Both sides of the story -- the larger context and the intense and intimate drama -- are painted with an absolutely unswerving sense of truth. And, as we watch this movie, full of violence, injustice and compassion, there is barely a moment that seems calculated or contrived.

Michael Clayton is a here’s-how-it-happened drama, cleverly but not over-elaborately structured.

Downfall, whatever its shortcomings, bears strong witness to great evil. That is its triumph as a film.

Even with some padding, it’s a whodunit canny enough to take the human stakes inside the artifice seriously. And that allows a fine ensemble of side-eye champs the leeway to make Knives Out funny, too.

The Spectacular Now is rare: a coming-of-age movie featuring a teenage couple about whom you actually give a rip.

La Cava was famous for improvising his scenes; My Man Godfrey is the most brilliant, unbuttoned example. It's a champagne farce, sparkling and bubbling from the depths of the Depression. [08 Jun 2007, p.C9]

Not everything here is perfect; the musical score, by Norwegian composer John Erik Kaada, favors ambient sonic wanderings that smooth over the conflicts on screen. But by the end, you feel as though you’ve truly gotten to know a full range of Kabul residents through their daily routines, joys, recreational diversions (kite-flying, slingshots, the international language of soccer) and bone-deep skepticism about the future.

This is one of the real finds of 2008.

An invaluable document, both for its hard questions and for the sickeningly unflinching interviews that provide the answers.

The Mirror may not be the easiest place to start your Tarkovsky education, but its sublime images (including a memorable shot of a burning barn in the rain), are sure to whet your appetite for more. [26 May 2000, p.M]

It’s one of the essential titles of the year so far, if only for its sheer kinetic assurance.

The movie, a formidable technical and design achievement, has everything going for it except a sense of Jobs' inner life.

It all flows from the shum. The man's musical and political influence was no illusion.

This film--one of the best and most memorable documentaries of the year so far--brings that truth-teller to us once again.

So well cast and well captured is Touching the Void that it suspends disbelief, making us feel as if we're actually watching Simpson's own icy version of Dante's "Inferno."

Does Kaurismaki believe in his own fairy tale? The movie, a humble delight, suggests the answer is yes.

This movie’s religion, if it has one, is the Church of Performance, and Giamatti, Sessa, Randolph and company make it worth attending.

The movie’s a little sketchy and underwritten, and it feels sometimes as if scenes have been pared away or cut altogether to concentrate on Ahmed. But Ahmed really is terrific. Director Marder has a knack for both observing and igniting human behavior, through character. And supervising sound editor Nicolas Baker’s work astounds, period.

Hitchcock's first thriller and the film that established him: A moody silent melodrama based on Marie Belloc Lowndes' tale of a mysterious lodger in fear-crazed London, who may be a modern Jack the Ripper. [04 Jan 2002, p.C1]

The musical score by Emile Mosseri of the band The Dig, is very fine stuff, supple and surprising in its blend of classical, jazz and pop strains. It adds to the otherworldly quality established and sustained so well by Talbot, and by the actors.

Its social impact is part of what makes this movie memorable. But as with almost any exceptional, truthful war picture, Days of Glory moves us because we know the soldiers -- because we share their fear, triumph and pain.

It's all very mesmerizing, for them and us.

What’s frustrating about this worthwhile movie is pretty simple: All Anderson needed to do, really, was to let more of the characters, dog and human, female and male, have a say in how the story gets told.

A finely written, superbly acted offbeat thriller.

The Russian film The Return is a stunning contemporary fable about a divided family in the wilderness - a simple, riveting film that almost achieves greatness.

It's a lot. But if you're at all inclined, it's just right.

They're lifelike, I suppose, in that you believe and become invested in what happens to everyone. But they're poetic, too, in that Reichardt and her first-rate ensemble find intersections of the mundane and the mysterious all around this broad, blustery landscape.

It's an open, closely observed and nicely detailed film that attains an authenticity beyond the standard social worker formulas. [5 June 1987, p.B]