One of the great American films of the past decade, and the crowning masterpiece of Lumet's long career.

Maier is a great artist who discounted adulation entirely. Her life was a masquerade; her genius, quite literally, was unexposed.

The chief reason for its legendary reputation is the brilliant match between its timeless historical subject - the trial that required Joan to defend her faith before skeptical representatives of church and state - and Dreyer's decision to film it primarily in relentless close-ups, using the sharply etched faces of his performers to suggest the invisible spiritual struggles going on beneath the drama's human dimensions.

There's something both simple and sweet about Bolt, yet epic, that's entirely surprising.

Hou's sensitivity plus Ozu's inspiration equals sublimity of sight and sound.

Superbly acted, cleverly written, sensitively directed.

It combines a fresh and exciting style with stunning performances and that rarity in current film, a deeply humanistic story.

A marvel.

Toy Story 3, has more emotional power than either of its predecessors. Come to think of it, it also has more emotional power than most of the live-action movies out there.

Beneath its surface of chronic suffering and hospital details, Chereau's best drama etches a humane, sensitive, and richly moving portrait of fraternal love struggling to mitigate human frailty.

The movie is remarkably touching and engrossing, with Kline's spot-on acting and realistically second-rate singing balancing Judd's one-note performance as his wife.

Along with its historical value, The Weather Underground is also a terrific movie, energetic, and articulate. It's the don't-miss documentary of the season.

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

Not a masterpiece, but definitely one of the year's most entertaining movies.

The expanded "Redux" is even more resonant - partly because of its added material, and partly because the passage of time has increased the film's value as a key cultural document of the Vietnam War era and its aftermath. It's a movie not to be missed.

Take a chance on Gerry. It's only a movie, and you'll get out alive no matter what happens on the screen. You might even find you've had a rare adventure.

Marvelously enjoyable.

Worth a dozen "Blair Witch Projects," with much more harrowing psychology and pithy dialogue. It's a bone-chilling plunge into no-holds-barred storytelling.

The best is "Equilibrium" by Soderbergh, about a man being analyzed by a distracted shrink.

Not a great movie, but a valuable and revealing document.

Everyone raves about this 1957 film -- and everyone's right.

Timely, pointed messages about oppression and opportunity come poignantly through in strongly dramatic terms.

It's inexplicable that Wong's early masterpiece has been virtually absent from American screens since he completed it in 1991.

Altogether remarkable, a near-masterpiece.

Clooney and Payne are coconspirators, too. They know that the story they are telling is too emotionally complicated to muck up with a lot of preening and artifice. They head right into the sad and crazymaking humor of the situation. This is a modest marvel of a movie.

If it weren't so smartly filmed and acted, this might add up to an over-the-top mess. But watch how inventively Mr. Antal keeps the action moving and you'll see why his picture has won a passel of prizes.

The movie is a portrait, not a polemic -- but I can't imagine an attentive viewer leaving Love & Diane without increased understanding and concern with regard to inner-city life.

Photographic Memory is about the permanence and impermanence of what we choose to preserve: on film and in our heads (which is often the same thing). I would like to think that one day Adrian might look at this documentary and see it as a supreme act of paternal love.