to act in this film are extraordinary. They respond without hesitation. More important, they convince.

It's nimble, bright and funny. It doesn't dumb down. It doesn't patronize. It knows something about human nature.

It's not the kind of movie that depends on the certainty of an ending. It's more about how things continue.