An uplifting, funny and engaging star-studded affair.

Remarkable documentary filmmaking, unflinching and full of unlikely grace.

It is an almost startlingly intimate film, following this strange relationship between these two, as they go through the challenges of life.

The funniest American comedy of the summer.

Highly inventive, full of perverse touches and clever flourishes. [26 Nov 1999, p.A]

Vast, riveting, madly audacious movie biography.

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

In a time when American TV is full of stories of missing loved ones, Abduction keenly explores the reactions of an altogether different society and also examines the universal, excruciating pain suffered by such victims and their families everywhere.

An incredibly silly film of great humor, brilliant design and epic insanity.

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."

The Artist may not be great art, but it's pearly entertainment.

It's an old lesson, but one well told with fresh faces in Mask.

Blessed with one of the strongest casts of any American movie this year, this bravura film, with its radical structure, is full of risk and reward.

The foulest holiday movie I've ever seen -- and the funniest.

Ultimately, p.s. confirms Kidd's talent without expanding it or achieving the comic/dramatic heights of "Roger Dodger."

One of the best films ever about that game, one of the most exciting, instructive and sheerly entertaining of all chess films.

It makes you sweat, laugh, squirm and self explore like few films -- fictional or documentary -- can.

As an actor (not onscreen here), Kravitz is so effortless, you rarely detect any overt planning or determination in her performances. Her movie’s a different case: a precise visual telling of a tale heading somewhere awful, but also cathartic.

Daring and beautifully made, Zhang Yang's Quitting plays like a Chinese "Rebel Without a Cause."

As pure craftsmanship, No Country for Old Men is as good as we’ve ever gotten from Joel and Ethan Coen. Only “Fargo” is more satisfying (it’s also a comedy, which this one isn’t).

Shine a Light is one of those lions-in-winter affairs, and Jagger, who has a body fat count of negative 67, can still dance like a maniacal popinjay, and Richards still looks like a satyr who has stayed up all night every night of his adult life.

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.

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 an all-Latino film--a rarity and a pleasure--but what's most curious and refreshing is that Cordero allows the Latinos to naturally embrace their nationalities, accents and cultural peculiarities.

Panahi's simplicity accentuates the movie's power: its sense of life caught unobserved.

Revives the art of smart, scathing movie conversation as it skewers Manhattan's singles scene while providing a goodly number of laughs. Like its subject, the movie may have its prickly moments, but it's awfully fun to watch.