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

This book deserved a really good film version, and writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig (”The Edge of Seventeen,” also really good) captures Blume’s humane wit and spirit, while adding some new emotional and narrative wrinkles.

A cinematic delicacy as rare as the truffle itself.

It is that rare futuristic thriller: grim in its scenario, yet exhilarating in its technique.

Judas and the Black Messiah is my kind of dramatized Chicago history. It’s a real movie, for one thing — brash, narratively risky, full of life and sneaky wit (even if the dominant tone is one of foreboding) and brimming with terrific actors.

Broadcast News is the crispest, classiest entertainment; it has what Hollywood has been missing. [16 Dec 1987, p.8]

Revanche has an unusual rhythm: Once it leaves the grotty urban despair behind for the deceptive calm of the countryside, it relaxes and explores the character’s interior lives.

Of all the many documentaries that take you along on a movie shoot, one of my all-time favorites is this delightfully scrappy, sometimes poignant, often hilarious show.

A powerful film made with minimal means, it's a story of poor people on the fringes of society, done without sentimentality or condescension but with wicked humor.

Australian Judy Davis, one of our finest actresses, gives a brilliant comic performance as a bitter spurned woman venting her spleen on a hapless blind date. Sydney Pollack proves surprisingly effective in a brutal scene where he abuses a bimbo. Husbands and Wives dosen't break new ground in arguing that not breaking up is hard to do; it simply raises the debate with a mix of fine writing and tragic real-life parallels. [18 Sept 1992, p.C]

The results? More evocative than provocative. But evocative is not nothing.

First-time Anderson performers such as Willis, McDormand and especially Norton fold effortlessly into the melancholy end-of-summer vibe.

Scene after scene in Calle 54 just knocks you out.

Fantastic, exciting, a real cinematic/theatrical feast. [15 Oct 1993, p.I]

Sinners is all over the place yet somehow all of a piece. Its themes aren’t new, but the variations feel fresh.

It's this balance of vivid performance and directorial detachment that allows Leigh to move freely between delicate sentiment and highly caustic wit; even in his most harshly satirical moments, he never denies the humanity of his characters.

Mainly, Booksmart works because Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein are so magically right together.

More intent on engaging the heart as it explores the mysteries contained within - mysteries that, as Lawrence and his spot-on cast demonstrate, are far more compelling than simple murder.

It is an actors' showcase, without being showy, and Moreau and Tukur reveal radically different personalities with just enough in common to make things interesting.

If you haven't gotten hooked already on Michael Apted's series--collectively, one of the great documentaries in the history of the cinema--you should prepare yourself for the latest installment, 49 Up.

Fleifel’s film favors well-paced if slightly schematic prose, though the actors are more than good enough to keep you with these people every fraught minute.

The Joy Luck Club may be stylistically rickety, but Wang does a good job with the logistics of the movie, integrating multiple time periods, dialogue in two languages (English and Mandarin), two locations (San Francisco and China) and overlapping casts - several characters require two and even three actors to play them at different ages - to make a watchable whole. This is not a movie to be watched lackadaisically. Blink twice and you could lose the train of narration. [17 Sept 1993, p.C]

I've got to admit it's a stunner.

Most important, several elements -- the film's tough, new ending; a sly, fleeting dissolve of a unicorn, not in the original; and a brilliant, trompe d'oeil flicker of life in a shot of a still photograph -- bring Deckard's existential dilemma into focus. [11 Sept 1992]

In the remarkable, ferociously intelligent new film No Man's Land, Bosnian writer-director Danis Tanovic gives us a movie portrait of the Bosnian War, a conflict that has devastated his country, friends and neighbors -- and found in it both shocking humor and searing, relentless tragedy.

Features colorful song-and-dance numbers that look and sound best in surround sound and on a huge screen.

There's an incongruous but ravishing beauty in Far From Heaven, and in its three excellent central performances, that counteracts the seeming kitschiness of the story.

It sounds sentimental, icky, even, but Heart of a Dog sparkles with its creator's wisdom and droll philosophical insight.

Much of the action takes place in the couple's haphazard apartment, but the movie really does feel like a movie, with Farhadi's camera unobtrusively energizing the close-quarters exchanges, both verbal and non-verbal. The acting is splendid.

This film would be a winner any time of the year. It`s a classic piece of moviemaking that I plan on seeing again very soon.

This edgy but highly polished movie established the modern myth of journalists-as-heroes: crusaders in the service of the Constitution. [14 Nov 2008, p.C7]

Both a great concert movie and an amazing documentary of mid-'60s cutting-edge pop culture, this cinema verite record of Bob Dylan's pre-electric, pre-Band 1965 British tour was such a candid and unsparing look at stardom's inner sanctums and Dylan's caustic personality, audiences were shocked. [29 Oct 1999, p.M]

Equally enchanting and disturbing in its unique blend of magical and social realism, “Is God Is” is a highly stylish and daring announcement of a new cinematic talent in Harris, who has been allowed to fully express her vision, uncompromising and entirely hers.

A masterpiece that can still leave you dizzy with wonder. As much as any movie ever made, this visionary science-fiction tale of space travel and first contact with extraterrestrial life is a spellbinding experience.

While we all, as moviegoers, experience franchise and sequel fatigue on our own unpredictable timetables, this film brightens the summer without simply going through the motions.

Deeply personal, wryly funny and fantastically cinematic.

Haneke’s vision is gripping. The craftsmanship, classically shaped narrative and icy visual beauty cannot be denied.

One of the year`s boldest, most successful films, a film full of ideas that challenges us to examine how we conduct our lives, while at the same time dazzling us with extraordinary visuals.

Even if you think you've sampled all Jane Austen has to offer on screen, you still may jump at the chance to see Pride and Prejudice. [29 Aug 1996, p.7A]

Like the modest but wholly winning precursor to “Hamilton” it is, In the Heights works as an essentially apolitical embrace of the American possibility and the American roadblocks to that possibility, in a canny variety of musical styles, from hip hop to salsa

This is not an inspirational drama about finding yourself; it's a Hitchcockian comedy about adultery, murder and losing a corpse.

Writer-director Robert Eggers' "New England folk tale" film isn't likely to go bonkers in the popular culture the way "Blair Witch" did. But it's an infinitely richer, more meticulous, more elegant and more unnerving horror film — the best since "The Babadook," and very likely a 21st century classic in its hardy yet malleable genre.

For about an hour Looper really cooks. Its second half is more of a medium boil, and less fun. But watching it, I realized how few commercial entertainments hold up straight through to the end-point.

A beautifully spun and morally searching tale of interlocking compromises.

Toward the end, the film resorts to placing a young girl in jeopardy in a pathetic attempt to pander to who knows what audience. Some people have praised the technical excellence of Aliens. Well, the Eiffel Tower is technically impressive, but I wouldn`t want to watch it fall apart on people for two hours.

Feels incredibly fresh and modern in its singular style and tone.

The movie has a large theme, even if it's unspoken. Old Joy is about a particular friendship, but it's also about how American society changed in the '90s and the new century.

It works from a specific place and lets audiences relate to that place, and the people in it, like trusted intimates.

The story lurches forward in spasms. We’re fully in the head space of a messed-up, hollowed-out psyche. Backed by Jonny Greenwood’s sinister wash of a musical score, You Were Never Really Here feels like a waking nightmare.

Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney out West at a boys school/dude ranch. Their best movie musical, adapted from the Ginger Rogers-Ethel Merman stage show, with that great George and Ira Gershwin score. [13 Apr 2007, p.C6]

David Lowery's film A Ghost Story is best seen a second time, though obeying the customary rules of time and cinema, you'll have the mysterious pleasure of seeing it a first time to get there.

Ballast strikes me as one of the few American pictures of 2008 to say what it wants to say, visually and narratively, about a specific situation and part of the country, in a way that transcends regional specifics.

You always get more than one genre with this filmmaker. Volver draws upon all sorts of influences -- a little Hitchcock, a little Douglas Sirk, a little telenovela -- but from those sources Almodovar and his collaborators, both on screen and behind the camera, make an improbably organic whole.

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.

It is potentially the most culturally relevant film of the fall, masterfully made and one heck of an emotional roller coaster. From moment to moment Boys State veers from exciting to troubling to amusing, and it's never anything less than utterly riveting.

An unusual subject for Ozu, white-collar adultery, handled with his customary deep observation. [28 Jan 2005, p.C2]

Homicide isn't easy to take, but its vision is chillingly persuasive. [18 Oct 1991, p.B]

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

Thompson clearly loves this story, and, even though, she's playing the less spontaneous of the older Dashwood sisters, responsible Elinor, you can feel her spirit rising out to embrace the part. It makes her beautiful to watch. [13 December 1995]

It's one of the year's most pleasurable American movies.

I’m glad Chazelle’s film offers some fresh points of view on its subject; it’s proof he’ll be able to keep his filmmaking wits about him, no matter what genre he’s exploring. He has made his Apollo 11 movie. And it’s a good one.

A Chekhovian tale of major artistic power.

An Oscar winner for best foreign-language film, its ideas were later perfected in the masterly "Playtime." [27 Aug 2004, p.C3]

Places come; places go. Every human being deals with loss differently. “Eephus” acknowledges that, but it’s a sweet, sidewinding paradox of a sports movie: sentimental in a quietly unsentimental and offhandedly comic fashion.

There’s something of the harlequin in Leigh’s conception of this bright, manic young woman.

The new Lassie is faithful to Knight's story, capturing its sweep, Dickensian social contrasts and high emotion. All that is enhanced by a splendid cast.

Alternately sweet and mean, sophisticated and vulgar, witty and base, dazzling and ugly, charming and charmless.

Bette Davis gave one of her best and nastiest performances in Wyler's stylishly sordid 1940 romantic murder-mystery from W. Somerset Maugham's story. [02 May 2008, p.C5]

An uplifting, funny and engaging star-studded affair.

Announces the arrival of an undeniable talent (Meshkini) that has come of age.

An instant classic and a dramatic beauty, a film that gets us to the core of Greene's chilly, dark and romantic view of the post-war world.

Several aspects of Weiner, from Jeff Beal's sardonic music (interpolating, among other cues, the theme from "S.W.A.T.") to the shock-cut editing strategies, nudge the movie toward entertaining if facile mockery mixed with just enough empathy to prevent curdling. It's pretty irresistible viewing, though, which is a pretty sad thing to concede.

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]

One of the year's finest documentaries, a remarkable example of the conjunction of a burningly topical and newsworthy subject with a brilliant filmmaker.

Mystic River is classic Eastwood, classic noir. If there is still some doubt about whether this one-time macho star is actually a world-class moviemaker, Mystic River should end the argument for good. One of the best American movies of the year, crisply well-crafted and beautifully acted.

It's a well written, well staged and well acted piece, though there is something musty in its aesthetic - that of the huge, bellowing method performance, plastered over a flimsy, one-set world. [02 Oct 1992, p.A]

Much will be resolved by the final chapter of the trilogy, to be directed by Abrams. As much as I enjoy his brand of canny populism, I prefer Rian Johnson’s wilder, generous, far-flung imagination.

A thoroughly engaging version of country singer Loretta Lynn's autobiography. Sissy Spacek excels as Lynn and is assisted by two superior performances. Certain to be one of the year's best films.

The film's mood and style are pitched somewhere between '60s American indie and French New Wave and, as you watch these people, they seem painfully, amusingly on-target. They may irritate you a little, but that's the right response.

Magnificently sensuous and macabre.

Exquisitely captures the irony and hopefulness of the era.

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

A weird, funny, melancholy tribute to movies and movie-going, an opus for film geeks that rang my personal bell. A bizarre minimalist epic that will either transport or infuriate, it's defiantly, exquisitely eccentric.

Weirdly touching documentary.

Through technical virtuosity at every artistic level -- including the brilliant acting debut of playwright Jason Miller as the doubt-filed priest who assists Von Sydow in the exorcism -- The Exorcist becomes more than a shocking movie: a film with a strong, positive force.

This is a picture that may sound sappy but probably will enrapture audiences lucky enough to catch it. [19 May 1995, p.L]

A movie that celebrates and mourns heroism and friendship, while reminding us how seldom we truly see either on our big screens.

There's only one proper Hollywood ending to this story. Next year, Charlie and the surreal "Donald" Kaufman (listed as co-writers in the playful credits) should win twin Oscars for best adapted screenplay. They've earned it -- really.

Baby Doll failed because it was stigmatized as dirty. Watching it now, it seems fresh and witty, knowing but not lewd. [26 May 2006, p.C1]

It's a wonderful movie and a credit to all of Ireland and all of its people and pubs. The movie deserves a supreme compliment: It's so good it makes you want to go out at once and start a family of your own. [17 Dec 1993, p.B]

A picture that represents so much of what I want and rarely get from a movie -- a couple of hours filled with characters who are as exciting as the people I know in real life. [11 Dec 1981]

One of the supreme romantic musicals. To see Kelly hoofing atop Oscar Levant's piano, suavely partnering Leslie Caron along the banks of the River Seine and exulting in her love in the final sequence is to behold the film musical near its apex. [2 Oct 1992, p.L]

For me, it's a sign that a filmmaker is on to something if you love hanging out with the characters as they eat and drink and talk and reveal little bits of themselves through everyday action.

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

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

It makes the dream of flight itself a vehicle for bittersweet enchantment.

I’m flummoxed as to why the movie left me feeling up in the air, as opposed to over the moon. Partly, I think, it’s a matter of how Anderson’s sense of humor rubs up against that of the book’s author, Roald Dahl.

At times, Limbo can feel confining in ways that exceed the confining circumstances of its characters. But the story of Omar deepens and amplifies the film’s second half, maintaining its droll amusements but playing the circumstances for just enough bittersweet honesty to make it stick.