Wilder's 1959 comedy is one of the enduring treasures of the movies, a film of inspiration and meticulous craft, a movie that's about nothing but sex and yet pretends it's about crime and greed.

Jacques Tati is the great philosophical tinkerer of comedy, taking meticulous care to arrange his films so that they unfold in a series of revelations and effortless delights.

The directness of The Seventh Seal is its strength: This is an uncompromising film, regarding good and evil with the same simplicity and faith as its hero.

The real star is cinematographer James Wong Howe, who distracts us from the character's lulling conversations with himself -- and Tracy's grim voiceovers -- with his magisterial seascapes and sunsets. [18 Feb 1999, p.31]

A searing portrait of the human condition. [12 Oct 2007, p.B6]

Vertigo, which is one of the two or three best films Hitchcock ever made, is the most confessional, dealing directly with the themes that controlled his art.

The film has always been a favorite of those who enjoy visual and dramatic flamboyance.

The inspirational speech that Pa (Fess Parker) gives his son (Tommy Kirk) may seem sentimental because of its aw-shucks delivery, but there's nothing phony about its lesson: "Now and then, for no good reason a man can figure out, life will just haul off and knock him flat. … But it's not all like that. A lot of it's mighty fine." This is the type of straight talk that is missing from movies aimed at kids today. [24 May 2002, p.13]

Paths of Glory was the film by which Stanley Kubrick entered the ranks of great directors, never to leave them.

The story in the jungle moves ahead neatly, economically, powerfully.

Beast and Scorpion -- with its wicked giant arachnids that pluck human victims from a wrecked train like diners selecting shrimp from a buffet -- are fan favorites. [16 Jan 2004, p.11]

The movie plays like a textbook for directors interested in how lens choices affect mood.

In countless ways visible and invisible, Sirk's sly subversion skewed American popular culture, and helped launch a new age of irony.

Though the original is superior, this glossy entertainment is far more popular with audiences. [25 Dec 1998, p.13]

The Searchers contains scenes of magnificence, and one of John Wayne's best performances.

Over the years I have seen "Ikiru" every five years or so, and each time it has moved me, and made me think.

A milestone in the creation of new idea about young people.

All that beauty, Hitchcock's panache and a certain amount of cleverly suggestive, double entendre-filled banter between Grant and Kelly may be enough to keep To Catch a Thief entertaining for modern viewers, but it clearly falls short of the director's best work.

One of the greatest of all American films, but has never received the attention it deserves because of its lack of the proper trappings. Many "great movies'' are by great directors, but Laughton directed only this one film, which was a critical and commercial failure long overshadowed by his acting career.

Rear Window lovingly invests in suspense all through the film, banking it in our memory, so that when the final payoff arrives, the whole film has been the thriller equivalent of foreplay.

The acting and the best dialogue passages have an impact that has not dimmed; it is still possible to feel the power of the film and of Brando and Kazan, who changed American movie acting forever.

It is not a comedy of hilarity but a comedy of memory, nostalgia, fondness and good cheer. There are some real laughs in it, but “Mr. Hulot’s Holiday” gives us something rarer, an amused affection for human nature–so odd, so valuable, so particular.

Singin' in the Rain is a comedy, but The Band Wagon has a note of melancholy along with its smiles, a sadness always present among Broadway veterans, who have seen more failure than success, who know the show always closes and that the backstage family breaks up and returns to the limbo of auditions and out-of-town tryouts.

Artfully directed by Charles Walters, this moving drama affirms that true love is where reality and magic merge into one. [14 Feb 1999, p.6]

Shane wears a white hat and Palance wears a black hat, but the buried psychology of this movie is a mottled, uneasy, fascinating gray.

Although it was not quite his last film, there can be little doubt that Limelight was Charlie Chaplin’s farewell. It is also probably his most personal, revealing film.

There's plenty of good travelogue in moving among Africa, Spain and the French Riviera. But director Henry King plods again. [18 Feb 1999, p.31]