A tribute to the power of imagination and storytelling, and it’s like nothing you’ve seen before.

A stinging, gorgeously filmed tragicomedy about male insecurity and the power of positive drinking.

Here's the third classic you'd better know if you're going to know anything about American gangster movies. This one is powered by Paul Muni's thinly disguised and daringly simian take on Al Capone. [01 Nov 1991, p.35]

I Carry You With Me is an act of memory, of romance, and of friendship all in one — a movie that takes the kind of undocumented immigrants’ saga we think we know and recasts it in a dreamy, bittersweet light.

White Noise is an expertly edited, four-year immersion into a phenomenon that has shaped the volatile politics of our time. It’s an auspicious debut for both Lombroso and The Atlantic, and its intimate and empathetic approach might be a more potent way of countering those who promote such toxic ideas than blunting confrontation.

Director Bahrani has always buried his social concerns in story and character; he’s one of the very few American filmmakers to pay attention to this country’s poor, and he applies his creativity to the paradoxes of India without missing a step.

There isn't a single chase scene in The Russia House. There's scarcely a love scene. And it dares to be slow. But it's attached to feelings as few spy movies are - and as even le Carre's book was not. The greatest compliment one can pay The Russia House is to say that it's the kind of spy movie that's making spy movies obsolete. [21 Dec 1990, p.49p]

If you haven’t left your house since March, this movie counts as a legitimate vacation.

The Color Purple ultimately works far better in pieces than as a whole. Considering those pieces contain some of the best moments I’ve seen in 2023, I’m able to put my concerns aside as a mildly nagging uncertainty.

It'll make a natural double-feature repertory-house companion to The Player for years to come. It's filled with humor that has paid its dues. [21 Aug 1992, p.38]

It'll satisfy genre fans and Lee fans and win new adherents to the Asian-style action film, with its dazzling moves that make conventional Hollywood movies look like cement mixers in low gear. [7 May 1993, p.25]

What Happened Was nails contemporary isolation as few films do. It's filled with acute insights and observations of the wary yet hopeful circling that people do in conversation on a first date. It's a gem of a chamber play. [17 Sep 1994, p.37]

Now “the best British band to ever come out of America” gets the documentary treatment from director Edgar Wright, himself a cheeky bugger (Sean of the Dead, Baby Driver), and it is superbly entertaining whether you love Sparks, hate them, or just have never heard of them.

It goes for broke on high-roller, high-energy scenes, and wins big. [11 Jun 1993, p.41]

Writer-director Sødahl expertly balances the sentimental and the acerbic, the grave and the altar. But Hope lives or dies on its central performances, and they are perfectly realized.

More than any other teen movie of recent memory, Edge of Seventeen captures the uncertainty, awkwardness, and pains of adolescence, further complicated when grappling with questions of sexual identity. [02 Jul 1999]

A fascinating, grim, exciting motion picture, based on the current popular interest in psychiatry, and illustrating a new method of crime detection. [25 Jan 1946, p.17]

As quietly confident in its emotional grounding as any American film you'll see this year, and animated by a radiant debut performance from Ashley Judd in the title role, Ruby in Paradise is refreshingly removed from the usual strivings for effect. Part of its allure is that it plays out in what seems like real time. [12 Nov 1993, p.49]

Powerful as the archival material is, the most loaded footage is of these survivors back on the pain-drenched turf of their Hungarian origins and the blood-drenched soil of the former concentration camps they outlived. Given the moral authority of their presence, the film doesn't need extraneous drama, and wisely avoids it. [26 Feb 1999, p.D4]

Farhadi’s artistry is what makes the details so important, both his selection of them and their handling. In much of “A Hero,” one simply has a sense of watching lives being lived.

Though it has a few things to say about class — and how even the most downtrodden are entitled to hopes, dreams, passions, and solidarity — Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris never devolves into a preachy treatise. Instead, it’s a soothing tonic, a nice little escape from the troubles of the world. Sure, its plot hinges on a materialistic desire, but capitalism has seldom felt this comforting.

No Sudden Move is a terrific movie — an unflashy near-masterpiece of professionalism on both sides of the camera.

Thanks to Chen's eye and the strong central performances, Farewell My Concubine comes together with historical resonance and stirring, full-blooded sweep. [29 Oct 1993, p.51]

Over the course of just under three hours, Hamaguchi reworks and expands a Haruki Murakami short story (it first ran in The New Yorker) into an intimate epic.

The film is essentially a two-hander between Norton and Lamont, both of whom give excellent, complementary performances. They feel like father and son from first frame to last.

The heroine of a woman’s picture is almost always a victim, a practitioner of redemption through suffering. Janis is no victim, and Cruz’s performance makes that very plain. In revisiting the genre, Almodóvar, with Cruz’s help, is also subverting it.

Loaded with heart, wit, originality, juicy performances and contemporary relevance, Patrice Leconte's Ridicule is one of the most rewarding costume dramas in years. [06 Dec 1996, p.C6]

Remembered for being the best Boston movie of all time. [27 Feb 2005]

Karam uses lingering closeups, off-kilter camera angles, and half-heard conversations from other rooms to heighten the film’s aura of free-floating dread.

There’s an intimacy to this Macbeth that’s transfixing. Largely filling the frame with the actors doesn’t do just them a great service. It also does Shakespeare’s language a great service, making it that much easier for the viewer to attend to it.

This is movie as inundation. It’s daring, dashing, often delirious — except that the writer-director team of Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (the Daniels, as they like to bill themselves) keeps the delirium under just enough control.

Living acknowledges the bitter irony of impending death bringing a man back to life. Nighy makes it look effortless; he gives an Oscar-worthy performance that made me cry almost as much as Takashi Shimura did in Kurosawa’s classic.

As in Linklater’s Dazed and Confused (1993), about the last day of school and first night of summer vacation in a Texas town in 1976, Apollo 10½ maintains a wondrous balance between Lone Star specific and anywhere-in-America general.

Capturing today’s twenty-somethings is tricky enough even with a tight script (“You’re a spreadsheet with a superiority complex”), but making Zoomers realistic and ridiculous is all up to the delivery. And the cast of “Bodies” does not disappoint.

It’s been seven years since the writer-director David O. Russell’s last movie. At its frequent best, “Amsterdam” makes it worth the wait.

With keen-edged direction by Barbet Schroeder and a Richard Price screenplay loaded with venomous savvy, Kiss of Death is the most high-powered and brutal New York gangster movie since "GoodFellas." [21 Apr 1995, p.41]

Though it hits all the expected beats, it’s the attention to the little details that makes Devotion take flight.

The majesty of this film comes from how the director and his team use an often surreal mix of music, editing, sound, and image to allow the viewer to experience the world as we assume EO does.

Lee's light hand with his timeless subjects deftly, affectingly, ruefully and hilariously covers all the bases. [19 Aug 1994, p.49]

Craig may be the main character, but “Glass Onion” belongs to Monáe. Johnson has scripted one hell of a role for her, and she plays it with such a wide range of emotions and tones while modeling a stunning array of power suits that she drops the audience’s jaws. Monae’s performance turns on a dime with whiplash precision, so when the film folds in on itself, we grab hold of her hand for dear life. She pulls us along with such glee that it makes one giddy.

With the charismatic Williams and Sohn leading the way, "Slam" electrifyingly moves beyond wishful thinking to hot immediacy, and, yes, earned optimism. [23 Oct 1998, p.D4]

Panahi deftly juggles his stories, merging them together in the devastating final minutes of No Bears.

Nil by Mouth is a scaldingly invigorating filmaking debut. [06 Mar 1998, p.D7]

Told from the perspective of its 9-year old protagonist, Cáit (Catherine Clinch), writer-director Colm Bairéad’s adaptation of Claire Keegan’s 2010 novella, “Foster” is as beautiful as it is devastating.

Fremon Craig has made a completely satisfying crowd pleaser full of first-rate performances.

It’s an empathetic yet forceful cautionary tale; we should pay heed to its message.

The Holdovers feels like a movie Ashby might have made.

By centering Fair Play on a working woman who (at least at first) bends over backward to soothe the anxieties of the men surrounding her, Domont nods to the erotic thrillers of yore and then speeds past them, creating something sexy and exciting, but also gleefully modern.

The perfect movie to curl up with on a rainy day, Flora and Son tells us that music is the tie that binds people together, whether they’re ex-lovers, potential partners, or a scared mother reaching out to her equally skittish son hoping he will reach back.

By the end of this extremely entertaining and informative documentary, the one thing you will come away with is that Little Richard always presented himself the way he wanted us to see him. And, yes, he was indeed as influential as he always said he was.

Most coming-of-age tales chart a course from childhood to maturity. Scrapper flips the premise, allowing a kid who grew up too fast the luxury of slowing down to savor childhood.

From the opening credits to its last shot barely 90 minutes later, the film never eases up on its intensity. Fans of relentless rollercoaster rides like 2019′s “Uncut Gems” and 1998′s “Run Lola Run” will find much to enjoy here.

Bottoms has a devil-may-care approach to its satire that might have made Jonathan Swift proud. Director Emma Seligman, who co-wrote the script with this film’s star, Rachel Sennott, are unconcerned about offending audiences. If you’ve seen their last film, the 2021 cringe comedy, “Shiva Baby,” you know what you’re in for here.

Admittedly, Carmen is an acquired taste. But if you’re in the mood for something that will stun your senses, I highly recommended it.

In the crowded landscape of anti-imperial and anti-colonial film, Claire Denis' Chocolat is a standout. Never raising its voice, avoiding the usual didacticism, Denis brings subtlety, sensitivity and an uncommonly clear personal vision to her memories of colonialism in Africa, where she spent her youth. [31 Mar 1989, p.34]

Julie Cohen’s Every Body is a master class in how a documentary should be done. It packs a lot of information into a briskly paced runtime of 91 minutes, and its use of clips and talking heads doesn’t distract or feel extraneous. The

A tremendously decorative picture. [13 Apr 1936, p.21]

The film is not just about a Nazi couple, or even just about the banality of evil. Rather, it is about the ways in which people close themselves off to destabilizing truths. We all live beside some sort of looming awfulness. How we act in the face of that evil is what matters.

Once the case comes to trial, Anatomy of a Fall becomes an engrossing courtroom drama, but not for the reason you think. The French court is a vessel for grandstanding and verbal sparring matches; it’s far less stodgy than the American ones we see in even the most absurd courtroom movies.

In a year of movies with bloated runtimes, Kaurismäki keeps his at a brisk and welcome 81 minutes, not one of which is wasted.

The Scent of Green Papaya is an astonishingly rich evocation of maternal energies and gestures, expressed in lovingly lingered-on images. [25 Feb 1994, p.47]

Although not without flaws, Tran Anh Hung's Cyclo is, nevertheless, the most ambitious and impressive achievement of Vietnam's young film industry. [01 Nov 1996, p.E5]

The Boy and the Heron leaves us with questions about our place in the universe and whether it’s worth saving. You may also exit the theater contemplating the afterlife. Regardless of the ideas swirling around in your head, you’ll have witnessed the work of a director who has not lost his ability to stoke your imagination.

Marty is one of those films that appear every few years or so -- a picture so sensitively acted, so tenderly written, so human in its appeal, that it has the utmost distinction, no matter what kind of audience is in the theatre. [04 Aug 1955, p.21]

The ambiguous finale provides neither certainty nor respite, and may prove frustrating for some. I had no idea where Hamaguchi’s cautionary tale was taking me, but I remained intrigued until the bitter end.

It’s simultaneously cathartic and heartbreaking.

It’s not a fun time at the movies, but it’s an informative and worthy one.

Io Capitano doesn’t try to convince viewers whether Seydou, Moussa, and all the other migrants have a right to seek a better life. What it does do, however, is tell their story in a way that makes them far more human and relatable than most of the news stories we see nowadays.

While uncertainty remains about Tenório’s horrible fate, it’s never in doubt how much he was beloved. “They Shot the Piano Player” is a tribute to the musician and to those who knew him best. See it more than once, and hope the theater plays it loud.

Once the general premise is established, “His Three Daughters” lets us bask in the glory of three actors at the top of their game.

A house is just a structure; what’s inside makes it a home. This film delicately shows what happens when the powers that be decide that the home you made is no longer yours.

If you love food porn, this movie will satiate your appetite for visions of French food while providing much insight into how that food is prepared.

The Fall Guy isn’t just a throwback to the 1980s television show that inspired it; it’s an old-fashioned romp that knows how to build on its gags.

Conclave is a massively entertaining slice of melodramatic excess, with actors who know they’re in a soap opera disguised as high drama. As a result, everyone plays their roles completely straight — and to great effect.

The actors turn in great work, but the true stars of “Blitz” are the production design by Adam Stockhausen and the cinematography by Yorick Le Saux. Collectively, they put you inside the Tube stations and shelters that were occupied by Londoners trying to escape the Blitz.

What makes “The Fire Inside” so powerful is the uncomfortable questions it poses: How responsible is a person for their family’s well-being?

The entire cast does stellar work, but this is Culkin’s movie. The “Succession” star makes Benji’s arrested development relatable instead of pitiful, and you can’t help but feel for him even when he’s being obnoxious.

This entertaining and informative documentary just might make you a fan as well.

The trio give excellent performances, working together to create a credible family unit. Father and daughter hit their strides during their moments of catharsis onstage, which explains why audiences at Sundance reportedly laughed and cried during the climactic performance.

This dramatic two-hander partners one of the cinema’s greatest talkers with one of its best listeners, Julianne Moore.

At its heart, this is a film about sisterhood.

Dahomey packs a lot of introspection and heart into its brisk 68 minutes.

Melville's austere yet sensuous reinvention of the genre's macho honor and trenchcoated, fedora-wearing iconography, coolly projected by Delon's expressionless face, makes "Le Samourai" a pungent and pleasurable experience still. [02 May 1977, p.D7]

What makes “A Nice Indian Boy” shine are the performances and the sharp writing by Eric Randall.

I couldn’t help but see a parallel between the De’Snakes’s plight and numerous historical atrocities where minorities were slandered, brutalized, and robbed of their rightful property. That Disney somehow manages to deliver this message, Trojan-horse style and without heavy-handedness, in an entertaining feature for all ages, is the true success of “Zootopia 2.”

This is a very patient movie, filled with equally patient performances, lyrical camerawork and some stunning images of its characters residing within the frame.

Ladybird, Ladybird is full of heart and compassion, but it's also uncompromising and unconsoling. [10 Mar 1995, p.52]

The stakes in the film are high enough for some plot, but low enough to maintain healthy blood pressure. There is a delicious lack of exposition — and plenty of inside jokes for the true fans.

Soderbergh stages these games of one-upmanship as tight, dialogue-heavy scenes of discomfort and suspense.

Director Walter Salles returns to the political filmmaking he employed in the 2004 Che Guevara film, “The Motorcycle Diaries.” Like that film, this one follows a protagonist who becomes an activist after being jarred by political events.

"Adorable" is not an adjective I’ve often applied to a movie, but “K-Pops!” earns it. It will play well on the big screen, and make you forget about your troubles for two hours.

“Tropics” is undoubtedly a political movie, but it’s also an assured, poetic work of quietly provocative aesthetics. Costa, a documentarian best known for the Oscar-nominated 2019 film “The Edge of Democracy,” has made an entrancing film-essay with a philosophical bent. And yes, discerning American audiences might find that it has a familiar ring.

Familiar Touch accomplishes a lot in just around 90 minutes. By no means should you expect a wallow in misery. Like its protagonist, the film refuses to go gentle into that good night. Its defiance is tempered with dignity and grace.

If “Sinners” commits one sin (forgive me), it’s a tendency to overexplain itself during the film’s climax. Still, Coogler and his excellent cast have created a sexy, funny, boisterous, and very bloody crowd pleaser, one that features a mid-credits sequence that adds another wrinkle to its intriguing mythology.

Music by John Williams is a fine tribute to the magic of a legendary maestro.

By the end of “When Fall Is Coming,” we recognize the film for what it is: a character study elevated by Vincent’s superb performance.

At almost two hours, “One of Them Days” does lag a bit. But even when it gets sluggish, there’s still a sisterly moment to enjoy or a laugh to be had.

In short, "Crossing Delancey" is a joy of a romantic comedy. It's got warmth, brains, heart and humor. So what's not to like? [18 Sep 1988, p.96]