Blast is as bleak as noir gets, packed with black-and-white images of '60s New York City that recall Jean-Pierre Melville's French thrillers, and a street-tough taste that suggests Cassavetes and points ahead to Scorsese. [29 Oct 2004, p.C2]

It's a low-budget romance-thriller that changed the face of cinema. [14 May 2000, p.8]

This movie offers four of the best -- and best-looking -- Hollywood stars cavorting together in material so slight and inconsequential it often seems ready to float away like a toy balloon. [16 Oct 1997, p.1]

Otto Preminger's adaptation of Leon Uris' best seller about the founding of the state of Israel occasionally threatens to collapse under its own weight, but a strong cast, including Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, Ralph Richardson, Lee J. Cobb and an Oscar-nominated Sal Mineo, helps maintain focus. [08 Nov 2008, p.C10]

A British horror classic, filled with enough creepy imagery to keep "normal" children awake at night, and parents looking over their shoulders at the "little monsters" plotting away in the room down the hall. [29 Nov 2004, p.C4]

Even when informed by Douglas' characteristic intensity, Spartacus has no real identity apart from "the common man"; at his side, the beautiful Jean Simmons is never anything more than Spartacus' chick - the proof that he's a manly man, as opposed to those mincing Roman aristocrats. Whatever Trumbo's progressive leanings, he was not past equating homosexuality with unspeakable evil and perversion.

Kurosawa's 1958 classic samurai comedy adventure; George Lucas used it as the model for Star Wars, in which Mifune and the two squabbling farmers are transformed into Han Solo, C-3PO and R2-D2. [03 Mar 2006, p.C5]

Frank Sinatra and his Clan knock over Vegas. [07 Dec 2001, p.C1]

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]

Featured a strong supporting cast that included another Oscar nominee, Thelma Ritter, as a wisecracking maid, and Tony Randall as Day's fussbudget suitor. [09 Sep 2011, p.C6]

Perhaps Bergman's most typical variation on one of his major themes: the clash between raffish theatrical artists and sober rulers. [10 Dec 2005, p.C4]

Director Otto Preminger excelled at intellectual thrillers and he's at his peak here. [07 Feb 2007, p.C12]

The movie, beautifully written, photographed and acted, remains Bergman's most characteristic work, alternating between terror and charm, sentiment and humor. It has one of the loveliest last scenes in any Bergman film. [10 Dec 2004, p.C5]

Bravo shines with humor and character. [28 Jul 2006, p.C10]

Adapted from the Goodrich-Hackett play, it just misses the spiritual and emotional majesty it reaches for.

A film that can tear you apart emotionally; it's both one of the great movie soap operas and a powerful indictment of racism. Sirk's cool, elegant style--smooth as silk on top, jagged and hot with feeling below--has rarely been joined to a more perfect subject. [05 May 2006, p.C9]

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

Wyler's return to the western form (where he specialized in the silent era) is a vast range-war saga full of majestic vistas and full-blooded characters brawling and firing away. [07 Jan 2011, p.C5]

Blithely sophisticated, would-be French naughtiness, sleek as a bolt of silk. [08 Jan 2004, p.N1]

From the very first images of Saul Bass' credit sequence, the whorls and patterns revolving in darkness, the huge eye bathed in red, the movie lets us feel the heartbeat and divided soul of its hero. And its creator. It is a movie about desire, darkness and the pull toward destruction. Most of all, it is about impossible love and overwhelming fear--conveyed with consummate control and art. Watching it, we feel the fear, suffer the desire. [Restored version; 18 Oct 1996, p.1]

A colorful version of Bram Stoker's deathless tale of the bloodsucking count has Christopher Lee as a suave Dracula and Peter Cushing as his nemesis Von Helsing. [02 Oct 1998, p.J]

The courtroom scenes are terrific, with brittle dialogue expertly delivered. And Wilder milks Christie's surprise denouement for all it's worth. [21 Nov 1986, p.92]

Still seems close to the pinnacle of film noir. [Director's Cut]

Egypt's foremost filmmaker Chahine directs and stars in the movie most beloved by Egyptian audiences: a vibrant, lower-depths saga of the working community at a Cairo train station: concessionaires, porters and baggage-handlers, beset by bosses and torn by inner conflicts. [09 Jul 1999, p.L]

Not only is the wide screen black-and-white "Angels" Sirk's best movie -- dramatically richer than his more popular '50s romantic melodramas, but just as visually beautiful -- it is the only film from a Faulkner story that the novelist himself liked and praised. [05 Jun 1997, p.8]

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]

Even when it's stiff and staid in moviemaking terms, Peyton Place has every kind of performance working for it, or against it. Over here, there's Turner's gliding charisma; over there, you get the powerful skill of Oscar nominees Varsi and Hope Lange. Through it all, Lloyd Nolan anchors the frothy seas as the sensible, seen-it-all town doctor, the one who knows all and tells some, depending on the needs of the story. [31 Mar 2020, p.C1]

The all-time great Stoller-Lieber title number, performed by The King in jailbird regalia, is just one highlight of this '50s rock-the-house classic. [04 Sep 1998, p.H]