It's kind of fun, and Australians apparently love it, buying enough tickets to make it their country's all-time champ at the box office. But anybody much older than Star Wars - the movie that definitively replaced horses and six-shooters with rockets and ray guns - has seen it all a million times before. [03 Feb 1983, p.18]

Directed by Soviet filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky with the same unearthly visual style, and the same mingled concern with technology and psychology, that he showed in his towering ''Solaris'' a few years ago.

Sharp jokes and clever sight gags rub elbows with cheap humor and low slapstick in this comedy about a dissolute movie star preparing to appear on a 1950s TV show. [16 Dec 1982, p.19]

It's bold, and big, and even beautiful at times. That's more than most recent movies can claim. [26 Aug 1982, p.19]

The Secret of NIMH is exciting, engaging, and often magnificent to look at. Add it up, and you have what is probably the best cartoon since the bygone heyday of the Walt Disney studio.

Dazzling but lightweight epic about a young scientist kidnapped into a computer, where he battles an evil master control program that runs the place like an electronic fascist. Has some tantalizing moments, as when computer-generated characters debate the religious question of whether users really exist. In the end, though, it's squarely in the old Walt Disney tradition of anthropomorphizing everything in sight, only this time it's circuits (instead of cuddly animals) that look and talk like people.

As before, the movie is more impressive for its finely detailed vision of Los Angeles as a futuristic slum than for its story, acting, or message. It's all downhill after the first few eye-dazzling minutes. [2 Oct 1992]

Annie turns out to be a reasonably entertaining movie.

Doesn't make it a masterpiece, but it's fun. [2002 re-release]

For a major sci-fi release in the Star Wars era, it's surprisingly slow and even maudlin.

The buildup is slow and deliberate, creating a vivid sense of love and warmth within the family who share the harrowing adventure. The climaxes are horrific, with effects recalling ''Raiders of the Lost Ark,'' but in a less exotic setting.

Burden of Dreams is most fascinating, however, when it zeroes in on Herzog himself. [28 Oct 1982, p.18]

It's an imperfect movie, but a tantalizing and rewarding one.

Wrong Is Right tries to be an intellectual epic comedy thriller -- a bold mix, to say the least. But its force is muffled by its bulk. Despite its good intentions, it's a dud. [20 May 1982, p.19]

Considered as a whole, The Chosen is indeed a maverick movie, depicting its characters and their milieu with restraint and respect. Yet it doesn't measure up to the fine Chaim Potok novel it takes its story from.

It's a rousing movie within its limitations. [13 May 1982, p.18]

Vigorous but rather scattered account of two gallant young runners in the 1924 Olympics, based on the real-life experiences of Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell.

Deathtrap falls short of the classic potential it would obviously like to have. Still, it's a jaunty entertainment, by and large.

This is Hollywood's most mature treatment of the '50s-nostalgia theme so far, and the most accurate.

Shoot the Moon doesn't reach the eccentric emotional heights of John Cassavetes's A Woman Under the Influence, perhaps the best family drama ever made. But flaws and all, it towers over most of the kiddie movies that have dominated the cinema scene for too long. It will be taken very seriously for a very long time. [28 Jan 1982, p.18]

All the old cliches, including the offensive ones, are trotted out in this revisionist yet trite Australian western about a legendary bad guy and his young sidekick.

The depression drama is undermined by lumpy directing and by a flat performance from Steve Martin, who never approaches the dramatic eloquence he obviously has in mind. [24 Dec 1981, p.22]

Though it periodically loses its way among cardboard characters and stereotyped scenes, it deserves hefty credit for attempting more than the average movie dreams of accomplishing. [13 Aug 1981, p.18]

The impressive presences of Audrey Hepburn and Ben Gazzara help just a little. Otherwise, it's a hollow and very minor affair. [31 Dec 1981, p.23]

There's nothing wrong with it, exactly. But there's nothing to recommend it, either, except its generally good nature, which gets rathers strained during an overlong climax full of speeding cars and exploding motorboats. [10 Sep 1981, p.19]

For all its flaws, this is as personal a movie as we've seen all year from a director in the commercial mainstream. I respect it, and I'll be thinking about it for a long time. [23 April 1981, p.19]

At a time when most movies try far too little, I don't like berating Excalibur for taking on too much. It's just that Mr. Boorman never quite achieves what he attempts. [23 April 1981, p.19]

Surprisingly, this is the work of director Martin Ritt and Sally Field, the star whose Norma Rae combined sharp drama with keen social awareness. Their new film is the junky underside of that good movie. [26 Mar 1981, p.19]

Eyewitness provides 90 minutes of the best entertainment I've seen all year. Unfortunately, the movie is almost two hours long. That leaves about 30 minutes of material we'd all be better off without. [12 Mar 1981, p.18]

It never exploits its characters or demands their way of living. For all the hidden misery it uncovers, it remains compassionate and humane from first scene to last.

Reissued with the addition of 50 minutes trimmed from the original 1980 cut, Fuller's only A-budget movie is still among the lesser works of this frequently brilliant filmmaker.

Used Cars is full of used characters, used ideas, and used jokes, many of which are in astonishingly bad taste.

Technical virtuosity and entertainment ingenuity.

What a silly movie this is. [11 Apr 1980, p.19]

The performances are stronger than the movie itself. Jodie Foster shows continued growth as an actress, and her girlfriends are skillfully portrayed. [21 Mar 1980, p.15]

Like O'Connor's other novel, The Violent Bear It Away, and some of her best short stories, Wise blood has a fierce momentum and a savage wit that stand alone in contemporary literature. The movie makes a good try at capturing these elusive elements. But ultimately it loses its balance, and many viewers may wonder whether its rewards are worth all its perversities. [07 Mar 1980, p.19]

Less pretentious and more gripping than the overrated sequel, ''The Road Warrior,'' but viciously violent and awfully shallow.

With its good intentions and likable demeanor, The Electric Horseman is an engaging but minor movie. It makes another amiable and thoughtful vehicle for two of our most charismatic stars, while never quite entering the world of action and ideas that hover just beyond the horsey humor and tumbling tumbleweeds of the story.

Even when its emotions run a bit out of control, Kramer vs. Kramer is a strong and positive film. Its performances are first-rate, from Hoffman and streep down to Howard Duff (as a divorce lawyer) and a terrifically talented lad named Justin Henry, who visibly matures in his portrayal of Billy, the contested kid.

It is a splendidly appropriate project for Otto Preminger, even though he hasn't succeeded at making the most of it.

As dull as it is to watch, "Star Trek" at least possesses a measure of intellectual pizzazz: not enough to provoke thought and discussion, exactly, but more than many "Star Wars" imitators have bothered to give us. [4 Jan. 1980, p.15]

The Great Santini deserves praise for its willingness to look long, hard, and seriously at a realistic family situation -- a willingness too rarely found at a time when most films are obsessed with futile fantasies. [07 Aug 1980, p.19]

My Brilliant Career is a calm and sunny movie, carrying a family-film G rating despite its essentially grown-up theme. As a bonus it contains a delicious performance by Australian actress Judy Davis -- a clear-eyed beauty whose character long-sufferingly endures countless insults about her "looks" because of a turn-of-the-century Australian prejudice against freckles! [4 June 1980, p.18]

The overall effect is about the same -- slow start, then escalating suspense and violence. Today's shock-movie fans will enjoy shrieking at it, and others should skip it. In space, no one can hear you ask for your money back.

Without question, the bold Jeanne Dielman deserves to be seen by those curious about new directions in cinema or about the vigorous Belgian film scene of which Akerman is an important member. But it's a long shot that so challenging and demanding a work will have much widespread appeal. [31 Mar 1983, p.17]

Energetic, fun, lively. [19 Jun 1998, p.B2]

It's never been topped.

Still packs an entertaining punch with its blend of old-movie formulas, new-age philosophies, and video-game visuals. A small amount of new material, added for the 20th-anniversary reissue, is fun to look for but doesn't make much difference to the story or its impact. [Special Edition]

Stands with the greatest science-fiction movies ever made.

One of the most entertaining films ever made by the legendary Maysles brothers and their gifted associates. [17 Apr 1998, p.B2]

In both its original 1973 version and its expanded 2000 edition, this hugely popular horror yarn is less a cleverly spun story than a disjointed collection of shockeroos, surrounding a few ghoulishly effective moments with overcooked plot twists and in-your-face vulgarity. [2000 re-release]

Superbly acted, stunningly photographed, and edited with a rhythmic pungency that makes it irresistibly watchable even when the plot turns dark and scary.

A quintessential New York director made this quintessential New York movie in 1973, with Pacino at his best.

Set in an exotic world inhabited by humanoids of wildly different sizes, the fantasy reflects the interest of director Laloux and designer Roland Topor in surrealistic art. [24 Dec 1999, p.B6]

It probes the attitudes of French men and women toward love, sex, and promiscuity through the story of a self-centered intellectual who strays from his middle-class girlfriend to pursue a nurse with unconventional ideas about relationships. Jean-Pierre Leaud gives one of the most memorable performances in his remarkable career. [19 Dec 1997, p.13]

Movies don't come more original, inventive, or outlandishly entertaining.

Superb performances by Setsuko Hara and the great Chishu Ryu also contribute to the film's impact, which is at once deeply moving and profoundly thoughtful about moral and spiritual issues. [10 Nov 1994, p.12]

The topic is well-suited to the Maysles brothers, who helped pioneer reality-centered "direct cinema" techniques.

One of the great Bertolucci's most acclaimed films...Trintignant gives a legendary performance.

It captures their magic with a freewheeling spontaneity that became a model for later pop-music movies.

Abrasive at times, delving into bewildering behaviors and moral complexities that the characters sadly fail to understand. What's undeniable is the propulsive honesty and unstoppable energy of their black-and-white images and the foreshadowing they provide of later Cassavetes movies. [14 Mar 1996]

Dustin Hoffman gives the inspired performance that launched his movie career, and director Mike Nichols shows a gift for social satire that has never glistened quite so brightly since. [Review of re-release]

It is quite likely the greatest Shakespearean film ever and, except for Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons, it’s also Welles’s greatest film – which is saying something.

Masterly by any measure.

Exhilarating doses of style, imagination, and sheer energy.

This riveting drama takes courageous stands against the senselessness of war and the brutality of capital punishment, leading to one of the most ironic climaxes in British cinema. [17 Apr 1997, p.12]

Masina gives one of her most expressive performances.

Wit, joy, imagination, and sensational mid-'60s music.

Kubrick's great 1964 tragicomedy about superpowers on the nuclear brink continues to fascinate new generations of moviegoers, as its frequent reissues attest. A genuine classic.

Mastroianni gives what might be the greatest performance of his legendary career, making an ideal focus of attention for Fellini's cinematic pyrotechnics. [09 Apr 1999, p.14]

A plan for a perfect murder goes wildly wrong in this 1958 melodrama by one of France's great filmmakers.

A profound film by a legendary director in the greatest period of his career.

Godard brought to the screen the jagged, intuitive temperament of youth in a way that nobody else had ever done before.

This thriller was overpraised in the '60s and it still looks hokey. The acting ranges from wooden to petrified: Day and Rex Harrison are at their least convincing, and John Gavin sounds like his voice was dubbed by someone barely more British than himself. [29 Jul 1987, p.19]

Based on William Faulkner's novel "Pylon," this 1958 melodrama gains much of its dark power from Douglas Sirk's visually rich directing, which transforms basically sordid material into a moral tale of love, loss, and redemption. [27 Jun 1996, p.14]

The mid-'50s version is slow going most of the way, but there's no beating Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in the charm department, and director Leo McCarey comes up with some amusing moments that are more diverting than anything in Beatty's updated edition. [13 Oct 1994, p.10]

The legendary Mifune leads a superb cast, and Kurosawa's kinetic camera keeps the adventure sizzling with energy and wit from start to finish.

Broadway showman Mike Todd created this extravaganza, which launched the venerable movie tradition of the celebrity cameo. The color holds up well, although the leisurely pace may be an adjustment in today's world of fast-paced editing. [14 May 2004, p.14]

This masterpiece of 1952 is one of the gentlest, subtlest tales from one of Japan's all-time-great filmmakers, combining the sweep of a novel with the intimacy of an elegy. [10 Jan 2003]

This is the only film Laughton ever directed, and he packed it with a mixture of eerie chills, ingenious suspense, and absurdist humor. It's a genuine classic.

In the hands of a lesser talent, this might have become a self-conscious stunt, but in Hitchcock's it has the tightly wound perfection of a flawless sonnet or sonata.

Brando made one of his most indelible impressions in this relentlessly dramatic, ever-controversial tale of loyalty and betrayal in the world of working-class unions.

Montgomery Clift is at his very best as Pvt. Robert E. Lee Prewitt, a career soldier stationed in Honolulu just prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, in this 1953 adaptation of James Jones's classic novel, directed by Fred Zinnemann with the utmost grace. [3 March 2006, p.12]

Cary Grant is irresistible as Dudley the angel, David Niven brings offbeat humor to the clergyman, and Loretta Young is refreshingly low-key as the title character. The picture is more witty than laugh-out-loud funny, but director Henry Koster serves up some fetching scenes, and there are snappy second-string performances from old pros like Monty Woolley, Elsa Lanchester, and James Gleason. [03 Jan 1997, p.15]

Based on a popular book by Betty MacDonald, the story is silly at best, woefully predictable at worst. MacMurray and Colbert are in excellent form, though, and Louise Albritton heads a colorful cast of supporting players. [14 Oct 1987, p.21]

The plot isn't scary, but the low level of filmmaking will have you shivering in your seat. [13 Jul 1988, p.19]

They don't make 'em like this anymore! [13 Nov 1998, p.B2]

In all, Wyler's version is a fine example of classical Hollywood filmmaking. But if you want the full experience of this dark and stormy tale, spend a few evenings curled up with Bronte's novel. Nobody has improved on it yet. [19 May 1989, p.10]

This great masterpiece of German film is evocative and inventive from its first shot to its last.