A thematic analysis can only scratch the surface of this extraordinarily dense and commanding film, perhaps the most intensely personal movie to emerge from the Hollywood cinema.

A highly emotional epic about what it means to be both Chinese and American.

Superbly rendered CGI animation.

Atonement is that rare combo: a good movie based on a good book.

The result is an instant classic. The material allows Anderson to neutralize the most irritating aspects of his work (the precociousness, the sense of white-bread privilege) and maximize the most endearing (the comic timing, the dollhouse ordering of invented worlds).

The issues deepen in a subtle, natural way: the film begins as a trifle and ends as something beautiful and affirmative. A classic.

Captivating, mesmerizing, spellbinding.

Guy Maddin has reached a new expressive plateau with The Saddest Music in the World.

A veritable salad of mixed genres and emotional textures, this exciting black-and-white cold war thriller runs more than two hours and never flags for an instant...A powerful experience, alternately corrosive with dark parodic humor, suspenseful, moving, and terrifying.

An excellent introduction to the singular vision of avant-garde stage director Robert Wilson.

The simple fact is that in Trespass one finds perfect unity between form and content, to the point that they become indistinguishable.

Vincente Minnelli created one of his masterpieces with this loosely plotted but tightly structured 1944 story of a middle-class family waiting through spring, summer, and fall for the opening of the Saint Louis World's Fair of 1904.

Arguably Woody Allen's funniest movie. A riotous object lesson in how much dialogue can transform visuals, and Allen works wonders with it.

A half-baked conspiracy subplot in the last third makes Carruth's knotty narrative even harder to follow, but this is still scary, puzzling, and different.

The results are masterful, admirably unsentimental, and never boring, if also a little stodgy.

The film represents a studied, sophisticated approach to instinctual emotions: it's carefully, calculatingly naive, and amazingly it works.

It's smart, energetic filmmaking that also makes for engrossing entertainment.

Better in certain ways than the original Apocalypse Now, though the flaws are also magnified.

A hearty style of self-referential filmmaking that only adds to the persuasiveness of Lillard’s stunning performance.

Brilliantly intertwined intensely personal stories with magnificently epic narrative.

Koreeda was inspired by his guilt over having neglected his own parents, and the story is remarkable for the quiet, seemingly casual way he depicts the fallout of bitterness and grief.

It's as slick as anything you might find on the Discovery Channel, and the snippets of 3-D computer animation are too cool for words.

Powerful and haunting.

The movie's searing conclusion left me numb and overwhelmed.

As this wonderful adaptation reminds us, Dickens endures mostly because of his characters.

Thomsen's transformation from easygoing entrepreneur to ruthless executive is so engrossing I didn't pick up on the story's chilling Freudian subtext until very near the end.

Though the film isn't as psychologically penetrating as some of Disney's later work, it retains the Freudian ferocity of the Grimm brothers fairy tale, as well as a fair measure of the scatological humor of the Disney shorts. David Hand was the supervising director, but Uncle Walt passed on every frame.

First-rate agitprop about the ruthlessness of South African apartheid, directed by Euzhan Palcy (Sugar Cane Alley) and adapted from Andre Brink's novel by Palcy and Colin Welland. The relentless plot is effectively set up and expertly pursued, and Hugh Masekela makes some striking contributions to Dave Grusin's musical score.