Stephen Holden

Although the movie takes on many of the characteristics of a conventional thriller, it refuses to go for cheap, vicious shocks, and the adults are seen through the curtain of Michele's trust.

Reminds you that marital discord knows no geographic boundaries.

A beautifully written, seamlessly directed film with award-worthy performances by Ms. Rampling and Ms. Young.

I'm Glad My Mother Is Alive is anything but the clichéd fantasy of a blissful mother-child reunion. Although there are hints of joy once they reconnect, the wounds are too deep, and the characters too complex.

The surest sign of the movie’s integrity is that it resists any temptation to build the story to a climactic debate.

Like most documentary polemics, it simplifies the issues it confronts and selects facts that bolster its black-and-white, heroes-and-villains view of raw economic power.

For all its quirks and tangents, Declaration of War feels entirely alive. This story of two people who transform fear into action is inspiring.

Couldn't have succeeded had it been cast with movie stars. Its authenticity derives not only from the streets on which it was filmed but also from its able Colombian cast.

In its harshly realistic scenes... it stirs your blood.

“Saturday Night Live” deserves much better than the documentary equivalent of what a book editor would surely dismiss as a rushed, careless clip job.

Where the director Paul Verhoeven infused the original Robocop with an attitude of mock solemnity, Robocop 3 has the energy and style of a cartoon free-for-all. [05 Nov 1993, p.C29]

For all its disorganization and lack of an ending or even a sense of direction, Appropriate Behavior is alive. The screenplay is packed with smart remarks, clever and unpredictable turns of phrase that knock you off balance.

The movie rides on Ms. Abbass's serenely confident performance. As Lilia metamorphoses from a shy housebound widow into a woman calmly rejoicing in her body and her sexuality, Ms. Abbass marks her character's every blush and hesitation in the process of letting go with a winning delicacy and sweetness.

Such an accomplished piece of filmmaking that it interweaves enough characters and themes to fill three movies.

For all the hardship they endure, this intimate dual portrait, directed by Lynn True and Nelson Walker, with Tsering Perlo, suggests that their lives are neither more nor less fulfilled than those of any highly stressed upper-middle-class Americans.

Quietly powerful but dispiriting documentary, which compares the world's oldest profession as practiced from place to place.

Above all, this beautifully photographed documentary is a poetic meditation on refined sensory perception.

What Slam possesses is real passion, and that is in short supply in movies these days.

What lifts The Trench above the run of the mill is the intensity of its disgust.

As the movie’s resident live wire, Mr. Johnson, obviously having the time of his life, is a hoot, and the feisty camaraderie among these three men gives Cold in July a euphoric goofiness.

Fallen Angels certainly abounds in visual pizazz, clever in jokes and trendy pop references, but such things can carry a movie only so far.

The harder Mr. Radnor strains to make you love his alter ego, the more resistant you become.

Although this documentary has a powerful political subtext, it is best described as a conceptual art piece about confinement, attached to a dual biography of the artist and the prisoner.

The movie is best appreciated as a collection of whimsical toys drawn from a fantasy grab bag that encompasses everything from Grimm's fairy tales to "Star Wars."

As one comic after another recalls triumphs, misadventures and painful lessons learned, the stories become redundant.

One of the most accomplished recent films about a non-European immigrant coming to the United States.

Because Stevie has none of the glamour of "Hoop Dreams," with its portrait of gifted teenage athletes struggling for glory, it is not nearly as likable a film; but in its earnest, plodding way it is every bit as deep.

Watching it, I kept imagining the depth of feeling Ingmar Bergman and his troupe might have brought to the same material. As much as A Song for Martin hurts, it doesn't quite go the distance.