Directed with creative style by Anders Walter (with a screenplay by Joe Kelly, adapting his own comic book), I Kill Giants is a good-looking adventure fable that makes great use of the Northeastern coastal locations.

I have only one complaint, and it is this: Every American should be as fortunate as I have been. As Moore makes clear in his film, some 50 million Americans have no insurance and no way to get it.

This is one of the greatest performances in the history of the cinema.

An elegant story about an elegant woman, told in an elegant visual style. It moves too slowly for those with impaired attention spans, but is fascinating in its style and mannerisms.

Bronstein's performance is crucial. It's difficult to make a manic character plausible, but he does.

It is a spellbinding enigma, and one of the damnedest films Morris has ever made.

An obliquely clinical love story.

This isn't one of Burton's best, but it has zealous energy. It might have been too macabre for kids in past, but kids these days, they've seen it all, and the charm of a boy and his dog retains its appeal.

Films like this are more useful than gung-ho capers like "Behind Enemy Lines." They help audiences understand and sympathize with the actual experiences of combat troops, instead of trivializing them into entertainments.

A mordant and bleak comedy, almost without dialogue, about Palestinians under Israeli occupation.

Honest, observant, and subtle.

Here is a gloriously greasy, sweaty, hairy, bloody and violent Western. It is delicious.

Radio Days is so ambitious and so audacious that it almost defies description. It's a kaleidoscope of dozens of characters, settings and scenes - the most elaborate production Allen has ever made - and it's inexhaustible, spinning out one delight after another.

Southside with You is a sweet, intelligent, well-crafted, wonderfully romantic, no-frills re-imagination of the first date between Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson.

The most remarkable thing about Rize is that it is real.

Not every joke lands, but with a brisk running time of 1 hour and 32 minutes, director/co-writer Seligman displays a keen sense of timing and a real awareness of how to make a point with edgy wit and then move on to the next target as we’re still admiring her willingness to go there, and there, and also there.

As for Witherspoon, there’s not a shred of her America’s Sweetheart persona in this work. She strips naked, literally and otherwise, in a raw, brave performance.

A visually arresting, consistently entertaining story featuring a host of endearing and memorable characters. Everyone in the ensemble is excellent, but the standout is Awkwafina, who does some of the best animated voice work I’ve ever heard.

Funny, yes, but also observant and thought-provoking.

It's a comedy, but there's more in it than that; it's a movie about the ways we pursue, possess, and consume each other as sad commodities.

On the surface, The Burial is about a contract dispute between a white small business owner and a white billionaire. Soon, though, it becomes about much more than that, and the result is a thoroughly entertaining, old-fashioned yet timely courtroom thriller.

Sir Carol Reed's Oliver! is a treasure of a movie. It is very nearly universal entertainment, one of those rare films like The Wizard of Oz that appeals in many ways to all sorts of people.

I'm not sure I feel more at ease after seeing this prize-winning film about a child protection unit in Paris. No doubt a lot of children get protected, but the professional standards of the police sometimes seem inspired by TV cop shows, on which the plots center around the camaraderie of the cops.

Miracle Mile has the logic of one of those nightmares in which you’re sure something is terrible, hopeless and dangerous, but you can’t get anyone to listen to you.

This is simply the story of one man. Yes, and on those terms I accept it, and was moved by the humanity and logic of the character.

In drawing out his effects, Amenabar is a little too confident that style can substitute for substance. As our suspense was supposed to be building, our impatience was outstripping it.

Fake It So Real filled me with affection for its down-and-out heroes, a group of semi-pro wrestlers in Lincolnton, N.C.

After seeing Awakenings, I read it, to know more about what happened in that Bronx hospital. What both the movie and the book convey is the immense courage of the patients and the profound experience of their doctors, as in a small way they reexperienced what it means to be born, to open your eyes and discover to your astonishment that "you" are alive.

The same material, filmed in America, might seem thin and contrived; the adventures are arbitrary, the cuteness of the men grows wearing, and when Nino has an accident with a chainsaw, we can see contrivance shading off into desperation.

Here is a film that dabbles in fantasy yet gets everything right about that fleeting summer when you’re between the end of your youth and the beginnings of adulthood.

The movie is brilliant, really. It is philosophy, illustrated through everyday events. Most movies operate as if their events are necessary--that B must follow A. "13 Conversations" betrays B, A and all the other letters as random possibilities.

I've seen Barcelona twice. It seemed deeper to me the second time. It appears at first to be about the casual lives of young men trying to launch their careers, but eventually (again, like an Allen movie) it reveals darker depths and meanings.

A whirling, uplifting, thrilling story with a heart-touching message that emerges from the comedy and song.

Sure, these guys now have a budget to work with and they can pull off some elaborate stunts, but we’ve seen so much viral, backyard Jackassery through the years, the shock value has dissipated and all that remains is the cringe factor and a growing feeling of restlessness as the gags become repetitive and tiresome.

Not very much really happens in Duck Season, but in its rich details, it remembers how absorbing and endless every single day can seem when you're 14.

Inception does a difficult thing. It is wholly original, cut from new cloth, and yet structured with action movie basics so it feels like it makes more sense than (quite possibly) it does.

Serenity is made of dubious but energetic special effects, breathless velocity, much imagination, some sly verbal wit and a little political satire.

A naturalist comic of inarticulate manners, writer-director Andrew Bujalski attempts the ensemble styles of Robert Altman and Christopher Guest to peer into a micro-culture in Computer Chess.

Here is a strong and simple story surrounded by needless complications, and flawed by a last act that first disappoints us and then ends on a note of forced whimsy.

Tomboy is tender and affectionate. It shows us Laure/Mikael in an adventure that may be forgotten in adulthood or may form her adulthood.

That's another thing about Carion's direction: He has an eye for unusual, atmospheric touches -- the kinds of striking little things you notice in the world and think: "Somebody should put that in a movie."

Deliberately aimed at viewers with developed attention spans. It lingers to create atmosphere, a sense of place, a sympathy with the characters, instead of rushing into cheap thrills.

The talented young leads acquit themselves well here, but this is also the kind of movie that provides the forum for not one but two of our finest character actors to deliver performances so hammy you’ll be reaching for the spicy mustard sauce.

The jaw-dropping visuals and pulse-pounding sound editing in Dennis Villeneuve’s stunningly gorgeous Dune are so awesome it makes up for the slow-moving and quite familiar storyline, which is basically the New Testament meets Mad Max meets Star Wars.

The film is extremely rich in visual inventiveness and depth of feeling — with numerous sequences that could almost pass muster as individual shorts.

There is anguish here that makes "American Beauty" pale by comparison.

Serious pianists sometimes pound out a little honky-tonk, just for fun. That's like what Steven Soderbergh is doing in Ocean's Eleven.

The most accurate movie about campus life that I can remember.

I despised the character of Alan James so sincerely that I had to haul back at one point to remind myself that, hey, I've met Rip Torn and he's a nice guy and he's only acting.

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

Rush ranks among the best movies about auto racing ever made, featuring two great performances from the leads, who capture not only the physical look of the racing legends they’re playing, but the vastly different character traits that made their rivalry, well, made for the movies.

The movie is also uncanny in what it does with its last three shots. I watched them, and could not believe so much could be implied so simply. Leave the movie before it's over, and you miss almost everything, because what Connie does at the very end of the film is necessary. It makes "Smooth Talk" the story of the process of life, instead of just a sad episode.

The final act of the film is extraordinary. How unusual it is to see kids this age in the movies seriously debating moral rights and wrongs and considering the consequences of their actions.

Bully is a sincere documentary but not a great one. We feel sympathy for the victims, and their parents or friends, but the film helplessly seems to treat bullying as a problem without a solution.

As a visual spectacle, it is all but overwhelming, putting to shame some of the recent historical epics from Hollywood. If it has a flaw, and it does, it is expressed succinctly by the wife of its hero: "All Mongols do is kill and steal."

It provides a deep spirituality, but denies the Dalai Lama humanity; he is permitted certain little human touches, but is essentially an icon, not a man.

The whole program could make a nice introduction to moviegoing for a small child.

There are times when this film feels absolutely real and lived-in, as when Paul’s extended family gathers for dinners where everyone talks at once and nobody is listening, and you can feel the tensions but also the enduring and abiding love at the table. Unfortunately, Gray’s central young character isn’t as sympathetic or likable as the talented filmmaker must have intended, and the constant lecturing about white guilt among liberals is delivered in all caps, with exclamation points.

As a thriller, Munich is efficient, absorbing, effective. As an ethical argument, it is haunting.

There’s something irresistible about the story of the former pizza guy who invented the modern concealable bulletproof vest, and Richard Davis isn’t about to let the doubts about his origin story or some of the terrible missteps he made along the way get in the way of that tale.

What makes the movie fascinating is that it doesn't settle for a soap opera resolution to this story, with Pilar as the victim, Antonio as the villain, and evil vanquished. It digs deeper and more painfully.

A family film of limitless imagination and surprising joy.

Disobedience comes across as a challenging but also deeply respectful and thoughtful meditation on traditions and mores that date back thousands of years.

Simply amazing.

If there is anything lacking in the movie, it may be a certain gusto. The director, Stephen Frears, is so happy to make this a tragicomedy of manners that he sometimes turns away from obvious payoffs.

If there is a weakness in East Is East, it's that Om Puri's character is a little too serious for the comedy surrounding him.

This is one of the best crime thrillers in recent years, with Anna Kendrick demonstrating a strong set of storytelling skills and a keen eye for period-piece visuals in her directorial debut, while also turning in one of her career-best performances as the “bachelorette” who unknowingly chooses Alcala as her “dream date.”

The director is Wolfgang Petersen ("Das Boot"), who is able to unwind the plot like clockwork while at the same time establishing the characters as surprisingly sympathetic.

D’Apolito does a beautiful job of honoring Radner, but I found myself wishing Love, Gilda was a two-part, four-hour documentary, a la Judd Apatow’s “The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling.” There’s just too much Gilda greatness — on and off camera — to be contained in an 86-minute box.

You might just find yourself applauding during certain moments of dramatic triumph in Theodore Melfi’s unabashedly sentimental and wonderfully inspirational film, and yes, some of those moments feature people working out high-level math problems.

Like the great Douglas Sirk melodramas of that time period, Sylvie’s Love is unabashedly sentimental and just gorgeous to behold — but the difference here is the terrific ensemble cast is primarily Black and Latinx.

It is not filled with quick cutting or gimmicky editing, but Jerry Schatzberg's direction is so confident that we cover the ground effortlessly. We meet the characters, we get to know the world.

It’s not that we haven’t seen this type of frat-life social commentary before, but Berger and the outstanding ensemble infuse his film with a docudrama authenticity. This is a not a movie you can easily shake off.

The film is well-acted, with restraint, by Hoss and Sidikhin. The writer and director, Max Faerberboeck, employs a level gaze and avoids for the most part artificial sentimentality. The physical production is convincing.

Gods and Monsters is not a deep or powerful film, but it is a good-hearted one.

Movement and Location has some clear-cut parallels to the stories of immigrants who are in the States illegally and are trying to live quiet, productive lives without anyone asking too many questions. But it also works as a Rod Serling-esque sci-fi adventure of the mind, devoid of special effects but convincing us of its dimension-breaking elements through the use of dialogue, performance and music.

There are no heavy-handed portraits of holy rollers here, just people whose view of the world is narrow. There are also no outsize sinners, just some gentle singer-songwriters who are too fond of pot and whose lyrics are parades of cliches.

Everything is here. It's an effective thriller, he (Affleck) works closely with actors, he has a feel for pacing. Yet I persist in finding chases and gun battles curiously boring.

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints is a tone poem that doesn’t quite live up to its luster. It is so shrewdly perfect and solemn that the strong emotions layered throughout Bob and Ruth and Patrick’s intertwined story become lost in the film’s one-note mood.

[A] conventional yet fascinating documentary.

In Darkness has the best of intentions, but is a boring dirge, lingering far too long in sewers and wringing as much righteousness as possible out of scenes so dimly lit, they border on obscurity.

Here is a film that uses very good actors and gives them a lot of improvisational freedom to talk their way into, around and out of social discomfort. And it's not snarky. It doesn't mock these characters. It understand they have their difficulties and hopes they find a way to work things out.

Some will find Dad's last big act in the movie too melodramatic. I think it follows from a certain logic, and leads to the very last shot, which is heartbreaking in its tenderness.

The reality depicted is sometimes too emotional to watch, because it’s such a personal story for all involved.

The ethical considerations of these physicians and their patients is the focus, not the pro-lifers and their death threats.

A taut, handsome production -- the most expensive Danish film to date -- and it looks like a film noir, as indeed the costumes, cars, guns and fugitives force it to.

Sully is an absolute triumph.

An entertaining, clever black comedy that takes place entirely in Tarantino-land.

Stylish, intriguing, and very violent.

Into the Abyss may be the saddest film Werner Herzog has ever made. It regards a group of miserable lives, and in finding a few faint glimmers of hope only underlines the sadness.

What a beautiful and epic film is Interstellar, filled with great performances, tingling our senses with masterful special effects, daring to be openly sentimental, asking gigantic questions about the meaning of life and leaving us drained and grateful for the experience.

The Attack is not just about an incident targeting Israelis. This is also the story of not knowing Palestinians.

Sports movies have a purity of form. They always end with the big game, in triumph or heartbreak. So does The Heart of the Game, although the lawsuit still hangs over the team after the final free throw.

A fairly stylish adult vampire movie, and Delphine Seyrig (last seen wandering about a resort hotel in Last Year at Marienbad) is a most satisfactory vampire.

Under the circumstances, Hollywood Shuffle is an artistic compromise but a logistical triumph, announcing the arrival of a new talent whose next movie should really be something.

Like "Grizzly Man," Herzog's latest documentary, Happy People: A Year in the Taiga is mostly built around another filmmaker's priceless footage.

It placed second for the People's Choice Award at the 2000 Toronto Film Festival--after "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." That's about right.

This is one of Denzel Washington's great performances, on a par with his work in "Malcolm X."