By dropping in on this couple from time to time for the kinds of moments one of them might remember, the film is more honest than its characters.

It’s a period piece with a wink. It’s also funny as hell and a true big-screen treat.

But what Husbands and Wives argues is that many "rational" relationships are actually not as durable as they seem, because somewhere inside every person is a child crying me! me! me! We say we want the other person to be happy. What we mean is, we want them to be happy with us, just as we are, on our terms.

The filmmakers behind Paddington successfully bring the lovable bear into the future and strike a balance between honoring the spirit of the original books and updating the story for today’s young audiences. This is a charming film whose underlying message of tolerance and acceptance strikes a palpable chord in today’s world — both for children and adults.

Does the film have a message? I don't think it wants one. It is about the journey of a man going mad. A film can simply be a character study, as this one is.

Stella is the kind of movie they used to call a tearjerker, and we might as well go ahead and still call it that, because all around me at the sneak preview people were blowing noses and sort of softly catching their breath - you know, the way you do when you're having a great time.

What Burton has made is a film which celebrates Wood more than it mocks him, and which celebrates, too, the zany spirit of 1950s exploitation films - in which a great title, a has-been star and a lurid ad campaign were enough to get bookings for some of the oddest films ever made.

When the mistake is discovered, how do the families react? What disturbs them more: that their son has been raised as an enemy or that he has been raised in another religion? That's where The Other Son gets complicated.

It’s a shame this real crowd-pleaser won’t be playing to crowds, but it still works as a Friday night, pop-the-popcorn, living room entertainment.

While the musical numbers don’t match the impact of the originals and there’s a bit of a lull in the second act where not all that much seems to be happening, The Lion King is on balance a solid and at times stunningly beautiful film.

Not all movies can be stark, difficult and obscure. Sometimes in a quite ordinary way a director can reach out and touch us.

Enormously entertaining for moviegoers of any age -- But for young women depressed because they don't look like skinny models, this film is a breath of common sense and fresh air. Real Women Have Curves is a reminder of how rarely the women in the movies are real.

Mask is a wonderful movie, a story of high spirits and hope and courage.

Gere’s work in “Norman” is to be treasured. It’s one of the best performances in any movie this year.

Joaquin Phoenix has never been shy about going big if the role called for it — and maybe even if the role didn’t necessarily call for it — but his performance here ranks as one of his best because of what happens between the outbursts.

The Lovers gets a tad too theatrical in the last act, and the deeply cynical resolution might not sit well with everyone. (I thought it was just about perfect.)

Virtually every frame of this film is strikingly effective.

Deliberately ambiguous, The Reluctant Fundamentalist provides just enough answers while leaving us with more than enough questions. It's a film that demands discussion afterward.

Lee doesn't make exploitation films, and he doesn't find conventional answers. He is puzzled by the mysteries of inexplicable behavior.

It takes a while, but the old-fashioned pleasure of watching a well-told story unfold eventually becomes the chief satisfaction in Byzantium, though there are other things to enjoy as well.

The movie will seem slow to some viewers, unless they are alert to the raging emotions, the cruel unfairness and the desperation that are masked by the measured and polite words of the characters.

I like this movie. More important, I like Mike Birbiglia in it. Whether he has a future in stand-up I cannot say, but he has a future as a monologist and actor.

Jarecki's film makes a shattering case against the War on Drugs.

The film is exhilarating to watch because Sandler, liberated from the constraints of formula, reveals unexpected depths as an actor.

Elton John deserves a movie operating on a much grander scale than a standard, paint-by-numbers showbiz biopic, and Rocketman is a suitably snazzy vehicle.

Franju constructs an elegant visual work; here is a horror movie in which the shrieks are not by the characters but by the images.

It's always about more than boxing.

Certainly the best in its technical credits, and among the best in the ingenuity of its plot.

This is a delightfully goofy, self-aware movie that knows it is a movie.

The movie's races are thrilling because they must be thrilling; there's no way for the movie to miss on those, but writer-director Gary Ross and his cinematographer, John Schwartzman, get amazingly close to the action.

In Gabe Polsky’s Red Army, the Iron Curtain surrounding the Soviet dynasty is pulled back to reveal an immensely effective but dehumanizing machine in which hockey served as an important propaganda tool, resulting in some of the most impressive teams ever to take the ice.

The friendship that develops between Ricky and Hec is priceless; they are each other’s salvation, whether they realize it or not.

Wallace and Gromit are arguably the two most delightful characters in the history of animation.

The wonder is that it took Disney so long to get to the gods of Greek mythology. Hercules jumps into the ancient legends feet-first, cheerfully tossing out what won't fit and combining what's left into a new look and a lighthearted style.

Some movies swing for the fences — and either strike out in big-budget, spectacular fashion, or hit a home run. Others, such as the smart, lovely, funny, occasionally edgy, slightly cynical and ultimately heart-tugging Other People, are the equivalent of the singles hitter in baseball — content to accumulate one small and legitimate successful moment after another.

Directed with claustrophobic, docudrama-style intensity by Derrick Borte (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Daniel Forte) and featuring a career-best dramatic performance by Gaffigan, American Dreamer is a dark and intense and sometimes brutally violent slice of rotted life.

So perceptive and mature it makes similar films seem flippant. The performances are on just the right note, scene after scene, for what needs to be done.

There's a lot of funny stuff, but the most unexpected comes from Arnold, who has been uneven, to say the least, in his movies.

Now, Forager is a uncompromising film about two people who don't deserve each other - but maybe nobody deserves either one of them.

Huge, important things happen to characters secondary and primary. Surprises big and small abound. As is the case with all of the “Star Wars” films, where there is evil there is heroism, and where there is bravery there is sacrifice — and sometimes where there is love, there is heartbreak.

This is the kind of movie that cults are made of, and after Little Shop finishes its first run, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it develop into a successor to "Rocky Horror Show," as one of those movies that fans want to include in their lives.

It is to Lelio’s credit that he steers clear of stereotypes and lets the story unfold organically without judgment or sentimentality. There is an unflinching honesty and intelligence here.

A triumph of style over story, and of acting over characters.

By occupying their roles believably, by acting as we think their characters probably would, they save the movie from feeling like basic Hollywood action (even when it probably is). This is one of the year's best thrillers.

Sleeper establishes Woody Allen as the best comic director and actor in America, a distinction that would mean more if there were more comedies being made.

This is a quietly gripping gem.

You're looking for depth and profundity, this is the wrong movie. But under the direction of David Koepp ("Secret Window," the screenplays for "Mission: Impossible" and "Spider-Man"), this is an expert and spellbinding adventure.

Ghostbusters is one of those rare movies where the original, fragile comic vision has survived a multimillion-dollar production.

Mad Dog and Glory is one of the few recent movies where it helps to pay close attention. Some of the best moments come quietly and subtly, in a nuance of dialogue or a choice of timing. The movie is very funny, but it's not broad humor, it's humor born of personality quirks and the style of the performances.

The director of the film, a veteran stop-action master named Henry Selick, is the person who has made it all work. And his achievement is enormous.

No, it doesn't turn into another horror film or a murder-suicide. It simply shows how lives torn apart by financial emergencies can be revealed as being damaged all along.

You want a good horror film about a child from hell, you got one. Do not, under any circumstances, take children to see it. Take my word on this.

Craig is fascinating here as a criminal who is very smart, and finds that is not an advantage because while you might be able to figure out what another smart person is about to do, dumbos like the men he works for are likely to do anything.

The beauty in this film is in its directness. There are some obligatory scenes. But there are also some very original and touching ones. This is a movie that has its heart in the right place.

Not a simpleminded movie in which merely being ABLE to read lips saves the day. In this brilliant sequence, she reads his lips and that ALLOWS them to set into motion a risky chain of events based on the odds that the bad guys will respond predictably.

It somehow succeeds in taking those pop-culture brand names like Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie and giving them human form.

What I like about movies like this is the way they keep us involved until the end. There is no formula that we can project; “Thelma & Louise” was clearly heading for an act of self-destruction, but here we have no idea what to expect, except (inevitably) the birth of a child.

Derek Cianfrance, the film's writer and director, observes with great exactitude the birth and decay of a relationship. This film is alive in its details.

This is DeLillo's first produced screenplay, but he has written for the stage, and perhaps his portrait of Steven Schwimmer (Robert Downey Jr.), the detested critic, is drawn from life.

If the film is perhaps a little slow in its middle passages, maybe that is part of the idea, too, to give us a sense of the leaden passage of time, before the glory of the final redemption.

As eccentric as his subjects are, Burton plays things relatively straightforward. This is one of the most mainstream movies he’s ever done. It’s also one of the more entertaining movies of the year.

Setting entirely aside the accuracy of the film, the IRA still has him marked for death, and indeed there was an attempt on his life in Canada 10 years after he fled. He’s still out there somewhere.

What is fascinating about Ridicule is that so much depends on language, and so little is really said.

Crossroads borrows so freely and is a reminder of so many other movies that it's a little startling, at the end, to realize how effective the movie is and how original it manages to feel despite all the plunderings.

At once the most harrowing and, strangely, the most touching film I have seen about child abuse.

A rich, smart, funny, sometimes acidic portrayal of a couple who can be spectacular when they’re in tune — and toxic when they’re at each other’s throats.

It’s a memorably stark and authentic work that is at times so gut-wrenching it’s almost unbearable — but Park deftly weaves in moments of warmth and humor and hope as well. This is a special film.

As for myself, I think he made it all up and never killed anybody. Having been involved in a weekly television show myself, I know for a melancholy fact that there is just not enough time between tapings to fly off to Helsinki and kill for my government.

Like another recent feel-good film about the disease, Gus Van Sant's "Restless," it creates a comforting myth. That's one of the things movies are good for.

Death of a Gunfighter is quite an extraordinary western. It's one of those rare attempts (the last was Will Penny) to populate the West with real people living in real historical time.

The experience is frightening, sometimes disgusting, and (if the truth be told) exhilarating. This is very skillful filmmaking, and Mad Max 2 is a movie like no other.

Filled with witty dialogue and natural performances, Frances Ha marks a return to form for Baumbach.

Thanks in large part to the winning chemistry between Ali and Mortensen, and a pretty darn inspirational true-life story as its foundation, this was one of the best times I’ve had at the movies this year.

But what's most visible in the movie is the engaging acting. Murphy and Aykroyd are perfect foils for each other.

One hell of a thriller. It's not often that I feel true suspense and dread building within me, but they were building during long stretches of this expertly constructed film.

The film proceeds like a black comedy version of "The Godfather," crossed with Oliver Stone’s "Nixon."

Madness abounds in The Accountant, an intense, intricate, darkly amusing and action-infused thriller that doesn’t always add up but who cares, it’s BIG FUN.

Rod Lurie has made a first-rate film of psychological warfare, and yes, I thought it was better than Peckinpah's. Marsden, Bosworth and Skarsgard are all persuasive, and although James Woods has played a lot of evil men during his career, this one may be the scariest.

The mission of Eating Animals isn’t to get you to swear off meat (though I’m sure the filmmaker and the narrator would applaud that). It’s to raise your consciousness about the good, the bad and the ugly of animal agriculture.

The result is a superior police procedural, and something more -- a study in devious human nature.

This movie is remarkable in that it seems to be interested only in facts.

In going revoltingly over the top, Belvaux and company are out to shake up people's cozy, passive, detached relationship with violence - on and off the screen. By indulging in sensational footage, the real-life filmmakers can't help being part of the problem themselves - particularly since they wouldn't know a consistent viewpoint if it bit them. [14 May 1993, p.38]

Guncrazy is a consistently sharp and observant retooling of Joseph H. Lewis' 1949 B classic, Gun Crazy. Davis has a gift for breathing quirky new life into an old genre and not overstating her American themes. She also makes wonderful use of her settings and gets first-rate performances from her cast. [12 Feb 1993, p.39]

The plot is as good as crime procedurals get, but the movie is really better than its plot because of the three-dimensional characters.

A well-made thriller, tense and involving, and the scary thing, in these months after Watergate, is that it's all too believable.

More than anything else, I responded to the performances. Feature films may be fiction, but they are certainly documentaries showing actors in front of a camera. Both Dafoe and Gainsbourg have been risk takers, as anyone working with von Trier must be. The ways they're called upon to act in this film are extraordinary. They respond without hesitation. More important, they convince.

It's nimble, bright and funny. It doesn't dumb down. It doesn't patronize. It knows something about human nature.

It's not the kind of movie that depends on the certainty of an ending. It's more about how things continue.

The cast is uniformly superb. But it is the palpable erotic tension between Solness and the mysterious, bewitchingly nubile Hilde (who he may have sexually abused or at least titillated a decade earlier) that drives the film.

The entire film, in fact, seems much more real than the usual action-crime-chase concoctions we've grown tired of. Here is a movie with respect for writing, acting and craft. It has respect for knowledgable moviegoers.

Gaffigan’s a regular guy holding up a mirror to our everyday world, and turning those reflections into laughs and bigger laughs — and sometimes best of all, smiles of recognition.

A demented, twisted, unreasonably funny work of comic kamikaze style, starring Billy Bob Thornton as Santa in a performance that's defiantly uncouth.

As you’d expect, Ridley Scott’s sweeping, decades-spanning and magnificently filmed epic Napoleon is a stylized and violent interpretation of the life and times of one of the most famous and infamous military commanders and political leaders history has ever known — but it’s also a surprisingly funny indictment of a sniveling brute of a man who is utterly unaware of his shortcomings, so to speak.

An important film as well as an entertaining one.

Emily is played by Maggie Cheung with such intense desperation that she won the best actress award at Cannes 2004.

The Stanford Prison Experiment is the kind of movie that raises as many questions as it answers. It’s also the kind of film where you want to budget some time for discussion afterward. You won’t be able to shake this one off easily.

Thanks to the stylish direction by Paul Feig, a whip-smart screenplay by Jessica Sharzer (adapting Darcey Bells’ novel) and performances that pop from the screen, A Simple Favor is a sharp-edged delight.

I got a little lost while watching Mysteries of Lisbon and enjoyed the experience. It's a lavish, elegant, operatic, preposterous 19th century melodrama, with characters who change names and seemingly identities, and if you could pass a quiz on its stories within stories, you have my admiration.