Winter Sleep, winner of last year’s Palme d’Or in Cannes, runs almost 3-1/2 hours. These will be some of the best three-plus hours you will spend at any movie this year. I’ve seen movies half that length that felt twice as long.

A breathtakingly beautiful achievement in every way.

Filmed in a leisurely, understated style, this dark comedy is downright entrancing. A spectacular directorial debut.

As quietly dazzling as a small, very precious stone.

Kim's movie conjures a sense of spiritual discipline as suspenseful as it is stunning to watch and exhilarating to contemplate.

What makes the film stunning is less its metaphorical scheme than its cinematic style. Always a matter of flowing camera movement, Kubrick has photographed much of the action with long "traveling shots" that capture time and space as a seamless whole, not fractured into the bits and pieces of standard editing techniques. [26 June 1987]

Brilliant, poetic, and utterly unique.

A glistening gem among caper movies, this impeccably elegant jewel-heist drama takes its title from Buddhist lore, its cast from France's great gallery of leading men, and its style from the unique blend of cinematic savoir-faire and brooding existential angst.

Smart and sumptuous.

Sensitive, imaginative.

This is a lively, life-affirming documentary no viewer is likely to forget.

The personal triumphs in Happy-Go-Lucky may be small-scale but its embrace is all-encompassing. It's a wonderfully humane movie.

The scene is so emotionally ravishing that it breaks you apart. The peacefulness that finally descends on Séraphine in the film's final moments is more than a balm. It's a benediction.

A scrupulously balanced look at the subject outlined in the title. Packed with historical, sociological, and cultural context.

Its best moments offer a sense of motion-picture poetry that will lift receptive viewers out of their seats.

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

Riveting, suspenseful, and a perfect antidote to the too-tricky documentary "Super-Size Me."

It's a troubling, courageous, compulsively watchable work of art.

This poetic and compassionate drama by Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan combines the intricate structure of his earlier movies with an emotional power that raises his remarkable career to a whole new level.

A true American tragedy, directed with skill and conviction.

The delights of the movie lie in its zany characters, its goofy settings, and above all its surrealistic visual style.

Always hard-hitting and often grimly, revealingly satirical.

This deliciously offbeat Canadian comedy gets its charm from marvelous acting and from a screenplay bursting with ideas. Great fun.

The wistfulness in this movie is large-souled. Theodore may worry that his love for Samantha makes him a freak, but Amy knows that “anybody who loves is a freak.” All this may sound touchy-feely in the worst way, but Jonze is trying to get at how we seek romantic connection in this brave (or not so brave) new world. Like Theodore, he risks looking foolish.

This is a funny, sad, stunningly smart movie about the end of movies, made in Tsai's inimitable, unblinking style. No movie lover should miss it.

An amazing, galvanic experience. It's about the hushed-up story of Benito Mussolini's first wife and child, but no one will ever mistake this movie for a standard biopic. It's too raw, too primal.

The tale is simply told but stunningly photographed and superbly acted in the best tradition of modern Iranian cinema.

Imaginatively acted, endlessly atmospheric.