This is no ordinary musical. Part of its success comes because it doesn't fall for the old cliché that musicals have to make you happy. Instead of cheapening the movie version by lightening its load of despair, director Bob Fosse has gone right to the bleak heart of the material and stayed there well enough to win an Academy Award for Best Director.

This is a film by the Coen Brothers, and this is the first straight genre exercise in their career. It's a loving one. Their craftsmanship is a wonder. Their casting is always inspired and exact. The cinematography by Roger Deakins reminds us of the glory that was, and can still be, the Western.

There is a deep embedding of comedy, nostalgia, shabby sadness and visual beauty.

A Hidden Life is one of the most metaphysical films ever set against the backdrop of World War II.

Ritt directs with a steady hand, and the dialog by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Flank bears listening to. It's intelligent, and has a certain grace as well.

Sandler gives one of his most authentic performances.

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

At a time when digital techniques can show us almost anything, The Blair Witch Project is a reminder that what really scares us is the stuff we can't see.

The brothers Maeda are pure gold; the film captures what feels like effortless joy in their lives, and it is never something they seem to be reaching for.

Maysles gets to the heart of what is important to Apfel: truth, in a world in which it’s in increasingly short supply.

What a beautiful, thrilling, joyous, surprising and heart-thumping adventure this is.

The film uses a slice-of-life approach to create a docudrama of chilling horror.

As we watch them drilling with flashcards and worksheets, we hope they will win, but we're not sure what good it will do them.

The final scene of the film contains an appearance and a revelation of astonishing emotional power; not since the last shots of "Schindler's List" have I been so overcome with the realization that real people, in recent historical times, had to undergo such inhumanity.

It is told from and by an adult sensibility that understands loneliness, gratitude and the intense curiosity we feel for other lives, man and beast.

The genius of the movie is the way is sidesteps all of the obvious cliches of the underlying story and makes itself fresh, observant, tough and genuinely moving.

Here is a film of great beauty and attention, and watching it is a form of meditation. Sometimes films take a great stride outside the narrow space of narrative tradition and present us with things to think about. Here mostly what I thought was, why must man sometimes be so cruel?

As the film takes deeper and darker turns, it also becomes something special, something unflinchingly honest, something that will punch you in the gut AND touch your heart.

Thanks to the creative efforts of director Gerwig (who co-wrote the screenplay with her partner Noah Baumbach), the absolutely pitch-perfect casting starting with the gorgeous and talented humans Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken, and a candy-colored, screen-popping production design that transports us to Barbieland and beyond, this is a truly original work — one of the smartest, funniest, sweetest, most insightful and just plain flat-out entertaining movies of the year.

This film is such a virtuoso high-wire act, daring so much, achieving it with such grace and skill. Minority Report reminds us why we go to the movies in the first place.

The movie is funny, sassy and intelligent in that moronic Simpsons' way.

The movie gets a little confused toward the end, I think, as its writer and director, Lea Pool, tries to settle things that could have been left unresolved.

Riding Giants is about altogether another reality. The overarching fact about these surfers is the degree of their obsession.

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is Sam Peckinpah making movies flat out, giving us a desperate character he clearly loves, and asking us to somehow see past the horror and the blood to the sad poem he's trying to write about the human condition.

The little boy here, a stick-figured, button-headed, wide-eyed tot with a signature red-and-white striped shirt, is one of the most distinctive and adorable animated characters you’ll ever come across, and his introduction to “the world out there” is a moving revelation indeed.

Trouble is, the Room 237 conspirators — er, contributors — don't seem to realize that those meanings are either not hidden, not meanings or not remotely supported by the secret evidence they think they've uncovered.

Watching this film I reflected that there are only so many Cracker Jacks you can eat before you decide to hell with the toy.

We appreciate Mister Rogers even more after seeing this film, but I’m not sure we really got to know him any better.