It remains one of the best-written and best-performed American films of all time.

With a surgical saw instead of a hatchet, del Toro takes apart patriarchy and opportunistic religion as well as fascism.

Great American movies are, these days especially, few and far between, so let's everybody take a deep breath and mark the moment: Hoop Dreams, all three hours' worth, is a great American movie. It's got the sting of drama and the ache of truth; it's even got the sting of truth and the ache of drama.

It leaves you dazed and sated. Compared to the fast food "eye candy" surrounding it these days, Metropolis is a gourmet 20-course meal.

Rififi, with its stark visuals, dark humor and constrained performances, earned Dassin the Best Director nod at the Cannes Film Festival and a secure place in film history.

Without a single gunshot (and just one flick of a switchblade), it turns into an existential suspense film with the highest stakes imaginable: the survival of the human spirit.

A visual masterpiece about a scared little girl's breathtaking journey of self-discovery. All of the fun is getting there.

It's that rarest of all films, the one that can unify, not divide, the generations, as both jaded teen-agers and their more innocent parents can connect with it. And of course for the kids, it's pure balm from heaven.

Killer of Sheep is a miracle movie because it's receiving its first theatrical release 30 years after it was made and because, as a movie, it's miraculous.

Samson Raphaelson's marvel of a script unfolds in six sequences that rise and fall with the surprising weight of mini-lifetimes; under Lubitsch's tart-tender direction, the emotionally transparent Stewart and the electric, conflicted Sullivan create an immortal comic courtship. [13 Feb 2004]

The movie is a marvel - bold, lucid and succinct (even at 123 minutes). It's also harrowing and moving in its depiction of noncombatant men, women and children caught between terrorism and counter-terrorism.

A non-stop cinematic funhouse impossible to resist.

The movie is impressive both as a celebration of the Old West and a tough, ambivalent depiction of a ruthless pioneer. [04 Jun 2004]

Ratatouille is a sublime dish of a movie, and the company's piece de resistance.

It is the most dynamic animated film ever made, and the prance of its camera, the sense of penetration into its action, the brilliantly paced editing pyrotechnics give it a crackle of life far more abundant than any feature that's come before.

The Hurt Locker redefines war-film electricity.

The movie does work, spectacularly.

Rarely has combat been portrayed as beautifully as in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Taiwanese director Ang Lee's thoughtful meditation on menace, mortality and the martial arts.

A film that celebrates the intricacies of life in ways both splendid and mundane, revealing it all with unflinching honesty.

It is a striking, ironical tribute to the vanishing glory of the silent screen, and a lively reflection of present-day conditions in Hollywood. [15 Sep 1950, p.14]

It rises, all on its own, to the realm of masterwork.

Anderson and Day-Lewis strip themselves of their natural talents for invention and poetry, as if any hint of romance, nobility or fun would soften the film.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly provides an ecstatic lift for movielovers, despite the tragic subject.

The Class ranks with the very best films ever made about teaching, and it's unlike any English or American film about teaching ever made.

No Country for Old Men is about the kind of amoral madness that can sweep across a country and redefine a landscape. It's so admirably lean and sinewy that it deserves not merely a rave review but a Johnny Cash song about matter-of-fact killings in shady hotels and sun-scoured landscapes.

Crammed, cheek to jowl, with bleak moments, high hopes, sweetness and naked emotion.

The movie is emotionally tumultuous and evenhanded and serene. It celebrates the odd pockets of imagination and individuality that can be nurtured in middle-class suburbia. [2002 re-release]

The movie's jabbing originality is what sticks in your memory.