To millions, Stritch is the Emmy-winning actress who did "30 Rock," playing Alec Baldwin's mom. Those people who don't know the rest of her story should take the 82 minutes to see this.

A Thousand and One, this year’s top jury prize winner at the Sundance Film Festival, puts you through it, but with real feeling, real stakes and an authentic vision guided by a fiercely commanding performance by Teyana Taylor as Inez.

The film is shockingly violent and bloody, but there are also profoundly poetic moments and images that pop up like wildflowers in a field.

Takes you places an ordinary documentary filmmaker might’ve gone to yet missed completely.

The picture’s gliding energy is something to behold, and when Tyler’s predicaments turn to panic, and then worse, the suspense becomes nearly oppressive. In the second half, it’s a different style and a different focus entirely. There’s a scene in that half, a reconciliation of sorts between father and daughter, that’s just about perfect. And that scene is not alone.

It's one of the most comforting science fiction films in years.

Dafoe manages to draw us into the mystery, anguish and joy of the holy life. This is anything but another one of those boring biblical costume epics. There is genuine challenge and hope in this movie. [12 Aug 1988, p.A]

The beauty of the film is undeniable, as is the cruelty of the bull's lives. (This is not a picture for animal-sensitive viewers.)

Preparation for the Next Life is a powerful assertion of dreams, humanity and hard work — arguing that every person has a past, a future and a story to tell.

One of the most intriguing prison dramas ever put on film.

It's a thrillingly malicious visit, a gorgeous period drama. [06 Dec 1996, p.A]

If a Warner Bros. social-protest film from the early 1930s somehow got into bed with an American indie from the 1970s, how would the love-child turn out? Like this.

Celebrated cinema verite chronicle of a quartet of door-to-door bible salesman, pitching their wares with slick expertise or threadbare urgency. [03 Dec 1999, p.L]

The Wrestler works for the same reason "Rachel Getting Married" works. The way they're acted, shot, edited and scored, both films deploy a loose, rough-hewn documentary style to great dramatic advantage. The corn isn't hyped. The performances click without going for the jugular.

Cunningham's and Woolf's novels are dedicated to capturing a person's essence through the events of a single day, and Daldry's film is faithful to that aim. But the range of life presented here feels constricted; the movie misses the sublime for all of the despair.

Walsh and producer Mark Hellinger's classic ultra-tough gangster opus about World War I, Prohibition and good-hearted mobster Jimmy Cagney's breezy rise and grim fall. [18 Feb 2005, p.C6]

The sociopolitical issues are lost in the action, but it's quite some action. [11 Jan 2002, p.C1]

Sometimes one performance makes a film worthwhile, and Junebug has one: an astonishing, moving portrayal of down-home innocence and optimism by Amy Adams.

It's a film objet d'art to contemplate and treasure.

Busby Berkeley's finest hour comes in this flabbergasting Warners musical, with James Cagney as a Berkeley-like choreographer who directs, for a string of Broadway theaters, a series of "preview" dance numbers that blow your socks off.

It’s best not to expect a life-changing experience from Marcel the Shell With Shoes On. But its tenderness, along with its best jokes, are most welcome right about now.

What are the odds that the year's most compelling mystery would end up hanging its hat on the year's richest love story

Most crime movies, even alleged indies, make it easy for the audience to take sides and establish clear rooting interests. Good Time is better than that: It’s not always easy to take, yet you can’t look away.

If Wal-Mart, the Lucifer of multinational corporations in many liberal eyes, sees the fiscal sense in stocking an increasingly wide array of organic foodstuffs, consumer habits truly are changing. Not fast enough, though, for documentary filmmaker Robert Kenner.

It's a film for specialized tastes, quiet, delicate. But it suits those tastes beautifully.

There is a good deal of honest charm in this story, and in the three principal performances.

Disney TV star Bridgit Mendler brings an effective if limited friendliness to Arrietty; Will Arnett and Amy Poehler are relatively restrained as her parents; Carol Burnett runs through a career's worth of vocal flourishes and aural panic attacks as the housekeeper.

One of the best-loved '50s sci-fi movies, with a plot boldly cribbed from Shakespeare's The Tempest. [30 Jun 2006, p.C7]

First of the classic Fred and Ginger plots. [03 Nov 2006, p.C5]

If you don't believe film can change the world, you haven't seen the documentary The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till.

An indelible portrait of an American family at its most blithely macabre.

Incendies is no mere riff on a Greek mainstay. It is its own entity, delicate and fierce. Already I've risked making it sound like homework. It's not; it's an enthralling drama of survival.

The kind of well-crafted, character-driven work that wows regional film festival crowds and public television audiences but seldom gets seen outside those circles.

The simplicity and idealism of The Color of Paradise are part of what makes it so attractive to near-jaded palates here. There are no evil characters in the film.

Contains some gaspingly funny moments. [29 July 1988, Friday, p.A]

Two suggestions as you watch it: Never take anything for granted, and keep your hand on your wallet as you leave the theater.

Bird’s rather strenuous sequel lands more in the camp of “Cars 2” and “Monsters University,” mistaking calamity and mayhem for real excitement and wit.

Eleven years ago director Campbell made "GoldenEye," the first of the Brosnan Bond pictures. Casino Royale trumps it every which way.

Kenneth Branagh's earnest adaptation of Shakespeare's serious comedy about love is undone by, of all things, Branagh's enthusiasm for this material to be joyful. He practically busts through the screen in an effort to please. His wife, Oscar-winner Emma Thompson, is more restrained as his dueling lover and creates a more credible character. [21 May 1993, p.C]

May not have the size and grandeur of some of the biographical and political epics being released this fall, but I defy you to find a better written, more honest -- or yes, more satisfying and delicious -- movie this year. [27 September 1996, Friday, p.C]

Based on an Elmore Leonard story: the classic suspense western in which a desperate farmer (Van Heflin), trying to save his spread, hires on to transport a sardonic outlaw chief (Glenn Ford) to Yuma. [25 Jul 2008, p.C8]

A few moments of sly inspiration are not enough to carry an entire feature; along with the tears, it leaves behind an aftertaste of phoniness. [16 March 1990, Friday, p.H]

If it's not an actual masterpiece, it's at least the next best thing, a fully characteristic, fully alive work by a master of his art.

At heart, though, odd as it sounds, Gray has created a pocket-sized version of “Apocalypse Now.” Ad Astra bends the Francis Ford Coppola Vietnam-era extravagance, about the rogue commander, Kurtz, and the errand boy, Willard, into its own thing. Like Coppola’s film, and the Joseph Conrad novel “Heart of Darkness," the new film examines the limits of colonialist hubris. It’s also, and primarily, a father/son parable of betrayal, confrontation and forgiveness.

A socially conscious prison picture (written by Richard Brooks) that sometimes deliriously suggests a Brooklynesque mating of Jean Genet and Warner Bros. [20 Apr 2007, p.C8]

Stirred by the winds of nostalgia, lapped by its ocean of dreams, "The Secret of Roan Inish" is one of the loveliest surprises of the year. [03 Mar 1995, p.C]

The movie sticks with you, thanks to LaBute's observational powers and the three impressive lead performances. [15 August 1997, Friday, p.C]

A disturbingly frank look at people and relationships in contemporary Los Angeles and a thrilling dramatic showcase for a brilliant cast.

It's the best musical biopic in decades.

Watching Taste of Cherry and following its path of fear and redemption, living through this strange day with these foreign but utterly recognizable and deeply sympathetic characters, we believe in them. We feel with them. We care what happens to them. And, knowing them, we know a bit more, as well, about ourselves. [29 May 1998, p.D]

Extracting a meat-and-potato slickness from the screenplay by James Toback (a sucker for facile laughs), director Barry Levinson (Rain Man) provides a good chunk of entertainment if not much creative risk. Fast-paced in its first half, Bugsy eventually slips into a stall, especially in the clumsy scenes where the protagonist tries to handle domesticity with his long- suffering family.

The biggest change from the '69 "True Grit" is the best thing about this formidably well-crafted picture. Portis's narrator and heroine, 14-year-old Mattie Ross, runs the show this time, not the one-eyed marshal.

All the performances are terrific, even when some of the scenes sputter or reiterate the grievances.

Bell confronts Smelly, labeling him a cheater. But he also sympathizes with him, explaining, "There is a clash in America between doing the right thing and being the best."

Many of us may have thought that with the world offering so much vivid horribleness every day, movies had lost the power to give us a good cathartic scare. It's a shock -- and a pleasure -- to discover we were wrong.

It is good. Not great. But far better than "not bad." Solidly, confidently good.

Boasts all of the drama and suspense of any reality TV show, but it actually stars smart people. And they're kids.

Characters are so well-drawn, so human - that even in the harsh light of history - it remains difficult to understand how Australia allowed such inhumanity to become institutional, mechanized and accepted.

Extremely moving, exceedingly droll, flawlessly voice-acted.

Wallace Ford co-stars, but make no mistake, it's the actual sideshow talents whose unusual traits have kept this film singular and unforgettable. [19 Oct 2007, p.C5]

James Cagney, wielding gats and grapefruit, became a star playing the murderous young Irish-American hood Tom Powers, a character modeled on Capone rival Dion O'Banion, in this classic, grim, unusually violent gangster film. [26 Jun 2009, p.C5]

One may gripe that the tale at times seems familiar, yet that familiarity is also part of the movie's power: Here's a story from halfway around the world that somehow connects with the hearts of viewers of almost any culture.

In the best way, this is a tough movie to shake, and while it believes in the kindness of strangers, Lean on Pete never forgets every other human failing, impulse and circumstance.

You probably won't find two more fascinating camera subjects, two livelier conversationalists or two richer, more rewarding, more engaging and inspiring companions in any movie, fiction or non-fiction, this year.

Strange is a word that pops up frequently in Claire’s Camera, a lovely doodle and the latest from South Korean writer-director Hong Sang-soo. The strangeness extends to and suffuses most of the human interactions, which never go entirely smoothly.

I admit it: I went into “Barbie” with no firsthand usage or any practical knowledge, even, of Barbie, or Ken, let alone Allan or Midge. “Barbie” is my first Barbie. So. It’s kind of a big deal.

May show both director and star working at their professional peaks, but I don't think it's as good as that underappreciated masterwork "A.I." It's not as resonant and daring, not as full of magic and marvel. Spielberg stretches himself technically here but not emotionally.

Despite all the limitations on her life, Rose-Lynn is one of the most free-spirited creatures to ever be put on film.

It's hard not to like it. And in both senses of the phrase, America keeps asking for it.

Shows us a filmmaker, unafraid of her emotions, unafraid to mine her past, someone clear-eyed, non-egoistic, full of life and warmth.

It's the tales from Noll and his mates, now older and chubbier, that give heart to what otherwise could have faded into PBS special-land.

I found most of what's actually put forth in the film interpretively ridiculous. But I'm just one theorist among millions, and the film worked for me anyway.

Its devotion to the untamed territory of the human heart, its artfully discombobulating time and locale shifts, the shifting personae handled with marvelous fluidity by Seydoux; it takes you somewhere, and more than one somewhere.

The result is not a movie of peekaboo titillation, but a studied, original portrait of sexuality and its role in human relationships.

But Hanks, especially, keeps the trolley on the rails, and everything Heller is after in this film comes together in a remarkable final shot depicting Rogers alone in the TV studio, having made another friend.

The Forty-Year-Old-Version is that rarest of films: funny, wry, incisive, sexy and sincere.

It’s tough-minded and tender-hearted in equal measure. It’s also slyly insightful on the theme of chance elements in solo travel, and unexpected, emotionally tricky connections along the way.

Director John Carroll Lynch’s quietly assured directorial feature debut works from a simple, homey script by Logan Sparks and Drago Sumonja, and Lucky feels like the work of Stanton’s friends, which it is.

Movies about moviemaking usually fall into one of two categories: ones that satirize or debunk the film industry or ones that celebrate it. Irma Vep, a sometimes dazzling French film by writer-director Olivier Assayas, does both. [13 June 1997, p.I]

You can watch The Band’s Visit for its political idealism, or you can watch it for entertainment value alone. In either case, it doesn’t disappoint.

Sarandon delivers one of her very best performances; her shock at encountering the wrath of the victim's family is registered beautifully. And Sean Penn, who for too long has suffered with the label of being a "bad boy," gives an Oscar-caliber performance.[12 January 1996, Friday, p.B]

Justly renowned as the most realistic movie on pro football, this is the iconoclastic portrait of savvy, rebellious receiver Phil Elliott (Nick Nolte) who finds himself a target for coaches, owners, players and fate itself. [14 May 2000, p.33]

Each performance in this plaintive work is superb, but Kyoko Koizumi's gently melancholy portrait of the businessman's wife keeps Tokyo Sonata true and affecting, even when the later passages go a little nuts.

Miller's finely crafted, highly moving new film, seems meant as a new beginning, grounded in an entirely different kind of material and told in an entirely different manner than anything Miller has attempted before.

Though the film initially feels like a patriotic tale of a daring mission, this isn't a story of U.S. military triumph, it's one of sorrow.

It's a little bit "Tom Jones," a little bit "Adaptation," a smidge of Monty Python and a dash of Fellini's "861/2," right down to Winterbottom's use of music by the brilliant Fellini composer, Nino Rota.

The result, then, is good, not great. But it is hard to come by good films about media and politics, and why the intersection thereof matters so much in a democracy.

Works so well for the first 40 minutes or so, that when the bottom falls out of it, I felt more than disappointed. I felt betrayed.

It’s his own words, and confronting them now, having lost many of his friends to spats and fights, brings Crosby to his most vulnerable place.

It’s a pretty interesting nature documentary as far as it goes. But given its globe-trotting scope and the risky location work involved for the filmmakers, it’s a tiny bit strange Aquarela goes only so far.

It's like watching a slow multi-car pileup on an icy road: Everyone can see what's about to happen, but nobody can stop it.

If you’re new to the Dardennes, Lorna’s Silence will serve as a fine introduction.

For some, Other People’s Children may feel a little too smooth. But the film’s success starts and ends with the natural vibrancy of the performances, and Efira leads the way.

By design, the dialogue from the (fictional) play comments directly on the central, shifting power relationship in the film, sometimes elegantly, sometimes a little awkwardly.

It pulls audiences into a meticulously detailed universe, familiar in many respects, wacked and menacing in many others.

It’s not straight-up realism; nor is it the usual moralizing, candy-coated melodrama. It’s just very, very good, and the scenes between Tenille and Perrier are very, very easily among the plaintive screen highlights of this new year.

See it, and see what you make of this new and quite wonderful example of this in-between cinematic tradition — and of Tony, Micah, Nichole, Nathaly and Makai, both real and imagined.

Somber, meditative and visually magnificent, this film, about a famous Greek author ruminating on his past, is a piece of cinematic poetry: calm, beautiful and chilling as the eternal sea against which much of it is set. [22 Oct 1998, p.2]