Whiplash is true to its title. It throws you around with impunity, yet Chazelle exerts tight, exacting control over his increasingly feverish and often weirdly comic melodrama.

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.

The first great film of the year. It’s beautiful but so much more—full of subtle feeling, framed by a monstrous, eroding landscape.

Like all great fantasies and epics, this one leaves you with the sense that its wonders are real, its dreams are palpable.

It all comes together as formidably detailed and easy-breathing craftsmanship.

It's a shame the dippy TV knockoff Hogan's Heroes has supplanted memories of this great dark WWII POW comedy. Seeing it makes you understand why Schindler's List was a long-time Wilder project. [17 Oct 1995, p.3C]

So what we have in the middle of Back to the Future, this seeming kids' movie full of screeching cars, special effects and lightning storms, is nothing less than an adult reverie. And if families could be persuaded to see this film together, it might touch off a long night of sharing between parents and children. [03 July 1985]

The physical scale of Ran is overwhelming. It's almost as if Kurosawa is saying to all the cassette buyers of America, in a play on Clint Eastwood`s phrase, "Go ahead, ruin your night"--wait to see my film on a small screen and cheat yourself out of what a movie can be.

One of the cinema's supreme, most outrageously eccentric and audacious technical experiments: the legendary single shot movie.

This is one of Zhangke’s peak achievements: pure cinema, and a story of the underworld unlike anything you’ve seen before.

Ichikawa's great anti-war film, about a Japanese soldier (Shoji Yasui) in Burma masquerading as a monk and falling into grace. [21 Nov 2008, p.C5]

It's an uncompromising drama, not easy to watch. And it is one of the year's highlights.

It takes something like a miracle to unlock the magic in his exquisite aggravations, the essence of the human comedy. This film is indeed something like a miracle.

If May's script is brilliant, so is the vivid, raw acting -- which suggests heavy Cassavetes influence. [30 Jul 1999, p.O]

Though Majidi draws from familiar Iranian sources, he's made something unique and moving: a sweet tale with a stirring finish.

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.

What's so funny about Down and Out In Beverly Hills is not its moral imperative to appreciate life's simple, enduring pleasures. True, we get that message, and we appreciate it, but we already know that motto even if we don't live by it. No, what's funny is director Mazursky's extraordinarily fine eye and ear for capturing the way the wealthy residents of Beverly Hills walk, talk, dress and think.

A film poem of sometimes humbling beauty: a movie that opens up a new world to us - in the mountains of Iranian Kurdistan - with an enchanting freshness and austerity of vision.

A joy to behold, a complex film that never loses either its sense of purpose or sense of humor. [7 February 1986, Friday, p.33]

Few films have caught the special feel and rhythms of childhood so well, with such uncondescending warmth and humor. And few bring out more powerfully the themes of anti-racism and the virtues and joys of community and family. [20 Apr 2007, p.C5]

Raiders of the Lost Ark is, in fact, about as entertaining as a commercial movie can be. What is it? An adventure film that plays like an old-time 12-part serial that you see all at once, instead of Saturday-to-Saturday. It's a modern "Thief of Baghdad." It's the kind of movie that first got you excited about movies when you were a kid.

Has moments of profound poignance, though it lacks the overall dramatic impact of "The Long Way Home."

Some may find the film underpowered. Not me. With elegant understatement, Cohen creates a humane testament to reaching out, whatever our habits and routines.

This is filmmaking at the very peak of the medium`s potential.

It's a scintillating comedy-drama and one of Altman's most richly moving and entertaining pictures.

A watershed picture, for both Spielberg and war movies.

A definitive spy thriller and one of the masterpieces of Hitchcock's British years, The 39 Steps is one of those paradigm classics that influence filmmaking for decades afterward. [21 Sep 2007, p.C10]

Heroin may be a downer, but Trainspotting definitely takes you up…a series of roaring, provocative, outrageous highs. [26 July 1996, Friday, p.C]

It's as impressive for the near-flawless performances of its deep cast of British film and theatrical stars (including Jean Simmons as Ophelia, Eileen Herlie as Gertrude and John Gielgud as the voice of Hamlet's father's ghost) as it is for its director's surprisingly rich and baroque visual style. [04 Aug 2006, p.C8]

One of the most appealing, beautifully made and well-loved of all the classic children's animal movies. [21 Sep 2001, p.C1]

The actors who play these parts--Chishu Ryu as the father and Setsuko Hara as the daughter--are the most emblematic members of Ozu's famous stock company. Her warm beauty and his stoic rigor--and the frequent smiles both use to cover their feelings--convey oceans of meaning beneath the drama's polite, humorous, carefully etched surface, where immaculate interiors and lovely scenery reflect a world in very delicate balance. [07 Jan 2005, p.C2]

The Master is brilliantly, wholly itself for a little more than half of its 137 minutes. Then it chases its own tail a bit and settles for being merely a fascinating metaphoric father-son relationship reaching endgame. It may not all "work," but most of it's remarkable.

A prison movie of unusual richness and jarring power.

Cat People is an admirable first entry into the brainy, elegant, spooky world of Val Lewton. [09 Sep 2005, p.C4]

The greatest rock concert movie ever made -- and maybe the best rock movie, period.

It's a superb, thoughtful drama that doesn't claim to be a documentary and shouldn't be judged as such. [22 Dec 1995, p.B]

A visual and aural feast that combines elements of classic gangster melodramas, crime epics such as "The Godfather" and playful non-linear narratives such as "Amores Perros," City of God explores a deadly culture while feeling more alive than anything that's hit the big screen in years.

Both the movie and Denzel Washington are knockouts.

Blends a love of semi-trashy pop entertainment with a love of poetry, art and high moral seriousness. It's a young person's movie (Godard was 34 and Karina 24 in 1964) that retains its mysterious pull even as the film and we get older.

This remarkable movie is really one-of-a-kind. [15 Dec 1995]

Writer-director-star Takeshi Kitano's 1993 Sonatine, a brutal, brilliant crime thriller about an aging gangster at the center of a maze of double-crosses and vendettas, gives us another look at a remarkable Japanese film artist. [17 Apr 1998, p.N]

Point Blank catches the feel of the late '60s and the sunshot, edgy atmosphere of Los Angeles then (the go-go clubs, the used-car lots, the penthouses and the storm drain tunnels) like few movies since. [07 Feb 1997, p.K]

One of those rare films that communicates the exquisite joy of the moviemaking process. [7 October 1994, Friday, p.B]

A fierce, brilliant film that breaks (and then mends) your heart.

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]

Lovingly designed, impeccably stylish and heartwarming.

Hitchcock's most realistic film is also his ultimate "wrong man" suspense nightmare. [23 Jul 2010, p.C3]

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.

42nd Street is the quintessential '30s backstage song and dance movie-and one of the most influential and much-copied movie musicals ever. [09 Mar 2007, p.C6]

This magnificent 1974 sequel, the centerpiece of Coppola and writer Mario Puzo's 20th Century gangster saga, is still one of the most ambitious and brilliantly executed American films, a landmark work from one of Hollywood's top cinema eras.

The Polish thriller that made Polanski world-famous, a taut psychological drama in which a bourgeois married couple invite a hitchhiking student for a weekend of sailing. The sea becomes an arena for desire, menace and deadly games. [19 Jan 2007, p.C3]

Delicately subversive, hypnotically sardonic, full of terror, banality and wafer-thin lyricism.

The great "coming home" film of World War II. [28 Nov 2008, p.C7]

Even with its limitations, I find Silent Light spellbinding.

A powerful, joyful, raw, energetically acted bio-pic detailing the joys and pain of the on- and offstage lives of blues rockers Ike and Tina Turner. [11 Jun 1993, p.C2]

From Vicki Baum's novel, scrumptiously directed by Goulding, with a constellation of a cast that includes Greta Garbo, John and Lionel Barrymore and Joan Crawford. [28 Nov 1999, p.35]

In Top Hat's all-time showstopper, to Berlin's "Cheek to Cheek," light-footed Fred and feathery Ginger dance us right into paradise. [23 Aug 2005, p.C3]

Impure Chandler it may be, but it's pure Altman and one of his nose-thumbing '70s maverick classics. [25 May 2007, p.C5]

All but sweeps you away with its dazzling technique and shattering emotion. [27 November 1996, Tempo, p.1]

I doubt Gerwig read the 1868 Tribune classifieds, but her film is, in fact, fresh, sparkling, natural and full of soul.

Toy Story is a complete joy.

Wonderful performances by Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, and Timothy Hutton. [19 Dec 1980, p.2-10]

Stone is spectacular, and she's reason enough to see La La Land. Chazelle is a born filmmaker, and he doesn't settle for rehashing familiar bits from musicals we already love. He's too busy giving us reasons to fall for this one.

Finding Nemo and its Pixar predecessors tap into the shared gene among the kids and adults that delights in imagination-engaging, eye-tickling and wit-filled storytelling. You connect to these sea creatures as you rarely do with humans in big-screen adventures. The result: a true sunken treasure.

While Intervista will appeal mostly to the dedicated cineaste who can appreciate its many inside jokes, Fellini displays such a ravishing range of technique and assurance that even more casual moviegoers must view this film with awe. [26 Mar 1993, p.J]

Though it's a sad, somber, deeply questioning work, it's done with a light, loving spirit.

Seeing these actors, the late Boseman chief among them, relish the opportunity to try to get a daunting stage-to-screen adaptation right: That’s a privilege to behold.

One of the most curious and perversely brilliant films ever made in the American studio system. It's a shining example of qualities we don't normally see in our big theatrical pictures: vast ambition, huge resources and technical genius mated to a unique and compelling vision of life.

Loach is a super-realist, and Sweet Sixteen has the disarming feel of a documentary. It's a film that miraculously catches life on the fly, without apparent embellishment, cliche or melodrama.

Pulp Fiction isn't just funny. It's outrageously funny. [14 Oct 1994]

A commercially compromised but often brilliant updating of Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent. [27 Sep 2013, p.C6]

The Marx Brothers in one of their messiest, sloppiest, greatest Paramount comedies. [27 Feb 2015, p.C5]

A great, velvety, beautiful anachronism. It's a movie almost drunk on romance, literature and cinema, a splendid period picture that keeps rashly breaking rules and boundaries [17 Sept 1993, Friday, p.A]

Superb crime thriller. [07 Sep 1998, p.1N]

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.

An exciting World War II romantic triangle drama about a young woman (Tatyana Samoilova) caught in war's turmoil, "Cranes" was hailed by 1950s U.S. critics for its humanism. But what burns this movie into memory is its stunning visual style: the rich, mobile camerawork of Kalatozov and genius cinematographer Sergei Uresevsky. [22 Feb 2008, p.C2]

The film strongly asserts Ronstadt’s rock ’n’ roll bona fides as a trailblazing and wildly successful solo female artist in the man’s world of late ’60s and early ’70s country rock.

A beautiful film, harrowing, tough and rife with grief.

It is enraging yet nuanced, an elusive combination for any documentary.

The Sun sheds only so much literal light on its chosen subject; it's a film of shadows and silence, the calm before and after the storm. But everything you see and hear carries weight and an eerie poetic undercurrent.

Green is a rare bird in American filmmaking: a humanist who knows how to tell a story.

It's full of cinematic invention, rich verbal and visual poetry, packed with raw life and nonpareil acting. [Dirctor's Cut]

This is a superb film and one of Nicholson's great performances, tamped down but magnetic.

More than a great love story. It's both a lighthearted and deeply impassioned inspirational lesson about life. [4 April 1986]

Sold as a romance, but actually is one of the funniest pictures to come out in quite some time. [15 Jan 1988]

It's a joy. Altman does Dallas the way he did "Nashville" in Nashville or Hollywood in "The Player."

One of the most beautiful of all recent films on the problems of old age -- and on the interplay of theater and life.

What happens in Night of the Kings is a piece of traditional oration and impermanent art, significantly marked by both its temporal and improvisational qualities. It’s both a power struggle and a ritual practiced by the collective within a microcosm of society housed under the oppression of the state, and a powerful demonstration of the transporting, and liberating, power of narrative.

Maiden is a grand adventure, the likes of which we don’t always see too often anymore.

For all its cynicism, the movie floats on a darkly exhilarating brand of escapism. It’s one of the year’s highlights in any genre.

Of all the movies that try to take us into the mind and viewpoint of a child, Carol Reed's 1948 The Fallen Idol, adapted by Graham Greene from his short story, is one of the most ingenious.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful.

Paths of Glory is an antidote to false movies about the glories of war, nonsensical fantasies like John Wayne's The Green Berets or Sylvester Stallone's Rambo. [25 Feb 2005, p.C2]

A sweet, sharp coming-of-age romance, Adventureland is a little warmer, a little funnier and a lot more truthful than the last 20 or 30 of its ilk. Especially its Hollywood ilk.

Among its many excellences, Vera Drake functions superbly as a pure thriller; the last half is reminiscent in structure and detail of Hitchcock's "The Wrong Man."

Not since Robert Altman took on “Popeye” a generation ago, and lost, has a major director addressed such a well-loved, all-ages title. This time everything works, from tip to tail.

That sort of depth is rare in most movies; it's the trademark, however, of John Cassavetes.

The funniest -- and almost the saddest -- silent comedy. [20 Apr 2001, p.C1]