Spellbinding.

It is one of the great film noirs, a black-and-white symphony that exactly reproduces Chandler's ability, on the page, to find a tone of voice that keeps its distance, and yet is wry and humorous and cares.

King of the Hill could have been a family picture, or a heartwarming TV docudrama, or a comedy. Soderbergh must have seen more deeply into the Hotchner memoir, however, because his movie is not simply about what happens to the kid. It's about how the kid learns and grows through his experiences.

Brian De Palma's Carrie is an absolutely spellbinding horror movie, with a shock at the end that's the best thing along those lines since the shark leaped aboard in "Jaws."

There is something almost perverse in the way Boorman defines his point of view. He is not concerned in this film about the tragedy of war, or the meaning of war, but only with the specific experience of war for a grade-school boy. Drawing from his autobiographical memories, he has not given the little boy in the movie any more insights than such a little boy should have.

The most heartbreaking scene shows survivors of the dead reaching through fence railings to scatter their ashes on the White House lawn, where presumably they still rest.

There are scenes as true as movies can make them, and even when the story develops thriller elements, they are redeemed, because the movie isn't about what happens, but about why.

To see The Thin Man is to watch him (Powell) embodying a personal style that could have been honored, but could never be imitated.

Petzold is a master at creating the kind of tension that can be felt on a subterranean level, a sort of acute uneasiness that can't be easily diagnosed, fixed, or even acknowledged by the characters. This is well-trod ground for Petzold, but never has it been so fully realized, so palpable, as in Barbara.

I found myself resisting the film's pull of easy emotion. There are fundamental questions here, and the film doesn't engage them. I believe Christian should have had the humility to lead his monks away from the path of self-sacrifice.

The Truth vs. Alex Jones is a scathing and well-deserved takedown of the abhorrent hatemonger and huckster whose name is in the title, but the bleating talk show host isn’t the only villain in this story.

Kidman is superb at making Suzanne into someone who is not only stupid, vain and egomaniacal (we've seen that before) but also vulnerably human.

The story, written by Benton from the novel by Richard Russo, unfolds according to its own logic. It has the patience to listen to silences. Above all, it benefits from the confidence of Newman's performance. He is not hammering the points home, not marching from one big scene to another, but simply living on the screen.

A superb crime melodrama.

It is like no other film you've seen, and yet you feel right at home in it. It seems to be going nowhere, and knows every step it wants to make. It is a constant, almost kaleidoscopic experience of discovery, and we try to figure out what the film is up to and it just keeps moving steadfastly ahead, fade in, fade out, fade in, fade out, making a mountain out of a molehill.

Bonnie and Clyde is a milestone in the history of American movies, a work of truth and brilliance. It is also pitilessly cruel, filled with sympathy, nauseating, funny, heartbreaking, and astonishingly beautiful.

If you have never seen a single film by Agnes Varda, perhaps it is best to start with The Beaches of Agnes.

West Side Story remains a landmark of musical history. But if the drama had been as edgy as the choreography, if the lead performances had matched Moreno's fierce concentration, if the gangs had been more dangerous and less like bad-boy Archies and Jugheads, if the ending had delivered on the pathos and tragedy of the original, there's no telling what might have resulted.

Plays like an anthology of the best parts from all the Saturday matinee serials ever made.

Such an original and disturbing and haunting and creatively outrageous piece of work that it refuses to drift from your conscience.

With Samy Burch’s razor-sharp script providing some fantastically flourishing dialogue passages, frequent Haynes collaborator Julianne Moore delivering the latest in a long line of magnificently calibrated and memorable performances, and Moore’s fellow Oscar winner Natalie Portman turning in equally layered work, this is an intricately crafted study of people who are experts at putting on facades and all too skilled in the art of deception.

That such intelligence could be contained in a movie that is simultaneously so funny and so entertaining is some kind of a miracle.

A funny screen version of a very funny (if not very significant) Broadway comedy. It does well as an evening's entertainment.

Not a war film so much as the story of a personality who has found the right role to play. Scott's theatricality is electrifying.

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter is a chilling and unnerving psychological horror film brimming with dicey characters who are capable of deeply disturbing behavior. We keep holding our breath because it feels like something awful is about to happen — and our instincts might not be wrong.

It is funny and smart and wise and silly, it is romantic and sweet and just cynical enough, and it is without a doubt one of the best romantic comedies I have seen in a long time.

Argo the real movie about the fake movie, is both spellbinding and surprisingly funny.

The performances are all insidiously powerful.