On the personal betrayals that accompany Capote's ache for literary transcendence. The betrayals were necessary to create "In Cold Blood." This is why Capote is such an unsettlingly ambiguous experience.

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.

Pure fun.

Riveting and revealing whatever views you have on the partisan issues involved.

Rohmer's films are renowned for their beauty, so it's surprising that he made a picture using digital video rather than film. But this was the right choice.

Soldier's Daughter thrives less on Hollywood-style drama than on nuances of personality, details of everyday life, and emotions so commonplace that conventional movies rarely take the time to acknowledge them, much less explore them with loving care.

Like all masterpieces, it speaks to later ages as powerfully and intelligently as to its own.

Iwai's ambitious drama is strikingly shot, poignantly acted by a splendid young cast, and enriched by surprising use of Debussy classics on the soundtrack.

One of a kind, turning Foreman trademarks such as self-satirical acting and out-of-nowhere music into powerful elements of an outlandish story.

A marvelous documentary that brings home the terror and heroism brought forth by the Katrina debacle.

Before Midnight is the fullest and richest and saddest of the three movies in the trilogy. Make it a quartet, I say.

Kaurismaki is Finland's greatest filmmaker, and never has he more artfully balanced his patented blend of deadpan humor, low-key melodrama, and toe-tapping music.

It's a transcendently uplifting tragedy.

This is as challenging as movies come, alluding to everything from philosopher Thomas Hobbes to the history of Western music.

Brett Morgen’s documentary Jane brings Goodall’s ineffable and incredible story to vivid life, starting with the aforementioned anecdotes as, now in her 80s and still seraphically beautiful, she recalls with an almost ethereal calm the extraordinariness of her days.

It's no accident that this movie is named after both the filmmaker and his subject. It stands with the most thoughtful releases of recent months, and will linger in memory.

A Separation is not the work of a constrained artist. It's a great movie in which the full range of human interaction seems to play itself out before our eyes.

I have rarely seen a movie that better expressed the revivifying nature of music. (Many of the women, not surprisingly, grew up singing gospel in church choirs and had preachers for parents.)

Such understated storytelling, sensitive directing, and avoidance of easy filmmaking tricks are all too rare in American movies. This is truly one from the heart.

This is a startlingly funny portrait of Gothic Americana.

Van Sant gives no pat or easy answers. Instead he makes us squirm, worry, and think. That's why Elephant is a must-see movie.

Improbably, it's one of the most affecting films of the year, which once again demonstrates that all you need to make a good movie is talent.

Superbly acted.

Among the picture's many surprises is a superb robbery scene filmed in a near-total silence that contrasts exhilaratingly with the noisy flamboyance of more recent films in this venerable genre.

Pinter's screenplay offers an exciting mixture of psychological suspense and storytelling surprise, and the lead performances are close to flawless.

This documentary strives to fill the gap, and the result is memorable; viewing is mandatory.

Less a biography than an essay on theatrical illusion and the changing nature of comedy. Love it or hate it, you've never seen anything quite like it.

Riveting documentary about the early California cable outlet and its ingenious programmer, Jerry Harvey, whose unsettled life and tragic death provide a dramatic framework for the account.