It’s an enchanting work, heartbreaking yet wryly amusing.

O'Toole plays his seductive, grand, and dangerous director part as if this might be the role he wants to be remembered for.

Holy Motors is as individualistic a movie as you're likely to encounter – both in terms of the filmmaker's intent and the viewer's takeaway. Warmth and humor abide within its every frame but, like Carax's dreamer at the film's outset, you must find the key within yourself that unlocks the mysteries.

By the end of this epic and thoughtful expedition, you’re left with the unmistakable feeling that some things – in this case, the natural splendor of the Rio Grande ecosystem – should and indeed must remain unsullied by cheap Washington grandstanding and election year promises.

Brooks’ early reputation as a film director rests with the success of this raunchy Western spoof. A great cast is eclipsed by the hilarious performances of Korman and Kahn, who plays a Marlene Dietrich-like chanteuse.

If you can sit through the occasional sermon about the role of police in modern society, you’ll find yourself in the lap of true action greatness.

As with all of Lee's films, there's much more going on beneath the surface than is immediately apparent.

Neptune Frost can confidently take its place alongside other hallowed Afrofuturist films like Sun Ra's Space Is the Place (1974), The Last Angel of History (1996), and more recently Black Panther (2018).

The film is a biting critique of American race relations in the Fifties and a complex study in contrasts and paradoxes.

Liu’s adaptation of Atticus Lish’s PEN/Faulkner Award-winning 2014 novel wends its way through the contradictions and tragedies of love between two people who need more than just a bed warmed by another body. Preparation delicately brings them together and devastatingly gives every reason for them to fall apart.

At once emotionally charged and genuinely, disconcertingly surreal...a marvel of subdued, genuine filmmaking.

A stunning work of beauty, mystery, contemplation, and grit -- and like sands through the desert hourglass, these are the days of our lives.

This drama-horror hybrid, set within a New York ballet company, strikes a tone more along the lines of the terrifying hallucinatories of Aronofsky's breakout film, "Requiem for a Dream," revisiting, too, favorite themes of monster mommies and female hysteria.

Snap! That’s the crack of people teetering on the verge in each of the six segments in the perversely entertaining Argentinian film Wild Tales, a more-than-deserving recent Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language film.

A gripping presentation of a little-known true story and its historical lessons.

Ageism, sexism, classism, and unabashed snobbery rear their ugly heads in a provocatively told story by probably the greatest film melodrama stylist who ever lived.

It's a keeper, a tumultuous love story set against the backdrop of 24 hours of really, really inclement weather in the Oklahoma heartland.

Co-directors Rubin and Shapiro deliver the rare documentary that totally entertains, informs, and inspires.

The film is dignified rather than dour, full of rich imagery.

Probably the ultimate writers' film, but it's also a brash, daring, and dynamic film -- as delicate as an orchid but as durable and malleable as the species.

The bulk, the heft, and the girth of Bukowski: Born Into This arrives in the form of the author himself, giving beery readings to Berkeley audiences clearly enjoying a contact high or sitting, ill-kempt but quiet, pensive, Heineken in one yellowy paw, in his apartment.

Anderson and his co-writer Roman Coppola have crafted an elegant and emphatic metaphor for adolescence, that tumultuous province of firsts and lasts.

Sentimental Value lacks the giddy bracinginess of The Worst Person in the World; it’s a more measured, more meditative thing. It is also a return to form, of a sort.

The joy and grace of Weathering With You is in how Hina and Hodaka don't reject a world that rejects them.

The Vuillards, however fractured, know one another's rhythms and rituals, and Desplechin knows just how to convey them in the subtlest of ways.

It's a "keep calm, carry on" wartime melodrama of the first order, and stiff though it may be, it is never less than brilliantly done.

The most costly and the most popular film in South Korean history is also one of the most gripping and epic war films ever made, and certainly the only one I can think of the portrays the Korean war from the viewpoint of both sides of the conflict.

This is a film about people who are stuck, not just by the structures that bind them, but by themselves. Transit is a brilliant and timely film that reminds us that we may all be currently in hell, and regret the folly of our lives, but perhaps we have each other.

As grisly and disturbing as Bones and All is, the film strikes me more as a romance, a coming-of-age movie, and/or a lovers-on-the-run chronicle. Dark and bloody, definitely; but also, at times, sweet and hopeful.

Well-considered, beautifully made, and often gripping in its narrative, the film epitomizes the best the documentary format can offer.

Calling To Wong Foo campy doesn't do the film justice: The film camps it up but still allows us to believe in the characters. Snipes and Swayze are so successful in exploring their feminine sides that all of their future roles should be played in drag.

Face/Off works like a charm right on down the line thanks to brilliant, exhilarating performances from Cage and Travolta, and the many tremendously enjoyable action set-pieces that are Woo's hallmark.

Hitchcock's comedic charms shine in this delightful story about a corpse that just won't stay buried.

All That Breathes instills admiration and wonder while also subtly implicating human beings in a responsibility for the upkeep and furtherance of life.

The wonder of The Piano is that such an outwardly simple story could emerge into such a complex swirl of lingering memories.

Eastwood finds the humorous aspects of the character as well, no more so than when the appetite of the widower who lives on beef jerky and Pabst Blue Ribbon becomes the center of attention among the Hmong women cooks.

There’s a moment in The Beach Bum when aging wastrel Moondog smokes a joint in a hammock, surrounded by naked women, with two hands on a bongo drum and a mouthful of gibberish poetry. That moment lasts 95 minutes, and it is glorious.

A truly provocative essay.

An engaging and evocative thriller/love story, The Handmaiden is ultimately a tale of freedom and transformation, as satisfying as an exquisitely choreographed four-course meal.

Instead of using actors, Greengrass employed many of the actual air traffic controllers and military commanders who were on the ground that day. Also aiding his film's universality is Greengrass' use of little known actors in the central roles, preventing stardom from affecting our ideas about heroism and patriotism.

Mother finds Brooks in top form as he dons the tri-fold hat of director, star, and writer (with co-writer Monica Johnson). His humor has more of an observational zing than a jokey, one-two patter. Within this structure, Brooks uncovers many of the fidgety truths about the relationships between parents and their grown children. The film comeback of Debbie Reynolds is also a most welcome offshoot of this movie.

In so many ways, The Quiet American speaks volumes.

Miller has somehow, inadvertently by his own admission, managed to capture the essence of the human throng, in all its maddening, scintillating permutations. It's a tour unlike any you have ever taken.

The tension is enough to make you slightly sick, and the overall mood of the thing is deeply dispiriting, but then, nobody ever said that war isn't hell.

Rarely does a first film depict characters who seem so comfortably familiar, and even less frequently are these characters three-dimensional women.

The cast is uniformly excellent and delivers enthusiastic performances, even the ones played by puppets, and the pacing is lively and not at all boring.

A powerfully unique film.

Dern is hilarious as the obsessive sister-in-law, Sarsgaard plays oddball dog-man to perfection, Pais is perfectly awkward as Peggy's nervous boss, Reilly rocks the subtle humor of Peggy's hunting-obsessed neighbor, and Shannon gives a breakout performance.

In terms of sheer, unrelenting visual invention, Velvet Goldmine is a wonder.

Ready or Not is the film everyone had hoped for: scathing, bloody, funny, and hugely entertaining.

New and amazing -- it takes you back to the days when French filmmaking and French filmmakers were the darlings and saviors of the cinematic cutting edge. It's a great film, simply told, and a pleasure to watch.

A Thousand and One paints a deeply felt portrait of maternal love and family.

While there’s hardly a plot to speak of, that’s never hobbled Linklater before and is indeed the director’s keenest, cleverest trick: the ability to make something sweet, honest, and true out of the ephemeral marginalia of youth minus the rose-tinted bullshit.

The Polish/Israeli co-production picked up the Best Horror Feature award at Fantastic Fest 2015, and it’s a shame that Wrona is gone, but at least we have this superlative example of his cinematic brilliance.

Even for the most adventurous viewers, it may prove taxing. But to embrace its strange singularity yields a thought-provoking experience, and perhaps even a transformative one.

Sophie Scholl plods along inexorably, one step after another, to its grim, sad end. It's almost unbearable.

It’s a movie from which you can’t look away, no matter how hard you may try.

Unruly girls around the world are liable to find these Bandits stealing their hearts.

At the age of 81, Altman may show signs of mellowing, but he again emerges as a master filmmaker.

Citizenfour is obviously in Snowden’s corner, but as an example of pure cinema vérité, this is the finest – and most disturbing – political documentary since Alex Gibney’s Oscar-winning "Taxi to the Dark Side."

These people and the tale of their migration and reintegration into life’s ebb and flow will remain with the viewer long after Johnny's and Sarah’s green cards expire.

The keen observations of The Class ultimately become a remedial education in themselves.

All Quiet on the Western Front is more grisly, disturbing, and sadistic than any horror movie in 2022.

Despite perpetual rumors of its demise as a genre, the Western is alive and well in the Australian outback.

This Tom Clancy thriller gets the proper screen treatment here with this first-rate cast and direction by one of the genre’s best: Die Hard director John McTiernan.

This is Denzel Washington’s third at bat behind the camera while directing himself and, holy smokes, does he knock it out of the park with a vicious, visceral performance that fairly sets the screen ablaze.

As much a movie about class, race, and sexual orientation as anything you've ever seen.

It's the period details that really make The Black Phone ring. It's not the set dressing, or the costumes, or the hairstyles (although Jeremy Davies does sport a fantastic muttonchops-mullet merger as Gwen and Finney's alcoholic, abusive father). It's that grimy sense of the era, that way that kids felt left to their own devices. This is an Amblin adventure drenched in R-rated fear.

Kazan appears in every scene of The Exploding Girl’s perfectly paced 80 minutes, and you’d miss her if she ducked out for even a moment.

A surprisingly effective adventure, El Cid begins well enough but if you stick with the story 'til the end, in CinemaScope, it becomes breathtaking.

There is a confidence and a self-assuredness on display in Kent’s second feature that was only hinted at in her first. From her unflinching examination of the dual standards for gender and ethnicity to the film’s lush compositions, The Nightingale is a tough watch, but one well worth the ugly brush with sexual violence and trauma.

The beauty of Redford’s rock-steady performances over the last six decades or so is that he never showed off, and yet always commanded your attention.

What Riddler is doing is nakedly political, and there’s a risk that the audience may fall for his persuasive, butcherous way. Yet in the rebuttal to the Riddler’s conundrum, Reeves give this Bruce Wayne something more meaningful than an origin story: He gives him redemption.

2022’s Elvis is a typical Luhrmann film: lush, grandiose, epic, stylish to the millionth degree.

Although the characters and their backstories are carefully thought out, Delpy and Hawke deliver their dialogue as if spontaneous and unmeditated.

Nothing short of majestic.

It is a rare treat of a film.

Weitz (About a Boy) is a sharp observer, and Tomlin and the rest of the cast are so superlative that any anxiety is quickly quelled. You’re happy to follow this movie over the river and through the woods.

It's all so goddamn realistic and reminiscent of real-life love (and how often does that happen onscreen?) that The Puffy Chair would be hell to watch if it weren't so funny.

As if the dazzling performances and audaciously intertwined storylines weren’t enough, Waves is a visual stunner, too, thanks to director of photography Drew Daniels, whose restless, reckless camerawork paints a family tragedy in dizzying, near-psychedelic hues, mirroring the increasingly frenetic storyline.

Why Don’t You Play in Hell? isn’t for everyone, but neither was Stravinsky’s "The Rite of Spring." Genius is genius, no matter how many audience members may riot.

There are countless hilarious scenes in this film. Even if you didn't grow up in the Midwest, you'll still be able to appreciated the anticipation of the holidays and all of the tension and happiness that accompanies the most eagerly awaited and equally dreaded time of the year.

Weapons is such a deliriously twisted blast that, as soon as it’s complete, you’ll want to shake up the box and do it all again.

One of the best movies I've seen this year and, consequently, the less said about it here the better. The beauty of this movie is in the way it twists and turns, thwarting expectations, confounding stereotypes and venturing into places you least anticipate.

Banderas, taking time off from voicing kids' films and appearing in Robert Rodriguez outings, plays Ledgard with just the right amount of borderline-freaky, intensity, and Anaya is another of Almodovar's terrifically talented and shockingly beautiful female leads.

It's not simply about watching the destruction of lives and buildings, but of dreams and aspirations, and From Ground Zero quietly demands your empathy.

Everything fits perfectly, from titles to fin, but most of all Firth, who dons the role of George like a fine bespoke suit.

Jenkins' superlative work proves her first film was no fluke; let's hope it doesn't take another nine years to hear from her again.

No one else could have made this version of The Monkey because of all those indefinable, immutable yet ethereal elements that make Perkins’ movies not just popcorn flicks but gourmet popcorn.

The decidedly defiant grande dame of African American literature is shown here as an intellectual and creative dynamo who, at the age of 88, shows zero signs of deceleration; if anything, she appears to be just getting warmed up. Haters beware.

While Gravel’s film resonates with the larger themes of labor inequality, parenthood, job insecurity, and social unrest, Full Time never loses the focus of what it is, which is one of the best thrillers of the year.

A bitter, bloody masterpiece with adrenalized emotions and hyper-realized images, this is perhaps as close to battle as any sane human being should ever hope to tread.

Equally harrowing and heartrending, Shame is a film that feels akin to going into battle, and I for one didn't emerge unscathed.

Mikey & Nicky is commonly, and unfairly, categorized as a John Cassavetes knock-off, which diminishes the originality of Elaine May's screenplay and this character study she crafted especially for co-stars Cassavetes and Peter Falk. She unleashes the darkest, most mercurial side of Cassavetes, and in Falk finds the actor's moral ambiguity that had been obscured as a result of his then-popular run as TV's Columbo.

Closer is an un-love story as honest and naked as Cupid in the devil's dock, the whole truth, and nothing but.

If The Wild Bunch was Peckinpah's most violent film, surely Straw Dogs has to be his coarsest and most intense. Peace and love? Forget it.

We've come to expect each new Demme film to percolate to an urgently musical beat. (The Manchurian Candidate also features a few cameos by musicians as diverse as Robyn Hitchcock and Fab Five Freddy.)

The relationship has the air of a reckless teen romance, but this is no Romeo and Juliet story. This is more like Snow White running off with one of the huntsmen. Although fairy tales abide by a strict sense of good vs. evil, what we have here is a configuration that’s a bit more muddled.